en-US Wed, 23 Apr 2025 16:34:55 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 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 John 3
My rating here is fuzzy. Could be lower. I often found the book frustrating, though also piquing my curiosity. Again Corey creates a rich, vibrant world. But again there is a lot you have to accept. Many of The Expanse books felt tantalizingly close to being more enjoyable, and this book continues that. The story is interesting, but the storytelling and maybe the writing don't quite resonate with me.

I liked how the authors show how trauma changes people. And, like The Expanse, we have someone thrust into leadership. I'll be curious to see how that plays out.

Spoilers ahead:

The punch of the book is that humans are only being treated as we currently treat other species on earth. If you are useful, and we can shape your usefulness, you will prosper. If not, we will eradicate you or push you to smaller and smaller habitats. ]]> 4.11 2024
author: James S.A. Corey
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

My rating here is fuzzy. Could be lower. I often found the book frustrating, though also piquing my curiosity. Again Corey creates a rich, vibrant world. But again there is a lot you have to accept. Many of The Expanse books felt tantalizingly close to being more enjoyable, and this book continues that. The story is interesting, but the storytelling and maybe the writing don't quite resonate with me.

I liked how the authors show how trauma changes people. And, like The Expanse, we have someone thrust into leadership. I'll be curious to see how that plays out.

Spoilers ahead:

The punch of the book is that humans are only being treated as we currently treat other species on earth. If you are useful, and we can shape your usefulness, you will prosper. If not, we will eradicate you or push you to smaller and smaller habitats.
]]> 217503540
By turns haunting, heartbreaking, and horrifying--and informed throughout by Baldwin's uncanny knowledge of the wounds racism has left in both its victims and its perpetrators--Going to Meet the Man is a major work by one of our most important writers.]]> 256 James Baldwin 0679761799 John 4 4.24 1965
author: James Baldwin
name: John
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves:
review:
After the first three stories, I was afraid this collection was going to be a miss, but starting with�� Previous Condition, the stories greatly improved. The Morning, The Evening, So Soon; Come Out the Wilderness are very good. And then the crescendo of the title story...wow!
]]> 208113717 Bestselling author Riley Sager returns with a Gothic chiller about a young caregiver assigned to work for a woman accused of a Lizzie Borden-like massacre decades earlier.

At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer��I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,�� Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.]]> 400 Riley Sager 059318324X John 2
We are storytelling animals, and often what is packaged as factual is really a story fed to us. We swallow it without realizing what it was.]]> 4.27 2023
author: Riley Sager
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:
These types of books are not my thing. But instead of writing about the things I don't like about this book, I'll make a broader statement about how easy it is to obfuscate and manipulate the truth to lead others into false beliefs. Here the author does so for the purpose of entertainment - I know this type of story is very popular. We like to draw a big line between fiction and nonfiction, but we live in a world where that line doesn't exist. We are bombarded by purposefully told half truths and deceptions which paint a false story. They tap into our emotions and sense of right and wrong, and lead us down a chosen path.

We are storytelling animals, and often what is packaged as factual is really a story fed to us. We swallow it without realizing what it was.
]]> 16700063
Ovid's poetical calendar of the Roman year is both a day-by-day account of festivals and observances and their origins, and a delightful retelling of myths and legends associated with particular dates. Written in the late years of the emperor Augustus, and cut short when the emperor sent the poet into exile, the poem's tone ranges from tragedy to farce, and its subject matter from astronomy and obscure ritual to Roman history and Greek mythology. Among the stories Ovid tells at length are those of Arion and the dolphin, the rape of Lucretia, the shield that fell from heaven, the adventures of Dido's sister, the Great Mother's journey to Rome, the killing of Remus, the bloodsucking birds, and the murderous daughter of King Servius. The poem also relates a wealth of customs and beliefs, such as the unluckiness of marrying in May.

This lively new edition by Anne and Peter Wiseman is the only modern prose translation of Ovid's Fasti and also the most accurate. The Wisemans also include an informative introduction to the calendar, numerous helpful notes, a detailed index of names, and a glossary of Latin terms.]]> 185 Ovid 0192824112 John 3 3.82 -12
author: Ovid
name: John
average rating: 3.82
book published: -12
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:
I didn't get into this as much as some of Ovid's other works.
]]> 56077 Cannery Row, the weedy lots and junk heaps and flophouses of Monterey, John Steinbeck once more brings to life the denizens of a netherworld of laughter and tears from Fauna, new headmistress of the local brothel, to Hazel, a bum whose mother must have wanted a daughter.

]]> 249 John Steinbeck 0143039474 John 3
Fun. A bit of a tall tale that talks about human nature. The romanticized lives of the downtrodden. ]]> 4.11 1954
author: John Steinbeck
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1954
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

Fun. A bit of a tall tale that talks about human nature. The romanticized lives of the downtrodden.
]]> 59732754
After stumbling into the spotlight, Willis finds himself launched into a wider world than he’s ever known, discovering not only the secret history of Chinatown, but the buried legacy of his own family. Infinitely inventive and deeply personal, exploring the themes of pop culture, assimilation, and immigration��Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterful novel yet.]]> 270 Charles Yu 0307907198 John 4 3.88 2020
author: Charles Yu
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves:
review:
Very smartly written. It doesn't get overly complicated like the TV show did, and makes its point as good if not better.
]]> 85384 ��
The Centaur is a modern retelling of the legend of Chiron, the noblest and wisest of the centaurs, who, painfully wounded yet unable to die, gave up his immortality on behalf of Prometheus. In the retelling, Olympus becomes small-town Olinger High School; Chiron is George Caldwell, a science teacher there; and Prometheus is Caldwell’s fifteen-year-old son, Peter. Brilliantly conflating the author’s remembered past with tales from Greek mythology, John Updike translates Chiron’s agonized search for relief into the incidents and accidents of three winter days spent in rural Pennsylvania in 1947. The result, said the judges of the National Book Award, is “a courageous and brilliant account of a conflict in gifts between an inarticulate American father and his highly articulate son.”]]> 304 John Updike 0449912167 John 3
I'm not familiar with the myth that Updike is basing this one, but for what I understood, I enjoyed it. I liked the writing and found details of life in 1947 interesting. ]]> 3.70 1963
author: John Updike
name: John
average rating: 3.70
book published: 1963
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

I'm not familiar with the myth that Updike is basing this one, but for what I understood, I enjoyed it. I liked the writing and found details of life in 1947 interesting.
]]> 195790847 A dark retelling of the Brothers Grimm's Goose Girl, rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic

Cordelia knows her mother is unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms, and her mother doesn't allow Cordelia to have a single friend—unless you count Falada, her mother's beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him. But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t sorcerers.

After a suspicious death in their small town, Cordelia’s mother insists they leave in the middle of the night, riding away on Falada’s sturdy back, leaving behind all Cordelia has ever known. They arrive at the remote country manor of a wealthy older man, the Squire, and his unwed sister, Hester. Cordelia’s mother intends to lure the Squire into marriage, and Cordelia knows this can only be bad news for the bumbling gentleman and his kind, intelligent sister.

Hester sees the way Cordelia shrinks away from her mother, how the young girl sits eerily still at dinner every night. Hester knows that to save her brother from bewitchment and to rescue the terrified Cordelia, she will have to face down a wicked witch of the worst kind.]]> 327 T. Kingfisher 1250244072 John 3 4.06 2024
author: T. Kingfisher
name: John
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:
An interesting premise, with a unique choice in storytelling, but the story didn't come together for me.
]]> 52892857 Read the original inspiration for the new, boldly reimagined film from producers Oprah Winfrey and Steven Spielberg, starring Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker's epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

���𲹻徱�Բ� The Color Purple was the first time I had seen Southern, Black women’s literature as world literature. In writing us into the world—bravely, unapologetically, and honestly—Alice Walker has given us a gift we will never be able to repay.�� —Tayari Jones

��The Color Purple was what church should have been, what honest familial reckoning could have been, and it is still the only art object in the world by which all three generations of Black artists in my family judge American art.�� —Kiese Laymon]]> 287 Alice Walker 0143135694 John 3
I can see why this won the awards it did, but the storytelling/letter writing weren't quite my cup of tea. ]]> 4.40 1982
author: Alice Walker
name: John
average rating: 4.40
book published: 1982
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

I can see why this won the awards it did, but the storytelling/letter writing weren't quite my cup of tea.
]]> 48717387
But once he passes beyond the city borders, he finds that there are dangers ahead as well as behind. Strange mystical forces are gathering in the shadows. And pursued not only by the affronted Stercza brothers, bent on vengeance, but also by the Holy Inquisition, Reynevan finds himself in the Narrenturm, the Tower of Fools.

The Tower is an asylum for the mad, or for those who dare to think differently and challenge the prevailing order. And escaping the Tower, avoiding the conflict around him, and keeping his own sanity might prove a greater challenge than Reynevan ever imagined.]]> 549 Andrzej Sapkowski 0316423696 John 3 3.57 2002
author: Andrzej Sapkowski
name: John
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
Hmm. On one hand the plot is a total mess, (perhaps intentionally?) But there is some good discussions of religion and morality.
]]> 951071
In Englander's amazingly taut and ambitious "The Twenty-seventh Man," a clerical error lands earnest, unpublished Pinchas Pelovits in prison with twenty-six writers slated for execution at Stalin's command, and in the grip of torture Pinchas composes a mini-masterpiece, which he recites in one glorious moment before author and audience are simultaneously annihilated. In "The Gilgul of Park Avenue," a Protestant has a religious awakening in the back of a New York taxi. In the collection's hilarious title story, a Hasidic man incensed by his wife's interminable menstrual cycle gets a dispensation from his rabbi to see a prostitute.����������������������������

The stories in For the Relief of Unbearable Urges are powerfully inventive and often haunting, steeped in the weight of Jewish history and in the customs of Orthodox life. But it is in the largeness of their spirit-- a spirit that finds in doubt a doorway to faith, that sees in despair a chance for the heart to deepen--and in the wisdom that so prodigiously transcends the author's twenty-eight years, that these stories are truly remarkable. Nathan Englander envisions a group of Polish Jews herded toward a train bound for Auschwitz and in a deft imaginative twist turns them into acrobats tumbling out of harm's way; he takes an elderly wigmaker and makes her, for a single moment, beautiful. Again and again, Englander does what feels he finds, wherever he looks, a province beyond death's dominion.

For the Relief of Unbearable Urges is a work of stunning authority and imagination--a book that is as wondrous and joyful as it is wrenchingly sad, and that heralds the arrival of a profoundly gifted new storyteller.

The Twenty-seventh Man
The Tumblers
Reunion
The Wig
The Gilgul of Park Avenue
Reb Kringle
The Last One Way
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
In This Way We Are Wise]]> 209 Nathan Englander 0375404929 John 4 4.01
author: Nathan Englander
name: John
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
The Tumblers and In This Way We Are Wise were my favorites.
]]> 36373223 The Middlesteins), about a cleaning lady on a quest for self-acceptance after her relationship with a loveable junkie goes awry.

Jen Beagin’s quirky, moving, “frank and unflinching�� (Josh Ferris) debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona—almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways.

In search of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her—the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she’s trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind.

The story of Mona’s journey to find her place in this working-class American world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunningly one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.]]> 240 Jen Beagin 1501183931 John 3 3.72 2015
author: Jen Beagin
name: John
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
I can see the foundations of Beagin's other (great) books here, but this one doesn't work as well. There are some funny moments and episodes, but overall it's ok.
]]> 59147716 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins and The Cold Millions comes a stunning collection about those moments when everything changes--for the better, for the worse, for the outrageous--as a diverse cast of characters bounces from Italy to Idaho, questioning their roles in life and finding inspiration in the unlikeliest places.

We all live like we're famous now, curating our social media presences, performing our identities, withholding those parts of ourselves we don't want others to see. In this riveting collection of stories from acclaimed author Jess Walter, a teenage girl tries to live up to the image of her beautiful, missing mother. An elderly couple confronts the fiction writer eavesdropping on their conversation. A son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place to care for the old man. A famous actor in recovery has a one-night stand with the world's most surprising film critic. And in the romantic title story, a shy twenty-one-year-old studying Latin in Rome during "the year of my reinvention" finds himself face-to-face with the Italian actress of his adolescent dreams.

Funny, poignant, and redemptive, this collection of short fiction offers a dazzling range of voices, backdrops, and situations. With his signature wit and bighearted approach to the darkest parts of humanity, Walter tackles the modern condition with a timeless touch, once again "solidifying his place in the contemporary canon as one of our most gifted builders of fictional worlds" (Esquire).]]> 274 Jess Walter 006286811X John 4
A batch of sneaky good stories. They creep up on you, in how much you are drawn in. Partly because of Walter's style. The stories reach a point where they pull the author lever, and viola, the next layer is revealed. Sometimes the floor is dropped out on the reader, other times the curtain hiding Oz is removed. In that way, all these stories end very strong. They are also packed with some great humor, oftentimes at unexpected moments.

The Way the World Ends was the best for me.....despite my disagreement with the hopium ending. I haven't read a story, short or long, that addresses the climate catastrophe so head on. Other than the ultra-short 3 page Cross the Woods, all the stories were very good. The title story was another excellent one.

This is the type of collection that makes me love short stories. The stories explore moments and characters and ideas, teasing them out just so. Amazing to read from the pen of a master. ]]> 4.05 2022
author: Jess Walter
name: John
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

A batch of sneaky good stories. They creep up on you, in how much you are drawn in. Partly because of Walter's style. The stories reach a point where they pull the author lever, and viola, the next layer is revealed. Sometimes the floor is dropped out on the reader, other times the curtain hiding Oz is removed. In that way, all these stories end very strong. They are also packed with some great humor, oftentimes at unexpected moments.

The Way the World Ends was the best for me.....despite my disagreement with the hopium ending. I haven't read a story, short or long, that addresses the climate catastrophe so head on. Other than the ultra-short 3 page Cross the Woods, all the stories were very good. The title story was another excellent one.

This is the type of collection that makes me love short stories. The stories explore moments and characters and ideas, teasing them out just so. Amazing to read from the pen of a master.
]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile�� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 John 3 Yarros tells a fun tale, and does so yanking the reader forward with her storytelling and prose. She knows how to make it all dramatic. It is a page-turner of the highest order. But.......

The book smacks of the lies of the dominating patriarchal mindset. The lie of patriarchy to women is on full display: Someday a man will dominate you in a way you like. Because that's the only choices Violet has, be dominated by Dain or by Xaden. Both think they know what is best for her, neither want to let her choose her own life. Overall the characters are pretty good, with the exception of Dain. He feels more like a caricature, safely making Xaden the more obvious alpha for Violet to choose.

The book is ripe with other lies of the patriarchy too. Emotional repression is mislabled as "in control" of emotions. Leaders always know what to do and should not be questioned. Violence is glorified. The false belief that as long as a man is violent to others, and not to me, he is trustworthy.

So if you can handle those things, it's a fun story. ]]> 4.56 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: John
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:

Yarros tells a fun tale, and does so yanking the reader forward with her storytelling and prose. She knows how to make it all dramatic. It is a page-turner of the highest order. But.......

The book smacks of the lies of the dominating patriarchal mindset. The lie of patriarchy to women is on full display: Someday a man will dominate you in a way you like. Because that's the only choices Violet has, be dominated by Dain or by Xaden. Both think they know what is best for her, neither want to let her choose her own life. Overall the characters are pretty good, with the exception of Dain. He feels more like a caricature, safely making Xaden the more obvious alpha for Violet to choose.

The book is ripe with other lies of the patriarchy too. Emotional repression is mislabled as "in control" of emotions. Leaders always know what to do and should not be questioned. Violence is glorified. The false belief that as long as a man is violent to others, and not to me, he is trustworthy.

So if you can handle those things, it's a fun story.
]]> 17601
In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves—and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.]]> 208 bell hooks 0743456084 John 4
There is soooo much to unpack here. I've never read a book that approached masculinity and the patriarchy from the angle that Hooks does. There was a lot I wholeheartedly endorsed. A lot that made me stop and reflect. I could strongly relate to what the author said about remembering as a child how I didn't want to be like my parents. And also how I avoided male peer groups, knowing that I couldn't be my authentic self around them. Boys are given terribly few options of what men can be like. If you only think you can have eggs/bacon/toast or pancakes for breakfast, you don't even know you can have cereal (in any of 100 types), eggs Benedict, cold pizza, etc.

Hooks also nails the lie that patriarchy will bring men fulfillment. It's so obvious it never does. In fact it only brings more threats to anything that might knock you down from your position of dominance. How exhausting! The patriarchy makes men miserable. And so we see how they want to make everyone else miserable too. There is such a strong desire for men to stuff joy wherever it exists today.

I also thought of a powerful lie of patriarchy not mentioned: That men will always know the right answer/thing to do in any situation. Men discover this lie when they are called on to make decisions - they often don't know what to do, then are forced to blurt out something and defend it because it is their idea. All the while only feeling worse about themselves for not being the all-knowing alpha male they are supposed to be.

This book also made me think (again) about my criticism of so many teen books; how characters in scary/horrible situations need to solve their own problems. They never go to adults for help in books. Is this partially tied to patriarchy? That for a person (boy) to grow up they must cut themselves off from help and be independently strong?
��
I found the author overly harsh on women. I know she is trying to make a strong point and fight against a feminist view about hating men. But I also think there’s a huge difference between creating a space where a man can be vulnerable and receive nurturing, and have a man drop his broken self onto you and expect you to do all the work to fix you. Other's need to be willing to assist, but it is the individual who must work to change. ]]> 4.38 2003
author: bell hooks
name: John
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves:
review:
A 4.5��

There is soooo much to unpack here. I've never read a book that approached masculinity and the patriarchy from the angle that Hooks does. There was a lot I wholeheartedly endorsed. A lot that made me stop and reflect. I could strongly relate to what the author said about remembering as a child how I didn't want to be like my parents. And also how I avoided male peer groups, knowing that I couldn't be my authentic self around them. Boys are given terribly few options of what men can be like. If you only think you can have eggs/bacon/toast or pancakes for breakfast, you don't even know you can have cereal (in any of 100 types), eggs Benedict, cold pizza, etc.

Hooks also nails the lie that patriarchy will bring men fulfillment. It's so obvious it never does. In fact it only brings more threats to anything that might knock you down from your position of dominance. How exhausting! The patriarchy makes men miserable. And so we see how they want to make everyone else miserable too. There is such a strong desire for men to stuff joy wherever it exists today.

I also thought of a powerful lie of patriarchy not mentioned: That men will always know the right answer/thing to do in any situation. Men discover this lie when they are called on to make decisions - they often don't know what to do, then are forced to blurt out something and defend it because it is their idea. All the while only feeling worse about themselves for not being the all-knowing alpha male they are supposed to be.

This book also made me think (again) about my criticism of so many teen books; how characters in scary/horrible situations need to solve their own problems. They never go to adults for help in books. Is this partially tied to patriarchy? That for a person (boy) to grow up they must cut themselves off from help and be independently strong?
��
I found the author overly harsh on women. I know she is trying to make a strong point and fight against a feminist view about hating men. But I also think there’s a huge difference between creating a space where a man can be vulnerable and receive nurturing, and have a man drop his broken self onto you and expect you to do all the work to fix you. Other's need to be willing to assist, but it is the individual who must work to change.
]]> 8697507 The fantasy novel you’ve always wished Jane Austen had written

Shades of Milk and Honey is exactly what we could expect from Jane Austen if she had been a fantasy writer: Pride and Prejudice meets Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It is an intimate portrait of a woman, Jane, and her quest for love in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.

Jane and her sister Melody vie for the attentions of eligible men, and while Jane’s skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face. When Jane realizes that one of Melody’s suitors is set on taking advantage of her sister for the sake of her dowry, she pushes her skills to the limit of what her body can withstand in order to set things right—and, in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.]]> 208 Mary Robinette Kowal 1429963360 John 0 to-read 3.51 2010
author: Mary Robinette Kowal
name: John
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26486167 372 Sean Platt 1629550361 John 2
Overly repetitive, it mentions the same actions again and again. If the book had a table of contents and an index, the authors could reference them, and it could have been half as long and still said everything it needed to. But then I guess the authors couldn't brag about how much content they were providing for such a low price.

Insightful, in the sense that it helped me realize I have no interest publishing books. ]]> 3.67 2013
author: Sean Platt
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

Overly repetitive, it mentions the same actions again and again. If the book had a table of contents and an index, the authors could reference them, and it could have been half as long and still said everything it needed to. But then I guess the authors couldn't brag about how much content they were providing for such a low price.

Insightful, in the sense that it helped me realize I have no interest publishing books.
]]> 1319 168 Steven Pressfield 0446691437 John 0 to-read 3.95 2002
author: Steven Pressfield
name: John
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54268503
* Boost your writing career with marketing strategies that are proven to sell more books.
* Discover expert tips on platform building, blogging and social media.
* Learn which approaches are best for selling fiction vs. non-fiction.
* Implement powerful ways to make your ebooks more discoverable.
* Increase your visibility by optimizing keywords and categories.
* Weigh the pros and cons of Kindle Unlimited, and find out exactly how to tweak your promotional plans depending on whether you stay exclusive to Amazon or opt for wider distribution.

And that's just for starters...]]> 222 David Gaughran John 0 to-read 4.53 2011
author: David Gaughran
name: John
average rating: 4.53
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 944445 128 George MacDonald Ross 0192876201 John 3 3.46 1984
author: George MacDonald Ross
name: John
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:
After reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, I wanted to read more about Leibinz. The first half of this book was just what I was looking for. The second half discussions of philosophy, metaphysics, and religion I skimmed.
]]> 28749 Animal Farm for the 21st century, this is an incendiary political satire of unprecedented imagination, spiky humor, and cautionary appreciation for the hysteric in everyone.]]> 130 George Saunders 1594481520 John 3 3.72 2005
author: George Saunders
name: John
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 41441261 224 Florian Freistetter 1633884562 John 3
After reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, I wanted to read more about Newton, and this book was just what I was looking for.]]> 3.45 2017
author: Florian Freistetter
name: John
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

After reading Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, I wanted to read more about Newton, and this book was just what I was looking for.
]]> 874428 288 Jenny Diski 0312422628 John 3
An enjoyable, reflective read. I vibe with Diski's observations on humanity and her own live. I particularly enjoyed her Contemplation of being 50 on pages 40-43

I also liked her fast-forwarding trick she talks about near the end. Although I do something similar looking forward to exciting things (concerts, time with friends, etc), I don't think I have tried it to get past things I am distressing over. I want to try it. ]]> 3.97 2002
author: Jenny Diski
name: John
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2002
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

An enjoyable, reflective read. I vibe with Diski's observations on humanity and her own live. I particularly enjoyed her Contemplation of being 50 on pages 40-43

I also liked her fast-forwarding trick she talks about near the end. Although I do something similar looking forward to exciting things (concerts, time with friends, etc), I don't think I have tried it to get past things I am distressing over. I want to try it.
]]> 199463705
Parents awaken in a home in the woods, again and again, to find themselves aging as their infant remains unchanged. An employee is menaced by a conspiracy-minded security guard and accused of sending a sinister viral email. An aging tour guide leads a troublesome group to the site of a UFO, witnessing the slow social deterioration as the rules of decorum go out the window.

In each of Williams�� ten stories, time is as fallible as the characters, and reality is witnessed through the gauzy folds of a dream—or a nightmare. Bucolic scenes devolve into harrowing exercises in abandonment; the quotidian nature of office life raises serious questions of existential fortitude. Williams is keenly aware of the insidiousness lurking in the shadows of the everyday, ably spiking it with humor. He depicts the divided self of the parent, the distances necessary to protect our children, and the fallout of our deepest relationships. Williams sees the perversity in the mundane and dares readers to recognize the impact—and beauty—of time’s relentless movement.

With exquisite prose and a lacerating wit, Beautiful Days holds a mirror to the many absurdities of being human and refuses to let us look away.]]> 240 Zach Williams 0385550146 John 4 3.46 2024
author: Zach Williams
name: John
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
A fun collection of stories. They makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Psychologically unnerving. I really like the first three and the last four. The three in the middle weren't as good. Tough to pick a favorite, but maybe Wood Sorrel House.
]]> 5634236 Your Money or Your Life has been considered the go-to book for taking back your life by changing your relationship with money. Hundreds of thousands of people have followed this nine-step program, learning to live more deliberately and meaningfully with Vicki Robin’s guidance. This fully revised and updated edition with a foreword by "the Frugal Guru" (New Yorker) Mr. Money Mustache is the ultimate makeover of this bestselling classic, ensuring that its time-tested wisdom applies to people of all ages and covers modern topics like investing in index funds, managing revenue streams like side hustles and freelancing, tracking your finances online, and having difficult conversations about money.

Whether you’re just beginning your financial life or heading towards retirement, this book will show you how to:

�� Get out of debt and develop savings
�� Save money through mindfulness and good habits, rather than strict budgeting
�� Declutter your life and live well for less
�� Invest your savings and begin creating wealth
�� Save the planet while saving money
�� …and so much more!]]> 328 Joe Dominguez 0143115766 John 4
For someone who wants to have a better understanding of finances and get control over their own, this would be a good place to start. It breaks things down in the basic, easy to understand elements. It emphasizes contentment and "enough" which are so powerful. But, the tracking strategy is a bit overly meticulous, which might turn some people off. And, as someone further down the road to financial independence, it didn't offer anything new. (Which I admit is a self-centered critique.)

I also appreciated connecting wanton excess with destroying the planet and the many references towards living and investing greener. ]]> 4.03 1992
author: Joe Dominguez
name: John
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1992
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

For someone who wants to have a better understanding of finances and get control over their own, this would be a good place to start. It breaks things down in the basic, easy to understand elements. It emphasizes contentment and "enough" which are so powerful. But, the tracking strategy is a bit overly meticulous, which might turn some people off. And, as someone further down the road to financial independence, it didn't offer anything new. (Which I admit is a self-centered critique.)

I also appreciated connecting wanton excess with destroying the planet and the many references towards living and investing greener.
]]> 13259181
Robert David MacDonald's translation of Faust, used in acclaimed productions in Scotland (Glasgow Citizens') and England (Lyric Hammersmith), offers access to the play in the English language for readers and playgoers alike and opens up the extraordinary range and pace of Goethe's language, rhythms, imagery and ideas, without sacrificing any of the play's humour. The Open University has adopted the translation as a set book for the course entitled 'From Enlightenment to Romanticism'.]]> 425 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe John 3
I understand why it was so hard to find a copy of part two included with part one. One is straightforward, but two reads like those mashup video games with bunches of characters from other games, Kingdom Hearts or Super Smash Brothers. (Lets have griffins, a chorus of ants, Seismos, fauns, and satyrs do parts) My score mostly reflects the quality of part one, and not the bizarre nature of part two.

Kudos to van Goethe, and to the translator. The poetic storytelling with rhyme and meter is incredible. It was very easy to read, it flowed along. I can't imagine how much rewriting it took. It makes me wish I could read it in German. ]]> 2.67 1832
author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
name: John
average rating: 2.67
book published: 1832
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/17
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

I understand why it was so hard to find a copy of part two included with part one. One is straightforward, but two reads like those mashup video games with bunches of characters from other games, Kingdom Hearts or Super Smash Brothers. (Lets have griffins, a chorus of ants, Seismos, fauns, and satyrs do parts) My score mostly reflects the quality of part one, and not the bizarre nature of part two.

Kudos to van Goethe, and to the translator. The poetic storytelling with rhyme and meter is incredible. It was very easy to read, it flowed along. I can't imagine how much rewriting it took. It makes me wish I could read it in German.
]]> 42036538
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.]]> 448 Tamsyn Muir 1250313198 John 4
What a riot! A book that came to me highly recommended, yet I was apprehensive about. I loved it. The writing is fabulous, the story is very imaginative, but above all, the characters are stupendous. What a character Gideon is! What a voice Muir writes her with!

There is so much going on in the world around Gideon.....so much that Gideon doesn't care about, but affect you, the reader. And the author does an amazing job giving you just enough to keep it all from being too confusing, while letting you get inside Gideon's head. And what a head it is! The wit and one liners are epic! And despite being self-absorbed (albeit for good reasons), petulant, and easily distracted, Gideon is a pure joy to follow around.

There are some interesting studies in partnership dynamics. If (When) I read the book again, I would to focus more on them. Each house's pairings are unique, with differences above and below the surface. And Muir plays them out so well.

This is a different book than the short stories of Karen Russell, but I was reminded of her. The world of Gideon is crazy, but the relationships play out like a Russell story for me.


Spoilers ahead:

I am trying to think of how the ending would have felt if I had not known there were more books in the series, and what they are titled. I liked the ending a lot, but I feel like I lost some of the surprise. When this book first came out, it must have been a bigger shock. It's a bold move to discard such a great protagonist and move onto a new one. I can't wait to see where the story goes. ]]> 4.19 2019
author: Tamsyn Muir
name: John
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

What a riot! A book that came to me highly recommended, yet I was apprehensive about. I loved it. The writing is fabulous, the story is very imaginative, but above all, the characters are stupendous. What a character Gideon is! What a voice Muir writes her with!

There is so much going on in the world around Gideon.....so much that Gideon doesn't care about, but affect you, the reader. And the author does an amazing job giving you just enough to keep it all from being too confusing, while letting you get inside Gideon's head. And what a head it is! The wit and one liners are epic! And despite being self-absorbed (albeit for good reasons), petulant, and easily distracted, Gideon is a pure joy to follow around.

There are some interesting studies in partnership dynamics. If (When) I read the book again, I would to focus more on them. Each house's pairings are unique, with differences above and below the surface. And Muir plays them out so well.

This is a different book than the short stories of Karen Russell, but I was reminded of her. The world of Gideon is crazy, but the relationships play out like a Russell story for me.


Spoilers ahead:

I am trying to think of how the ending would have felt if I had not known there were more books in the series, and what they are titled. I liked the ending a lot, but I feel like I lost some of the surprise. When this book first came out, it must have been a bigger shock. It's a bold move to discard such a great protagonist and move onto a new one. I can't wait to see where the story goes.
]]> 43326735
In The End of Ice, we follow Jamail as he scales Alaska’s Denali, the highest peak in North America, dives in the warm crystal waters of the Coral Sea only to find bleached coral reefs, and explores the tundra of St. Paul Island where he meets the last subsistence seal hunters of the Bering Sea and witnesses its collapsing food web.

Accompanied along the way by climate scientists and people whose families for centuries have fished, farmed, and lived in the areas he visits, Jamail begins to accept the fact that Earth, most likely, is in a hospice situation. Ironically, this allows him to renew his passion for the planet’s wild places, cherishing Earth in a way he has never been able to before.

The End of Ice offers an essential firsthand chronicle of the catastrophic reality of our situation and the incalculable necessity of relishing this vulnerable, fragile planet while we still can.]]> 272 Dahr Jamail 1620972344 John 3
The book is just 6 years old, but feels dated in terms of how much worse human terraforming has gotten. I appreciated the writing and storytelling and would have likely rated it higher if I had read it a few years ago. ]]> 4.30 2019
author: Dahr Jamail
name: John
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

The book is just 6 years old, but feels dated in terms of how much worse human terraforming has gotten. I appreciated the writing and storytelling and would have likely rated it higher if I had read it a few years ago.
]]> 203579143 A groundbreaking exploration of Native American identity, tribal enrollment, ancestry, and what all of this reveals about our understandings of race and politicsThe number of people in the United States who self-identify as Native has exploded in the last two decades. In the 2020 Census, more than twice as many people checked the box for “American Indian or Alaska Native�� than in 2000. Sure, there have been improvements to the ways that we are able to identify race in this once-a-decade survey, and there have been efforts to reduce the undercount of people living on reservations. But it’s clear that some people are lying, some people are wrong, and many are caught in a growing chasm between self-identity and verification.The concept of having evidence to determine your tribal identity through measurable, objective means, is somewhat unique to Native Americans who, unlike any other racial or ethnic group in the United States, undergo bureaucratic processes to prove themselves. Every tribe is different �� some trace lineage, others consult historic rolls, and some calculate blood quantum. Having a card to confirm your tribal enrollment is not synonymous with being Native, and yet it offers a way to validate something intangible.In The Indian Card, Carrie Schuettpelz dives deep into the idiosyncrasy and the often violent history of the ways that Native people establish an identity that is cultural, racial, and political all at once. How do blood, land, money, integrity, and tradition define tribal citizenship? How was kinship determined before colonization? And what would it look like to define community for ourselves?]]> 259 Carrie Schuettpelz 1250903165 John 3
Thoughtful and thought provoking. Loved the Excel comments. ]]> 4.31 2024
author: Carrie Schuettpelz
name: John
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

Thoughtful and thought provoking. Loved the Excel comments.
]]> 385255 Random Family is the story of young people trying to outrun their destinies. Jessica and Boy George ride the wild adventure between riches and ruin, while Coco and Cesar stick closer to the street, all four caught in a precarious dance between survival and death. Friends get murdered; the DEA and FBI investigate Boy George; Cesar becomes a fugitive; Jessica and Coco endure homelessness, betrayal, the heartbreaking separation of prison, and, throughout it all, the insidious damage of poverty.

Charting the tumultuous cycle of the generations - as girls become mothers, boys become criminals, and hope struggles against deprivation - LeBlanc slips behind the cold statistics and sensationalism and comes back with a riveting, haunting, and true story.]]> 409 Adrian Nicole LeBlanc 0743254430 John 4 4.27 2003
author: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 969276 "Chekhovian…Every line of Fox's story, every gesture of her characters, is alive and surprising."—Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, New York Times

On the eve of their trip to Africa, Laura Maldonada Clapper and her husband, Desmond, sit in a New York City hotel room, drinking scotch-and-sodas and awaiting the arrival of three friends: Clara Hansen, Laura's timid, brow-beaten daughter from a previous marriage; Carlos, Laura's flamboyant and charming brother; and Peter Rice, a melancholy editor whom Laura hasn't seen for over a year. But what begins as a bon voyage party soon parlays into a bitter, claustrophobic clash of family resentment. From the hotel room to the tony restaurant to which the five embark, Laura presides over the escalating innuendo and hostility with imperial cruelty, for she is hiding the knowledge that her mother, the family matriarch, has died of a heart attack that morning. A novel as intense as it is unerringly observed, The Widow's Children is another revelation of the storyteller's art from the incomparable Paula Fox.]]> 224 Paula Fox 0393319636 John 3 3.66 1976
author: Paula Fox
name: John
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1976
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 55711726 The People We Keep is about a young songwriter longing to find a home in the world.

Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at Margo’s diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows�� her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.

As April moves through the world, meeting people who feel like home, she chronicles her life in the songs she writes and discovers that where she came from doesn’t dictate who she has to be.

This lyrical, unflinching tale is for anyone who has ever yearned for the fierce power of found family or to grasp the profound beauty of choosing to belong.]]> 368 Allison Larkin 1982171294 John 0 to-read 4.07 2021
author: Allison Larkin
name: John
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 826 The New York Times Book Review called Neal Stephenson's most recent novel "electrifying" and "hilarious".�� but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic Cryptonomicon, it's back-to-school time. Back to The Big U, that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years out of print, The Big U is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.]]> 308 Neal Stephenson 0380816032 John 2
Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more if I read it at a different time, but it came across as more tedious than humorous. You can see the beginnings of the writer Stephenson became. ]]> 3.26 1984
author: Neal Stephenson
name: John
average rating: 3.26
book published: 1984
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

Perhaps I would have enjoyed this more if I read it at a different time, but it came across as more tedious than humorous. You can see the beginnings of the writer Stephenson became.
]]> 24958073
Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run -- if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem -- he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters -- if they didn't hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven -- but not before they are hanged.







First Law Trilogy
The Blade Itself
Before They Are Hanged
Last Argument of Kings


For more from Joe Abercrombie, check out:

Novels in the First Law world
Best Served Cold
The Heroes
Red Country]]> 515 Joe Abercrombie 0316387355 John 4 4.39 2007
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: John
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
Enjoyable and well told. There is a familiarity in the story and the world��, but it feels like it is paying homage to fantasy that went before it, not simply retreading.
]]> 57356079
What happens to a country that tells generation after generation of white men that they deserve power? What happens when success is defined by status over women and people of color, instead of by actual accomplishments?

Through the last 150 years of American history -- from the post-reconstruction South and the mythic stories of cowboys in the West, to the present-day controversy over NFL protests and the backlash against the rise of women in politics -- Ijeoma Oluo exposes the devastating consequences of white male supremacy on women, people of color, and white men themselves. Mediocre investigates the real costs of this phenomenon in order to imagine a new white male identity, one free from racism and sexism.

As provocative as it is essential, this book will upend everything you thought you knew about American identity and offers a bold new vision of American greatness.]]> 336 Ijeoma Oluo 158005952X John 4
I should have written myself more notes as I read this. It gave me plenty to chew over. Plenty of times I had to stop reading and reflect. I agree wholeheartedly with Oluo, white male society thinks being mediocre should grant them an easy life of wealth and comfort, and the praise of everyone around them. I learned quite a bit, about Wild Bill Cody, about the early history of football. And it made me think of Neal Gaiman and the recent revelations about him. It also forced me to reflect on times when I have done "the right thing" for selfish reasons. Better than doing the wrong thing, but still plenty to work on.

There were two passages at the end that I highlighted.
"No one is more pessimistic about white men than white men." p.271
"They are missing something vital - an intrinsic sense of self that is not tied to how much power or success they can hold over others - and that hole is eating away at them." p.273
Both of these are spot on. It often seems like it must be exhausting to see everything as a threat to white male superiority. Any new idea, anyone making a joke, anything you don't understand, you must be vigilant, and if unsure, best to see them as a threat and rail against them. How fragile is your superiority if so many things threaten it. But if that's the only thing, or the most important thing, you have to fight or feel (even more) miserable. I pass.

I also wanted to note how much I enjoyed the writing. It is concise, straightforward, and easy to follow, despite wading through heavy topics. I'll read more by the author. ]]> 4.40 2020
author: Ijeoma Oluo
name: John
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves:
review:
4.5

I should have written myself more notes as I read this. It gave me plenty to chew over. Plenty of times I had to stop reading and reflect. I agree wholeheartedly with Oluo, white male society thinks being mediocre should grant them an easy life of wealth and comfort, and the praise of everyone around them. I learned quite a bit, about Wild Bill Cody, about the early history of football. And it made me think of Neal Gaiman and the recent revelations about him. It also forced me to reflect on times when I have done "the right thing" for selfish reasons. Better than doing the wrong thing, but still plenty to work on.

There were two passages at the end that I highlighted.
"No one is more pessimistic about white men than white men." p.271
"They are missing something vital - an intrinsic sense of self that is not tied to how much power or success they can hold over others - and that hole is eating away at them." p.273
Both of these are spot on. It often seems like it must be exhausting to see everything as a threat to white male superiority. Any new idea, anyone making a joke, anything you don't understand, you must be vigilant, and if unsure, best to see them as a threat and rail against them. How fragile is your superiority if so many things threaten it. But if that's the only thing, or the most important thing, you have to fight or feel (even more) miserable. I pass.

I also wanted to note how much I enjoyed the writing. It is concise, straightforward, and easy to follow, despite wading through heavy topics. I'll read more by the author.
]]> 61885131 Heartstopper meets A Knight’s Tale in this queer medieval rom-com YA debut about love, friendship, and being brave enough to change the course of history.

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run-up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy, and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen's childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom's only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, Gwen and Art make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight, and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen's royal brother. Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.]]> 416 Lex Croucher 1250847214 John 3
Loads of fun. ]]> 3.96 2023
author: Lex Croucher
name: John
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

Loads of fun.
]]> 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]> 352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 John 2 A 2.5 3.87 2023
author: Carissa Orlando
name: John
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
A 2.5
]]> 18655998 A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).

Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.

As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love -- and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).]]> 771 Donna Tartt 0316055441 John 2
A very frustrating read. For every bit of the book I enjoyed, there was something that annoyed me. The book tries to do too much. It is a sweeping story, but it did not pass the believable test for me. The first 2/3s of the book have some moderate coincidences, but the final 1/3 is ridiculous. Things are always timed to happen just so. There seemed to be a lot of manipulation of the reader.

Theo has many complicated sides, but he didn't make a coherent whole. I wasn't impressed with any of the characters really. Boris is overly active, but the rest seem so passive, objects really.

A book that a lot of people will enjoy, but not for me.]]> 4.05 2013
author: Donna Tartt
name: John
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2019/12/06
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

A very frustrating read. For every bit of the book I enjoyed, there was something that annoyed me. The book tries to do too much. It is a sweeping story, but it did not pass the believable test for me. The first 2/3s of the book have some moderate coincidences, but the final 1/3 is ridiculous. Things are always timed to happen just so. There seemed to be a lot of manipulation of the reader.

Theo has many complicated sides, but he didn't make a coherent whole. I wasn't impressed with any of the characters really. Boris is overly active, but the rest seem so passive, objects really.

A book that a lot of people will enjoy, but not for me.
]]> 29983711 Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan.

So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.]]> 490 Min Jin Lee 1455563935 John 3
Lee writes a very sweeping story, the ups and downs are tremendous....but at times maybe a bit fantastic. Having Yoseb travel to Nagasaki was a bit much. I realize that she is playing into the pachinko metaphor, that fortunes swing out of our control, but the family member's fates are a little too dramatic.

The author chooses to write about the biggest moments, but mostly only those big moments. At times it works well, but also at times I wished for a little more about the characters to help me understand them. I liked the characters, but they didn't seem filled in. I think I would have enjoyed the book more it it had been longer with more character development.

Racism plays a central role in the book. Lee throws no punches dealing with the topic. It was educational to learn more about how the Japanese treat Koreans. The topic felt fresh, perhaps because it did not take place in America.

I can see why the book is very popular, I think most people will like it more than me. It was a near miss for my palette.]]> 4.25 2017
author: Min Jin Lee
name: John
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2019/07/26
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
A 3.5 - A tough one to rate. Divided into thirds I would probably rate them 3.5 - 2 - 4.5. The last sections of the book are very good, but the middle felt like it was muddling. If I read it again, I might like it much more or less.

Lee writes a very sweeping story, the ups and downs are tremendous....but at times maybe a bit fantastic. Having Yoseb travel to Nagasaki was a bit much. I realize that she is playing into the pachinko metaphor, that fortunes swing out of our control, but the family member's fates are a little too dramatic.

The author chooses to write about the biggest moments, but mostly only those big moments. At times it works well, but also at times I wished for a little more about the characters to help me understand them. I liked the characters, but they didn't seem filled in. I think I would have enjoyed the book more it it had been longer with more character development.

Racism plays a central role in the book. Lee throws no punches dealing with the topic. It was educational to learn more about how the Japanese treat Koreans. The topic felt fresh, perhaps because it did not take place in America.

I can see why the book is very popular, I think most people will like it more than me. It was a near miss for my palette.
]]> 10306358
“A tremendously gifted writer whose highly personal voice should excite us in much the same way that Raymond Carver’s or Jeffrey Eugenides’s voice did when we first heard it."�� The Washington Post

Three brothers tear their way through childhood�� smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn—he’s Puerto Rican, she’s white—and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmakes a family many times. Life in this family is fierce and absorbing, full of chaos and heartbreak and the euphoria of belonging completely to one another. From the intense familial unity felt by a child to the profound alienation he endures as he begins to see the world, this beautiful novel reinvents the coming-of-age story in a way that is sly and punch-in-the-stomach powerful.

"We the Animals is a dark jewel of a book. It’s heartbreaking. It’s beautiful. It resembles no other book I’ve read.”—Michael Cunningham

"A fiery ode to boyhood . . . A welterweight champ of a book."�� NPR, Weekend Edition]]> 128 Justin Torres 0547576722 John 3 A 3.5 3.72 2011
author: Justin Torres
name: John
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:
A 3.5
]]> 60930
Appearing in print for the first time, "Amnesty" is a story of a woman named Noah who works to negotiate the tense and co-dependent relationship between humans and a species of invaders. Also new to this collection is "The Book of Martha" which asks: What would you do if God granted you the ability—and responsibility—to save humanity from itself?
Like all of Octavia Butler’s best writing, these works of the imagination are parables of the contemporary world. She proves constant in her vigil, an unblinking pessimist hoping to be proven wrong, and one of contemporary literature’s strongest voices.

Bloodchild
The evening and the morning and the night
Near of kin
Speech sounds
Crossover
Positive obsession
Furor scribendi
Amnesty
The Book of Martha]]> 214 Octavia E. Butler 1583226982 John 4 4.35 1995
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: John
average rating: 4.35
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
Octavia Butler is another author that I can't believe I haven't read until now. But in the last year or two, I have run across enough references to her that I finally added her to my list. And I am glad I did. These are wildly imaginative stories. For several I struggled for a few pages to get my head around the situations she was describing. But once I did, they were wonderful to think about. I loved the subtleties in situations. She is able to make vastly unique settings to explore concepts like racism, sexism, and slavery. I will definitely read more of her.
]]> 9519944 238 Jacob Lund Fisker 145360121X John 4
The book also highlights how much conformity drives most individual's decisions. Have to stay "normal." I appreciated the section talking about how easily humans can adapt to a wide variety of temperatures. So many people I know seem to treat being slightly cold or warm as akin to waterboarding.

There were some sections that seemed a little off. Like the discussions of physical fitness. The "minimums" seemed a bit extreme, though I agree people underestimate themselves. And the author seems to think everyone is able-bodied and able to achieve the same level of physical and mental acuity. But these are minor points adjacent to the main thrust of the book.

The author only briefly touched on happiness, which for me, has been a bigger key to re-framing wealth and finances. It always comes from within us, not from things. Once I realized that, cutting spending became easier.

Worth the read. ]]> 3.94 2010
author: Jacob Lund Fisker
name: John
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:
An interesting read. It certainly is aptly named "Extreme." Lots to think about, lots I agree with. Chasing possessions is so hollow and pointless, getting off the treadmill of acquiring makes for a much more enjoyable life and save money. It's incredible to see how advertising can be boiled down to selling dissatisfaction and creating problems a person didn't know they had, so that you can sell them a product to solve the new problem. The maker of the medicine will always say, "You're looking sick."

The book also highlights how much conformity drives most individual's decisions. Have to stay "normal." I appreciated the section talking about how easily humans can adapt to a wide variety of temperatures. So many people I know seem to treat being slightly cold or warm as akin to waterboarding.

There were some sections that seemed a little off. Like the discussions of physical fitness. The "minimums" seemed a bit extreme, though I agree people underestimate themselves. And the author seems to think everyone is able-bodied and able to achieve the same level of physical and mental acuity. But these are minor points adjacent to the main thrust of the book.

The author only briefly touched on happiness, which for me, has been a bigger key to re-framing wealth and finances. It always comes from within us, not from things. Once I realized that, cutting spending became easier.

Worth the read.
]]> 58245333
A dream comes true for Maddy as she takes part in a novel television experiment in which eight strangers must survive on a deserted Scottish island for a year with minimal equipment and incommunicado.

18 months later, Maddy's dream has turned into a nightmare. The authorities pick up the young woman in a fishing village on the mainland. Desperate, she reports how the boat that was supposed to pick up the participants after a year did not come. And how in the following weeks one after the other died, not from hunger or disease, but from human hands. But what is Maddy hiding? And how did she manage to get off the island alive?]]> 400 Sarah Goodwin John 4
The book is well laid out too. The interspersed interviews are well done. They tease the reader forward.

A few of the survival elements seemed a bit stretched. It was very convenient that they didn't run out of lighter fluid. And there seems to be a bit too much dead wood around. But all around it was enjoyable. ]]> 4.23 2021
author: Sarah Goodwin
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:
The middle third of this is excellent! It starts a little slow, and the ending is average, but all the group dynamics and mob rule are excellently portrayed. The need for a scapegoat, the belief that people you don't like are plotting. It's wonderfully teased out.

The book is well laid out too. The interspersed interviews are well done. They tease the reader forward.

A few of the survival elements seemed a bit stretched. It was very convenient that they didn't run out of lighter fluid. And there seems to be a bit too much dead wood around. But all around it was enjoyable.
]]> 455992 464 Leonard Shlain 0140196013 John 5
I often think about how much our culture restricts and shapes our thinking. Some ways are obvious, but there are many more subtle ways. We view "normal" through such a narrow time frame. We even think of "history" so narrowly, based on written accounts and the little archeological evidence before it. But the last 5000 years are a small fraction of human history. There is so much about the way humans have related and interacted that we don't know. This book gives me more to think about in this area.

When I walked away from Christianity more than 20 years ago, I didn't waste time trying to dismantle it. Over the years I have been exposed to various critiques and commentary. But this is the first time I have read such a holistic explanation for both the old and new testaments. It is fascinating that the rise of monotheism and patriarchy are so interlinked.

With it being January of 2025, I was struck by the framing of Hitler in the radio era, and showing how he used the new technology to exploit people. It may help explain Trump’s appeal with his tweets and other stunts. He knows how to manipulate the new media in a way people aren’t immune to yet. If the author is right, in a generation the same tactics will work less well.

Apart from the content, the book is also easy to read and approachable. It can be dense, but I never felt lost. Though I very much paced myself in reading it. Small doses, spaced out over days while I read other books.

I love books that make me think in big ways and small, and this one certainly does that. I look forward to reading more by the author, and reading this one again.]]> 4.17 1998
author: Leonard Shlain
name: John
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1998
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:
I'm going to have to buy this so I can read it again and mark passages. Shlain lays out a very compelling case, albeit one that is circumstantial at times. I don't know that I buy it hook, line, and sinker, but it offers a lot to think about and ponder. I’ve long had an understanding that writing and the alphabet were vastly important inventions. But never thought about how they changed the way people think and process information. And was clueless to how they revolutionized cultures.

I often think about how much our culture restricts and shapes our thinking. Some ways are obvious, but there are many more subtle ways. We view "normal" through such a narrow time frame. We even think of "history" so narrowly, based on written accounts and the little archeological evidence before it. But the last 5000 years are a small fraction of human history. There is so much about the way humans have related and interacted that we don't know. This book gives me more to think about in this area.

When I walked away from Christianity more than 20 years ago, I didn't waste time trying to dismantle it. Over the years I have been exposed to various critiques and commentary. But this is the first time I have read such a holistic explanation for both the old and new testaments. It is fascinating that the rise of monotheism and patriarchy are so interlinked.

With it being January of 2025, I was struck by the framing of Hitler in the radio era, and showing how he used the new technology to exploit people. It may help explain Trump’s appeal with his tweets and other stunts. He knows how to manipulate the new media in a way people aren’t immune to yet. If the author is right, in a generation the same tactics will work less well.

Apart from the content, the book is also easy to read and approachable. It can be dense, but I never felt lost. Though I very much paced myself in reading it. Small doses, spaced out over days while I read other books.

I love books that make me think in big ways and small, and this one certainly does that. I look forward to reading more by the author, and reading this one again.
]]> 6953508
Does living with a pet really make people happier and healthier? What can we learn from biomedical research with mice? Who enjoyed a better quality of life—the chicken on a dinner plate or the rooster who died in a Saturday-night cockfight? Why is it wrong to eat the family dog? Drawing on more than two decades of research in the emerging field of anthrozoology, the science of human–animal relations, Hal Herzog offers surprising answers to these and other questions related to the moral conundrums we face day in and day out regarding the creatures with whom we share our world.

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat is a highly entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human–animal relations, based on Dr. Herzog’s groundbreaking research on animal rights activists, cockfighters, professional dog-show handlers, veterinary students, and biomedical researchers. Blending anthropology, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy, Herzog carefully crafts a seamless narrative enriched with real-life anecdotes, scientific research, and his own sense of moral ambivalence.

Alternately poignant, challenging, and laugh-out-loud funny, this enlightening and provocative book will forever change the way we look at our relationships with other creatures and, ultimately, how we see ourselves.]]> 326 Hal Herzog 0061730866 John 4 3.86 2010
author: Hal Herzog
name: John
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves:
review:
Very enjoyable. I appreciate Herzog's approach. How humans interact with animals is incredibly complicated, and so we shouldn't be quick to judge. I appreciated all the studies he included as well as the first hand accounts. Thought provoking and well worth the read.
]]> 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 John 4
What a deeply enjoyable read. It's such a nice spin on the usual meetcute romance story. It's messy - not the storytelling or the writing, but�� the characters and their story. They are messy people with baggage, history, faults, and warts. Yet, yet they still can forge something good.
��
I love Rowell's writing. She is hilarious and the book has no shortage of zingers. But she also is able to write inner very well, and round out her characters so that they feel like people. And since I am close to her age, I feel connected to all her cultural references. But there is something more here, something more mature in her writing than I remember. She walks an incredibly fine line with the topics of military, family, unhealthy relationships, and of course love. But she walks the line very well on all of them. Characters weren't always the people they were "supposed to" be, or that I wanted. But the author does a great job presenting the reasons why people are the way they are. I felt like I understood even the flawed side characters. (Well, maybe not Ryan, but he's simply a jerkface.)

The only thing I had a little trouble imagining was Cary and Shiloh in high school. I understand unrequited love, but I guess I don't completely understand how they both wanted more for so long, but couldn't break through and find it, even if they were young and dumb. But this is a minor objection. And it was easy to accept it happened, and how natural everything in the present felt because of it.

Another thing I like about the book is how it presents the possibility that people can grow and change. Broken relationships can improve. It's a reminder I need because it often doesn't feel that way in real life. I also love this passage on p.326 that caught my eye. "I'm worried you think I'm still the way I was in high school. I used to be so certain, about everything. Now I'm......never sure about anything. Everything is complicated. Everyone is flawed. Most things are a compromise." It's such an accurate statement about growing up. I used to think things were so binary, right or wrong. But now I see almost everything and everyone as some mix of both.

I can't wait for the next Rainbow Rowell book!]]> 3.63 2024
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: John
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

What a deeply enjoyable read. It's such a nice spin on the usual meetcute romance story. It's messy - not the storytelling or the writing, but�� the characters and their story. They are messy people with baggage, history, faults, and warts. Yet, yet they still can forge something good.
��
I love Rowell's writing. She is hilarious and the book has no shortage of zingers. But she also is able to write inner very well, and round out her characters so that they feel like people. And since I am close to her age, I feel connected to all her cultural references. But there is something more here, something more mature in her writing than I remember. She walks an incredibly fine line with the topics of military, family, unhealthy relationships, and of course love. But she walks the line very well on all of them. Characters weren't always the people they were "supposed to" be, or that I wanted. But the author does a great job presenting the reasons why people are the way they are. I felt like I understood even the flawed side characters. (Well, maybe not Ryan, but he's simply a jerkface.)

The only thing I had a little trouble imagining was Cary and Shiloh in high school. I understand unrequited love, but I guess I don't completely understand how they both wanted more for so long, but couldn't break through and find it, even if they were young and dumb. But this is a minor objection. And it was easy to accept it happened, and how natural everything in the present felt because of it.

Another thing I like about the book is how it presents the possibility that people can grow and change. Broken relationships can improve. It's a reminder I need because it often doesn't feel that way in real life. I also love this passage on p.326 that caught my eye. "I'm worried you think I'm still the way I was in high school. I used to be so certain, about everything. Now I'm......never sure about anything. Everything is complicated. Everyone is flawed. Most things are a compromise." It's such an accurate statement about growing up. I used to think things were so binary, right or wrong. But now I see almost everything and everyone as some mix of both.

I can't wait for the next Rainbow Rowell book!
]]> 41716702 402 Joyce Carol Oates 006289983X John 4
]]> 3.67 2019
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
review:
Fine. but it didn't seem to offer anything I hadn't read before. Also, it didn't always feel like the 90’s I remember. Some details like unlocked houses or dogs free to roam neighborhoods seemed from an era well before that.


]]> 7798566 217 Jules Verne John 3
I'm a sucker for these high adventure stories, even if the characters are all overdone. They are a great palette cleanser. And speaking of characters, the boys and their nationalities were easy to look past, but Moko stood out. He is a hero, without him their survival would have been reduced. Yet he is hardly treated like a human.

As the boys expand their camp and resources, I was struck by how it played out like a precursor to base-building video games. ]]> 3.81 1888
author: Jules Verne
name: John
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1888
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
A 3.5��

I'm a sucker for these high adventure stories, even if the characters are all overdone. They are a great palette cleanser. And speaking of characters, the boys and their nationalities were easy to look past, but Moko stood out. He is a hero, without him their survival would have been reduced. Yet he is hardly treated like a human.

As the boys expand their camp and resources, I was struck by how it played out like a precursor to base-building video games.
]]> 13872 Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out �� with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes �� to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious �� and dangerous �� asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.]]> 348 Katherine Dunn 0375713344 John 3
A unique story. I loved the Hopkins, MN reference. ]]> 3.96 1989
author: Katherine Dunn
name: John
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A unique story. I loved the Hopkins, MN reference.
]]> 60092581
Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means—music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?

Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.]]> 448 Ian McEwan 0593535200 John 3 ��
What I did enjoy is how the author shows that the trauma left by abuse is impossible to untangle from the person. There can be no examination of what life would have been like without it, because it was life. It seeps into every nook and cranny.

Nitpicking, but I didn't buy the police inquest all the years later. ]]> 3.89 2022
author: Ian McEwan
name: John
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:
This didn't quite come together for me, and I am not sure why. There are some very good scenes, but as a whole it felt like it was missing something. I wasn't even taken in my McEwan's writing, which I always have been. Maybe it simply didn't fit my mood.
��
What I did enjoy is how the author shows that the trauma left by abuse is impossible to untangle from the person. There can be no examination of what life would have been like without it, because it was life. It seeps into every nook and cranny.

Nitpicking, but I didn't buy the police inquest all the years later.
]]> 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 John 4
There is so much in the book about our hidden selves. We think we know other people. We think others have it together or are a singularity, not a patchwork like ourselves, but that’s not true. Everyone is made up of various parts of their lives based on their experiences. Everyone contains multitudes.

There is a great exploration of gender norms, not just about the women, but about men too. There were more than a few moments where I thought to myself, "This would be 'normal' for someone of a different gender. July nails it.

And the humor! Beside the big funny things, so many little quirky ones. I was giggling often, especially in the first half. What the author has a knack for, is leading you down a seemingly familiar path. And just when you are ready for the funny punchline, a different joke is revealed. The main character is ridiculous, but feel authentic.

It's early January, but I think it will be one of my most memorable reads of the year. ]]> 3.53 2024
author: Miranda July
name: John
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves:
review:
The first half of this book burns so brightly! It is outrageous, surprising, and a wonderful ride. (Even if it is a little messy.) But the second half doesn't quite match its intensity. It isn't bad, the rest of the story doesn't disappoint, but it doesn't quite rise to the same level. That said, the book deserves all the attention it is getting.

There is so much in the book about our hidden selves. We think we know other people. We think others have it together or are a singularity, not a patchwork like ourselves, but that’s not true. Everyone is made up of various parts of their lives based on their experiences. Everyone contains multitudes.

There is a great exploration of gender norms, not just about the women, but about men too. There were more than a few moments where I thought to myself, "This would be 'normal' for someone of a different gender. July nails it.

And the humor! Beside the big funny things, so many little quirky ones. I was giggling often, especially in the first half. What the author has a knack for, is leading you down a seemingly familiar path. And just when you are ready for the funny punchline, a different joke is revealed. The main character is ridiculous, but feel authentic.

It's early January, but I think it will be one of my most memorable reads of the year.
]]> 25489025
Celebrated by critics around the world, The Vegetarian is a darkly allegorical, Kafka-esque tale of power, obsession, and one woman’s struggle to break free from the violence both without and within her.]]> 188 Han Kang 0553448188 John 3 A 3.5 3.61 2007
author: Han Kang
name: John
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
A 3.5
]]> 2439052 656 Thomas Wolfe 0684187434 John 3 ��
The good I took away from the author's works is his description of every day life. I see why he is compared to Walt Whitman. He captures and appreciates the common beauty all around us, the beauty of human activity. I enjoyed that he mentioned Cobb, Gehrig, Einstein.

Not something I recommend, but overall it felt just worth my time, the sum of the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. The Sun and the Rain and Oktoberfest were my favorites. ]]> 3.80 1987
author: Thomas Wolfe
name: John
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1987
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves:
review:
First off, Wolfe is very racist, especially in the early stories. There are hack descriptions of minorities. But beyond that, stories like "The Child by Tiger" preach how no minority can be trusted, they are all dangerous. Deplorable.
��
The good I took away from the author's works is his description of every day life. I see why he is compared to Walt Whitman. He captures and appreciates the common beauty all around us, the beauty of human activity. I enjoyed that he mentioned Cobb, Gehrig, Einstein.

Not something I recommend, but overall it felt just worth my time, the sum of the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. The Sun and the Rain and Oktoberfest were my favorites.
]]> 49247757 A stirring meditation on Black performance in America from the New York Times bestselling author of Go Ahead in the Rain

At the March on Washington in 1963, Josephine Baker was fifty-seven years old, well beyond her most prolific days. But in her speech she was in a mood to consider her life, her legacy, her departure from the country she was now triumphantly returning to. “I was a devil in other countries, and I was a little devil in America, too,�� she told the crowd. Inspired by these few words, Hanif Abdurraqib has written a profound and lasting reflection on how Black performance is inextricably woven into the fabric of American culture. Each moment in every performance he examines—whether it’s the twenty-seven seconds in “Gimme Shelter�� in which Merry Clayton wails the words “rape, murder,�� a schoolyard fistfight, a dance marathon, or the instant in a game of spades right after the cards are dealt—has layers of resonance in Black and white cultures, the politics of American empire, and Abdurraqib’s own personal history of love, grief, and performance.

Abdurraqib writes prose brimming with jubilation and pain, infused with the lyricism and rhythm of the musicians he loves. With care and generosity, he explains the poignancy of performances big and small, each one feeling intensely familiar and vital, both timeless and desperately urgent. Filled with sharp insight, humor, and heart, A Little Devil in America exalts the Black performance that unfolds in specific moments in time and space—from midcentury Paris to the moon, and back down again to a cramped living room in Columbus, Ohio.]]> 301 Hanif Abdurraqib 1984801198 John 4 4.60 2021
author: Hanif Abdurraqib
name: John
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:
After reading a few books where I never felt in step with the author, or the writing, it’s refreshing to read one I click with right away. I followed the train of Abdurraqip's thoughts, and understand how one part of an essay links to another. A book a read slowly, and savored, and reflected on. Fear: A Crown is one of the best. It displays the author’s ability to use language to its fullest.
]]> 206305528
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride��) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.]]> 404 Bonnie Garmus John 2 4.24 2022
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: John
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 51601851 New York Times bestselling short story “We Are the Sacrifice of Darkness�� as a full length graphic novel, expanding and further developing the unforgettable world where the sun no longer shines.

“When I was a young girl, my husband’s father flew an air machine into the sun. Since then, the days have been dark, the nights bright.��

Follow one woman’s powerful journey through this new landscape as she discovers love, family, and the true light in a world seemingly robbed of any. As she challenges notions of identity, guilt, and survival she’ll find that no matter the darkness, there remains sources of hope that can pierce the veil.]]> 128 Roxane Gay 1684156246 John 3 3.49 2020
author: Roxane Gay
name: John
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/24
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 264288
But these people live on the brink of seismic change--10,000 years of climate shifts culminating in abrupt global warming that will usher in a fundamentally changed human world. After the Ice is the story of this momentous period--one in which a seemingly minor alteration in temperature could presage anything from the spread of lush woodland to the coming of apocalyptic floods--and one in which we find the origins of civilization itself.

Drawing on the latest research in archaeology, human genetics, and environmental science, After the Ice takes the reader on a sweeping tour of 15,000 years of human history. Steven Mithen brings this world to life through the eyes of an imaginary modern traveler--John Lubbock, namesake of the great Victorian polymath and author of Prehistoric Times. With Lubbock, readers visit and observe communities and landscapes, experiencing prehistoric life--from aboriginal hunting parties in Tasmania, to the corralling of wild sheep in the central Sahara, to the efforts of the Guila Naquitz people in Oaxaca to combat drought with agricultural innovations.

Part history, part science, part time travel, After the Ice offers an evocative and uniquely compelling portrayal of diverse cultures, lives, and landscapes that laid the foundations of the modern world.]]> 664 Steven Mithen 0674019997 John 4 4.10 2003
author: Steven Mithen
name: John
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2003
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 203166772 Bestselling and award-winning author Andrew Joseph White returns with a queer Appalachian thriller, that pulls no punches, for teens who see the failures in our world and are pushing for radical change.

A gut-wrenching story following a trans autistic teen who survives an attempted murder, only to be drawn into the generational struggle between the rural poor and those who exploit them.

On the night Miles Abernathy—sixteen-year-old socialist and proud West Virginian—comes out as trans to his parents, he sneaks off to a party, carrying evidence that may finally turn the tide of the blood feud plaguing Twist Creek: Photos that prove the county’s Sheriff Davies was responsible for the so-called “accident�� that injured his dad, killed others, and crushed their grassroots efforts to unseat him.

The feud began a hundred years ago when Miles’s great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, incited a miners�� rebellion that ended with a public execution at the hands of law enforcement. Now, Miles becomes the feud’s latest victim as the sheriff’s son and his friends sniff out the evidence, follow him through the woods, and beat him nearly to death.

In the hospital, the ghost of a soot-covered man hovers over Miles’s bedside while Sheriff Davies threatens Miles into silence. But when Miles accidentally kills one of the boys who hurt him, he learns of other folks in Twist Creek who want out from under the sheriff’s heel. To free their families from this cycle of cruelty, they’re willing to put everything on the line—is Miles?

A visceral, unabashedly political page-turner that won’t let you go until you’ve reached the end, Compound Fracture is not for the faint of heart, but it is for every reader who is ready to fight for a better world.]]> 370 Andrew Joseph White 1682636127 John 2 4.44 2024
author: Andrew Joseph White
name: John
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 35554458 Blood and Guts in High School is the book that established Kathy Acker as the preeminent voice of post-punk feminism upon its initial publication in 1984. This new edition includes an introduction by Chris Kraus that elucidates the book's composition, and presents the final two sections - "The Journey" and "The World" - in their correct order for the first time. With 2017 marking the twentieth year since Acker's death, this controversial, transgressive work of philosophical, political, and sexual insight continues to grow more relevant than ever before.

In the Mexican city of Mérida, ten-year-old Janey lives with Johnny - her "boyfriend, brother, sister, money, amusement, and father" - until he leaves her for another woman. Bereft, Janey travels to New York City, plunging into an underworld of gangs, prostitution, and imprisonment. Then, in Tangier, she meets Jean Ganet and begins a torrid affair that will lead Janey to her demise. Along the way, the text is illustrated with intricate sketches from Janey's journals, as well as theatrical dialogue and cinematic description. Fantastical and fearlessly radical, Blood and Guts in High School is at once a comic and tragic portrait of erotic awakening.]]> 176 Kathy Acker 0802127622 John 3 3.38 1984
author: Kathy Acker
name: John
average rating: 3.38
book published: 1984
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:
I'm probably underestimating the book's cutting edge when it came out, but it was very meh.
]]> 59900690 From the award-winning novelist, a compact narrative that centers on the presence of a vivid and particular woman, whose loss becomes the occasion for a man's deeper examination of love, friendship, and biography

This beautiful, spare novel of platonic unrequited love springs into being around the singular character of the stoic, exacting Professor Elizabeth Finch. Neil, the narrator, takes her class on Culture and Civilization, taught not for undergraduates but for adults of all ages; we are drawn into his intellectual crush on this private, withholding yet commanding woman. While other personal relationships and even his family drift from Neil's grasp, Elizabeth's application of her material to the matter of daily living remains important to him, even after her death, in a way that nothing else does. In Elizabeth Finch, we are treated to everything we cherish in Barnes: his eye for the unorthodox forms love can take between two people, a compelling swerve into nonfictional material (this time, through Neil's obsessive study of Julian the Apostate, following on notes Elizabeth left for him to discover after her death), and the forcefully moving undercurrent of history, and biography in particular, as nourishment and guide in our current lives.]]> 192 Julian Barnes 059353543X John 4
Barnes' novels rarely follow the classical format. This one is almost a philosophical treatise masquerading as a novel. But it is beautiful, thought provoking, and finishes very well. He is such a joy to read. ]]> 3.11 2022
author: Julian Barnes
name: John
average rating: 3.11
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
Barnes has this way of talking all around subjects before showing his full hand. His books are short, yet they meander. His writing borders on sparse, yet he seems to include unnecessary sidetracks. And then, when you get to the end, it becomes clear that everything he included was vital. It's almost like people who spell out words by walking a planned route through city blocks.

Barnes' novels rarely follow the classical format. This one is almost a philosophical treatise masquerading as a novel. But it is beautiful, thought provoking, and finishes very well. He is such a joy to read.
]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 John 3
I enjoy getting to know my favorite authors outside of their works, and this book give me that opportunity with Green. I have long wondered how much, and what parts of Green's books are autobiographical. He gives some answers here. A nice mix of serious and silly.]]> 4.37 2021
author: John Green
name: John
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2021/08/29
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

I enjoy getting to know my favorite authors outside of their works, and this book give me that opportunity with Green. I have long wondered how much, and what parts of Green's books are autobiographical. He gives some answers here. A nice mix of serious and silly.
]]> 10917836
An uproarious, hard-boiled modern fable of corporate life, sex, and race in America, Helen DeWitt’s Lightning Rods brims with the satiric energy of Nathanael West and the philosophic import of an Aristophanic comedy of ideas. Her wild yarn is second cousin to the spirit of Mel Brooks and the hilarious reality-blurring of Being John Malkovich. Dewitt continues to take the novel into new realms of storytelling �� as the timeliness of Lightning Rods crosses over into timelessness.]]> 273 Helen DeWitt 0811219437 John 3
Funny, with tongue firmly in the cheek. The book isn't overly long, but still felt a little long for the idea. ]]> 3.45 2011
author: Helen DeWitt
name: John
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

Funny, with tongue firmly in the cheek. The book isn't overly long, but still felt a little long for the idea.
]]> 144421737 What if we act as if we love the future?

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is imagine life on the other side. This provocative and joyous book maps an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures.

Through clear-eyed essays and vibrant conversations, infused with data, poetry, and art, Ayana Elizabeth Johnson guides us through solutions and possibilities at the nexus of science, policy, culture, and justice. Visionary farmers and financers, architects and advocates help us conjure a flourishing future, one worth the effort it will take—from all of us, with whatever we have to offer—to create.

If you haven’t yet been able to picture a transformed and replenished world—or see yourself, your loved ones, and your community in it�� this book is for you. If you haven’t yet found your role in shaping this new world, or you’re not sure how we can actually get there, this book is for you.

With grace, humor, and humanity, Ayana invites readers to ask and answer this ultimate question, What if we get it right?

On imagination, possibility, and transformation with

Paola Antonelli
Xiye Bastida & Ayisha Siddiqa
Jade Begay
Régine Clément
Abigail Dillen
Brian Donahue
Kelly Sims Gallagher
Rhiana Gunn-Wright
Corley Kenna
Bryan C. Lee Jr. & Kate Orff
Franklin Leonard & Adam McKay
Bill McKibben
Kate Marvel
Samantha Montano
Leah Penniman
Colette Pichon Battle
Kendra Pierre-Louis
Judith D. Schwartz
Jigar Shah
Bren Smith
Oana Stanescu
Mustafa Suleyman]]> 496 Ayana Elizabeth Johnson John 3
A treasure trove of information and ideas and dreaming. I would recommend. Here are two of my favorite lines:��
��
“We have put so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it weighs more than all the plants and animals on the earth.�� p 26

��(The current) business model depends entirely on digging stuff up and setting it on fire.�� p 144

My complaint is that the book's focus is more on saving technology and civilization, than saving the earth. There are a few lip service passages about using less energy, but they feel like an afterthought. And it was telling on page 388 when Jade talks about committing to reduce their own carbon usage and the author totally deflects to talking about the poor rail network in the US.

Yes the system is stacked against a low carbon lifestyle in America. But imagine if the logic of "it doesn't matter what I do until we fix the system" was used for sexism or racism. Can you imagine someone saying "it's ok for me to be sexist since what I do doesn't really matter until we fix the sexist system." !!! We have to both live low carbon and fix the system. It's not a binary choice. ]]> 4.47 2024
author: Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
name: John
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A treasure trove of information and ideas and dreaming. I would recommend. Here are two of my favorite lines:��
��
“We have put so much CO2 in the atmosphere that it weighs more than all the plants and animals on the earth.�� p 26

��(The current) business model depends entirely on digging stuff up and setting it on fire.�� p 144

My complaint is that the book's focus is more on saving technology and civilization, than saving the earth. There are a few lip service passages about using less energy, but they feel like an afterthought. And it was telling on page 388 when Jade talks about committing to reduce their own carbon usage and the author totally deflects to talking about the poor rail network in the US.

Yes the system is stacked against a low carbon lifestyle in America. But imagine if the logic of "it doesn't matter what I do until we fix the system" was used for sexism or racism. Can you imagine someone saying "it's ok for me to be sexist since what I do doesn't really matter until we fix the sexist system." !!! We have to both live low carbon and fix the system. It's not a binary choice.
]]> 8031269 135 Nicholson Baker 080214490X John 3
More enjoyable than annoying, though there was some of both. ]]> 3.89 1988
author: Nicholson Baker
name: John
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1988
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

More enjoyable than annoying, though there was some of both.
]]> 1232875


The year is 1950, and in a small town on Cape����Cod twenty-six-year-old librarian Peggy Cort feels����like love and life have stood her up. Until the����day James Carlson Sweatt--the "over tall"����eleven-year-old boy who's the talk of the����town--walks into her library and changes her life forever.����Two misfits whose lonely paths cross at the����circulation desk, Peggy and James are odd candidates for����friendship, but nevertheless they soon find their����lives entwined in ways that neither one could have����predicted. In James, Peggy discovers the one����person who's ever really understood her, and as he����grows--six foot five at age twelve, then seven feet,����then eight--so does her heart and their most����singular romance. The Giant's House ����is an unforgettably tender and quirky novel about����learning to welcome the unexpected miracle, and����about the strength of choosing to love in a world����that gives no promises, and no guarantees.]]> 272 Elizabeth McCracken 0385314337 John 2
I loved the idea of this story, but the storytelling really frustrated me. And then the ending doomed it. ]]> 3.65 1996
author: Elizabeth McCracken
name: John
average rating: 3.65
book published: 1996
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

I loved the idea of this story, but the storytelling really frustrated me. And then the ending doomed it.
]]> 210083691 #1 New York Times-bestselling phenomenon Patrick Rothfuss returns to the wildly popular Kingkiller Chronicle universe with a stunning reimagining of "The Lightning Tree." Expanded to twice its previous length and lavishly illustrated by Nathan Taylor, this touching stand-alone story is sure to please new readers and veteran Rothfuss fans alike.

Bast knows how to bargain. The give-and-take of a negotiation is as familiar to him as the in-and-out of breathing; to watch him trade is to watch an artist at work. But even a master's brush can slip. When he accepts a gift, taking something for nothing, Bast's whole world is knocked askew, for he knows how to bargain—but not how to owe.

From dawn to midnight over the course of a single day, follow the Kingkiller Chronicle's most charming fae as he schemes and sneaks, dancing into trouble and back out again with uncanny grace.

The Narrow Road Between Desires is Bast's story. In it he traces the old ways of making and breaking, following his heart even when doing so goes against his better judgement.

After all, what good is caution if it keeps him from danger and delight?]]> 226 Patrick Rothfuss 0756419174 John 4 A fun little story. 4.16 2023
author: Patrick Rothfuss
name: John
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves:
review:
A fun little story.
]]> 33160963
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn's luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the `80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn's story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique's own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501161938 John 4 4.48 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: John
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/30
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
review:
TJR is great at complex, real life characters. The complexities of Evelyn, Monique and others make for a great read. She also crafts the story well. My favorite of hers yet.
]]> 929782 Martin Eden is the most vital and original character Jack London ever created. Set in San Francisco, this is the story of Martin Eden, an impoverished seaman who pursues, obsessively and aggressively, dreams of education and literary fame. London, dissatisfied with the rewards of his own success, intended Martin Eden as an attack on individualism and a criticism of ambition; however, much of its status as a classic has been conferred by admirers of its ambitious protagonist.

Andrew Sinclair's wide-ranging introduction discusses the conflict between London's support of socialism and his powerful self-will. Sinclair also explores the parallels and divergences between the life of Martin Eden and that of his creator, focusing on London's mental depressions and how they affected his depiction of Eden.]]> 480 Jack London John 3
A very curious read. There were large stretches of the book I really enjoyed. But also parts that were very overdone, or just plain poor (including the ending). It didn't quite seem cohesive.

This sounds like it could have been written yesterday instead of 115 years ago: "I’ve heard him make a campaign speech. It was so cleverly style and unoriginal and also so convincing, that the leaders can not help but regard him as safe and sure.�� p.236 Chapter 29 as a whole, with its focus on politics, feels just as accurate today. And I was reminded that it’s easy to forget that misinformation was widespread before social media. ]]> 4.47 1909
author: Jack London
name: John
average rating: 4.47
book published: 1909
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A very curious read. There were large stretches of the book I really enjoyed. But also parts that were very overdone, or just plain poor (including the ending). It didn't quite seem cohesive.

This sounds like it could have been written yesterday instead of 115 years ago: "I’ve heard him make a campaign speech. It was so cleverly style and unoriginal and also so convincing, that the leaders can not help but regard him as safe and sure.�� p.236 Chapter 29 as a whole, with its focus on politics, feels just as accurate today. And I was reminded that it’s easy to forget that misinformation was widespread before social media.
]]> 24612118
At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed.]]> 390 Lauren Groff 1594634475 John 2
The second half is better, but not enough to overcome the first half. I feel no connection to Lotto, and quickly felt myself not caring what happens. And everything thing in his life seems oversized. ]]> 3.55 2015
author: Lauren Groff
name: John
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

The second half is better, but not enough to overcome the first half. I feel no connection to Lotto, and quickly felt myself not caring what happens. And everything thing in his life seems oversized.
]]> 41120
But the president-elect remains optimistic and doesn’t intend to give up without a fight. A maverick in every sense of the word, Chase starts organizing the most ambitious plan to save the world from disaster since FDR–and assembling a team of top scientists and advisers to implement it.

For Charlie Quibler, this means reentering the political fray full-time and giving up full-time care of his young son, Joe. For Frank Vanderwal, hampered by a brain injury, it means trying to protect the woman he loves from a vengeful ex and a rogue “black ops�� agency not even the president can control–a task for which neither Frank’s work at the National Science Foundation nor his study of Tibetan Buddhism can prepare him.

In a world where time is running out as quickly as its natural resources, where surveillance is almost total and freedom nearly nonexistent, the forecast for the Chase administration looks darker each passing day. For as the last–and most terrible–of natural disasters looms on the horizon, it will take a miracle to stop the clock . . . the kind of miracle that only dedicated men and women can bring about.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 400 Kim Stanley Robinson 0553803131 John 3 3.68 2007
author: Kim Stanley Robinson
name: John
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2007
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves:
review:
This hasn't aged as well as the first two in the series. I've always appreciated KSR’s optimism. But reading how society quickly changes in this book felt hollow and naive. And overall the book is a bit all over the place. But I still enjoy KSR's writing and characters and storytelling. The hiking scene is one of the best in the book.
]]> 41952137 Heroines, Green Girl, and O Fallen Angel.

In the first half of Kate Zambreno’s astoundingly original collection Screen Tests, the narrator regales us with incisive and witty swatches from a life lived inside a brilliant mind, meditating on aging and vanity, fame and failure, writing and writers, along with portraits of everyone from Susan Sontag to Amal Clooney, Maurice Blanchot to Louise Brooks. The series of essays that follow, on figures central to Zambreno’s thinking, including Kathy Acker, David Wojnarowicz, and Barbara Loden, are manifestos about art that ingeniously intersect and chime with the stories that came before them.]]> 304 Kate Zambreno 0062392042 John 4 ��
Zambreno is able to write about pretentious things in a reachable way. I had to look up many artists, but never felt like I was lost. And finding out she is a suburban Midwesterner from lower middle class helped me understand part of why I feel I understand her. ]]> 3.85 2019
author: Kate Zambreno
name: John
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves:
review:
I really enjoyed the "stories," great precursor to Drifts. The first essays were good too, but the last one was a little chaotic (which the author admits). And interesting to see there isn't much difference between the stories and essays.
��
Zambreno is able to write about pretentious things in a reachable way. I had to look up many artists, but never felt like I was lost. And finding out she is a suburban Midwesterner from lower middle class helped me understand part of why I feel I understand her.
]]> 55927090
" Bright Green Lies exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of leading environmental groups and their most prominent cheerleaders. The best-known environmentalists are not in the business of speaking truth, or even holding up rational solutions to blunt the impending ecocide, but instead indulge in a mendacious and self-serving delusion that provides comfort at the expense of reality. They fail to state the We cannot continue to wallow in hedonistic consumption and industrial expansion and survive as a species. The environmental debate, Derrick Jensen and his coauthors argue, has been distorted by hubris and the childish desire by those in industrialized nations to sustain the unsustainable. All debates about environmental policy need to begin with honoring and protecting, not the desires of the human species, but with the sanctity of the Earth itself. We refuse to ask the right questions because these questions expose a stark truth―we cannot continue to live as we are living. To do so is suicidal folly. ‘Tell me how you seek, and I will tell you what you are seeking,�� the German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said. This is the power of Bright Green It asks the questions most refuse to ask, and in that questioning, that seeking, uncovers profound truths we ignore at our peril.”�� Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Farewell Tour]]> 478 Derrick Jensen 194862639X John 4
Yes, yes, yes! We need to decouple society from energy. We need to stop believing far-fetched energy-intensive technological solutions can save us. We need to stop valuing gadgets and toys and crappy consumer good, and start valuing nature in its vast diversity.

But......I was really hoping for some more hands on solutions at the end. How can we get from our mono-cultural agriculture to feeding earth's 8 billion people in a truly sustainable way? How can we rapidly shift from being reliant on power for heat and food? And so on. I am all for disrupting, and I know it is going to be hard and messy, but there wasn't even a loose framework of a plan here.

I didn't mark the exact quote, but I chewed heavily on the line that society turns living things into dead. Society, by definition, denudes the earth. It's an enlightening observation. Additionally, I thought about how there are almost always more choices than we think. We are extremely myopic, forcing ourselves to a narrow strip of choices that fall within what is considered "normal," most of which are bad choices. We let current trends rule our lives instead of realizing humans lived most of their existence outside of modernity. What gets labeled as "green" "solutions" are almost always the equivalent of low-tar cigarettes.

A quote at the end that I think will rattle around in my brain a long time, “Within this culture the primary use of human intelligence is to try and rationalize whatever behavior we already wanted to do.�� P 464 My first thought was that it was an overstatement, but as I reflect, I don't think it is.

A book that is depressing, but would have been more so if my hope for green solutions hadn’t already been very low. But the truth hurts. We are in for such a rude awakening.

PS. I loved all the seething satire. ]]> 4.23 2021
author: Derrick Jensen
name: John
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

Yes, yes, yes! We need to decouple society from energy. We need to stop believing far-fetched energy-intensive technological solutions can save us. We need to stop valuing gadgets and toys and crappy consumer good, and start valuing nature in its vast diversity.

But......I was really hoping for some more hands on solutions at the end. How can we get from our mono-cultural agriculture to feeding earth's 8 billion people in a truly sustainable way? How can we rapidly shift from being reliant on power for heat and food? And so on. I am all for disrupting, and I know it is going to be hard and messy, but there wasn't even a loose framework of a plan here.

I didn't mark the exact quote, but I chewed heavily on the line that society turns living things into dead. Society, by definition, denudes the earth. It's an enlightening observation. Additionally, I thought about how there are almost always more choices than we think. We are extremely myopic, forcing ourselves to a narrow strip of choices that fall within what is considered "normal," most of which are bad choices. We let current trends rule our lives instead of realizing humans lived most of their existence outside of modernity. What gets labeled as "green" "solutions" are almost always the equivalent of low-tar cigarettes.

A quote at the end that I think will rattle around in my brain a long time, “Within this culture the primary use of human intelligence is to try and rationalize whatever behavior we already wanted to do.�� P 464 My first thought was that it was an overstatement, but as I reflect, I don't think it is.

A book that is depressing, but would have been more so if my hope for green solutions hadn’t already been very low. But the truth hurts. We are in for such a rude awakening.

PS. I loved all the seething satire.
]]> 13148054 261 Alix Ohlin 0307743799 John 3 3.79 2012
author: Alix Ohlin
name: John
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/30
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves:
review:
I'll admit this didn’t fit my mood, but still feel the stories are very ordinary. They almost all have these huge events and time leaps, it all felt overly forced.
]]> 43980 Beginning with an unlikely stowaway's account of life on board Noah's Ark, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters presents a surprising, subversive, fictional history of earth told from several kaleidoscopic perspectives. Noah disembarks from his ark but he and his Voyage are not forgotten: they are revisited in on other centuries and other climes - by a Victorian spinster mourning her father, by an American astronaut on an obsessive personal mission. We journey to the Titanic, to the Amazon, to the raft of the Medusa, and to an ecclesiastical court in medieval France where a bizarre case is about to begin...

This is no ordinary history, but something stranger, a challenge and a delight for the reader's imagination. Ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious, this is the work of a brilliant novelist.

]]> 320 Julian Barnes 0679731377 John 0 to-read 3.90 1989
author: Julian Barnes
name: John
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1989
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199531928
Lauren Groff—bestselling author, three-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of our finest living writers�� (New York Times)—selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published in 2023.]]> 400 Lauren Groff 0063275953 John 4
As always with these collections, I grade extras strict.

The Magic Bangle - Shastri Akella - 4: Bold writing, a story beautifully written, the ending a tad flat.
Jewel of the Gulf of Mexico - Selena Gambrell Anderson - 4: Tantalizingly close to greatness, but again weak at the end. Delicious writing.
Viola in Midwinter - Marie-Helene Bertino - 4: Bold writing, direct, much is expressed in few pages. But again a less satisfying end.
Blessed Deliverance- Jamel Brinkley - 2.5 - I didn’t feel drawn in, a touch flat.
Phenotype - Alexandra Chang - 3.5: Bizarre, with a few holes, but I like it.
Evensong - Lauri Colwin- 4: Beautifully written. I like the anti-kicker of an ending.
The Happiest Day of Your Life- Katherine Damm - 4: Went in a direction I didn’t expect, and made me think. A few sections hard to follow.
The Bed & Breakfast - Molly Dektar - 3.5: Ends well, but a bit too loose in its storytelling.
Dorchester - Steven Duong - 4.5: Enjoyable throughout. Lots of themes packed in a short story.
Seeing Through Maps - Madeline Ffitch - 3.5: Equal parts wonderful and frustrating. Close to greatness, close to a dud.
Democracy in America - Allegra Hyde - 4: Love the speculative future. “America has always been a figment in f one’s own mind.��
Engelond - Taisia Kitaiskaia - 3.5: Fun, but in a wtf sort of way.
P’s Party - Jhumpa Lahiri - 2.5: A miss for me.
A Case Study - Daniel Mason - 3: Too small of a payoff.
Just Another Family - Lori Ostlund - 4.5: Wonderful start to finish. The characters, the story, the writing. I like how the narrator reveals themselves to be a bit of an asshole as the story goes on.
Privilege - Jim Shepard - 3: A nice metaphor, but doesn’t go to the next level.
Baboons - Susan Shepherd - 3.5: Fits together nicely, but nothing exceptional
Extinction - Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi - 3: Didn’t draw me in.
Mall of America - Suzanne Wang - 4: A classically told short story, entertaining and poignant.
Valley of the Moon - Paul Yoon - 3.5: Lyrical and sad.

]]> 3.75 2024
author: Lauren Groff
name: John
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:
In her intro Groff stated that she chose bold stories with strong writing. And that's what she delivered. All the way through I enjoyed the writing of the stories. Lots of well-crafted sentences and clear storytelling. But I could have used few classics with some kickers. Still, a very enjoyable collection.

As always with these collections, I grade extras strict.

The Magic Bangle - Shastri Akella - 4: Bold writing, a story beautifully written, the ending a tad flat.
Jewel of the Gulf of Mexico - Selena Gambrell Anderson - 4: Tantalizingly close to greatness, but again weak at the end. Delicious writing.
Viola in Midwinter - Marie-Helene Bertino - 4: Bold writing, direct, much is expressed in few pages. But again a less satisfying end.
Blessed Deliverance- Jamel Brinkley - 2.5 - I didn’t feel drawn in, a touch flat.
Phenotype - Alexandra Chang - 3.5: Bizarre, with a few holes, but I like it.
Evensong - Lauri Colwin- 4: Beautifully written. I like the anti-kicker of an ending.
The Happiest Day of Your Life- Katherine Damm - 4: Went in a direction I didn’t expect, and made me think. A few sections hard to follow.
The Bed & Breakfast - Molly Dektar - 3.5: Ends well, but a bit too loose in its storytelling.
Dorchester - Steven Duong - 4.5: Enjoyable throughout. Lots of themes packed in a short story.
Seeing Through Maps - Madeline Ffitch - 3.5: Equal parts wonderful and frustrating. Close to greatness, close to a dud.
Democracy in America - Allegra Hyde - 4: Love the speculative future. “America has always been a figment in f one’s own mind.��
Engelond - Taisia Kitaiskaia - 3.5: Fun, but in a wtf sort of way.
P’s Party - Jhumpa Lahiri - 2.5: A miss for me.
A Case Study - Daniel Mason - 3: Too small of a payoff.
Just Another Family - Lori Ostlund - 4.5: Wonderful start to finish. The characters, the story, the writing. I like how the narrator reveals themselves to be a bit of an asshole as the story goes on.
Privilege - Jim Shepard - 3: A nice metaphor, but doesn’t go to the next level.
Baboons - Susan Shepherd - 3.5: Fits together nicely, but nothing exceptional
Extinction - Azareen Van Der Vliet Oloomi - 3: Didn’t draw me in.
Mall of America - Suzanne Wang - 4: A classically told short story, entertaining and poignant.
Valley of the Moon - Paul Yoon - 3.5: Lyrical and sad.


]]> 8154 King, Queen, Knave. Comic, sensual and cerebral, it dramatizes an Oedipal love triangle, a tragi-comedy of husband, wife and lover, through Dreyer the rich businessman, his ripe-lipped ad mercenary wife Martha, and their bespectacled nephew Franz. 'If a resolute Freudian manages to slip in' - Nabokov darts a glance to the reader - 'he or she should be warned that a number of cruel traps have been set up here and there'.]]> 275 Vladimir Nabokov John 3
At times I appreciated the almost dreamlike narrative. It drifts from the mundane to the silly and fanciful, and then back again. But at other times I felt the story would have been better with more restraint, and less attempts at being overly witty. ]]> 3.84 1928
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: John
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1928
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
review:
I had a hard time appreciating the book as written in 1928. In that context I think it would have felt more cutting edge. Well, depending on exactly how much the Nabokov changed when he translated it to English in the 60's.

At times I appreciated the almost dreamlike narrative. It drifts from the mundane to the silly and fanciful, and then back again. But at other times I felt the story would have been better with more restraint, and less attempts at being overly witty.
]]> 40549668
Drawing on the black feminist tradition, including Audre Lourde’s invitation to use the erotic as power and Toni Cade Bambara’s exhortation that we make the revolution irresistible, the contributors to this volume take up the challenge to rethink the ground rules of activism. Writers including Cara Page of the Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice, Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of This Body Is Not an Apology, and author Alexis Pauline Gumbs cover a wide array of subjects�� from sex work to climate change, from race and gender to sex and drugs—creating new narratives about how politics can feel good and how what feels good always has a complex politics of its own.

Building on the success of her popular Emergent Strategy, brown launches a new series of the same name with this volume, bringing readers books that explore experimental, expansive, and innovative ways to meet the challenges that face our world today. Books that find the opportunity in every crisis!]]> 441 Adrienne Maree Brown 1849353263 John 4
Liberated Relationships Expanded was probably my favorite. I also appreciated the comments examining unnecessary excess (aka greed), and how pleasure shouldn't evolve to that level. The book made me think of bonobos often.
��
Several times I wondered if the author believed everyone could/should experience pleasure on the same level she did. While they make frequent comments about different orientations and attractions, they gives off the impression that everyone could experience the same level of desire and abandon, and should want to. What about people who experience sensuality and eroticism in lesser degrees? I also wished there was more information about who is a "healer" and how one become one. Frequently "visiting a healer" was prescribed, but I would have been interested in specifically what the author was suggesting.

What about things that seem pleasurable at the time, but later turn out to have a cost? The author talks about her relationship with ecstasy as an example, and some foods. But doesn’t this suggest we should be more cautious.

Well worth the read. ]]> 4.24 2019
author: Adrienne Maree Brown
name: John
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves:
review:
There is a lot of good here, I appreciate the author's boldness. But also a decent amount of bathwater. More than a few of the essays and interviews seem scattershot. But it is a book that above all made me think, and re-examine. Perhaps I don't realize how infrequently most people think of happiness/contentment/pleasure.

Liberated Relationships Expanded was probably my favorite. I also appreciated the comments examining unnecessary excess (aka greed), and how pleasure shouldn't evolve to that level. The book made me think of bonobos often.
��
Several times I wondered if the author believed everyone could/should experience pleasure on the same level she did. While they make frequent comments about different orientations and attractions, they gives off the impression that everyone could experience the same level of desire and abandon, and should want to. What about people who experience sensuality and eroticism in lesser degrees? I also wished there was more information about who is a "healer" and how one become one. Frequently "visiting a healer" was prescribed, but I would have been interested in specifically what the author was suggesting.

What about things that seem pleasurable at the time, but later turn out to have a cost? The author talks about her relationship with ecstasy as an example, and some foods. But doesn’t this suggest we should be more cautious.

Well worth the read.
]]> 11341 229 Toni Morrison 1400076218 John 3
This has an absolutely stunning first paragraph! I had to reread it three or four times. And then the first part of the story is very good. But around the midway point, it started to drop off.

I love the themes. Even in the midst of the golden decade of the 20's there is hardship and hurt. No man can be trusted, you can’t know their heart. ]]> 3.88 1992
author: Toni Morrison
name: John
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1992
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/19
date added: 2024/11/19
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

This has an absolutely stunning first paragraph! I had to reread it three or four times. And then the first part of the story is very good. But around the midway point, it started to drop off.

I love the themes. Even in the midst of the golden decade of the 20's there is hardship and hurt. No man can be trusted, you can’t know their heart.
]]> 150341051 John Updike John 4
Right from the beginning Updike drew me in with his writing. It is strong throughout, but the first parts are breathless. At times it felt exhausting to read, in a good way. It's beautifully crafted.

I was fascinated by the fact that this is written in the 60's about the 60's. It has an adjacent feel to how the decade is presented now. Though how exactly it is different, I can't quite say. It felt very honest in its discussion of��: religion, politics, race, class, gender. Many of the views are ugly, and would not be considered polite today, but they feel honest. I have been thinking how modern fiction tends to whitewash the past by having the "good" characters have enlightened modern opinions. But there is none of that here. "Good" people have always been flawed, with flawed views and beliefs.

The plot pulled me along though most of it, though there was a wobble at the 3/4 point. I am not quite sure what I think of Angela's choice and character. I don't think the book would pass the Bechdal test - which is terribly damning for 450 pages about relationships.

I wish I had written down a few of the incredible sentences or lines - there were quite a few. The one note I made was from p388 where the author uses the word bubbler. I always thought it was strictly a Milwaukee term. ]]> 4.00 1968
author: John Updike
name: John
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1968
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/05
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves:
review:
A 4.5��

Right from the beginning Updike drew me in with his writing. It is strong throughout, but the first parts are breathless. At times it felt exhausting to read, in a good way. It's beautifully crafted.

I was fascinated by the fact that this is written in the 60's about the 60's. It has an adjacent feel to how the decade is presented now. Though how exactly it is different, I can't quite say. It felt very honest in its discussion of��: religion, politics, race, class, gender. Many of the views are ugly, and would not be considered polite today, but they feel honest. I have been thinking how modern fiction tends to whitewash the past by having the "good" characters have enlightened modern opinions. But there is none of that here. "Good" people have always been flawed, with flawed views and beliefs.

The plot pulled me along though most of it, though there was a wobble at the 3/4 point. I am not quite sure what I think of Angela's choice and character. I don't think the book would pass the Bechdal test - which is terribly damning for 450 pages about relationships.

I wish I had written down a few of the incredible sentences or lines - there were quite a few. The one note I made was from p388 where the author uses the word bubbler. I always thought it was strictly a Milwaukee term.
]]> 62978911
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 240 Edith Wharton 0241630819 John 3 A 3.5 3.66 1917
author: Edith Wharton
name: John
average rating: 3.66
book published: 1917
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves:
review:
A 3.5
]]> 6425478 448 David Rhodes 1571310681 John 3 4.12 2008
author: David Rhodes
name: John
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 29496453 Two great spiritual masters share their own hard-won wisdom about living with joy even in the face of adversity.
��
The occasion was a big birthday. And it inspired two close friends to get together in Dharamsala for a talk about something very important to them. The friends were His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The subject was joy. Both winners of the Nobel Prize, both great spiritual masters and moral leaders of our time, they are also known for being among the most infectiously happy people on the planet.

From the beginning the book was envisioned as a three-layer birthday cake: their own stories and teachings about joy, the most recent findings in the science of deep happiness, and the daily practices that anchor their own emotional and spiritual lives. Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu have been tested by great personal and national adversity, and here they share their personal stories of struggle and renewal. Now that they are both in their eighties, they especially want to spread the core message that to have joy yourself, you must bring joy to others.

Most of all, during that landmark week in Dharamsala, they demonstrated by their own exuberance, compassion, and humor how joy can be transformed from a fleeting emotion into an enduring way of life.]]> 354 Dalai Lama XIV 0399185046 John 3 4.37 2016
author: Dalai Lama XIV
name: John
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 47126 Good Bones And Simple Murders marks the first time these writings have been available in a trade edition in the US. "[Margaret Atwood] proves she is an accomplished miniaturist...She can pack more wallop into less space than any other writer in her weight class." Toronto Globe And Mail]]> 165 Margaret Atwood 0385471106 John 3
A fun, mischievous side of Atwood. There were some great quick hitters here. ]]> 3.89 1994
author: Margaret Atwood
name: John
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1994
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/03
date added: 2024/11/03
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A fun, mischievous side of Atwood. There were some great quick hitters here.
]]> 39947376 The Myth of Sisyphus—featured here in a stand-alone edition—is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide--the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.]]> 160 Albert Camus 0525564454 John 3 4.09 1942
author: Albert Camus
name: John
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves:
review:
A bit over my head. I was only partly familiar with all the other philosophical works Camus references. And I admit I didn’t read as slowly/closely as I could have.
]]> 162014102
1915. A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, code name Alice, the "queen of spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.

Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth...no matter where it leads.

--front flap]]> 560 Kate Quinn John 2
The first of the book was good. It felt original and kept me interested. But then it turned south. As the characters grew and the plot expanded, it all felt cliche. And the ending was quite poor.

Kudos to the author for shedding like on a forgotten part of history, but the book was a disappointment. ]]> 4.41 2017
author: Kate Quinn
name: John
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves:
review:
A 2.5

The first of the book was good. It felt original and kept me interested. But then it turned south. As the characters grew and the plot expanded, it all felt cliche. And the ending was quite poor.

Kudos to the author for shedding like on a forgotten part of history, but the book was a disappointment.
]]> 462228 ]]> 1437 R.V. Cassill John 4
The Veldt by Ray Bradbury �� I have read it before and enjoyed it, but I think it struck me even harder this time. How close have we come to being addicted to electronics, and making them our family?

Chekov! Wonderful.

Stephen Crane has wonderful, rich characters.

Isak Dinesen’s Sorrow-Acre was one of the best stories. Multiple plots woven together.

F Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited! Powerful.

D H Lawrence’s The Horse Dealer’s Daughter �� Beautiful and terrifying. Very moving.

The Rocking-Horse Winner �� A great story contrasting material goods and health/family.

The Garden-Party by Katherine Mansfield. Nigh perfect. Drops you straight into a scene, and takes you were you don’t expect.
]]> 3.95 1978
author: R.V. Cassill
name: John
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1978
rating: 4
read at: 2015/08/17
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves:
review:
A wonderful rich and deep collection! This has been my side reading for 5 months now. I started out making notes on some of my favorites, but then stopped at some point.

The Veldt by Ray Bradbury �� I have read it before and enjoyed it, but I think it struck me even harder this time. How close have we come to being addicted to electronics, and making them our family?

Chekov! Wonderful.

Stephen Crane has wonderful, rich characters.

Isak Dinesen’s Sorrow-Acre was one of the best stories. Multiple plots woven together.

F Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited! Powerful.

D H Lawrence’s The Horse Dealer’s Daughter �� Beautiful and terrifying. Very moving.

The Rocking-Horse Winner �� A great story contrasting material goods and health/family.

The Garden-Party by Katherine Mansfield. Nigh perfect. Drops you straight into a scene, and takes you were you don’t expect.

]]> 7672380 also appears in the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions (1972) and the collection The Eye of the Heron / The Word for World Is Forest (1991)

When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.

Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.

]]> 189 Ursula K. Le Guin 0765324644 John 3
A book very much about Vietnam��. It's a little more simple than most of Le Guin's books. And a tidy read, there could have been more about the Athsheans.

I appreciated the takedown of people who argue some humans are subhuman. And was impressed at how PTSD was described decades before it was a diagnosis.]]> 4.05 1972
author: Ursula K. Le Guin
name: John
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1972
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A book very much about Vietnam��. It's a little more simple than most of Le Guin's books. And a tidy read, there could have been more about the Athsheans.

I appreciated the takedown of people who argue some humans are subhuman. And was impressed at how PTSD was described decades before it was a diagnosis.
]]> 56597885 356 Sally Rooney 0374602603 John 5
The contrast in relationships:
- One between people who have known each other since they were kids. The other basically strangers.
- One where people speak opening about their feelings in the moment. The other where they hide what they really feel.
- One has individuals with similar backgrounds and beliefs. The other has a contrast in socioeconomic standings.
The juxtaposition between all of this, as the relationships weave and dip is breathless to watch. And it all feels so organic.

Felix initially feels like an intruder. I didn't like him or pip him to be around long. But quickly he became the pivot of the novel, the character most needed for the others (and the book) to go anywhere. He is so intriguing. Without him the other three would never really communicate.

All the characters are deep and rich and vibrant. I fell in love with all of them. They feel real. They feel like people I know. They feel like me. And the characters are living bravely, even if they are fumbling. They are striving and trying.

I also loved, loved, loved the letters between Eileen and Alice. I loved the philosophy, the history, the literature, everything they reference. I love how they both talk past each other, yet talk to each other. The book would have been lacking without them.

This is my first 5 star rating for a novel this year. I give them out so sparingly. But here it is fully deserved. Everything works, and works so well. I can't wait to read more books by Rooney! ]]> 3.53 2021
author: Sally Rooney
name: John
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
shelves:
review:
When I finished the book, I said "wow" out loud three or four times. From start to finish it is a wonderful book. And I approached it with such skepticism - popular authors/books tend not to be my thing. But Sally Rooney's "Beautiful World, Where Are You" is my thing!

The contrast in relationships:
- One between people who have known each other since they were kids. The other basically strangers.
- One where people speak opening about their feelings in the moment. The other where they hide what they really feel.
- One has individuals with similar backgrounds and beliefs. The other has a contrast in socioeconomic standings.
The juxtaposition between all of this, as the relationships weave and dip is breathless to watch. And it all feels so organic.

Felix initially feels like an intruder. I didn't like him or pip him to be around long. But quickly he became the pivot of the novel, the character most needed for the others (and the book) to go anywhere. He is so intriguing. Without him the other three would never really communicate.

All the characters are deep and rich and vibrant. I fell in love with all of them. They feel real. They feel like people I know. They feel like me. And the characters are living bravely, even if they are fumbling. They are striving and trying.

I also loved, loved, loved the letters between Eileen and Alice. I loved the philosophy, the history, the literature, everything they reference. I love how they both talk past each other, yet talk to each other. The book would have been lacking without them.

This is my first 5 star rating for a novel this year. I give them out so sparingly. But here it is fully deserved. Everything works, and works so well. I can't wait to read more books by Rooney!
]]> 52761887 A practical and comprehensive guide to surviving the greatest disaster of our time, from New York Times bestselling self-help author and beloved CBS Sunday Morning science and technology correspondent David Pogue.

You might not realize it, but we’re already living through the beginnings of climate chaos. In Arizona, laborers now start their day at 3 a.m. because it’s too hot to work past noon. Chinese investors are snapping up real estate in Canada. Millennials have evacuation plans. Moguls are building bunkers. Retirees in Miami are moving inland.

In How to Prepare for Climate Change, bestselling self-help author David Pogue offers sensible, deeply researched advice for how the rest of us should start to ready ourselves for the years ahead. Pogue walks readers through what to grow, what to eat, how to build, how to insure, where to invest, how to prepare your children and pets, and even where to consider relocating when the time comes. (Two areas of the country, in particular, have the requisite cool temperatures, good hospitals, reliable access to water, and resilient infrastructure to serve as climate havens in the years ahead.) He also provides wise tips for managing your anxiety, as well as action plans for riding out every climate catastrophe, from superstorms and wildfires to ticks and epidemics.

Timely and enlightening, How to Prepare for Climate Change is an indispensable guide for anyone who read The Uninhabitable Earth or The Sixth Extinction and wants to know how to make smart choices for the upheaval ahead.]]> 656 David Pogue 1982134518 John 4
Admittedly I skimmed and flipped through more pages then I read. But it seems like a great resource, and makes me appreciate where I live in the Midwest. ]]> 4.11
author: David Pogue
name: John
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

Admittedly I skimmed and flipped through more pages then I read. But it seems like a great resource, and makes me appreciate where I live in the Midwest.
]]> 33114524 futebol feminino for Santos FC, Brazil. The team hitchhiked to practice, shared their field with a horse and wore hand-me-downs from the men's team.

If this was Brazil, the mecca of futebol, what did the women's game look like in other countries?

Under the Lights and in the Dark takes us inside the world of women's soccer, following players across the globe, from Portland Thorns star Allie Long, who trains in an underground men's league in New York City; to Fara Williams, who hid her homelessness from her teammates while playing for the English national team. Oxenham takes us to Voronezh, Russia, where players battle more than just snowy pitches in pursuing their dream of playing pro, and to a refugee camp in Denmark, where Nadia Nadim, now a Danish international star, honed her skills after her family fled from the Taliban.

Whether you're a newcomer to the sport or a die-hard fan, this is an inspiring book about stars' beginnings and adventures, struggles and hardship, and, above all, the time-honored romance of the game.]]> 272 Gwendolyn Oxenham 1785781537 John 4
How did I not know about this book sooner? While I have dipped toes in women's soccer for longer, I have been a diehard for 5 years now, and somehow I was ignorant of this book. It is great start to finish, so many wonderful stories. And the writing is top notch, well told and well organized. It inspires me to double down on my support of women's athletics. ]]> 4.51 2017
author: Gwendolyn Oxenham
name: John
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/19
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

How did I not know about this book sooner? While I have dipped toes in women's soccer for longer, I have been a diehard for 5 years now, and somehow I was ignorant of this book. It is great start to finish, so many wonderful stories. And the writing is top notch, well told and well organized. It inspires me to double down on my support of women's athletics.
]]> 6669817 War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Stories as different as The Snowstorm, Lucerne, The Diary of a Madman and The Devil are grounded in autobiographical experience. They deal with journeys of self-discovery and the moral and religious thought that characterizes Tolstoy's works of criticism and philosophy. Strider and Father Sergy, as well as reflecting Tolstoy's own experiences, also reveal profound psychological insights.

These stories range over much of the nineteenth-century Russian world, from the nobility to the peasantry, the military to the clergy, from merchants and cobblers to a horse and a tree. Together they present a fascinating picture of Tolstoy's skill and artistry.]]> 296 Leo Tolstoy 0199553998 John 3
A mixed bag. The best stories seem to be in the middle of the collection. Strider: The Story of a Horse was my favorite. ]]> 3.58 1889
author: Leo Tolstoy
name: John
average rating: 3.58
book published: 1889
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves:
review:
A 3.5

A mixed bag. The best stories seem to be in the middle of the collection. Strider: The Story of a Horse was my favorite.
]]> 23841432 89 Ocean Vuong John 4
Wonderful, haunting, a joy to read as it breaks your heart.

Merged review:

A 4.5

Wonderful, haunting, a joy to read as it breaks your heart.]]> 4.20 2016
author: Ocean Vuong
name: John
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2021/09/07
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

Wonderful, haunting, a joy to read as it breaks your heart.

Merged review:

A 4.5

Wonderful, haunting, a joy to read as it breaks your heart.
]]> 56755557 A NOVEL OF LOVE AND LOSS FROM BESTSELLING AND PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR JOYCE CAROL OATES

Amid a starkly beautiful but uncanny landscape in New Mexico, a married couple from Cambridge, MA takes residency at a distinguished academic institute. When the husband is stricken with a mysterious illness, misdiagnosed at first, their lives are uprooted and husband and wife each embarks upon a nightmare journey.�� At thirty-seven, Michaela faces the terrifying prospect of widowhood - and the loss of Gerard, whose identity has greatly shaped her own.��

In vividly depicted scenes of escalating suspense, Michaela cares desperately for Gerard in his final days as she comes to realize that her love for her husband, however fierce and selfless, is not enough to save him and that his death is beyond her comprehension.�� A love that refuses to be surrendered at death—is this the blessing of a unique married love, or a curse that must be exorcized?

Part intimately detailed love story, part horror story rooted in real life, BREATHE is an exploration of hauntedness rooted in the domesticity of marital love, as well as our determination both to be faithful to the beloved and to survive the trauma of loss.]]> 384 Joyce Carol Oates 006308547X John 4
There are several parts of this book that left me not sure about what "really" happened....even after rereading them. And that is part of the brilliance. The blur between real/imagined/desired, as Micheala is dealing with her loss seems perfect. She is simply trying to cope. Mystical Realism at its best.

The injection of side characters, Letitia, Iris, Simon is spot on. They all play off of what Micheala is going through so well. They are both mirrors reflecting Micheala and windows looking outward into another life. And there is something mystical about how they pop in and out of the story.

A desperate and wonderful read. ]]> 2.94 2021
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: John
average rating: 2.94
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/10
date added: 2024/10/15
shelves:
review:
Frantic. I don't know how else to describe this book. The writing perfectly portrays the feelings of powerlessness over illness, loss, and mortality. The prose is disjointed at times, unreliable and doubles back on itself. I wasn't sure what I thought at first, but then it quickly grew on me. It begged me to read it at a frantic pace, especially the more Micheala's life falls apart.

There are several parts of this book that left me not sure about what "really" happened....even after rereading them. And that is part of the brilliance. The blur between real/imagined/desired, as Micheala is dealing with her loss seems perfect. She is simply trying to cope. Mystical Realism at its best.

The injection of side characters, Letitia, Iris, Simon is spot on. They all play off of what Micheala is going through so well. They are both mirrors reflecting Micheala and windows looking outward into another life. And there is something mystical about how they pop in and out of the story.

A desperate and wonderful read.
]]> 179270344 Mexican Gothic meets The Lie Tree by way of Oscar Wilde and Mary Shelley in this delightfully witty horror debut. A captivating tale of two Victorian gentlemen hiding their relationship away in a botanical garden who embark on a Frankenstein-style experiment with unexpected consequences.

It is an unusual thing, to live in a botanical garden. But Simon and Gregor are an unusual pair of gentlemen. Hidden away in their glass sanctuary from the disapproving tattle of Victorian London, they are free to follow their own interests without interference. For Simon, this means long hours in the dark basement workshop, working his taxidermical art. Gregor's business is exotic plants �� lucrative, but harmless enough. Until his latest acquisition, a strange fungus which shows signs of intellect beyond any plant he's seen, inspires him to attempt a masterwork: true intelligent life from plant matter.

Driven by the glory he'll earn from the Royal Horticultural Society for such an achievement, Gregor ignores the flaws in his plan: that intelligence cannot be controlled; that plants cannot be reasoned with; and that the only way his plant-beast will flourish is if he uses a recently deceased corpse for the substrate.

The experiment �� or Chloe, as she is named �� outstrips even Gregor's expectations, entangling their strange household. But as Gregor's experiment flourishes, he wilts under the cost of keeping it hidden from jealous eyes. The mycelium grows apace in this sultry greenhouse. But who is cultivating whom?

Told with wit and warmth, this is an extraordinary tale of family, fungus and more than a dash of bloody revenge from an exciting new voice in queer horror.]]> 384 Noah Medlock 1803365900 John 3
P228 “Absurd indeed are the half-truths we tell ourselves as fathers. We claim we want whats best for our children, when really we cant distinguish that from our own self-interest."

A creative read, but not exactly my thing. ]]> 3.67 2024
author: Noah Medlock
name: John
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves:
review:
The first two thirds of the book builds nicely. After taking a little bit to get into it, I found it rather enjoyable. But then it slid off, and ended poorly for me. Chloe a nice metaphor for the gentlemen's love. They are not understood, and have to be kept secret. And she is a combination of their interests. But in contrast, Jenny felt flat for me. Well before the end I felt she could have been richer and fuller, and the ending only added to that.

P228 “Absurd indeed are the half-truths we tell ourselves as fathers. We claim we want whats best for our children, when really we cant distinguish that from our own self-interest."

A creative read, but not exactly my thing.
]]> 62911723 38 Dessa John 4 4.57
author: Dessa
name: John
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 172979818 From the International Booker Prize–winning translator and Women's Prize finalist, a propulsive, beguiling novel about eight translators and their search for a world-renowned author who goes missing in a primeval Polish forest.

Eight translators arrive at a house in a forest on the border of Belarus. It belongs to the world-renowned author Irena Rey, and they are there to translate her magnum opus, Gray Eminence. But within days of their arrival, Irena disappears without a trace.

The translators, who hail from eight different countries but share the same reverence for their beloved author, begin to investigate where she may have gone while proceeding with work on her masterpiece. They explore this ancient wooded refuge with its intoxicating slime molds and lichens, and study her exotic belongings and layered texts for clues. But doing so reveals secrets �� and deceptions �� of Irena Rey's that they are utterly unprepared for. Forced to face their differences as they grow increasingly paranoid in this fever dream of isolation and obsession, soon the translators are tangled up in a web of rivalries and desire, threatening not only their work but the fate of their beloved author herself.

This hilarious, thought-provoking second outing by award-winning translator and author Jennifer Croft is a brilliant examination of art, celebrity, the natural world, and the power of language. It is an unforgettable, unputdownable adventure with a small but global cast of characters shaken by the shocks of love, destruction, and creation in one of Europe’s last great wildernesses.]]> 320 Jennifer Croft 1639731709 John 3
This book is mad, frantic, obtuse, and frustrating. But I am glad I read it, and would read another book by Croft if she decided to write again. Even though, there were some significant stretches of the book where I found myself not caring.

The concept of writing a book supposedly written by one of the characters in the book, and translated by another is bonkers. And, oh, the characters are all translators. But there is so much great commentary about translating by one of the world's best. Everything with fungus seems apt. A book written in Polish is dead to me, but a translator takes that dead material and turns it into something that can be used again in English. And Emi is so convinced her way of translating is best. Alexis (and all the other translators) have a different style or interpretation - these types of passions and feuds must happen.

Then there is the complete breakdown of Irena in Emi's eyes. Everything she thinks she knows about the woman from reading her is shown to be a lie. And it felt like a spotlight on my own feelings toward authors I adore. I am sure they are not the people I (want to) believe they are. And that they take from various real life incidents in their creation. All storytellers are thieves. And translators have to accept it and deal with it.

But I wonder, could the story have been told in a less obtuse way? Could these points not been hidden in a confusing web? Or is there some other level of metaphor the author made that I missed? Were the notes by the "translator" brilliant or a crutch?]]> 3.18 2024
author: Jennifer Croft
name: John
average rating: 3.18
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves:
review:
What the???

This book is mad, frantic, obtuse, and frustrating. But I am glad I read it, and would read another book by Croft if she decided to write again. Even though, there were some significant stretches of the book where I found myself not caring.

The concept of writing a book supposedly written by one of the characters in the book, and translated by another is bonkers. And, oh, the characters are all translators. But there is so much great commentary about translating by one of the world's best. Everything with fungus seems apt. A book written in Polish is dead to me, but a translator takes that dead material and turns it into something that can be used again in English. And Emi is so convinced her way of translating is best. Alexis (and all the other translators) have a different style or interpretation - these types of passions and feuds must happen.

Then there is the complete breakdown of Irena in Emi's eyes. Everything she thinks she knows about the woman from reading her is shown to be a lie. And it felt like a spotlight on my own feelings toward authors I adore. I am sure they are not the people I (want to) believe they are. And that they take from various real life incidents in their creation. All storytellers are thieves. And translators have to accept it and deal with it.

But I wonder, could the story have been told in a less obtuse way? Could these points not been hidden in a confusing web? Or is there some other level of metaphor the author made that I missed? Were the notes by the "translator" brilliant or a crutch?
]]> 208852654 A bold and haunting debut story collection that follows various characters as they navigate the day-to-day perils of Jim Crow racism from Diane Oliver, a missing figure in the canon of twentieth-century African American literature, with an introduction by Tayari Jones

A remarkable talent far ahead of her time, Diane Oliver died in 1966 at the age of 22, leaving behind these crisply told and often chilling tales that��explore race and racism in 1950s and 60s America. In this first and only collection by a masterful storyteller finally taking her rightful place in the canon, Oliver’s insightful stories reverberate into the present day.

There’s the nightmarish “The Closet on the Top Floor�� in which Winifred, the first Black student at her newly integrated college, starts to physically disappear; “Mint Juleps not Served Here�� where a couple living deep in a forest with their son go to bloody lengths to protect him; “Spiders Cry without Tears,�� in which a couple, Meg and Walt, are confronted by prejudices and strains of interracial and extramarital love; and the high tension titular story that follows a nervous older sister the night before her little brother is set to desegregate his school.

These are incisive and intimate portraits of African American families in everyday moments of anxiety and crisis��that look at how they use agency to navigate their predicaments. As much a social and historical document as it is a taut, engrossing collection,�� Neighbors�� is an exceptional literary feat from a crucial once-lost figure of letters.]]> 320 Diane Oliver 0802161316 John 4 3.92 2024
author: Diane Oliver
name: John
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/08
shelves:
review:
Some excellent stories at the beginning, the rest are decent. I appreciated the simple details of life, they made the stories feel real. Loved the shock ending of Mint Julio’s Not Served Here! A loss that Oliver died young. I think she would have had many, many more great stories to contribute.
]]> 123033397
April 5, 2019 : In a cozy brownstone in Brooklyn, the veneer of domestic bliss is beginning to crack. Dan and Isabel, troubled husband and wife, are both a little bit in love with Isabel’s younger brother, Robbie. Robbie, wayward soul of the family, who still lives in the attic loft; Robbie, who, trying to get over his most recent boyfriend, has created a glamorous avatar online; Robbie, who now has to move out of the house—and whose departure threatens to break the family apart. Meanwhile Nathan, age ten, is taking his first uncertain steps toward independence, while Violet, five, does her best not to notice the growing rift between her parents.

April 5, 2020: As the world goes into lockdown, the brownstone is feeling more like a prison. Violet is terrified of leaving the windows open, obsessed with keeping her family safe, while Nathan attempts to skirt her rules. Isabel and Dan communicate mostly in veiled jabs and frustrated sighs. And beloved Robbie is stranded in Iceland, alone in a mountain cabin with nothing but his thoughts—and his secret Instagram life—for company.

April 5, 2021: Emerging from the worst of the crisis, the family reckons with a new, very different reality—with what they’ve learned, what they’ve lost, and how they might go on.

From the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cunningham, Day is a searing, exquisitely crafted meditation on love and loss and the struggles and limitations of family life—how to live together and apart.]]> 273 Michael Cunningham 0399591346 John 4
I had a long think after I finished the book, and decided the story just about works. It might be held together by a bit string (and make even smoke), but it holds. Kudos to Cunningham for trying to put into words those strange times at the start of Covid.

The imagination we have as kids, particularly our imagined view of other people, never really leaves us. As adults we still have fanciful views of others and what they mean to us, and us to them. It's Wolfe that holds the story together. Wolfe, who's initial introduction seemed silly. But all the characters (and all humans), interact with each other as Wolfes. Anyone pretending to have realistic views of others is only deluding themselves. That's attraction of social media, of demagogues. They are only manifesting more of what makes us human. We weave narratives and create characters of everyone around us. We are storytelling animals. No one notices the incongruity in Wolfe’s life because our vision of everyone is incongruent. ]]> 3.50 2023
author: Michael Cunningham
name: John
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves:
review:
A 4.5��

I had a long think after I finished the book, and decided the story just about works. It might be held together by a bit string (and make even smoke), but it holds. Kudos to Cunningham for trying to put into words those strange times at the start of Covid.

The imagination we have as kids, particularly our imagined view of other people, never really leaves us. As adults we still have fanciful views of others and what they mean to us, and us to them. It's Wolfe that holds the story together. Wolfe, who's initial introduction seemed silly. But all the characters (and all humans), interact with each other as Wolfes. Anyone pretending to have realistic views of others is only deluding themselves. That's attraction of social media, of demagogues. They are only manifesting more of what makes us human. We weave narratives and create characters of everyone around us. We are storytelling animals. No one notices the incongruity in Wolfe’s life because our vision of everyone is incongruent.
]]> 23995336 A Constellation of Vital Phenomena—dazzling, poignant, and lyrical interwoven stories about family, sacrifice, the legacy of war, and the redemptive power of art.

This stunning, exquisitely written collection introduces a cast of remarkable characters whose lives intersect in ways both life-affirming and heartbreaking. A 1930s Soviet censor painstakingly corrects offending photographs, deep underneath Leningrad, bewitched by the image of a disgraced prima ballerina. A chorus of women recount their stories and those of their grandmothers, former gulag prisoners who settled their Siberian mining town. Two pairs of brothers share a fierce, protective love. Young men across the former USSR face violence at home and in the military. And great sacrifices are made in the name of an oil landscape unremarkable except for the almost incomprehensibly peaceful past it depicts.

In stunning prose, with rich character portraits and a sense of history reverberating into the present, The Tsar of Love and Techno is a captivating work from one of our greatest new talents.

The leopard --
Granddaughters --
The Grozny Tourist Bureau --
A prisoner of the Caucasus --
The tsar of love and techno --
Wolf of White Forest --
Palace of the people --
A temporary exhibition --
The end]]> 332 Anthony Marra 0770436439 John 4
A book that straddles the line between a novel and connected short stories. It's every bit as blunt as Marra's first book, but a bit less heartbreaking. A bit. The various interweavings of story and characters make a splendid tapestry. The author doles out dollops of truth as the book goes on, so things that seem one way early on, shine a different shade by the end. And the writing is beautiful. ]]> 4.27 2015
author: Anthony Marra
name: John
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/02
shelves:
review:
A 4.5

A book that straddles the line between a novel and connected short stories. It's every bit as blunt as Marra's first book, but a bit less heartbreaking. A bit. The various interweavings of story and characters make a splendid tapestry. The author doles out dollops of truth as the book goes on, so things that seem one way early on, shine a different shade by the end. And the writing is beautiful.
]]> 62898932 Do you know what happened already?
Did you know her?
Did you see it on the internet?
Did you listen to a podcast?
Did the hosts make jokes?

Did you see the pictures of the body?

Did you look for them?

It's been nearly a decade since the horrifying murder of sixteen-year-old Joan Wilson rocked Crow-on-Sea, and the events of that terrible night are now being published for the first time.

That story is Penance, a dizzying feat of masterful storytelling, where Eliza Clark manoeuvres us through accounts from the inhabitants of this small seaside town. Placing us in the capable hands of journalist Alec Z. Carelli, Clark allows him to construct what he claims is the 'definitive account' of the murder - and what led up to it. Built on hours of interviews with witnesses and family members, painstaking historical research, and most notably, correspondence with the killers themselves, the result is a riveting snapshot of lives rocked by tragedy, and a town left in turmoil.

The only question is: how much of it is true?]]> 336 Eliza Clark 0571371795 John 4
And then there are the aspects of the book that are universal. Small town life, politics, local celebrities, teenage interactions, etc. And these things make the book relatable and familiar, in the midst of all the unfamiliarity.

Two books into her career, it's exciting to think about all the things to come from Clark. She is a writer of immense talent. And the ambition to match it. ]]> 3.87 2023
author: Eliza Clark
name: John
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
I am not a fan of true crime at all, and for 30 pages or so, I wasn't sure if I was going to like this. But then I was swept up, and devoured the book. The writing is wonderful. And I was drawn in by all the small details, the Britishness of it. But also the generational differences. Characters who grow up on Tumblr, The Sims, and the internet as a whole. I know about all these things (obviously), but am inexperienced with how they form and shape younger people.

And then there are the aspects of the book that are universal. Small town life, politics, local celebrities, teenage interactions, etc. And these things make the book relatable and familiar, in the midst of all the unfamiliarity.

Two books into her career, it's exciting to think about all the things to come from Clark. She is a writer of immense talent. And the ambition to match it.
]]>