Rated Doctor Who: The Cannibalists 8/10
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Rated The Way the World Ends 10/10
What a great (long) short story. I had recently wondered if Jess Walter had any new material out, and how great to find this.
Rated 1989 10/10
<div>This is my favorite of Val McDermid's books that I've read so far. </div>
Edited 48d ago
Rated Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion 8/10
Tolentino is a great writer - her project is taking the tools of literary criticism and applying it, deftly and clearly, to non-literary texts: broad cultural trends, institutions, her own life. These essays vary from bright and fun to heavy, but they all come from the same sharp critical eye.
Rated Throne of Glass 8/10
Fun and engaging, if a little too romance-tropey for me to be totally on board. More or less tells a story with a beginning/middle/end but has some of that "we expect you to read this whole series" structural frustration.
Rated All the Birds in the Sky 8/10
Earnest, weird, dark, clever, surreal story that mixes sci-fi techno-dystopia and a well-thought-out fantasy magical system. Probably more of a 3 1/2 * than a 4 *, but well worth reading. Lots of great moments, ranging from funny to poignant to gee-whiz speculative; it's a future similarly convincing and vivid as something like "Super Sad True Love Story" or "Her," but with a great paranormal angel and a better, less hackneyed story.
Rated A Feast for Crows (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 4) by George R. R. Martin (2-May-2006) Paperback 8/10
GRR Martin blazes new trails in introducing you to characters, getting you to identify with and root for them, getting you invested in their plans, and then messily thwarting those plans. He also enjoys tormenting you with having characters act upon information you know to be untrue, or fail to discover information that you know would help them. <br/><br/>Great fun, really.
Rated The Iliad 10/10
remarkable - and it’s trite to say that the mark of great literature is that it always tells you something about the time you’re living in no matter when it’s from, but…reading about a culture where masculinity is the central value and it’s defined by whiny, belligerent men, fixated on pride, recognition, deference and control of women’s bodies, who don’t give a moment’s thought to whether these things are worth imposing suffering on others to secure? It hits, folks
Wants to read The Essex Serpent
Wants to read How Can I Help?: Saving Nature with Your Yard
Rated Frankenstein: By Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley : Illustrated & Unabridged 8/10
A fascinating book to read for the first time, because it has an enormous pop-cultural footprint that is in many ways independent of and different from the book itself. Basically all of horror and science fiction is downstream of <i>Frankenstein</i>; the book has an interesting structure with embedded narratives and flows quickly despite the elaborate, heightened language of its era. It's composed of a couple of different horror-movie nightmare scenarios. The first, affecting the doctor, is the classic "you've done something terribly wrong and it's putting you and people you love in danger"; the second, narrated by the erudite creature himself, is "you're thrust into a world where everyone seems to hate and fear you and you're not sure why." The first-person narrative style foregrounds the subjective emotional experience, the suspense and grief and self-loathing, rather than the plot, which is actually pretty simple. Although it's about big questions and themes, takes place over a big geographical scale, and is considered a monumental work, it's very intimate, with very few named characters. It's also much more horror-y and not very science-y; absent is the focus on the "how" you usually get in subsequent sci-fi (I was surprised, for instance, that there's no *process* described, and no lightning-and-dials-and-switches "it's alive!" scene). It remains a rewarding read two centuries after it was written.
Rated A Botanist's Guide to Parties and Poisons 6/10
<div>This was fine, but it wasn't love. The writing style is a bit (forgive me) <em>flowery</em> for my taste, and Saffron is written as though she is very smart, and she mostly is, but she's also painfully naive. Also, she and this Alexander dude should just be buds, what with her "housemate who does housewife duties" bestie pining away at home. Maybe in future books there is a queer awakening for everyone involved? One can dream! But I am unlikely to continue on with the series. This might be more the sort of thing I'd watch instead of read.</div>
Edited 48d ago
Rated The Spirit of Aikido 8/10
not the best writing but a good quick intro to the history and principles/practices of aikido.
Rated How Did You Get This Number: Essays 6/10
Very nicely written, and Crosley is charming and a great observer, though these essays don't quite close the deal for themselves - you might be left asking "so what?" A quick and pleasant read.