Wants to read A Gentleman in Moscow
book
Rated Craft in the Real World: Rethinking Fiction Writing and Workshopping 10/10
<div>I want to shove this into the hands of every writer and teacher of writing that I know. So much good stuff in here — inventive, smart ways of thinking about both craft and revision methods. I will be using a lot of this in my own work.</div>
Rated The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook 8/10
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Rated A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence 8/10
The book is divided into three parts. The first is about the Brain, the second is about Machine Intelligence, and the third about the future existential threats that humanity will face. <br><br>The first part is illuminating. The second one is very interesting: I don’t agree with everything but it is a must read for the future of Artificial Intelligence. <br><br>The third part is a bit at odd with the rest of the bot. It is an interesting collection of discussion point. It is definitely worth reading but there is no real insight. There are a lot of speculations on the far future that should be taken with abundant grains of salt. They are not farfetched, let’s be clear, but every time we try to talk about more than 100 years in the future we are very likely to go in “total speculation mode”. Moreover, I can see that the first two parts came from the expertise of the author, while the third not. <br><br>Anyway, it is a book I really recommended.
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Rated A Mist of Prophesies 4/10
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Rated Banned for Life 10/10
If anything, <i>Banned For Life</i> is about how one does not have to sacrifice a punk mentality with age, and that punk does not come at the expense of happiness. Yes, punk is a reaction, and often an anger against the perceived wrongs in the world, but it's also this: <i>If we weren't so hellbent on screwing each other over, if we were all able to do what we want, we might be happy.</i><br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/04/banned-for-life-by-dr-haney.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated The Master and Margarita 10/10
Really enjoyed this and now sorta want a black cat named Behemoth.
Rated Doctor Who: The Auntie Matter 8/10
<div>Fun one with the first Romana.</div>
Rated Priestdaddy: A Memoir 10/10
<div>Somehow, Patricia Lockwood's memoir had completely escaped my attention when it first came out. I was familiar with (though I haven't read yet) her more recent novel, and of course, "Miette, her eyes enormous[...]" being one of the best all-time tweets. I'm glad to have rectified this gap in my reading. Her gift for description is perfect, and often hilarious. I kept reading bits aloud to my husband. If you have not read this smart, funny (and forgiving) memoir, please do.</div>
Rated The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories 4/10
A resounding "This is fine, I guess."<br><br>Her speech/essay at the beginning of the book is more or less a very good commencement speech. You'd be pleased to have it at your graduation. As an "amazing" essay? It's nothing extraordinary, though the idea of "The Opposite of Loneliness" is very lovely.<br><br>Keegan has a preoccupation with mentioning people's weight (fat is rarely portrayed as positive), or pressing her/her characters' foreheads/faces against each other (AKA... a writer-tic that one might not notice until all the pieces are presented as a whole), and maybe I'm just too far away from college to be excited by someone who, as the introduction says, "writes like she's 20." The ideas of her being jealous of others, while completely natural, kind of made me laugh a bit because Oh okay, you who has an internship at The New Yorker, lived on Cape Cod, and otherwise had all these interesting opportunities in life, you're somehow lacking? Sure. Okay. Fine. <br><br>I'm sure Keegan was a lovely person, with a lot of potential to do amazing things down the line. Her story is indeed tragic, but I remember being more moved by the essay about her from a friend on Buzzfeed Books, when this came out.<br><br>So, this is book is fine, but like Keegan said herself, there's always a better thing.
Rated Want 5/10
<div>You know how I know this book is British? Income bracket is apparently a stat we need to know about these anonymous writers. The British class system: always lurking nearby.<br><br>Sorry to these women, but this was sometimes like listening to another person's dream. It doesn't take away from the meaning it has for the storyteller, but I'm kinda glazing over a bit. I skimmed some of the entries. There are a lot of "straight" women in this book who maybe need to have a harder think about their own desires. Also, I wish many of them would quit hating their bodies so much. And dump some of those dudes. At times, the fantasies felt too similar to each other, which is fine if that's what you like, variations on a theme, but as a collective reading experience, I didn't love it.<br><br>That said, just because I didn't love this doesn't mean it won't be revelatory to someone else. Fantasies are personal, of course, and this is definitely a book for the phrase "your mileage may vary."<br><br>Gillian Anderson's involvement is what made me pick up the book, and her introductions to each section do have some insights. Still, glad this was only a library book.</div>
Rated Doctor Who: The Wave of Destruction 7/10
<div>This was fine. The tone was very much like one of the just okay Classic serials of the era, but maybe different elements reminded me of too many other Doctor Who stories. 1960s London, weird signals transmitted through popular entertainment devices, etc. etc. Always enjoy hearing Romana II though, and K-9 gets some jokes in.</div>
Rated Matrix 10/10
<div>Now this is some ART.</div>
Rated The Small Backs of Children 10/10
Art is a weapon. Lidia Yuknavitch's latest novel explores the lives of people either directly or indirectly related to a photographer who has taken a very famous photo of a girl from war-torn Eastern Europe. There's a performance artist, a poet, and a filmmaker married to a writer who has fallen into a deep depression, and all the words are wrapped up in the bodily reactions people have in the face of trauma.<br><br>The narrative blurs the line between a story once told, a story repeatedly told, and the fractured fourth wall between creator and audience. It's an interesting way to approach complex themes, and though the subject matter may be tough, it's not a tough read.<br><br>(See the rest of my Top 10 Favorites read in 2015 at <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2015/12/glorified-love-letters-top-10-favorite.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated The Confessions of Dorian Gray: Frostbite 6/10
This was way more of a setup to a story than an actual story. I had hoped for a little more, but as a freebie, it's perfectly fine.