Reviews on Patrick Lam

Review: Les Groseilles de Novembre by Andrus Kivirähk

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Classics of Estonian literature: Days of our Lives for not-so-great feudal villagers.

Review: Epic: Adventures across Aotearoa, by Ray Salisbury

Sat, 16 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

A collection of tales about going over, across, and around the motu of Aotearoa.

Review: How Infrastructure Works: Transforming our shared systems for a changing world, by Deb Chachra

Fri, 15 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

An optimistic look at the role of technology (and specifically infrastructure) in the changes that will be needed in our society in the coming years.

Review: Takahē: Bird of Dreams by Alison Ballance

Tue, 15 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Stories about takahē: re-discovery, conservation, and their habits.

Comparing the Old Ghost Road and Paparoa tracks and their books

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Old Ghost Road and the Paparoa Great Walk cross similar terrain on the West Coast in New Zealand. But the Old Ghost Road was led by a nonprofit, while the Paparoa was the product of the Department of Conservation. Let’s compare them.

Review: Sunshine Nails by Mai Nguyen

Thu, 19 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

More Vietnamese refugee content, this time a novel.

Review: Ru by Kim Thúy

Fri, 30 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Thoughts on differences between the book version and film version of Ru.

Review: On Cold Iron by Dan Levert

Sun, 11 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

About the history of engineering: the Canadian Iron Ring Ceremony and the Quebec Bridge disaster.

Review: The Last Front Line by Brendan O'Dwyer

Tue, 14 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

How the sausage is made: Brendan O’Dwyer writes about building the Paparoa Great Walk on NZ’s West Coast.

Book review: Wellington's Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi, by David Parsons

Sun, 08 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000

David Parsons. Wellington’s Railways: Colonial Steam to Matangi. 2010.

This book is certainly not lacking in detail. It covers the early development of Wellington region rail (different parts of New Zealand, and I guess many other countries, were quite isolated 150 years ago) until 1920; refinements from 1920 to 1970; and the changes from 1970 to 2010. Wellington rail did manage to mostly hang on through the global Reagan-Thatcher neoliberal era. It has relatively recently gotten through to Waikanae and perhaps will reach Levin.

Review: Flight of the Huia by Kerry-Jayne Wilson

Mon, 04 Sep 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A review of a 2004 book about NZ ecology, ecosystems, and species endemic to NZ.

Book Review: We, the Others: Allophones, Immigrants, and Belonging in Canada by Toula Drimonis

Wed, 31 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Toula Drimonis writes about immigrants and allophones (non-English, non-French mother tongue) in modern Quebec society, talking about integration of immigrants and how broader society evolves in response. Her story, as the daughter of Greek immigrants, overlaps with mine in some ways.

Book review: Before the Dawn by Tōson Shimazaki

Thu, 18 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

A review of the Great Japanese Novel, which describes the life of village chief Aoyama Hanzō along a main highway through the opening of Japan to the world and the Meiji Restoration. Kind of the anti-It’s-a-Wonderful-World as he realizes that his efforts didn’t bear much fruit.

Book review: Overload by Kelly and Moen

Thu, 14 Jan 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I was wandering through a Wellington City Library branch and picked up Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What We Can Do about It by Erin L. Kelly and Phyllis Moen, a book published March 2020. I don’t usually read management books but I am interested in how people work in 2021; work-life balance was cited in Minister Navdeep Bains’s recent resignation, for instance (of course it always is for politicians), and discussed in a Globe and Mail Opinion.