Wants to read Caca Dolce: Essays from a Lowbrow Life
book
Rated Let the Great World Spin 10/10
This book is well worth the time, cover price, and its National Book Award. Circling around Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the World Trade Center towers, McCann weaves together the fragile connections between eleven New Yorkers. It is both a story of its time and a thoughtful 9/11 allegory in which grief, passion, and observance are at the root of every character.<br><br>I read a lot of great books this year, but only a few did I know I would love from the first page, more than one set in New York City. Maybe at times sulking naysayers like to disparage the “New York Novel,” claiming that it’s all been done before, but I don’t know how anyone could reasonably believe that. In the United States’ most populous city, how could you possibly think that every story has been told? When the world is filled with short story collections depicting the most microscopic of events in two-bar towns, how is the expanse of five boroughs and 8.4 million people “overrated?” How is it any less real?<br><br>If anything, Let The Great World Spin is an antidote to that kind of contrary thinking. Whether or not we know it consciously, we are all connected. We share the same air — spouses, subway riders, café frequenters, best friends, and drunks — and somewhere there is a common thread. For as big as the world is, sometimes it doesn’t take much bring us together.<br><br>(Full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2010/12/let-great-world-spin-by-colum-mccann.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated Homie 10/10
<div>Love, lust, loneliness, and longing. Friendship, family, fear. All the good, hard, exultant stuff is here.</div>
Wants to read Whiteout Volume 2: Melt – The Definitive Edition
Wants to read The Encyclopedia of Trouble and Spaciousness
Rated Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive 7/10
<div>Stein profiles people with rare or disappearing jobs from around the world and uses that as a springboard to talk about the surrounding history of the job and the area, but also talks a little bit about himself. I found the memoir aspects less compelling — I wanted to hear more about these interesting people with interesting jobs. Some profiles succeed more than others, but overall, I liked this. I particularly recommend the chapter on los lectores in Cuba (people who read news and novels to cigar rollers during their shifts), and the chapter on the "romantic" oak tree in Germany that ended up profoundly affecting the postal worker assigned to deliver letters there. Both of these chapters appeared in a previous form on BBC Travel, so I wonder if having extra time to percolate helped. Even if, overall, this wasn't love for me, ymmv.</div>
Wants to read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Rated Doctor Who: Trail of the White Worm 6/10
Not a bad Part 1! It also reminded me of that bonkers Peter Capaldi movie, The Lair of the White Worm, which deals with the same creature. I'm not wild about the Doctor referring to Leela as "Savage" as a nickname, however "primitive" her origins. It's unnecessary.
Rated Alif the Unseen 10/10
Excellent. I enjoyed this tremendously. Get to this one.
Wants to read The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath
Rated And Then I Danced: Traveling the Road to LGBT Equality 6/10
Interesting history, pat on the back writing with only surface-level insight. In other words, standard fare for any Open Lens-published memoir. The book also could have done a better job acknowledging bi and trans activists that spurred the early Pride movements, as most go unmentioned here. That said, Mark Segal has certainly accomplished a lot, and one should admire his tenacity.
Rated Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler 10/10
<div>I greatly appreciated this look at Octavia E. Butler's life and career. Because it does dive into plot points and details of so many of her books, it's probably better for someone who is well-acquainted with her work. I have read just about everything of hers that's easily available, but never in a classroom (or even a bookclub) setting, so I enjoyed Susana M. Morris' analysis a lot. She really knows her stuff.<br><br>And I know Butler did not love <em>Survivor</em>, and thus never had it reprinted, but sorry, I hunted it down on Internet Archive anyway. I think it's the only novel of hers I haven't read, so my inner completist is curious about this offshoot of the Patternist series.</div>
Rated Women Talking 10/10
Excellent. Innovatively written. Highly recommend.
Rated The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl 6/10
Anyone who picked up this cookbook and expected a straightforward, recipes-only affair must not be all that familiar with the internet presence that is Pioneer Woman.<br><br>Each of her recipes have step-by-step photos documenting the process, which can be tremendously helpful for beginning cooks. Drummond takes all the photos herself, and it has been fun to watch the evolution of her photography reading her site over the years. She’s the first one to admit she’s no photography expert, but she’s no slouch either. Her photos use natural light well, and though not a professional “food stylist,” her dishes always look fantastic. If the success marker of a cookbook is making the reader hungry, then she’s done her job.<br><br>While I enjoyed her asides about daily life, I do wish that more of the material had not already been published on the blog. This is a small complaint, sure, but regular readers will not find a wealth of new material. However, the cookbook would make an excellent introduction for someone not familiar with her work — and it is only an introduction. At around 240 pages, she doesn’t offer an overflow of recipes, but the ones she does offer define her cooking style well.<br><br>The main reason why I wanted to buy the book was so I could have easy access to her recipes that I always mean to make, but never get around to printing. The Marlboro Man sandwich, pico de gallo, onion strings, pizza crust, and chicken fried steak — I hate to have to look things up on my laptop all the time. (This where the iPad users get all smug, but I’m a dino who is just not there yet, all right?)<br><br>(The full review for this book can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2011/03/pioneer-woman-cooks-by-ree-drummond.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated The Golem and the Jinni 8/10
Full review will be forthcoming, but it was the excellent epilogue that firmly pushed this book from 3 stars to 4.
Rated The Incendiaries 8/10
I liked this book a lot. I stayed up too late reading this both odd and true-feeling tale of the lengths to which people will go to feel whole again.
Rated The Haunting of Tram Car 015 9/10
<div>Loved this novella, the second book set in this world by Clark that I've read. Great ending.</div>
Rated Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law 7/10
<div>I don't know if I liked this one as much as the other two of hers that I've read. The first half was more interesting than the second, and her light tone is a little incongruous with some of the subject matter. Still, I learned something!</div>
Rated Doctor Who: The First Doctor Adventures, Volume 1 9/10
<div> I didn't know these new* First Doctor audios were so good, but I finally listened and really loved it. David Bradley is a great First Doctor, which I knew, but these two stories are also really solid, even though one is a straight up historical, which aren't always my favorite.<br><br><br>*2017 can still be new. Hush.</div>