His Master's Voice by Stanisław Lem

How would humanity’s best minds do to decode a message sent from outer space? What would they do with the information they decode? Is it even a message? Lem approaches these questions from a philosophical perspective, exploring existential and cosmological themes with a satirical touch. A bit of a dense read in parts but a novel worth reading if you are interested in first contact, decoding and seeing great minds working (or not) together.

The Way We Die Now by Seamus O'Mahony

An excellent, easy to read and interesting read. O'Mahony is a physician and has worked in the UKs NHS and in Ireland. In this book he relates how death happens in reality, and shares his thoughts on how it should happen.

O'Mahony states that in our (western) societies we hide from death, we pretend it happens to other people but not us. We do not talk about it and therefore are ignorant of all its implications.

Although the author is a physician, he does not rely solely on medicine, science and technology particularly when dealing with death. He advocates "death with dignity" meaning away as possible from busy and noisy hospitals, from tubes, pipes and any other invasive tools; but close to home and the people who care for us.

Through the book O'Mahony explains how people nowadays rely so much in medicine to the extent that they believe it can treat anything. But it can't. When there is nothing else medicine can do, it is better to accept death and live our last days as best as possible.

Homework: when the time comes, you are frail and dying, would you like to be taken to a hospital to attempt messy resuscitation or would you prefer to leave it as it is and accept your fate?

This might be a difficult topic for some people but I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in what really happens when people die and how we can make it better for ourselves.

Samurai Leyendas vol 1 & 2 by Di Giorgio, Mormile and Genêt

French comic about 3 female, bad-ass warriors. A fun, solid read. It is a spin-off series of the main "Samurai" series (which I haven't read) by the same writer. There are 5 french albums in these two Spanish volumes. They are not sequential stories but overall explain the origins of the three sisters of the shadow (who also appear in the main series). Samurai legends has a samurai setup with a supernatural kick. There are sword fights which are excellent with much movement and action. There is female nudity . Actually too much female nudity and very little male nudity. Amazing art thought. Nice graphic narrative, my favourite those large landscapes with smaller panels on top.

Farewell, my lovely by Raymond Chandler

Classic hardboiled novel. Written in 1940, it treats non-white characters in an appalling way by today standard's. Chandler's dehumanisation of non-whites, I guess, is part of his depiction of corruption in police and the same private detective, who is the protagonist. A well written and engaging novel, nevertheless.