For people who fell in love with the Alexandria Quartet or the Avignon Quintet and would like to explore more of that Hellenic world.

I found Diego Delgado Duatis’s doctoral thesis The Hellenic World of Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell a superb read. It paints a picture as to what as going on in Durrell’s life during his time in Greece and discusses the poets, authors, and people who influence Durrell and Henry Miller. The thesis is an easy read and includes quotes a lot of …

George Seferis. Athens, 1938

“My old friend, what are you looking for?
After years abroad you’ve come back
with images nourished
under foreign skies
far from your own country.”

“I’m looking for my old garden;
the trees comes to my waist
and the hills resemble terraces
yet as a child
I used to played on the grass
under great shadows
and I would run for hours
breathless over the slopes.”

“My old friend, rest,
you’ll get used to it little by little; …

The Super-Takumar 50mm f/1.4 lens was manufactured by Asahi (now Pentax) in the 1960s for SLRs cameras. Fast forward sixty years and this lens is now regarded for its character. Shot wide open at f/1.4 it provides a smooth background blur and subtle vignette swirl. Combined with the golden tint these lenses have developed from a thorium coating produces photographs like no other.

Grokking Simplicity: Taming Complex Software with Functional Thinking by Eric Normand teaches functional patterns and abstractions that we as developers can use to write good code. Throw away the Haskell-on-a-chalkboard imagery; this isn’t like most functional programming (FP) books. The FP topics covered in this book are practical and will improve your every day code. No monads or applicatives here, instead you’ll learn concepts you can apply in any programming language and …

William Wordsworth. From Lyrical Ballads (1798)

Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb;
What if these barren boughs the bee not loves;
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.

Who he was
That piled these stones, and with the mossy sod
First covered o’er, and taught this aged tree,
Now wild, to …