H James's bookshelf: all en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2025 05:48:13 -0700 60 H James's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Katabasis 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang H James 0 to-read 4.03 2025 Katabasis
author: R.F. Kuang
name: H James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Narrator 25553618 456 Michael Cisco H James 0 currently-reading 3.98 2010 The Narrator
author: Michael Cisco
name: H James
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 H James 3 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: H James
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves:
review:
Ms Kuang’s clear, unaffected prose continually outshines her inconsistent story development. At the start of Part IV, her four protagonists have several weeks to concoct a convincing cover story for an absence, and what they land on is so unnecessarily broken that the reader must assume that their choice is forced upon them by an author incapable of steering her story without temporarily making morons of her normally brilliant characters.
]]> <![CDATA[The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)]]> 60211 262 Gene Wolfe 0671540661 H James 0 to-read 3.86 1980 The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun, #1)
author: Gene Wolfe
name: H James
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1980
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Twist 215361877
Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth.

Fennell’s journey brings him to the west coast of Africa, where he uncovers a story about the raw human labor behind the dazzling veneer of the technological world. He meets a fellow Irishman, John Conway, the chief of mission on a cable repair ship. The mysterious Conway is a skilled engineer and a freediver capable of reaching extraordinary depths. He is also in love with a South African actress, Zanele, who must leave to go on her own literary adventure to London.

When the ship is sent up the coast to repair a series of major underwater breaks, both men learn that the very cables they seek to fix carry the news that may cause their lives to unravel. At sea, they are forced to confront the most elemental questions of life, love, absence, belonging, and the perils of our severed connections. Can we, in our fractured world, reweave ourselves out of the thin, broken threads of our pasts? Can the ruptured things awaken us from our despair?

Resoundingly simple and turbulent at the same time, Twist is a meditation on the nature of narrative and truth from one of the great storytellers of our times.]]> 256 Colum McCann 0593241738 H James 0 to-read 3.75 2025 Twist
author: Colum McCann
name: H James
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lager Queen of Minnesota 42203363
Two sisters, one farm. A family is split when their father leaves their shared inheritance entirely to Helen, his younger daughter. Despite baking award-winning pies at the local nursing home, her older sister, Edith, struggles to make what most people would call a living. So she can't help wondering what her life would have been like with even a portion of the farm money her sister kept for herself.

With the proceeds from the farm, Helen builds one of the most successful light breweries in the country, and makes their company motto ubiquitous: "Drink lots. It's Blotz." Where Edith has a heart as big as Minnesota, Helen's is as rigid as a steel keg. Yet one day, Helen will find she needs some help herself, and she could find a potential savior close to home. . . if it's not too late.

Meanwhile, Edith's granddaughter, Diana, grows up knowing that the real world requires a tougher constitution than her grandmother possesses. She earns a shot at learning the IPA business from the ground up--will that change their fortunes forever, and perhaps reunite her splintered family?

Here we meet a cast of lovable, funny, quintessentially American characters eager to make their mark in a world that's often stacked against them. In this deeply affecting family saga, resolution can take generations, but when it finally comes, we're surprised, moved, and delighted.]]> 349 J. Ryan Stradal 0399563059 H James 4 3.99 2019 The Lager Queen of Minnesota
author: J. Ryan Stradal
name: H James
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
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Unaffectedly poignant and veracious.
]]> The Shamshine Blind 61273810
In an alternate 2009, the United States has been a second-rate power for a quarter of a century, ever since Argentina’s victory in the Falkland’s War thanks to their development of “psychopigments.� Created as weapons, these colorful chemicals can produce almost any human emotion upon contact, and they have been embraced in the US as both pharmaceutical cure-alls and popular recreational drugs. Black market traders illegally sell everything from Blackberry Purple (which causes terror) to Sunshine Yellow (which delivers happiness).

Psychopigment Enforcement Agent Kay Curtida works a beat in Daly City, just outside the ruins of San Francisco, chasing down smalltime crooks. But when an old friend shows up with a tantalizing lead on a career-making case, Curtida’s humdrum existence suddenly gets a boost. Little does she know that this case will send her down a tangled path of conspiracy and lead to an overdue reckoning with her family and with the truth of her own emotions.

Told in the voice of a funny, brooding, Latinx Sam Spade, The Shamshine Blind is “a rip-roaring beautifully crafted mash-up of cop noir, sci-fi, and alt-history that left me dazzled by its prescience and literary zing� (Leah Hampton, author of F*ckface ).]]> 320 Paz Pardo 1982185325 H James 1 to-read 3.49 2023 The Shamshine Blind
author: Paz Pardo
name: H James
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:
The emotions‐captured‐as‐pigments concept is intriguing, but the prose is splattered with poorly chosen adjectives, and the plot is riddled with fallacies.
]]> <![CDATA[Sleeper Beach (Titanium Noir #2)]]> 202330671 From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Karla's Choice, comes a thrilling new detective novel.

On the shore of a rundown holiday town, a young woman washes up dead. Martha Erskine, the matriarch of a local dynasty, suspects a member of her own family might be involved in the murder, and calls in Cal to investigate.

Cal Sounder is a detective first and a Titan second, but it's not easy to make that work. It's hard to be an ordinary guy when you're fundamentally not ordinary anymore. Cal has recently taken a dose of T7, a rare drug that is usually the preserve of the rich, making its users - called the Titans - younger and bigger each time they take it, so that as they age the bodies of the ultra-wealthy become as immense as their bank accounts.

As Cal digs into the crime, he finds this forgotten town is simmering with wage disputes, strikes, and political conflict, and no one is quite who they say they are - not even the victim. As Cal second-guesses everyone he meets, he is forced to confront his own identity and ask himself who he wants to be from the far side of the mirror of power, age and greed.

Sleeper Beach is a hugely original, powerful and action-packed novel from the acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway.]]> 256 Nick Harkaway 147215889X H James 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Sleeper Beach (Titanium Noir #2)
author: Nick Harkaway
name: H James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Visual History of Type: A visual survey of 320 typefaces]]> 33785427
This book will be the definitive publication in its field, appealing to graphic designers, educators, historians and design students. It will also be a significant resource for professional type designers and students of type.

Reviews
"A mind–blowing catalogue of typefaces and type history� a fantastic, heavyweight compendium of letterforms that's a firm WIRED art department favourite." � WIRED magazine

" The Visual History of Type is a comprehensive, detailed survey of the major typefaces produced since the advent of printing…This book will be the definitive publication in its field, appealing to graphic designers, educators, historians and design students." � Against The Grain

"Accessible, highly readable and, moreover, a type book to pore over and simply enjoy as the history of the medium evolves chronologically from page to page." � Creative Review

"This exquisitely produced, extensively researched and extraordinarily comprehensive work is a definitive study of the history of type." � New Design

" The Visual History of Type is a beautiful book. Its arranged into hundreds of short chapters invites one to peruse it haphazardly for pleasure. Beneath its coffee–table appearance lies a genuine reference work." � The Times Literary Supplement]]> 672 Paul McNeil 1780679769 H James 0 to-read 4.58 The Visual History of Type: A visual survey of 320 typefaces
author: Paul McNeil
name: H James
average rating: 4.58
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> When the Moon Hits Your Eye 211004190
It's a whole new moooooon.

One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon as we know it is replaced with an orb of cheese with the exact same mass. Through the length of an entire lunar cycle, from new moon to a spectacular and possibly final solar eclipse, we follow multiple characters -- schoolkids and scientists, billionaires and workers, preachers and politicians -- as they confront the strange new world they live in, and the absurd, impossible moon that now hangs above all their lives.]]> 326 John Scalzi 0765389096 H James 3 Moon is the result of a decision to pursue the larger readership. ]]> 3.85 2025 When the Moon Hits Your Eye
author: John Scalzi
name: H James
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
Most of the best moments found here the ones most tangentially connected to the overarching story. I suspect that Mr Scalzi and/or Tor knew too well that a mediocre novel would sell much better than a great short‐story collection, and Moon is the result of a decision to pursue the larger readership.
]]> Gone with the Wind 819699 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Scarlett O'Hara, the beautiful, spoiled daughter of a well-to-do Georgia plantation owner, must use every means at her disposal to claw her way out of the poverty she finds herself in after Sherman's March to the Sea.]]> 1037 Margaret Mitchell 068483068X H James 0 forsaken 4.44 1936 Gone with the Wind
author: Margaret Mitchell
name: H James
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1936
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: forsaken
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)]]> 25877663 The sixth book in the New York Times bestselling Expanse series.

NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES

A revolution brewing for generations has begun in fire. It will end in blood.

The Free Navy - a violent group of Belters in black-market military ships - has crippled the Earth and begun a campaign of piracy and violence among the outer planets. The colony ships heading for the thousand new worlds on the far side of the alien ring gates are easy prey, and no single navy remains strong enough to protect them.

James Holden and his crew know the strengths and weaknesses of this new force better than anyone. Outnumbered and outgunned, the embattled remnants of the old political powers call on the Rocinante for a desperate mission to reach Medina Station at the heart of the gate network.

But the new alliances are as flawed as the old, and the struggle for power has only just begun. As the chaos grows, an alien mystery deepens. Pirate fleets, mutiny and betrayal may be the least of the Rocinante's problems. And in the uncanny spaces past the ring gates, the choices of a few damaged and desperate people may determine the fate of more than just humanity.

]]> 532 James S.A. Corey 0356504263 H James 4 Nemesis Games, Part II, but this book won me over with its many small delights. Prax’s attempt at confession may be one of the most perfect moments in the series so far.]]> 4.22 2016 Babylon’s Ashes (The Expanse, #6)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: H James
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
review:
I was initially disappointed to find myself in Nemesis Games, Part II, but this book won me over with its many small delights. Prax’s attempt at confession may be one of the most perfect moments in the series so far.
]]> <![CDATA[Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)]]> 25400043 544 James S.A. Corey 0356504220 H James 4 4.33 2015 Nemesis Games (The Expanse, #5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: H James
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
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]]> Master of Formalities 24602307 434 Scott Meyer 147783091X H James 4 3.77 2015 Master of Formalities
author: Scott Meyer
name: H James
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves:
review:
This book concludes with enough loose threads that the overall feeling is that of a first entry in a series rather than that of a standalone work, but it's witty enough that I would welcome a follow-up.
]]> Abundance 176444106 Abundance is a once-in-a-generation, paradigm-shifting call to rethink big, entrenched problems that seem mired in systemic from climate change to housing, education to healthcare.

To trace the global history of the twenty-first century so far is to trace a history of growing unaffordability and shortage. After years of refusing to build sufficient housing, the entire country has a national housing crisis. After years of slashing immigration, we don’t have enough workers. After decades of off-shoring manufacturing, we have a shortage of chips for cars and computers. Despite decades of being warned about the consequences of climate change, we haven’t built anything close to the clean energy infrastructure we need. The crisis that’s clicking into focus now has been building for decades—because we haven’t been building enough.

Abundance explains that our problems today are not the results of yesteryear’s villains. Rather, one generation’s solutions have become the next generation’s problems. Rules and regulations designed to solve the environmental problems of the 1970s often prevent urban density and green energy projects that would help solve the environmental problems of the 2020s. Laws meant to ensure that government considers the consequences of its actions in matters of education and healthcare have made it too difficult for government to act consequentially. In the last few decades, our capacity to see problems has sharpened while our ability to solve them has diminished.

Progress requires the ability to see promise rather than just peril in the creation of new ideas and projects, and an instinct to design systems and institutions that make building possible. In a book exploring how can move from a liberalism that not only protects and preserves but also builds, Klein and Thompson trace the political, economic, and cultural barriers to progress and how we can adopt a mindset directed toward abundance, and not scarcity, to overcome them.]]> 304 Ezra Klein 1668023482 H James 4 The Ezra Klein Show (and presumably of Plain English as well?), but Abundance offers a coherent, compelling argument presented with admirable humility and succinctness.]]> 4.11 2025 Abundance
author: Ezra Klein
name: H James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/29
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There’s not much new here for dedicated listeners of The Ezra Klein Show (and presumably of Plain English as well?), but Abundance offers a coherent, compelling argument presented with admirable humility and succinctness.
]]> Ulysses Annotated 10543 Ulysses. Annotations in this edition are keyed both to the reading text of the new critical edition of Ulysses published in 1984 and to the standard 1961 Random House edition and the current Modern Library and Vintage texts.

Gifford has incorporated over 1,000 additions and corrections to the first edition. The introduction and headnotes to sections provide general geographical, biographical and historical background. The annotations gloss place names, define slang terms, give capsule histories of institutions and political and cultural movements and figures, supply bits of local and Irish legend and lore, explain religious nomenclature and practices, trace literary allusions and references to other cultures.

The suggestive potential of minor details was enormously fascinating to Joyce, and the precision of his use of detail is a most important aspect of his literary method. The annotations in this volume illuminate details which are not in the public realm for most of us.]]> 698 James Joyce 0520067452 H James 4 referenced 4.20 1922 Ulysses Annotated
author: James Joyce
name: H James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1922
rating: 4
read at: 2005/04/01
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: referenced
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)]]> 201930181
Caught up in academic intrigue and affairs of the heart, Dafyd Alkhor is pleased just to be an assistant to a brilliant scientist and his celebrated research team. Then the Carryx ships descend, decimating the human population and taking the best and brightest of Anjiin society away to serve on the Carryx homeworld, and Dafyd is swept along with them. They are dropped in the middle of a struggle they barely understand, set in a competition against the other captive species with extinction as the price of failure.

Only Dafyd and a handful of his companions see past the Darwinian contest to the deeper game that they must play to learning to understand � and manipulate � the Carryx themselves. With a noble but suicidal human rebellion on one hand and strange and murderous enemies on the other, the team pays a terrible price to become the trusted servants of their new rulers. Dafyd Alkhor is a simple man swept up in events that are beyond his control and more vast than his imagination. He will become the champion of humanity and its betrayer, the most hated man in history and the guardian of his people. This is where his story begins.]]> 422 James S.A. Corey 031652557X H James 4 alien, even after prolonged encounters. Maybe only China Miéville, in his wonderfully bizarre Embassytown, has surpassed them on that front.]]> 4.11 2024 The Mercy of Gods (The Captive’s War #1)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: H James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/16
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Mr Abraham and Mr Frank have turned their cool gaze and crisp prose upon alien life, and boy do they succeed in making it alien, even after prolonged encounters. Maybe only China Miéville, in his wonderfully bizarre Embassytown, has surpassed them on that front.
]]> <![CDATA[The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman, #1)]]> 13330370
Detective Hank Palace has faced this question ever since asteroid 2011GV1 hovered into view. There’s no chance left. No hope. Just six precious months until impact.

The Last Policeman presents a fascinating portrait of a pre-apocalyptic United States. The economy spirals downward while crops rot in the fields. Churches and synagogues are packed. People all over the world are walking off the job—but not Hank Palace. He’s investigating a death by hanging in a city that sees a dozen suicides every week—except this one feels suspicious, and Palace is the only cop who cares.

The first in a trilogy, The Last Policeman offers a mystery set on the brink of an apocalypse. As Palace’s investigation plays out under the shadow of 2011GV1, we’re confronted by hard questions way beyond “whodunit.� What basis does civilization rest upon? What is life worth? What would any of us do, what would we really do, if our days were numbered?]]> 316 Ben H. Winters 1594745765 H James 3 3.75 2012 The Last Policeman (The Last Policeman, #1)
author: Ben H. Winters
name: H James
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
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Solid prose, interesting worldbuilding, acceptable whodunnit.
]]> <![CDATA[Brief Interviews with Hideous Men]]> 6753
Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person', a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World', which reveals a woman's agonised consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men', a dark, hilarious series of portraits of men whose fear of women renders them grotesque. Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many different guises. Thought-provoking and playful, this collection confirms David Foster Wallace as one of the most imaginative young writers around. Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the ironic, the surprising and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will delight his growing number of fans, and provide a perfect introduction for new readers.]]> 273 David Foster Wallace 034911188X H James 0 to-read 3.88 1999 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
author: David Foster Wallace
name: H James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1999
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Angelmaker 12266560 Joe Spork spends his days fixing antique clocks. The son of infamous London criminal Mathew “Tommy Gun� Spork, he has turned his back on his family’s mobster history and aims to live a quiet life. That orderly existence is suddenly upended when Joe activates a particularly unusual clockwork mechanism. His client, Edie Banister, is more than the kindly old lady she appears to be—she’s a retired international secret agent. And the device? It’s a 1950s doomsday machine. Having triggered it, Joe now faces the wrath of both the British government and a diabolical South Asian dictator who is also Edie’s old arch-nemesis. On the upside, Joe’s got a girl: a bold receptionist named Polly whose smarts, savvy and sex appeal may be just what he needs. With Joe’s once-quiet world suddenly overrun by mad monks, psychopathic serial killers, scientific geniuses and threats to the future of conscious life in the universe, he realizes that the only way to survive is to muster the courage to fight, help Edie complete a mission she abandoned years ago and pick up his father’s old gun...]]> 478 Nick Harkaway 0307595951 H James 3 3.90 2012 Angelmaker
author: Nick Harkaway
name: H James
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:
The prose is exquisite, and I adored all the chapters centered around Edie Banister’s espionage past, but there are so many minor reversals of fortune and so little of the Neal Stephenson–style thought experimentation that the presence of an ‘apprehension engine� practically demands.
]]> Radiance 18490533
Severin Unck's father is a famous director of Gothic romances in an alternate 1946 in which talking movies are still a daring innovation due to the patent-hoarding Edison family. Rebelling against her father's films of passion, intrigue, and spirits from beyond, Severin starts making documentaries, traveling through space and investigating the levitator cults of Neptune and the lawless saloons of Mars. For this is not our solar system, but one drawn from classic science fiction in which all the planets are inhabited and we travel through space on beautiful rockets. Severin is a realist in a fantastic universe.

But her latest film, which investigates the disappearance of a diving colony on a watery Venus populated by island-sized alien creatures, will be her last. Though her crew limps home to earth and her story is preserved by the colony's last survivor, Severin will never return.

Told using techniques from reality TV, classic film, gossip magazines, and meta-fictional narrative, Radiance is a solar system-spanning story of love, exploration, family, loss, quantum physics, and silent film.]]> 432 Catherynne M. Valente 0765335298 H James 0 to-read 3.73 2015 Radiance
author: Catherynne M. Valente
name: H James
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August]]> 35066358 417 Claire North H James 0 to-read 4.03 2014 The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
author: Claire North
name: H James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Light Brigade 40523931
Dietz, a fresh recruit in the infantry, begins to experience combat drops that don’t sync up with the platoon’s. And Dietz’s bad drops tell a story of the war that’s not at all what the corporate brass want the soldiers to think is going on.

Is Dietz really experiencing the war differently, or is it combat madness? Trying to untangle memory from mission brief and survive with sanity intact, Dietz is ready to become a hero—or maybe a villain; in war it’s hard to tell the difference.]]> 356 Kameron Hurley 1481447963 H James 0 to-read 3.87 2019 The Light Brigade
author: Kameron Hurley
name: H James
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Sisters (Cormac Reilly, #.5)]]> 52757833
Two sisters climbing the ranks of Dublin’s criminal justice system. A murder case that could change their lives forever. The Sisters is a gripping new thriller from one of the most exciting voices in crime fiction.

In this prequel to the international bestseller The Ruin, set 10 years prior, bright-eyed Carrie Ryan is at the very start of her career. When she has a hunch about an ongoing murder investigation, she knows it could be her only chance to prove herself and truly break into the “boy’s club� of Dublin’s police force.

Carrie uncovers this make-or-break moment in a case file her sister Aifric, a newly qualified barrister, leaves on their kitchen counter: Robert Collins has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend after a fight in a local pub, and all signs point towards a guilty verdict. But both sisters quickly begin to find evidence that complicates the story. All the while, Carrie is very aware that she’s crossed the line � if the detective sergeant running the investigation finds out she’s been messing around with his case, her career will be over before it has begun.

Please note: This audio contains strong language, distressing situations, and descriptions of violence that some listeners may find upsetting. Discretion is advised. ]]> 4 Dervla McTiernan H James 1 3.59 2019 The Sisters (Cormac Reilly, #.5)
author: Dervla McTiernan
name: H James
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2019
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
shelves:
review:
The witness testimony at the center of the plot is challenged by the protagonists, who cite its unnatural language and reliance on cliché, which is ironic given that the testimony is about as believable as anything else in this braindead short story.
]]> <![CDATA[The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 H James 0 to-read 4.28 2024 The Tainted Cup (Shadow of the Leviathan, #1)
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: H James
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds, #1)]]> 43301353 An outsider who can travel between worlds discovers a secret that threatens her new home and her fragile place in it, in a stunning sci-fi debut that’s both a cross-dimensional adventure and a powerful examination of identity, privilege, and belonging.

Multiverse travel is finally possible, but there’s just one catch: No one can visit a world where their counterpart is still alive. Enter Cara, whose parallel selves happen to be exceptionally good at dying—from disease, turf wars, or vendettas they couldn’t outrun. Cara’s life has been cut short on 372 worlds in total.

On this Earth, however, Cara has survived. Identified as an outlier and therefore a perfect candidate for multiverse travel, Cara is plucked from the dirt of the wastelands. Now she has a nice apartment on the lower levels of the wealthy and walled-off Wiley City. She works—and shamelessly flirts—with her enticing yet aloof handler, Dell, as the two women collect off-world data for the Eldridge Institute. She even occasionally leaves the city to visit her family in the wastes, though she struggles to feel at home in either place. So long as she can keep her head down and avoid trouble, Cara is on a sure path to citizenship and security.

But trouble finds Cara when one of her eight remaining doppelgängers dies under mysterious circumstances, plunging her into a new world with an old secret. What she discovers will connect her past and her future in ways she could have never imagined—and reveal her own role in a plot that endangers not just her world, but the entire multiverse.]]> 336 Micaiah Johnson H James 0 to-read 3.90 2020 The Space Between Worlds (The Space Between Worlds, #1)
author: Micaiah Johnson
name: H James
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Exordia 65213781
Anna Sinjari―refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker―has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.]]> 532 Seth Dickinson 1250233011 H James 0 to-read 3.60 2024 Exordia
author: Seth Dickinson
name: H James
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain]]> 127280349 Celebrated author Sofia Samatar presents a mystical, revolutionary space adventure for the exhausted dreamer in this brilliant science fiction novella tackling the carceral state and violence embedded in the ivory tower while embodying the legacy of Ursula K. Le Guin.

"Can the University be a place of both training and transformation?"

The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels of a mining ship out amongst the stars.

His whole world changes―literally―when he is yanked "upstairs" to meet the woman he will come to call “professor.� The boy is no longer one of the Chained, she tells him, and he has been gifted an opportunity to be educated at the ship’s university alongside the elite.

The woman has spent her career striving for acceptance and validation from her colleagues in the hopes of reaching a brighter future, only to fall short at every turn.

Together, the boy and the woman will learn from each other to grasp the design of the chains designed to fetter them both, and are the key to breaking free. They will embark on a transformation―and redesign the entire world.]]> 128 Sofia Samatar 1250881803 H James 0 to-read 3.76 2024 The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
author: Sofia Samatar
name: H James
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Melancholy of Untold History]]> 199531855 A beautifully crafted, enriching saga inspired by East Asian mythology, The Melancholy of Untold History is Minsoo Kang’s debut novel, steeped in history like R.F. Kuang’s Babel, epic in scope like Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, and lyrically exciting like David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, interweaving four complex yet entertaining stories as they shape and create a nation’s literary narrative through the themes of love and grief.

A history professor mourning his wife. His young protégé’s search for a path forward. Four witty mountain gods with much to say and not enough time to listen. A gifted storyteller bringing a world into being out of thin air...

Famous for his dispelling of the national myth, the Historian understands the power of narrative. He has inspired another young professor to search for her own truths, while trying to understand the way fiction creates fact and how sometimes the past can only be understood by filling in holes with a new narrative. Which is exactly what he needs when his wife passes away to parse meaning out of a world that no longer makes sense.

Together the protégé and the Historian find comfort in each other. Yet they know their time together is fleeting, as time usually is. Only the gods have an abundance of time, and yet—the two discover—even that might not be so clear cut. Part of their homeland’s myth tells of four gods who squabbled and argued and destroyed and rebuilt time and again.

Or did they?

Because, of course, even the gods need mouthpieces on earth. And the one the Historian knows of—the elusive Storyteller—may have just been spinning tales for his own amusement and, ultimately, revenge. By fabricating the exploits of the gods, he could have set a course for certain events to unfold and a particular story to survive today.

Spanning 3,000 years and multiple voices—with tales within tales woven expertly together�The Melancholy of Untold History reveals a people and its individuals who seek to confront the hardships of life through storytelling. Mixing the East Asian mythos with a postmodern approach to standard sci-fi/fantasy narrative tropes, Minsoo Kang has created a challenging, beautiful, sad, humorous, and ultimately unforgettable novel of love, grief, and myth-making.]]> 240 Minsoo Kang 0063337509 H James 0 to-read 3.69 2024 The Melancholy of Untold History
author: Minsoo Kang
name: H James
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rakesfall 195791063 Rakesfall is a groundbreaking, standalone science fiction epic about two souls bound together from here until the ends of time, from the author of The Saint of Bright Doors

Some stories take more than one lifetime to tell. There are wrongs that echo through the ages, friendships that outpace the claws of death, loves that leave their mark on civilization, and promises that nothing can break. This is one such story.

Annelid and Leveret met after the war, but before the peace. They found each other in a torn-up nation, peering through propaganda to grasp a deeper truth. And in a demon-haunted wood, another act of violence linked them and propelled their souls on a journey throughout the ages. No world can hold them, no life can bind them, and they'll never leave each other behind. But their journey will not be easy. In every lifetime, oppressors narrow the walls of possibility, shaping reality to fit their own needs. And behind the walls of history, the witches of the red web swear that every throne will fall.

Tracing two souls through endless lifetimes, Rakesfall is a virtuosic exploration of what stories can be. As Annelid and Leveret reincarnate ever deeper into the future, they will chase the edge of human possibility, in a dark science fiction epic unlike anything you've read before.]]> 304 Vajra Chandrasekera 1250847680 H James 0 to-read 3.33 2024 Rakesfall
author: Vajra Chandrasekera
name: H James
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wrong Norma 175416227 The New Yorker and The Paris Review.

Anne Carson is probably our most celebrated living poet, winner of countless awards and routinely tipped for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Famously reticent, asking that her books be published without cover copy, she has agreed to say this: “Wrong Norma is a collection of writings about different things, like Joseph Conrad, Guantánamo, Flaubert, snow, poverty, Roget’s Thesaurus, my Dad, Saturday night, Sokrates, writing sonnets, forensics, encounters with lovers, the word ‘idea�, the feet of Jesus, and Russian thugs. The pieces are not linked. That’s why I’ve called them ‘wrong�.�]]> 0 Anne Carson 1529919983 H James 0 to-read, poetry 4.21 2024 Wrong Norma
author: Anne Carson
name: H James
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: to-read, poetry
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)]]> 23437156 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792127

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.]]> 480 Leigh Bardugo 1627792120 H James 0 to-read 4.47 2015 Six of Crows (Six of Crows, #1)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: H James
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When We Cease to Understand the World]]> 53972214
Fritz Haber, Alexander Grothendieck, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger—these are some of luminaries into whose troubled lives Benjamín Labatut thrusts the reader, showing us how they grappled with the most profound questions of existence. They have strokes of unparalleled genius, alienate friends and lovers, descend into isolation and insanity. Some of their discoveries reshape human life for the better; others pave the way to chaos and unimaginable suffering. The lines are never clear.

At a breakneck pace and with a wealth of disturbing detail, Labatut uses the imaginative resources of fiction to tell the stories of the scientists and mathematicians who expanded our notions of the possible.]]> 192 Benjamín Labatut 1782276122 H James 5 徱’t‐h‐s‐t󲹳‐a𲹻? moment of disorientation, but each piece is absolutely brilliant on its own.]]> 4.11 2020 When We Cease to Understand the World
author: Benjamín Labatut
name: H James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
This collection of five creative non‐fiction works has a few instances of unacknowledged overlap between pieces that induce a jarring 徱’t‐h‐s‐t󲹳‐a𲹻? moment of disorientation, but each piece is absolutely brilliant on its own.
]]> The Friend 40164365
When a woman unexpectedly loses her lifelong best friend and mentor, she finds herself burdened with the unwanted dog he has left behind. Her own battle against grief is intensified by the mute suffering of the dog, a huge Great Dane traumatized by the inexplicable disappearance of its master, and by the threat of eviction: dogs are prohibited in her apartment building.

While others worry that grief has made her a victim of magical thinking, the woman refuses to be separated from the dog except for brief periods of time. Isolated from the rest of the world, increasingly obsessed with the dog's care, determined to read its mind and fathom its heart, she comes dangerously close to unraveling. But while troubles abound, rich and surprising rewards lie in store for both of them.

Elegiac and searching, The Friend is both a meditation on loss and a celebration of human-canine devotion.]]> 212 Sigrid Nunez 0735219451 H James 4 book-club 3.72 2018 The Friend
author: Sigrid Nunez
name: H James
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: book-club
review:
Fresh, relevant, touching, smart, and funny.
]]> <![CDATA[Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)]]> 52397
Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to salvage what remains of a culture that has been destroyed by drugs, disease, war, and chronic water shortages. While her father tries to lead people on the righteous path, Lauren struggles with hyperempathy, a condition that makes her extraordinarily sensitive to the pain of others.

When fire destroys their compound, Lauren’s family is killed and she is forced out into a world that is fraught with danger. With a handful of other refugees, Lauren must make her way north to safety, along the way conceiving a revolutionary idea that may mean salvation for all mankind.]]> 345 Octavia E. Butler 0446675504 H James 3 book-club 4.21 1993 Parable of the Sower (Earthseed, #1)
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: H James
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/05
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: book-club
review:

]]> Anxious People 53799686
Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers begin slowly opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.

First is Zara, a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else until tragedy changed her life. Now, she’s obsessed with visiting open houses to see how ordinary people live—and, perhaps, to set an old wrong to right. Then there’s Roger and Anna-Lena, an Ikea-addicted retired couple who are on a never-ending hunt for fixer-uppers to hide the fact that they don’t know how to fix their own failing marriage. Julia and Ro are a young lesbian couple and soon-to-be parents who are nervous about their chances for a successful life together since they can’t agree on anything. And there’s Estelle, an eighty-year-old woman who has lived long enough to be unimpressed by a masked bank robber waving a gun in her face. And despite the story she tells them all, Estelle hasn’t really come to the apartment to view it for her daughter, and her husband really isn’t outside parking the car.

As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.

Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature� (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People’s whimsical plot serves up unforgettable insights into the human condition and a gentle reminder to be compassionate to all the anxious people we encounter every day.]]> 336 Fredrik Backman 1982121602 H James 3 book-club 4.12 2019 Anxious People
author: Fredrik Backman
name: H James
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2023/08/04
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: book-club
review:
Liberal doses of hilarity cover for the sizable plot holes, making this a nice bit of summer‐reading fluff.
]]> <![CDATA[My Year of Rest and Relaxation]]> 36552920
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.]]> 289 Ottessa Moshfegh 0525522115 H James 2 book-club 3.57 2018 My Year of Rest and Relaxation
author: Ottessa Moshfegh
name: H James
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: book-club
review:

]]> Autobiography of Red 61049 Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

"A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender." -- The New York Times Book Review

"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."-- The Village Voice

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR

National book Critics Circle Award Finalist]]> 160 Anne Carson 037570129X H James 5 4.28 1998 Autobiography of Red
author: Anne Carson
name: H James
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves:
review:
There isn’t a page here I wouldn’t wish to spend more time with.
]]> You Like It Darker 201242757 From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.

“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,� writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,� and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.

“Two Talented Bastids� explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,� a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,� a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,� a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man� asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.

King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.]]> 512 Stephen King 1668037718 H James 2 short-stories 4.16 2024 You Like It Darker
author: Stephen King
name: H James
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: short-stories
review:
Mr King must know which of these twelve stories has legs—“Two Talented Bastids”—because he put it first in this collection. The two shortest pieces, “Red Screen� and “The Fifth Step�, offer little pops of ghoulish fun that evoke a Stephen King of half a century ago and are worth the modest time investment. The other nine pieces range from the instantly forgettable (“Laurie�) to the laughably bad (“On Slide Inn Road�), from the half‐formed (“The Turbulence Expert�) to the too‐familiar (“Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream�) and are best skipped.
]]> <![CDATA[The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales]]> 407429 A revisionist storyteller provides his mad, hilarious versions of children's favorite tales in this unique and riotous collection.

A long time ago, people used to tell magical stories of wonder and enchantment. Those stories were called Fairy Tales.

Those stories are not in this book. The stories in this book are Fairly Stupid Tales.

I mean, what else would you call a story like "Goldilocks and the Three Elephants"? This girl walking through the woods smells Peanut Porridge Cooking. She decides to break into the Elephants' house, eat the porridge, sit in the chairs, and sleep in the beds. But when she gets in the house she can't climb up on Baby Elephant's chair because it's much too big. And she can't climb on Papa Elephant's chair because it's much much too big. So she goes home. The End.

And if you don't think that's fairly stupid, you should read "Little Red Riding Shorts" or maybe "The Stinky Cheese Man."

In fact, you should definitely go read the stories now, because the rest of this description just kind of goes on and on and doesn't really say anything. I stuck it here so it would fill up the page and make it look like I really knew what I was talking about. So stop now. I mean it. Quit reading this. Open the book. If you read this last sentence, it won't tell you anything.

Signed,
Jack (Narrator)
Up the Hill
Fairy Tale Forest
1992

Story List:
- Chicken Licken
- The Princess and the Bowling Ball
- The Really Ugly Duckling
- The Other Frog Prince
- Little Red Running Shorts
- Jack's Bean Problem (including Giant Story / Jack's Story)
- Cinderummpelstiltskin (Or The Girl Who Really Blew It)
- The Tortoise and the Hair
- The Stinky Cheese Man

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: It has been determined that these tales are fairly stupid and probably dangerous to your health.

Edition MSRP: $17⁹⁹ US (ISBN 0-670-84487-X)]]> 52 Jon Scieszka 067084487X H James 5 4.20 1992 The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
author: Jon Scieszka
name: H James
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1992
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves:
review:
This perfect synthesis of writing, illustration, and book design should be on the shelf of everyone in the publishing industry.
]]> <![CDATA[Red Dust (Cuban Science Fiction)]]> 42201472 From beloved Cuban science fiction author Yoss comes a bitingly funny space-opera homage to Raymond Chandler, about a positronic robot detective on the hunt for some extra-dangerous extraterrestrial criminals.

On the intergalactic trading station William S. Burroughs, profit is king and aliens are the kingmakers. Earthlings have bowed to their superior power and weaponry, though the aliens—praying-mantis-like Grodos with pheromonal speech and gargantuan Collosaurs with a limited sense of humor—kindly allow them to do business through properly controlled channels.

That’s where our hero comes in, name of Raymond. As part of the android police force, this positronic robot detective navigates both worlds, human and alien, keeping order and evaporating wrongdoers. But nothing in his centuries of experience prepares him for Makrow 34, a fugitive Cetian perp with psi powers. Meaning he can alter the shape of the Gaussian bell curve of statistical probability—making it rain indoors, say, or causing a would-be captor to shoot himself in the face. Raymond will need all his training—and all his careful study of Chandler’s hardbitten cops—to meet his match.

As he did in his brilliantly funny and sharp science-fiction parables A Planet for Rent, Super Extra Grande, and Condomnauts, Yoss makes the familiar strange and the strange familiar in Red Dust, giving us an unforgettable half-human hero and a richly imagined universe where the bad guys are above the laws of physics.]]> 169 Yoss 1632062461 H James 1 Red Dust got published in its original language, let alone translated, is inexplicable and—I can only assume—a giant slap in the face to any writer who has had a competently written story rejected by publishers. This novella makes moves to be an extraplanetary adventure and a hardboiled mystery and a mecha‐inflected action tale and an android’s rights think piece and succeeds on exactly none of these fronts, instead offering a confusing mess of half‐formed ideas and genre fiction clichés.

The only thing (and I mean only thing) remotely redeeming in this entire story is the coinage of the word ‘Gaussical�. That’s a cool word.]]> 3.44 2004 Red Dust (Cuban Science Fiction)
author: Yoss
name: H James
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2004
rating: 1
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves:
review:
How Red Dust got published in its original language, let alone translated, is inexplicable and—I can only assume—a giant slap in the face to any writer who has had a competently written story rejected by publishers. This novella makes moves to be an extraplanetary adventure and a hardboiled mystery and a mecha‐inflected action tale and an android’s rights think piece and succeeds on exactly none of these fronts, instead offering a confusing mess of half‐formed ideas and genre fiction clichés.

The only thing (and I mean only thing) remotely redeeming in this entire story is the coinage of the word ‘Gaussical�. That’s a cool word.
]]> <![CDATA[The End of All Things (Old Man's War, #6)]]> 24661365 Hugo-award winning author, John Scalzi returns to his best-selling Old Man's War universe with The End of All Things, the direct sequel to 2013's The Human Division.

Humans expanded into space…only to find a universe populated with multiple alien species bent on their destruction. Thus was the Colonial Union formed, to help protect us from a hostile universe. The Colonial Union used the Earth and its excess population for colonists and soldiers. It was a good arrangement...for the Colonial Union. Then the Earth said: no more.

Now the Colonial Union is living on borrowed time--a couple of decades at most, before the ranks of the Colonial Defense Forces are depleted and the struggling human colonies are vulnerable to the alien species who have been waiting for the first sign of weakness, to drive humanity to ruin. And there's another problem: A group, lurking in the darkness of space, playing human and alien against each other--and against their own kind --for their own unknown reasons.

In this collapsing universe, CDF Lieutenant Harry Wilson and the Colonial Union diplomats he works with race against the clock to discover who is behind attacks on the Union and on alien races, to seek peace with a suspicious, angry Earth, and keep humanity's union intact...or else risk oblivion, and extinction--and the end of all things.

]]> 384 John Scalzi 1466849428 H James 3 4.13 2015 The End of All Things (Old Man's War, #6)
author: John Scalzi
name: H James
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Great Gatsby 4671 The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

This edition is the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with a new introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> 180 F. Scott Fitzgerald 0743273567 H James 4 3.93 1925 The Great Gatsby
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: H James
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1925
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Eat More Better: How to Make Every Bite More Delicious]]> 21412292
As creator of the WNYC podcast The Sporkful and host of the Cooking Channel web series You're Eating It Wrong , Dan Pashman is obsessed with doing just that. Eat More Better weaves science and humor into a definitive, illustrated guidebook for anyone who loves food. But this book isn’t for foodies. It’s for eaters.

In the bestselling tradition of Alton Brown’s Good Eats and M.F.K. Fisher’s The Art of Eating , Pashman analyzes everyday foods in extraordinary detail to answer some of the most pressing questions of our time, Is a cheeseburger better when the cheese is on the bottom, closer to your tongue, to accentuate cheesy goodness? What are the ethics of cherry-picking specific ingredients from a snack mix? And what role does surface-area-to-volume ratio play in fried food enjoyment and ice cube selection?

Written with an infectious blend of humor and smarts, Eat More Better is a tongue-in-cheek textbook that teaches readers to eat for maximum pleasure. Chapters are divided into subjects like engineering, philosophy, economics, and physical science, and feature hundreds of drawings, charts, and infographics to illustrate key concepts like The Porklift—a bacon lattice structure placed beneath a pancake stack to elevate it off the plate, thus preventing the bottom pancake from becoming soggy with syrup and imbuing the bacon with maple-based deliciousness.

Eat More Better combines Pashman’s award-winning writing with his unparalleled field research, collected over thirty-seven years of eating at least three times a day. It delivers entertaining, fascinating, and practical insights that will satisfy your mind and stomach, and change the way you look at food forever.

Read this book and every bite you take will be better.]]> 352 Dan Pashman 145168973X H James 2 3.47 2014 Eat More Better: How to Make Every Bite More Delicious
author: Dan Pashman
name: H James
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:
The text contains some amazingly good advice and some decently good jokes, but it’s such an ugly, disorganized codex that it’s hard to appreciate either.
]]> <![CDATA[The Human Division (Old Man's War, #5)]]> 15698479 The Last Colony, John Scalzi tells the story of the fight to maintain the unity of the human race.

The people of Earth now know that the human Colonial Union has kept them ignorant of the dangerous universe around them. For generations the CU had defended humanity against hostile aliens, deliberately keeping Earth an ignorant backwater and a source of military recruits. Now the CU's secrets are known to all. Other alien races have come on the scene and formed a new alliance—an alliance against the Colonial Union. And they've invited the people of Earth to join them. For a shaken and betrayed Earth, the choice isn't obvious or easy.

Against such possibilities, managing the survival of the Colonial Union won't be easy, either. It will take diplomatic finesse, political cunning…and a brilliant "B Team," centered on the resourceful Lieutenant Harry Wilson, that can be deployed to deal with the unpredictable and unexpected things the universe throws at you when you're struggling to preserve the unity of the human race.

Being published online from January to April 2013 as a three-month digital serial, The Human Division will appear as a full-length novel of the Old Man's War universe, plus—for the first time in print—the first tale of Lieutenant Harry Wilson, and a coda that wasn't part of the digital serialization.]]> 431 John Scalzi 0765333511 H James 4 4.06 2013 The Human Division (Old Man's War, #5)
author: John Scalzi
name: H James
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)]]> 51964
The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarce-- and alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding.

Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanity's resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They don't want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. You'll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. You'll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, you'll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets.

John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagine--and what he will become is far stranger.]]> 318 John Scalzi 0765348276 H James 3 Fuzzy Nation and the feeling of depth behind The Collapsing Empire are missing here.]]> 4.22 2005 Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1)
author: John Scalzi
name: H James
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:
This early entry from Mr Scalzi's shows that his prose has always been easy and lively, but the wit that powered Fuzzy Nation and the feeling of depth behind The Collapsing Empire are missing here.
]]> Snow Crash 877976 471 Neal Stephenson 055308853X H James 4 4.08 1992 Snow Crash
author: Neal Stephenson
name: H James
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2011/01/20
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)]]> 16160797 456 Robert Galbraith 0316206849 H James 4 3.88 2013 The Cuckoo's Calling (Cormoran Strike, #1)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: H James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves:
review:
Six years after the end of the Harry Potter series, Ms Rowling's prose remains fresh and vigorous. While her plotting has never been refined, this new series hinges (and succeeds) more on the richness of its characters than it does on intrigue.
]]> Termination Shock 57357418
From Neal Stephenson—who coined the term “metaverse� in his 1992 novelSnow Crash—comes a sweeping, prescient new thriller that transports readers to a near-future world in which the greenhouse effect has inexorably resulted in a whirling-dervish troposphere of superstorms, rising sea levels, global flooding, merciless heat waves, and virulent, deadly pandemics.

“Stephenson is one of speculative fiction’s most meticulous architects. . . . Termination Shockmanages to pull off a rare trick, at once wildly imaginative and grounded.”—New York Times Book Review

One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.� But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?

Ranging from the Texas heartland to the Dutch royal palace in the Hague, from the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas to the sunbaked Chihuahuan Desert, Termination Shock brings together a disparate group of characters from different cultures and continents who grapple with the real-life repercussions of global warming. Ultimately, it asks the Might the cure be worse than the disease?

Epic in scope while heartbreakingly human in perspective, Termination Shock sounds a clarion alarm, ponders potential solutions and dire risks, and wraps it all together in an exhilarating, witty, mind-expanding speculative adventure.]]> 716 Neal Stephenson H James 3 4.16 2021 Termination Shock
author: Neal Stephenson
name: H James
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> The Book of Elsewhere 213020409

She said, We needed a tool. So I asked the gods.

There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.�

And he wants to be able to die.

In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return. But when an all-too-mortal soldier comes back to life, the impossible event ultimately points toward a force even more mysterious than B himself. One at least as strong. And one with a plan all its own.

In a collaboration that combines Miéville’s singular style and creativity with Reeves’s haunting and soul-stirring narrative, these two inimitable artists have created something utterly unique, sure to delight existing fans and to create scores of new ones.]]> 352 Keanu Reeves 1039003826 H James 4 3.29 2024 The Book of Elsewhere
author: Keanu Reeves
name: H James
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves:
review:
I doubt this will get me to take up the graphic novels, but this definitely sated my thirst for China Miéville’s prose during this long drought period, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much of the book focused on the immortal rather than the berserk aspect of the protagonist.
]]> Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell 214161672
Yet the cautious Norrell is challenged by the emergence of another magician. Young, handsome and daring, Jonathan Strange is his very antithesis. So begins a dangerous battle between these two great men � which overwhelms that between England and France. And soon their own secret dabblings with the dark arts are going to cause more trouble than they can imagine…]]> 864 Susanna Clarke 1526681552 H James 1 4.21 2004 Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
author: Susanna Clarke
name: H James
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2004
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:
Except for the dustjacket, the Anniversary Edition is worse than the first edition in every way. All of the dozens of copy errors are still present, and now they’re printed in more cramped type on cheaper paper. This is just a fantastically disappointing product.
]]> Polostan (Bomb Light, #1) 52163195 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 368 Neal Stephenson H James 4 to-read, historical-fiction The Baroque Cycle, which had its eight parts sold as either seven audio books or three printed volumes (two of which shared their titles with component parts for maximal confusion), it is a definite relief to have his new Bomb Light saga presented as serially published standalone volumes. At the same time, it’s not a little ironic that “Polostan� is actually less viable as a standalone work than was �Quicksilver�, the first part of The Baroque Cycle. It’s impossible to say exactly how many characters encountered here might be protagonists from future Bomb Light stories (or at least more significant players in future parts of Aurora’s story), but it’s notable that non‐Russian‐speaking Bob Overstreet is left without comment in frigid Magnitogorsk, Silent Al is last seen mid‐firefight, and Aurora’s late mother is so thoroughly avoided in flashbacks that the negative space of her absence is more prominent than the presence of any character save Aurora herself.

Tangible incompleteness aside, “Polostan� is a delightfully detailed romp though the most turbulent decades ever known. Mr Stephenson occasionally allows himself to fall into documentation of stranger‐than‐fiction historical details, and some passages set during the Century of Progress expo in Chicago feel like fragments from a never‐written sequel to Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, but mostly Mr Stephenson keeps the narrative vehicle facing down the road and the transmission in high gear. Where exactly that road is headed, particularly since our protagonist’s motivations are about as clear as a dustbowl sky, is a mystery most readers will be happy to pursue into future volumes.

[N.b. The following criticism of ŷ was posted in lieu of a review for about nine months prior to Polostan’s publication: As of the start of 2024, this book’s existence is barely more than speculation, but it is reviewable on ŷ. That seems healthy.]]]> 4.18 2024 Polostan (Bomb Light, #1)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: H James
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: to-read, historical-fiction
review:
After enduring the mess that was made of Mr Stephenson’s last multivolume work, The Baroque Cycle, which had its eight parts sold as either seven audio books or three printed volumes (two of which shared their titles with component parts for maximal confusion), it is a definite relief to have his new Bomb Light saga presented as serially published standalone volumes. At the same time, it’s not a little ironic that “Polostan� is actually less viable as a standalone work than was �Quicksilver�, the first part of The Baroque Cycle. It’s impossible to say exactly how many characters encountered here might be protagonists from future Bomb Light stories (or at least more significant players in future parts of Aurora’s story), but it’s notable that non‐Russian‐speaking Bob Overstreet is left without comment in frigid Magnitogorsk, Silent Al is last seen mid‐firefight, and Aurora’s late mother is so thoroughly avoided in flashbacks that the negative space of her absence is more prominent than the presence of any character save Aurora herself.

Tangible incompleteness aside, “Polostan� is a delightfully detailed romp though the most turbulent decades ever known. Mr Stephenson occasionally allows himself to fall into documentation of stranger‐than‐fiction historical details, and some passages set during the Century of Progress expo in Chicago feel like fragments from a never‐written sequel to Rem Koolhaas’s Delirious New York: A Retroactive Manifesto for Manhattan, but mostly Mr Stephenson keeps the narrative vehicle facing down the road and the transmission in high gear. Where exactly that road is headed, particularly since our protagonist’s motivations are about as clear as a dustbowl sky, is a mystery most readers will be happy to pursue into future volumes.

[N.b. The following criticism of ŷ was posted in lieu of a review for about nine months prior to Polostan’s publication: As of the start of 2024, this book’s existence is barely more than speculation, but it is reviewable on ŷ. That seems healthy.]
]]> Polostan (Bomb Light, #1) 199793426 Polostan follows the early life of the enigmatic Dawn Rae Bjornberg. Born in the American West to a clan of cowboy anarchists, Dawn is raised in Leningrad after the Russian Revolution by her Russian father, a party line Leninist who re-christens her Aurora. She spends her early years in Russia but then grows up as a teenager in Montana, before being drawn into gunrunning and revolution in the streets of Washington, D.C., during the depths of the Great Depression. When a surprising revelation about her past puts her in the crosshairs of U.S. authorities, Dawn returns to Russia, where she is groomed as a spy by the organization that later becomes the KGB.]]> 303 Neal Stephenson 0062334492 H James 4 3.70 2024 Polostan (Bomb Light, #1)
author: Neal Stephenson
name: H James
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Love Triangle: How Trigonometry Shapes the World]]> 194803864
Contrary to what your friends may have grumbled in high school math class, trigonometry is perhaps the most essential concept humans have ever devised. The simple yet versatile triangle allows us to map the world, launch ships into space, and send cat gifs. Trigonometry also makes it possible to play the piano so that it sounds like a human voice and was crucial to prosecuting the balloon trip company that caused a pig stampede.

In Love Triangle ,Matt Parker shares plenty of relevant and irreverent reasons we should all show a lot more love for the triangles in our lives. He tells extraordinary and entertaining stories of mathematicians, philosophers, and engineers—starting with Pythagoras—who dared to take triangles seriously. Humans have been using triangles for thousands of years to measure the earth and build structures. But trigonometry also underpins all modern data technology and is the essential component of GPS—without triangles, we’d still be at the gas station asking for directions.

Parker convincingly makes the case that trigonometry is vital, fun, and deeply useful. Its rules are the hidden pattern beneath the surface of just about everything we encounter, and we wouldn’t exist without them. Luckily, it’s never too late to learn!]]> 352 Matt Parker 0593418107 H James 3 Love Triangle retreads content from his videos.

The author’s performance as the narrator of the audiobook version is excellent, but the lack of accompanying PDF is a baffling and devastating deficiency.]]> 3.97 2024 Love Triangle: How Trigonometry Shapes the World
author: Matt Parker
name: H James
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves:
review:
Mr Parker shows his usual gift for self‐deprecating‐nerd levity, but regular viewers of his (laudable) YouTube channel might be frustrated that an apparent majority of Love Triangle retreads content from his videos.

The author’s performance as the narrator of the audiobook version is excellent, but the lack of accompanying PDF is a baffling and devastating deficiency.
]]> <![CDATA[The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)]]> 139399948 In the seventh installment in the Strike series, Cormoran and Robin must rescue a man ensnared in the trap of a dangerous cult.

Private Detective Cormoran Strike is contacted by a worried father whose son, Will, has gone to join a religious cult in the depths of the Norfolk countryside.

The Universal Humanitarian Church is, on the surface, a peaceable organization that campaigns for a better world. Yet Strike discovers that beneath the surface there are deeply sinister undertones, and unexplained deaths.

In order to try to rescue Will, Strike's business partner, Robin Ellacott, decides to infiltrate the cult, and she travels to Norfolk to live incognito among its members. But in doing so, she is unprepared for the dangers that await her there or for the toll it will take on her. . .

Utterly pulse-pounding, The Running Grave moves Strike's and Robin's story forward in this epic, unforgettable seventh installment of the series.]]> 960 Robert Galbraith 0316572101 H James 4 Ink Black Heart, this volume’s massive page count is actually justified by the epic scope of the case.]]> 4.56 2023 The Running Grave (Cormoran Strike, #7)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: H James
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves:
review:
A major comeback from the relentlessly miserable Ink Black Heart, this volume’s massive page count is actually justified by the epic scope of the case.
]]> <![CDATA[Livesuit (The Captive’s War #1.5)]]> 215760525
The first novella set in the universe of James S. A. Corey's epic Captive's War series.]]> 90 James S.A. Corey 0316575348 H James 3 the O.G. Expanse novel and the most captivatingly strange since “Strange Dogs�, but I wonder how well this will hold up after its place in the Captive’s War universe becomes more apparent. The tantalizing half‐explained connections to The Mercy of Gods are providing so much of the value here that it’s hard not to worry that, like an episode of Lost, “Livesuit� will feel like a spent payload once the series is complete.]]> 4.33 2024 Livesuit (The Captive’s War #1.5)
author: James S.A. Corey
name: H James
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/03
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves:
review:
This is probably the creepiest tale Messrs Corey have told since the O.G. Expanse novel and the most captivatingly strange since “Strange Dogs�, but I wonder how well this will hold up after its place in the Captive’s War universe becomes more apparent. The tantalizing half‐explained connections to The Mercy of Gods are providing so much of the value here that it’s hard not to worry that, like an episode of Lost, “Livesuit� will feel like a spent payload once the series is complete.
]]> <![CDATA[Pride and Prejudice and Zombies]]> 7169335 399 Seth Grahame-Smith 1594744491 H James 0 forsaken 3.31 2009 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
author: Seth Grahame-Smith
name: H James
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves: forsaken
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike, #8)]]> 210081845 32 Robert Galbraith H James 0 to-read 4.41 2025 The Hallmarked Man (Cormoran Strike, #8)
author: Robert Galbraith
name: H James
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Morning and Evening 26221990 109 Jon Fosse H James 0 to-read 3.97 2000 Morning and Evening
author: Jon Fosse
name: H James
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The News From Waterloo: The race to tell Britain of Wellington's Victory]]> 25251064
Award-winning author Brian Cathcart (The Fly in the Cathedral, The Case of Stephen Lawrence) reconstructs what happened with the help of memoirs, forgotten documents and the newspapers of the time. In the words of the great editor Sir Harold Evans: 'Cathcart's vastly entertaining narrative marries the scepticism of an investigative journalist with a dramatist's gift for suspense . . . How dull by comparison are our smug digital days where news comes � and goes � at the speed of light.'

The Daily Telegraph gives The News From Waterloo five stars: 'Thrilling . . . fascinating . . . vivid . . . entertaining.']]> 335 Brian Cathcart H James 0 to-read 4.00 2015 The News From Waterloo: The race to tell Britain of Wellington's Victory
author: Brian Cathcart
name: H James
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Certain Dark Things 54785481
Atl needs to quickly escape the city, far from the rival narco-vampire clan relentlessly pursuing her. Her plan doesn't include Domingo, but little by little, Atl finds herself warming up to the scrappy young man and his undeniable charm. As the trail of corpses stretches behind her, local cops and crime bosses both start closing in.

Vampires, humans, cops, and criminals collide in the dark streets of Mexico City. Do Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city devour them all?]]> 256 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 1250785588 H James 0 to-read 3.73 2016 Certain Dark Things
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: H James
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata, #1)]]> 30199328 Cassandra Khaw bursts onto the scene with Hammers on Bone, a hard-boiled horror show that Charles Stross calls "possibly the most promising horror debut of 2016." A finalist for the British Fantasy award and the Locus Award for Best Novella!

John Persons is a private investigator with a distasteful job from an unlikely client. He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable.

He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.

As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.



Finalist für den British Fantasy Award und den Locus Award

Charles
»Das möglicherweise vielversprechendste Horrordebüt des Jahres.«

Alle fünf Bände der 24er-Ausgabe von Cemetery Dance Germany SELECT sind von Vincent Chong illustriert, haben illustrierte Vor- und Nachsatzpapiere sowie 3 Innenillustrationen.

HINWEIS Gesamtausgabe &
Die fünf Bände von Cemetery Dance Germany SELECT '24 - LOVECRAFTIAN VIBES sind ebenfalls als Gesamtausgabe im Sammlerschuber erhältlich. Die Hardcover der ersten Auflage der Gesamtausgabe werden einen digitalen Farbschnitt erhalten. Ein bestehendes CDG-SELECT-Abo (direkt beim Verlag) zählt ebenfalls in Bezug auf die erste Auflage der Gesamtausgabe mit Farbschnitt.]]> 72 Cassandra Khaw 0765392704 H James 0 to-read 3.55 2016 Hammers on Bone (Persons Non Grata, #1)
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: H James
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World]]> 10374 Lord Jim.

Science fiction, detective story and post-modern manifesto all rolled into one rip-roaring novel, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is the tour de force that expanded Haruki Murakami's international following. Tracking one man's descent into the Kafkaesque underworld of contemporary Tokyo, Murakami unites East and West, tragedy and farce, compassion and detachment, slang and philosophy.]]> 400 Haruki Murakami H James 0 to-read 4.14 1985 Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
author: Haruki Murakami
name: H James
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Body Scout 56441984
Then his childhood best friend-Monsanto Mets slugger J.J. Zunz-is murdered at home plate.

Determined to find the killer, Kobo plunges into the dark corners and glittering cloud condos of a world ravaged by climate change and repeat pandemics, and where genetic editing and advanced drugs mean you can have any body you want--as long as you can afford it. But even among the philosophical Neanderthals, zootech weapons, and genetically modified CEOs, there's a curveball he never could have called.]]> 291 Lincoln Michel H James 0 to-read 3.62 2021 The Body Scout
author: Lincoln Michel
name: H James
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Shovel Ready (Spademan, #1) 17834909
In a New York City split between those who are wealthy enough to "tap into" a sophisticated virtual reality for months at a time and those left to fend for themselves in the ravaged streets, Spademan chose the streets. His clients like that he doesn't ask questions, that he works quickly, and that he's handy with a box cutter. He finds that killing people for money is not that different from collecting trash, and the pay is better. His latest client hires him to kill the daughter of a powerful evangelist. Finding her is easy, but the job quickly gets complicated: his mark has a shocking secret and his client has an agenda far beyond a simple kill. Now Spademan must navigate the dual levels of his world-the gritty reality and the slick fantasy-to finish the job, to keep his conscience clean, and to stay alive.]]> 256 Adam Sternbergh 0385348991 H James 0 to-read 3.44 2014 Shovel Ready (Spademan, #1)
author: Adam Sternbergh
name: H James
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Far from the Light of Heaven 57007657 Ragtime docks in the Lagos system, having traveled light-years to bring one thousand sleeping souls to a new home among the stars. But when first mate Michelle Campion rouses, she discovers some of the sleepers will never wake.

Answering Campion's distress call, investigator Rasheed Fin is tasked with finding out who is responsible for these deaths. Soon a sinister mystery unfolds aboard the gigantic vessel, one that will have repercussions for the entire system—from the scheming politicians of Lagos station, to the colony planet Bloodroot, to other far-flung systems, and indeed to Earth itself.]]> Tade Thompson 1549136550 H James 0 to-read 3.40 2021 Far from the Light of Heaven
author: Tade Thompson
name: H James
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Flux 61774690
Combining elements of neo-noir, speculative fiction, and '80s detective shows, FLUX is a haunting and sometimes shocking exploration of the cyclical nature of grief, of moving past trauma, and of the pervasive nature of whiteness within the development of Asian identity in America.

In FLUX, a brilliant debut in the vein of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Ling Ma’s Severance, Jinwoo Chong introduces us to three characters —Bo, Brandon and Blue� who are tortured by these questions as their lives spin out of control.

* After 8-year-old Bo loses his mother in a tragic accident, his white father, attempting to hold their lives together, begins to gradually retreat from the family.

* 28-year-old Brandon loses his job at a legacy magazine publisher and is offered a new position. Confused to find himself in an apartment he does not recognize, and an office he sometimes cannot remember leaving, he comes to suspect that something far more sinister is happening behind the walls.

* 48-year-old Blue participates in a television exposé of Flux, a failed bioelectric tech startup whose fraudulent activity eventually claimed the lives of three people and nearly killed him. Blue, who can only speak with the aid of cybernetic implants, stalks his old manager while holding his estranged family at arms-length.

Intertwined with the saga of a once-iconic '80s detective show, Raider, whose star has fallen after decades of concealed abuse, the lives of Bo, Brandon and Blue intersect with each other, to the extent that it becomes clear that their lives are more interconnected and interdependent than the reader could have ever imagined.

Can we ever really change the past, or the future? What truth do we owe our families? What truth do we owe ourselves?]]> 341 Jinwoo Chong 1685890342 H James 0 to-read 3.33 2023 Flux
author: Jinwoo Chong
name: H James
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Last to Leave the Room 65213922 Last to Leave the Room is a new novel of genre-busting speculative horror from Caitlin Starling, the acclaimed author of The Death of Jane Lawrence.

The city of San Siroco is sinking. The basement belonging to Dr. Tamsin Rivers, the arrogant, selfish head of the research team assigned to find the source of the subsidence, is sinking faster.

As Tamsin grows obsessed with the distorting dimensions of the room at the bottom of the stairs, she finds a door that didn’t exist before � and one night, it opens to reveal an exact physical copy of her. This doppelgänger is sweet and biddable where Tamsin is calculating and cruel. It appears fully, terribly human, passing every test Tamsin can devise. But the longer the double exists, the more Tamsin begins to forget pieces of her life, to lose track of time, to grow terrified of the outside world.

With her employer growing increasingly suspicious, Tamsin must try to hold herself together long enough to figure out what her double wants from her, and just where the mysterious door leads to.]]> 312 Caitlin Starling 1250282616 H James 0 to-read 3.53 2023 Last to Leave the Room
author: Caitlin Starling
name: H James
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Curator 61273856
It begins in an unnamed city nicknamed “the Fairest�, it is distinguished by many things from the river fair to the mountains that split the municipality in half; its theaters and many museums; the Morgue Ship; and, like all cities, but maybe especially so, by its essential unmappability.

Dora, a former domestic servant at the university has a secret desire—to find where her brother went after he died, believing that the answer lies within The Museum of Psykical Research, where he worked when Dora was a child. With the city amidst a revolutionary upheaval, where citizens like Robert Barnes, her lover and a student radical, are now in positions of authority, Dora contrives to gain the curatorship of the half-forgotten museum only to find it all but burnt to the ground, with the neighboring museums oddly untouched. Robert offers her one of these, The National Museum of the Worker. However, neither this museum, nor the street it is hidden away on, nor Dora herself, are what they at first appear to be. Set against the backdrop of a nation on the verge of collapse, Dora’s search for the truth behind the mystery she’s long concealed will unravel a monstrous conspiracy and bring her to the edge of worlds.]]> 480 Owen King 1982196807 H James 0 to-read 2.90 2023 The Curator
author: Owen King
name: H James
average rating: 2.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thief Liar Lady 63139926 "Happily Ever After" is a total scam, but at least this time the princess is the one controlling the grift--until her true love arrives and threatens to ruin the whole scheme. Intrigue, magic, and wit abound in this Cinderella fairytale reimagining, perfect for fans of Heather Walter and Naomi Novik.

I'm not who you think I am.

My transformation from a poor, orphaned scullery maid into the enchantingly mysterious lady who snagged the heart of the prince did not happen--as the rumors insisted--in a magical metamorphosis of pumpkins and glass slippers. On the first evening of the ball, I didn't meekly help my "evil" stepmother and stepsisters primp and preen or watch forlornly out the window as their carriage rolled off toward the palace. I had other preparations to make.

My stepsisters and I had been trained for this--to be the cleverest in the room, to be quick with our hands and quicker with our lies. We were taught how to get everything we want in this world, everything men always kept for themselves: power, wealth, and prestige. And with a touchingly tragic past and the help of some highly illegal spells, I would become a princess, secure our fortunes, and we would all live happily ever after.

But there's always more to the story. With my magic running out, war looming, and a handsome hostage prince--the wrong prince--distracting me from my true purpose with his magnetic charm and forbidden flirtations, I'm in danger of losing control of the delicate balance I've created...and that could prove fatal.

There's so much more riding on this than a crown.]]> 416 D.L. Soria 0593358058 H James 0 to-read 3.56 2023 Thief Liar Lady
author: D.L. Soria
name: H James
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Centre 68005500 A darkly comic, boundary-pushing debut following an adrift Pakistani translator in London who attends a mysterious language school which boasts complete fluency in just ten days, but at a secret, sinister cost.

Anisa Ellahi dreams of being a translator of ‘great works of literature�, but instead mostly spends her days subtitling Bollywood films in her flat in London while living off her parents� generous allowance and discussing the ‘underside of life� with her best friend, Naima. Then she meets Adam, who has successfully leveraged his savant-level aptitude for languages into an enviable career. At first, this only adds to her sense of inadequacy, but when Adam learns to speak Urdu with native fluency practically overnight, Anisa forces him to reveal his secret.

Adam tells Anisa about the Centre, an elite, invite-only program that guarantees absolute fluency in any language in just ten days. Sceptical but intrigued, Anisa enrols. Stripped of her belongings and all contact with the outside world, she undergoes the Centre's strange and rigorous processes. But as she enmeshes herself further within the organisation, seduced by all that it’s made possible, she soon realizes the disturbing, hidden cost of its services.

By turns dark, funny, and surreal, and with twists page-turning and shocking, The Centre takes the reader on a journey through Karachi, London, and New Delhi, interrogating the sticky politics of language, translation, and appropriation with biting specificity, and ultimately asking: what price would you be willing to pay for success?]]> 288 Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi H James 0 to-read 3.37 2023 The Centre
author: Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
name: H James
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Strange 61272810
Since Anabelle’s mother left for Earth to care for her own ailing mother, her days in New Galveston have been spent at school and her nights at her laconic father’s diner with Watson, the family Kitchen Engine and dishwasher as her only companion. When the Silence came, and communication and shipments from Earth to its colonies on Mars stopped, life seemed stuck in foreboding stasis until the night Silas Mundt and his gang attacked.

At once evoking the dreams of an America explored in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles and the harder realities of frontier life in Charles Portis True Grit , Ballingrud’s novel is haunting in its evocation of Anabelle’s quest for revenge amidst a spent and angry world accompanied by a domestic Engine, a drunken space pilot, and the toughest woman on Mars.

Nathan Ballingrud’s stories have been adapted into the film Wounds and the Hulu series Monsterland , The Strange is his first novel.]]> 304 Nathan Ballingrud 1534449957 H James 0 to-read 3.76 2023 The Strange
author: Nathan Ballingrud
name: H James
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Death I Gave Him 101150684 A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare's Hamlet as a locked-room thriller

Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me�

With the lab on lockdown, Hayden is trapped with four other people—his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul—one of whom must be the killer. His only sure ally is the lab’s resident artificial intelligence, Horatio, who has been his dear friend and companion since its creation. With his world collapsing, Hayden must navigate the building’s secrets, uncover his father’s lies, and push the boundaries of sanity in the pursuit of revenge.]]> 351 Em X. Liu 1786189984 H James 0 to-read 3.33 2023 The Death I Gave Him
author: Em X. Liu
name: H James
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Let the Dead Bury the Dead 62646533 An urgent, immersive alternate history set in an imperial Russia on the brink of disaster, following a surprising cast of characters seeking a better future as Saint Petersburg struggles in the wake of Napoleon's failed invasion.

Saint Petersburg, 1812. Russian forces have defeated Napoleon at great cost, and the tsar's empire is once again at peace. Sasha, a captain in the imperial army, returns home to Grand Duke Felix, the disgraced second son of the tsar and his irrepressibly charming lover, but their reunion is quickly interrupted by the arrival of Sofia, a mysteriously persuasive figure whose disruptive presence Sasha suspects to be something more than human. Felix, insisting that Sasha's old-fashioned superstitions are misplaced, takes Sofia into his confidence--a connection that quickly becomes both personal and political. On her incendiary advice, Felix confronts his father about the brutal conditions of the common people in the aftermath of the war, to disastrous results, separating him from Sasha and setting him on a collision course with a vocal group of dissidents: the Koalitsiya.

Meanwhile, the Koalitsiya plan to gridlock Saint Petersburg with a citywide strike in hopes of awakening the upper classes to the grim circumstances of the laboring people. Marya, a resourceful sometimes-thief and trusted lieutenant of the Koalitsiya, also falls under Sofia's spell and, allied with Felix and her fellow revolutionaries, she finds herself in the middle of a battle she could never have predicted. As Sofia's influence grows and rising tensions threaten the tsar's peace, Sasha, Felix, and Marya are forced to choose between the ideals they hold close and the people they love.

Allison Epstein combines cleverly constructed plot with unforgettable characters in this exuberant historical page-turner, intercut with fractured retellings of traditional Eastern European folk stories that are equal parts deadly dark and slyly illuminating. Vividly written and emotionally intense, Let the Dead Bury the Dead reminds us that the concerns of the past aren't quite as far behind us as we like to believe.]]> 368 Allison Epstein 0385549091 H James 0 to-read 3.62 2023 Let the Dead Bury the Dead
author: Allison Epstein
name: H James
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In the Lake of the Woods 3447 The Things They Carried examines the lasting impact of the twentieth century’s legacy of violence and warfare, both at home and abroad. When long-hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival, his wife mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.]]> 303 Tim O'Brien 061870986X H James 0 to-read 3.76 1994 In the Lake of the Woods
author: Tim O'Brien
name: H James
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Biography of X 60784729 From one of our fiercest stylists, a roaring epic chronicling the life, times, and secrets of a notorious artist.

When X—an iconoclastic artist, writer, and polarizing shape-shifter—falls dead in her office, her widow, wild with grief and refusing everyone’s good advice, hurls herself into writing a biography of the woman she deified. Though X was recognized as a crucial creative force of her era, she kept a tight grip on her life story. Not even CM, her wife, knew where X had been born, and in her quest to find out, she opens a Pandora’s box of secrets, betrayals, and destruction. All the while, she immerses herself in the history of the Southern Territory, a fascist theocracy that split from the rest of the country after World War II, as it is finally, in the present day, forced into an uneasy reunification.

A masterfully constructed literary adventure complete with original images assembled by X’s widow, Biography of X follows a grieving wife seeking to understand the woman who enthralled her. CM traces X’s peripatetic trajectory over decades, from Europe to the ruins of America's divided territories, and through her collaborations and feuds with everyone from Bowie and Waits to Sontag and Acker. And when she finally understands the scope of X’s defining artistic project, CM realizes her wife’s deceptions were far crueler than she imagined.

Pulsing with suspense and intellect while blending nonfiction and fiction, Biography of X is a roaring epic that plumbs the depths of grief, art, and love. In her most ambitious novel yet, Catherine Lacey, one of our most acclaimed literary innovators, pushes her craft to its highest level, introducing us to an unforgettable character who, in her tantalizing mystery, shows us the fallibility of the stories we craft for ourselves.]]> 416 Catherine Lacey H James 0 to-read 3.83 2023 Biography of X
author: Catherine Lacey
name: H James
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Monsters We Have Made 181346410 A poignant and evocative novel that explores the bounds of familial love, the high stakes of parenthood, and the tenuous divide between fiction and reality.

Ten years ago, Sylvia Gray's young daughter, Faye, attacked her babysitter in order to impress the Kingman, a monster she and her best friend had encountered on the Internet. When the now twenty-one-year-old Faye goes missing, leaving her toddler behind, Sylvia launches a search that propels her back into the past and back into the Kingman's orbit. With the help of her estranged husband, her estranged sister, and a charismatic professor, Sylvia draws dangerously closer not only to Faye, but also to the truth about the monster that once inspired her. Will Sylvia be able to reach her daughter before history repeats itself? Or will it be Sylvia, this time, who loses her grip on reality and succumbs to the dark powers of this monstrous figure?

Both literary and suspenseful, Monsters We Have Made confronts the terrors of parenthood and examines the boundaries of love. Most importantly, it reminds us of the power of stories to shape our lives.]]> 304 Lindsay Starck 0593471032 H James 0 to-read 3.60 2024 Monsters We Have Made
author: Lindsay Starck
name: H James
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Karla's Choice 205899901 An extraordinary new novel set in the world of John le Carré's most iconic spy, George Smiley, written by acclaimed novelist Nick Harkaway

It is spring in 1963 and George Smiley has left the Circus. With the wreckage of the West’s spy war with the Soviets strewn across Europe, he has eyes only for a more peaceful life. And indeed, with his marriage more secure than ever, there is a rumor in Whitehall—unconfirmed and a little scandalous—that George Smiley might almost be happy.

But Control has other plans. A Russian agent has defected, and the man he was sent to kill in London is nowhere to be found. Smiley reluctantly agrees to one last simple interview Szusanna, a Hungarian émigré and employee of the missing man, and sniff out a lead. But, as Smiley well knows, even the softest step in the shadows resounds with terrible danger. Soon, he is back there, in East Berlin, and on the trail of his most devious enemy’s hidden past.

Set in the missing decade between two iconic instalments in the George Smiley saga, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Nick Harkaway’s Karla’s Choice is an extraordinary, thrilling return to the world of spy fiction’s greatest writer, John le Carré.]]> 320 Nick Harkaway H James 0 to-read 3.99 2024 Karla's Choice
author: Nick Harkaway
name: H James
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Tigerman 19322249 Meanwhile, he befriends a brilliant, internet-addled street kid with a comic book fixation who will need a home when the island dies. When Mancreu's fragile society erupts in violence, Lester must be more than just an observer: he has no choice but to rediscover the man of action he once was, and find out what kind of hero the island—and the boy—will need.
From the award-winning author of Angelmaker and The Gone-Away World, Tigerman is a novel at once deeply heartfelt and headlong thrilling—about parenthood, friendship and secret identities, about heroes of both the super and the everyday kind.]]> 337 Nick Harkaway 0385352417 H James 0 to-read 3.88 2014 Tigerman
author: Nick Harkaway
name: H James
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)]]> 62052321 A virtuosic mashup of Philip K. Dick and Raymond Chandler by way of Marvel—the story of a detective investigating the murder of a Titan, one of society's most powerful, medically-enhanced elites.

"Cross-genre brilliance from the superbly talented Nick Harkaway." —William Gibson, New York Times best-selling author of Agency.

Cal Sounder is a detective working for the police on certain very sensitive cases. So when he's called in to investigate a homicide at a local apartment, he's surprised by the routineness of it all. But when he arrives on scene, Cal soon learns that the victim—Roddy Tebbit, an otherwise milquetoast techie—is well over seven feet tall. And although he doesn't look a day over thirty, he is ninety-one years old. Tebbit is a Titan—one of this dystopian, near-future society's genetically altered elites. And this case is definitely Cal's thing.

There are only a few thousand Titans worldwide, thanks to Stefan Tonfamecasca's discovery of the controversial T7 genetic therapy, which elevated his family to godlike status. T7 turns average humans into near-immortal distortions of themselves—with immense physical proportions to match their ostentatious, unreachable lifestyles. A dead Titan is big news . . . amurderedTitan is unimaginable. But these modified magnates are Cal's specialty. In fact, his own ex-girlfriend, Athena, is a Titan. And not justany—she is Stefan's daughter, heir to the massive Tonfamecasca empire.

As the murder investigation intensifies, Cal begins to unravel the complicated threads of what should have been a straightforward case, and it becomes clear he's on the trail of a crime whose roots run deep into the dark heart of the world.]]> 236 Nick Harkaway 0593535367 H James 4 The Dispatcher and The City & The City, this is impeccably executed spec noir. I’m fully on board for the announced sequel and already dreaming of another visit to the gonzo cabaret that is Vic’s.]]> 3.89 2023 Titanium Noir (Titanium Noir #1)
author: Nick Harkaway
name: H James
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves:
review:
Landing somewhere between The Dispatcher and The City & The City, this is impeccably executed spec noir. I’m fully on board for the announced sequel and already dreaming of another visit to the gonzo cabaret that is Vic’s.
]]> The Wood at Midwinter 206101583 'A church is a sort of wood. A wood is a sort of church. They're the same thing really.'

Nineteen-year-old Merowdis Scott is an unusual girl. She can talk to animals and trees—and she is only ever happy when she is walking in the woods.

One snowy afternoon, out with her dogs and Apple the pig, Merowdis encounters a blackbird and a fox. As darkness falls, a strange figure enters in their midst—and the path of her life is changed forever.

From the internationally bestselling and prize-winning author of Piranesi and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, an enchanting, beautifully illustrated short story set in the Strange universe. Featuring an introduction by Susanna Clarke and gorgeous illustrations from Victoria Sawdon truly worthy of the magic of this story, this is a mesmerising, must-have addition to any fantasy reader's bookshelf.]]> 64 Susanna Clarke 1639734481 H James 3 3.47 2024 The Wood at Midwinter
author: Susanna Clarke
name: H James
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves:
review:
Available as a 14‐minute performance on BBC Radio 4:
]]> <![CDATA[The Unnoticeables (Vicious Circuit, #1)]]> 23168833
Carey doesn’t much like that idea. As a punk living in New York City, 1977, Carey is sick and tired of watching the strange kids with the unnoticeable faces abduct his friends. He doesn’t care about the rumors of tarmonsters in the sewers, or unkillable psychopaths invading the punk scene—all he wants is drink cheap beer and dispense asskickings.

Kaitlyn isn’t sure what she’s doing with her life. She came to Hollywood in 2013 to be a stunt woman, but last night a former teen heartthrob tried to eat her, her best friend has just gone missing, and there’s an angel outside her apartment.

Whatever she plans on doing with her life, it should probably happen in the few remaining minutes she has left of it.

There are angels. There are demons. They are the same thing. It’s up to Carey and Kaitlyn to stop them. The survival of the human race is in their hands.

We are, all of us, well and truly screwed.]]> 288 Robert Brockway 076537966X H James 1 forsaken 3.65 2015 The Unnoticeables (Vicious Circuit, #1)
author: Robert Brockway
name: H James
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2015
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/09/11
shelves: forsaken
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions]]> 16790 Neil Gaiman, magic is no mere illusion... and anything is possible. In this, Gaiman's first book of short stories, his imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders -- a place where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality -- obscured by smoke and darkness, yet brilliantly tangible -- in this extraordinary collection of short works by a master prestidigitator. It will dazzle your senses, touch your heart, and haunt your dreams.]]> 365 Neil Gaiman 0380789027 H James 0 to-read 4.03 1998 Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions
author: Neil Gaiman
name: H James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Springtime Case 159745603 0 Jun'ichirō Tanizaki H James 0 currently-reading 2.67 A Springtime Case
author: Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
name: H James
average rating: 2.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Blindsight (Firefall, #1) 48484 Two months since the stars fell...

Two months since sixty-five thousand alien objects clenched around the Earth like a luminous fist, screaming to the heavens as the atmosphere burned them to ash. Two months since that moment of brief, bright surveillance by agents unknown.

Two months of silence while a world holds its breath.

Now some half-derelict space probe, sparking fitfully past Neptune’s orbit, hears a whisper from the edge of the solar system: a faint signal sweeping the cosmos like a lighthouse beam. Whatever’s out there isn’t talking to us. It’s talking to some distant star, perhaps. Or perhaps to something closer, something en route.

So who do you send to force introductions on an intelligence with motives unknown, maybe unknowable? Who do you send to meet the alien when the alien doesn’t want to meet?

You send a linguist with multiple personalities, her brain surgically partitioned into separate, sentient processing cores. You send a biologist so radically interfaced with machinery that he sees X-rays and tastes ultrasound, so compromised by grafts and splices he no longer feels his own flesh. You send a pacifist warrior in the faint hope she won’t be needed, and a fainter hope she’ll do any good if she is needed. You send a monster to command them all, an extinct hominid predator once called “vampire,� recalled from the grave with the voodoo of recombinant genetics and the blood of sociopaths. And you send a synthesist � an informational topologist with half his mind gone � as an interface between here and there, a conduit through which the Dead Center might hope to understand the Bleeding Edge.

You send them all to the edge of interstellar space, praying you can trust such freaks and retrofits with the fate of a world. You fear they may be more alien than the thing they’ve been sent to find.

But you’d give anything for that to be true, if you only knew what was waiting for them…]]> 384 Peter Watts 0765312182 H James 0 to-read 4.01 2006 Blindsight (Firefall, #1)
author: Peter Watts
name: H James
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Mount Chicago 59630375
“Adam Levin is one of our wildest writers and our funniest.� –George Saunders, bestselling, award-winning author of Lincoln in the Bardo

A one-in-ten-billion natural disaster devastates Chicago. A Jewish comedian, his most devoted fan, and the city’s mayor must struggle to move forward while the world—quite literally—caves beneath their feet. With this polyphonic tale of Chicago-style politics and political correctness, stand-up comedy and Jewish identity, celebrity, drugs, and animal psychology, Levin has constructed a monument to laughter, love, art, and resilience in an age of spectacular loss.]]> 592 Adam Levin 0385548249 H James 0 to-read 3.92 2022 Mount Chicago
author: Adam Levin
name: H James
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Complete Home Bartender's Guide]]> 13586274 280 Salvatore Calabrese 1402786263 H James 1 mixology, referenced The Joy of Mixology —the same bad recipes and none of the charming anecdotes.]]> 3.60 2002 The Complete Home Bartender's Guide
author: Salvatore Calabrese
name: H James
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2002
rating: 1
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: mixology, referenced
review:
A soulless version of The Joy of Mixology —the same bad recipes and none of the charming anecdotes.
]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails (Ruhlman's Ratios, #2)]]> 62919365
Did you know that a Gimlet, a Daiquiri, and a Bee’s Knees are the same cocktail? As are a Cosmopolitan, a Margarita, and a Sidecar. When hosting a party wouldn’t you enjoy saying to your guests, “Would you care for a Boulevardier, perhaps, or a Negroni?� These, too, are the same cocktail, substituting one ingredient for another. Or if you’d like to be able to shake up a batch of whiskey sours for a party of eight in fewer than two minutes, then read on.

As Michael Ruhlman explains, our most popular cocktails are really ratios—proportions of one ingredient relative to the others. Organized around five of our best-known, beloved, classic families of cocktails, each category follows a simple ratio from which myriad variations can be The Manhattan, The Gimlet, The Margarita, The Negroni, and the most debated cocktail ever, The Martini.

A practical reference of cocktail classics, a source of inspiration for putting a new spin on the usual gin and tonic, and an affable tribute to the pleasures of the cocktail hour, The Book of Cocktail Ratios shows you how to serve up delectable drinks in no time. Cheers!]]> 288 Michael Ruhlman 1668003392 H James 3 mixology David Wondrich, and Jeffrey Morgenthaler). I certainly don’t object to a non-bartender writing a bar book ( How to Cocktail is one of the best bar books, after all), but the overtness of Mr Ruhlman’s naïveté is sometimes overwhelming, such as when he puckishly states that he can’t taste the difference between drink that has had its ingredients poured in one order or another, missing the point that ingredient ordering is done to minimize mistakes (and minimize costs of mistakes), not to affect flavor.

The greatest weakness of Ratios, however, is Mr Rhulman’s warping of recipes to more neatly fit them into his theory of ratios. The result is wildly differing volumes and more than one questionable departure from creator-recommended proportions (Little Italy, I’m looking at you).

The book itself is assembled with no great care, with common ingredient names differing arbitrarily across recipes and some cross-references pointing to the wrong chapters, but the typography is decent and the illustrations quite lovely.]]> 4.42 2023 The Book of Cocktail Ratios: The Surprising Simplicity of Classic Cocktails (Ruhlman's Ratios, #2)
author: Michael Ruhlman
name: H James
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/17
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: mixology
review:
Mr Ruhlman’s approach to cocktail organization hews closely to the taxonomy I have long favored, and I remain glad this attempt was made, but it’s hard not to be disappointed with this ostentatiously inexpert work. Mr Ruhlman presents himself (honestly by all appearances) as totally lacking in bar experience and able to offer this collection only because he is chummy with a few titans of the industry (Phil Ward, David Wondrich, and Jeffrey Morgenthaler). I certainly don’t object to a non-bartender writing a bar book ( How to Cocktail is one of the best bar books, after all), but the overtness of Mr Ruhlman’s naïveté is sometimes overwhelming, such as when he puckishly states that he can’t taste the difference between drink that has had its ingredients poured in one order or another, missing the point that ingredient ordering is done to minimize mistakes (and minimize costs of mistakes), not to affect flavor.

The greatest weakness of Ratios, however, is Mr Rhulman’s warping of recipes to more neatly fit them into his theory of ratios. The result is wildly differing volumes and more than one questionable departure from creator-recommended proportions (Little Italy, I’m looking at you).

The book itself is assembled with no great care, with common ingredient names differing arbitrarily across recipes and some cross-references pointing to the wrong chapters, but the typography is decent and the illustrations quite lovely.
]]> <![CDATA[Freezer Door Cocktails: 75 Cocktails That Are Ready When You Are]]> 201627045 Readymade cocktails for whenever you want batch drinks made directly in the liquor bottle and stored on your freezer door There is a time and a place pulling out shakers and stirrers and strainers and taking time to assemble the perfect cocktail. But sometimes, what you really want is a great drink, served immediately. For those times, there are Freezer Door Cocktails—batch cocktails of your favorite drinks that are built directly in the bottle and kept on your freezer door to be ready when you are. The premise couldn't be Pour off enough of a standard liquor bottle to create just enough space to add the other ingredients needed to produce a full bottle of your desired cocktail. Store the bottle in the freezer and you have chilled cocktails ready whenever the mood strikes. That means a Negroni in hand before you even have a chance to loosen your tie or take off your heels. This fun, creative collection of 75 ready-to-pour beverages will walk readers through making freezer door versions of their favorite cocktails, from Negronis, Margaritas and Manhattans to Cosmopolitans, Espresso Martinis and Gin & Tonics. Organized by primary liquor,Freezer Door Cocktailsalso covers the science behind the simplicity, including how the freezing point of alcohol changes based on volume of water, juice, and/or sweetener added, as well as how to use this information to craft your own recipes.]]> 192 J. M. Hirsch 0316568988 H James 2 referenced, mixology 4.06 Freezer Door Cocktails: 75 Cocktails That Are Ready When You Are
author: J. M. Hirsch
name: H James
average rating: 4.06
book published:
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/08/24
shelves: referenced, mixology
review:
Mr Hirsch offers a Last Word recipe that isn’t even the same format of drink as the much beloved standard Last Word and explains the change by insulting the standard version. Mr Hirsch is welcome to his opinions and welcome to craft new recipes, but giving new recipes old names is a particularly irksome form of revisionist history that can only cause confusion.
]]> Exit West 30688435
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.]]> 231 Mohsin Hamid 0735212171 H James 3 Exit West off my in-progress list.]]> 3.74 2017 Exit West
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: H James
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:
Mr Hamid writes confident, terse prose worthy of Hemingway, but his equally minimalist story left me with little motivation to keep going other than to move Exit West off my in-progress list.
]]> <![CDATA[Around the World in Eighty Days]]> 32843 Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days, and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot-blooded French manservant, Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks, and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard to win the extraordinary wager. Combining exploration, adventure, and a thrilling race against time, Around the World in Eighty Days gripped audiences upon its publication and remains hugely popular to this day.]]> 211 Jules Verne 0812968565 H James 4 3.83 1872 Around the World in Eighty Days
author: Jules Verne
name: H James
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1872
rating: 4
read at: 2004/04/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> Delta-v (Delta-v, #1) 40859000
Isolated and pushed beyond their breaking points, Tighe and his fellow twenty-first century adventurers--ex-soldiers, former astronauts, BASE jumpers, and mountain climbers--must rely on each other to survive not only the dangers of a multi-year expedition but the harsh realities of business in space. They're determined to transform humanity from an Earth-bound species to a space-faring one--or die trying.]]> 437 Daniel Suarez 1524742414 H James 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Delta-v (Delta-v, #1)
author: Daniel Suarez
name: H James
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Inferno of Dante 591221 384 Dante Alighieri 0374524521 H James 4 poetry 4.03 1320 The Inferno of Dante
author: Dante Alighieri
name: H James
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1320
rating: 4
read at: 2001/10/01
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: poetry
review:

]]> From a Buick 8 22076
Curt’s avid curiosity took the lead, and they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years, the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still-life painting that breathes � inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from.

In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his eighteen-year-old boy, Ned, starts coming by the barracks, mowing the lawn, washing windows, shoveling snow. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it’s the boy’s way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers, and the secret begins to stir, not only in the minds and hearts of the veteran troopers who surround him, but in Shed B as well. . . .

From a Buick 8 is a novel about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.]]> 356 Stephen King 0743211375 H James 2 3.49 2002 From a Buick 8
author: Stephen King
name: H James
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2002
rating: 2
read at: 2003/01/01
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Orange World and Other Stories]]> 42063901
Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl�, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,� two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.]]> 288 Karen Russell 1984892215 H James 0 to-read 3.98 2019 Orange World and Other Stories
author: Karen Russell
name: H James
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves]]> 47085 St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves introduces a radiant new writer.]]> 246 Karen Russell 0307263983 H James 0 to-read 3.80 2005 St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
author: Karen Russell
name: H James
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories]]> 13531832 Swamplandia! � a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize � comes a magical and uniquely daring collection of stories that showcases the author’s gifts at their inimitable best.

Within these pages, a community of girls held captive in a Japanese silk factory slowly transmute into human silkworms and plot revolution; a group of boys stumble upon a mutilated scarecrow that bears an uncanny resemblance to a missing classmate that they used to torment; a family’s disastrous quest for land in the American West has grave consequences; and in the marvelous title story, two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove try to slake their thirst for blood and come to terms with their immortal relationship.

Vampires in the lemon grove --
Reeling for the Empire --
Seagull army descends on Strong Beach, 1979 --
Proving up --
Barn at the end of our term --
Dougbert Shackleton's rules for Antarctic tailgating --
New veterans --
Graveless doll of Eric Mutis]]> 243 Karen Russell 0307957233 H James 4 short-stories 3.68 2013 Vampires in the Lemon Grove: Stories
author: Karen Russell
name: H James
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/29
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: short-stories
review:
Six winners in a collection of eight is no small feat. It’s unfortunate that the two weakest entries are also the longest, but they have wisely been shunted to the back of this collection, so even readers who lose steam during “The New Veterans� will have already gotten to enjoy Ms Russell’s brilliant gems of imagination.
]]> Cinema Speculation 55922488 The long-awaited first work of nonfiction from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a deliriously entertaining, wickedly intelligent cinema book as unique and creative as anything by Quentin Tarantino.

In addition to being among the most celebrated of contemporary filmmakers, Quentin Tarantino is possibly the most joyously infectious movie lover alive. For years he has touted in interviews his eventual turn to writing books about films. Now, with Cinema Speculation, the time has come, and the results are everything his passionate fans—and all movie lovers—could have hoped for. Organized around key American films from the 1970s, all of which he first saw as a young moviegoer at the time, this book is as intellectually rigorous and insightful as it is rollicking and entertaining. At once film criticism, film theory, a feat of reporting, and wonderful personal history, it is all written in the singular voice recognizable immediately as QT’s and with the rare perspective about cinema possible only from one of the greatest practitioners of the artform ever.]]> 391 Quentin Tarantino 0063112582 H James 3 4.04 2022 Cinema Speculation
author: Quentin Tarantino
name: H James
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/19
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves:
review:
Mr Tarantino makes not the slightest attempt to give this book a defined narrative arc, but he definitely makes accessible the lost world of �70s popular cinema.
]]> <![CDATA[Drinking Distilled: A User’s Manual]]> 36642153
This easy-reading, colorful introduction for cocktail beginners, with approximately 100 succinct lessons on drinking culture, spirits, and cocktail making, is delivered in the pithy, wry style Morgenthaler is known for in his instructional videos and writing for beverage publications. Novices will learn how to order a drink, how to drink with the boss, how to drink at the airport, and more. Twelve perfect starter recipes—ranging from a Dry Gin Martini to a Batched Old-Fashioned (perfect for the flask)—plus thirty original illustrations round out this distillation for new enthusiasts.]]> 176 Jeffrey Morgenthaler 0399580557 H James 4 mixology
Mr Morgenthatler is at his best when he’s teaching either the basics of cocktails (importance of dilution, shaking versus stirring, etc.) or the essentials of safe and courteous drunkenness. The handful of recipes included are an eclectic bunch, ranging from an elevated agave‐based eggnog down to an entirely unpretentious sherbet‐and‐Sprite punch. He emphasizes putting some care into selection and construction, and he’s willing to forgo a lot of other lessons to keep the focus there.

Mr Morgenthaler also strikes a good middleground when it comes to drinking behavior. His general acceptance of drinking and drunkenness make his more specific prohibitions feel all the more serious. His flat rejection of drinking and driving, his disapproval of shots and drinking games, and his strong endorsement of the Irish goodbye (all good advice) are imbued with a brotherly air rather than a parental one. He falls short in a few places (alcoholism and date‐rape get addressed with unfortunate indirectness), and some content is either terrible advice or difficult‐to‐discern humor. (How is a reader supposed to take “If you’re not drinking on a holiday, you’re doing something wrong�?)

The intro to Chapter 1 notes that American youth aren’t indoctrinated into responsible drinking in a family setting as their European counterparts are, and Mr Morgenthaler seems to be hoping that his book might fill that gap. Despite imperfections, Drinking Distilled’s breadth and accessibility make it an promising tool to dispel mystery and impart general parameters for safe drinking. A parent could do worse than leaving a copy of this around the house for their 15‐year‐old to discover.]]> 3.95 Drinking Distilled: A User’s Manual
author: Jeffrey Morgenthaler
name: H James
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2018/04/23
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: mixology
review:
Atypically for a top‐bartender‐authored work, this little slip of a book from Mr Morgenthaler is targeted to the novice—someone who may not be able to name a single ingredient in a Daiquiri or gauge how heavily a 5:1 Martini will hit them compared to a pint of Miller Lite. This is the first book I’ve read that speaks to this audience, and it’s been a decade since it might have applied directly to me, but generally I found it admirable.

Mr Morgenthatler is at his best when he’s teaching either the basics of cocktails (importance of dilution, shaking versus stirring, etc.) or the essentials of safe and courteous drunkenness. The handful of recipes included are an eclectic bunch, ranging from an elevated agave‐based eggnog down to an entirely unpretentious sherbet‐and‐Sprite punch. He emphasizes putting some care into selection and construction, and he’s willing to forgo a lot of other lessons to keep the focus there.

Mr Morgenthaler also strikes a good middleground when it comes to drinking behavior. His general acceptance of drinking and drunkenness make his more specific prohibitions feel all the more serious. His flat rejection of drinking and driving, his disapproval of shots and drinking games, and his strong endorsement of the Irish goodbye (all good advice) are imbued with a brotherly air rather than a parental one. He falls short in a few places (alcoholism and date‐rape get addressed with unfortunate indirectness), and some content is either terrible advice or difficult‐to‐discern humor. (How is a reader supposed to take “If you’re not drinking on a holiday, you’re doing something wrong�?)

The intro to Chapter 1 notes that American youth aren’t indoctrinated into responsible drinking in a family setting as their European counterparts are, and Mr Morgenthaler seems to be hoping that his book might fill that gap. Despite imperfections, Drinking Distilled’s breadth and accessibility make it an promising tool to dispel mystery and impart general parameters for safe drinking. A parent could do worse than leaving a copy of this around the house for their 15‐year‐old to discover.
]]> <![CDATA[The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection]]> 997349 ix � Summation: 1989 � essay by Gardner Dozois
1 � Tiny Tango � [The Ragged World] � (1989) � novella by Judith Moffett
40 � Out of Copyright � (1989) � shortstory by Charles Sheffield
56 � For I Have Touched the Sky � [Kirinyaga � 3] � (1989) � novelette by Mike Resnick
78 � Alphas � (1989) � novelette by Gregory Benford
109 � At the Rialto � (1989) � novelette by Connie Willis
129 � Skin Deep � (1989) � shortstory by Kathe Koja
137 � The Egg � (1989) � novella by Steven Popkes
174 � Tales from the Venia Woods � [Roma Eterna] � (1989) � shortstory by Robert Silverberg
190 � Visiting the Dead � (1989) � shortstory by William King
202 � Dori Bangs � (1989) � shortstory by Bruce Sterling
215 � The Ends of the Earth � (1989) � novella by Lucius Shepard
267 � The Price of Oranges � (1989) � novelette by Nancy Kress
289 � Lottery Night � (1989) � novelette by S. P. Somtow
310 � A Deeper Sea � (1989) � novella by Alexander Jablokov
352 � The Edge of the World � (1989) � shortstory by Michael Swanwick
366 � Silver Lady and the Fortyish Man � (1989) � novelette by Megan Lindholm
385 � The Third Sex � (1989) � shortstory by Alan Brennert
402 � Winter on the Belle Fourche � (1989) � shortstory by Neal Barrett, Jr.
418 � Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another � [Time Gate] � (1989) � novelette by Robert Silverberg
452 � Relationships � (1989) � shortstory by Robert Sampson
459 � Just Another Perfect Day � (1989) � shortstory by John Varley
472 � The Loch Moose Monster � [Mirabile] � (1989) � novelette by Janet Kagan
504 � The Magic Bullet � (1989) � novelette by Brian Stableford
521 � The Odd Old Bird � [Doctor Eszterhazy] � (1988) � shortstory by Avram Davidson
530 � Great Work of Time � (1989) � novella by John Crowley
593 � Honorable Mentions: 1989 � essay by Gardner Dozois]]> 598 Gardner Dozois 0312044526 H James 3 11/22/63 that it can’t but seem like a pale version of that.

Interestingly, seven of the twenty‐five stories are not sci‐fi, even interpreting that term loosely. Most have fantastical elements, but at least one (“Winter on the Belle Fourche�) is straight‐up historical fiction and seems to be included just because it’s good.

Other highlights:
“A Deeper Sea� � the hands‐down winner for me (could this be the origin of the hilariously foul‐mouthed dolphins in John Scalzi’s Starter Villain?)
“The Edge of the World� � a forerunner of the New Weird movement
“Tales from the Venia Woods� � a nice mix of puzzling and poignant
“For I Have Touched the Sky� � one of just two stories offering a non‐Eurocentric perspective
“The Loch Moose Monster� � an OK story containing a really fun speculative biotechnology
“Great Work of Time� � the longest and most challenging story but worth the effort]]> 4.00 1990 The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Seventh Annual Collection
author: Gardner Dozois
name: H James
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves:
review:
An anthology like this is always going to be a mixed bag, and the passage of 35 years certainly is kinder to some stories than others. The first story, “Tiny Tango”—presumably first because it felt important at the time—is so AIDS‐focused that it retains value only as a historical oddity. “The Third Sex� should feel more relevant now than ever, but its ending is so pat that it feels blithe and repellant. Meanwhile, “Enter a Soldier. Later: Enter Another� captures the black‐box weirdness of contemporary A.I. so well that it really is probably more potent now than when it was written. “The Price of Oranges� hasn’t aged too poorly, but its kernel is so similar to Stephen King’s (much newer) 11/22/63 that it can’t but seem like a pale version of that.

Interestingly, seven of the twenty‐five stories are not sci‐fi, even interpreting that term loosely. Most have fantastical elements, but at least one (“Winter on the Belle Fourche�) is straight‐up historical fiction and seems to be included just because it’s good.

Other highlights:
“A Deeper Sea� � the hands‐down winner for me (could this be the origin of the hilariously foul‐mouthed dolphins in John Scalzi’s Starter Villain?)
“The Edge of the World� � a forerunner of the New Weird movement
“Tales from the Venia Woods� � a nice mix of puzzling and poignant
“For I Have Touched the Sky� � one of just two stories offering a non‐Eurocentric perspective
“The Loch Moose Monster� � an OK story containing a really fun speculative biotechnology
“Great Work of Time� � the longest and most challenging story but worth the effort
]]>