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Rated The Payback 10/10

<div>Set in the near-future where people who are behind on student loans risk a beatdown from the Debt Police, <em>The Payback</em> begins with a lazy shift at an LA mall and increasingly amps up the pace. I loved reading from a retail store employee's perspective. An underutilized profession in novels! More "Mall Novels," please, even if only half of this book takes place in one.<br><br>And then it all turns into a heist? One of my favorite genres? Yes, of course I loved this book.</div>

Wants to read Happiness

Rated Doctor Who: Myths and Legends 6/10

This is a deeply nerdy book that I enjoyed, though I did not love. It fills in some of the blanks as to how certain stories came out, or the in-between times, explaining how the Doctor might be familiar with other planets/aliens based on the Time Lords' history. There are a lot of good callbacks, but if one is not as familiar with Classic Who, this isn't going to be the book for them. I got most references, but I felt like I was maybe missing a few things. The writing is just okay, and the myths/legends themselves are mostly interesting, but this isn't going to be a book for a casual fan.

Rated And the Ass Saw the Angel 2/10

Life is too short too completely finish a book you're hating, even if it is for book club. I'll stick to his songs, thanks.

Wants to read Thousand Star Hotel

Rated ¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons 10/10

<div>An outstanding memoir-in-essays, and definitely worth reading via audiobook, which is read by the author.</div><div><br></div>

Rated Educated 10/10

This was a captivating, albeit depressing read for my last book of 2019. I hope all these damaged children mentioned, even in passing as children of her siblings still in the throes of the family business, will be ok. Westover's ability to get out and discover the special capabilities of her own mind is truly admirable. I don't quite understand why people say they "LOVED" this, as it's a real family's suffering, but I'm still glad to have read it.

Rated Love Goes To Buildings On Fire: Five Years In New York That Changed Music Forever 8/10

Rated The Shutouts 8/10

<div>I got this book from Netgalley, not realizing it is set in the same world as an already existing book that I have not read (<em>Yours For The Taking</em>). Luckily, I don't think it is vital to have already read it to enjoy <em>The Shutouts</em>.<br><br>All of the characters here are interesting, even when they are making decisions that literally had me saying YIKES aloud. Set in the near-ish future, when all our climate change problems have somewhat passed the point of no return, each of these people are just trying to survive the best way that they can. The environmental concerns are very realistic, and I hope it makes readers give our potential impending disasters some thought. Even if we can mitigate damage, even if our future doesn't shake out exactly like this, it's going to be difficult nonetheless.</div><div><br></div>

Rated God Hates Astronauts, Vol. 1: The Head That Wouldn't Die! 4/10

This was not really for me, and is probably more for a person who gets more of the in-jokes of the comics, but there were still some funny parts. The sound effects were hilarious, and the art was certainly interesting... albeit definitely gross at times! (that's kind of the point though... Again, wasn't for me, but I see what they were doing.) Also, a fighting bear army? That's also funny. It's every plot that's gone off the rails, questionable decisions galore, and a feeling of "WTF did I just read?" at the end. You may like it better than I did.

Rated Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving 8/10

This is a good, entertaining book. I reread many chapters, and I find the included family photos interesting. Now, would his siblings have a different version of events or say he is glossing over some of his own issues? Maybe, but what he presented was compelling. Repeatedly I've said that I like knowing the life stories of people. I like knowing what shaped their character, and <i>Fante</i> is a 2-for-1 deal. Well played, Dan.<br><br>(My full review can be found on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2012/04/fante-by-dan-fante.html">Glorified Love Letters.</a>)

Wants to read Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

Rated The Man Who Fell to Earth 9/10

<div>I was surprised by how much I loved this. I have a free month of Audible, so I listened to the audiobook that was available without having to use a credit mostly because I'd seen both the movie and the TV show, and I thought, "Well, why not complete it?" But this mostly holds up as both a product of its time and as a story that's still relevant today (alas), all while remaining innovative and interesting.</div>

Rated Fobbit 8/10

Rated Flood 6/10

Enjoyable, but a little bit like an overly-enthusiastic college paper. Left me with TMBG songs in my head for days after.

Rated 1989 10/10

<div>This is my favorite of Val McDermid's books that I've read so far.&nbsp;</div>

Rated XO 6/10

Rated Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World 8/10

Really delightful book by a theoretical particle physicist about some of the latest developments in science, especially the Large Hadron Collider in Europe - but sine it's a couple of years old there have been some developments since then. Especially useful as a window into how scientists think about problems. If I had any reservations it's that some of it is really well above my head ore super-technical and I had to skim it - there are certain things about particle physics I'm just never going to really understand with my limited scientific/mathematical background although Randall is very game to try and explain genuinely weird stuff like super-symmetry and very small extra dimensions.

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 Thinking in Systems, A primer, Donella H. Meadows 8/10

very interesting, though i think a lot of the insights of this book are less striking now than they may have been in the 1990s when Meadows was first writing it. the fact that some of this mode of analysis feels familiar and baked-in or like common sense is a tribute to Meadows and her peers. interesting politics here - it's like an argument made to technocrats from a technocratic-eye-view about the importance of skepticism of technocracy, and while some of it reads conservative she's also explicitly hostile to the Reagan-era ideological paradigm shift. a lot of insights here that feel very relevant today, in an era of both sclerotic, fumbling systems and authoritarian attacks on them.

Rated A Game of Thrones 8/10

Rated Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity 8/10

Very striking - journalism that reads like a novel. A few years in the lives of families living at the edge of subsistence in a slum in Mumbai, right behind the airport and luxury hotels that symbolize a rising global upper class. Boo, the author, mostly removes herself from the story and narrates from the perspectives of her protagonists as they deal with poverty, corruption, religious conflict and their efforts to carve out a space for themselves. Beautifully done.

Rated The Inferno of Dante Alighieri 10/10

Feels weird to give a classic of the Western canon a star rating, but it’s my first time with it and I think the translation and commentary Ciardi offers is very good.<br/><br/>An inspiration to petty people everywhere: you can create something enduring, resonant, widely beloved and taken seriously for centuries and still have it basically be a burn book to settle a bunch of esoteric political and personal scores. <br/><br/>It’s not going to be a surprise that so much of Western culture is downstream of this, from religious imagery to fantasy literature to heavy metal lyrics, but it’s interesting as always to be able to see the well-worn references and images in their original context. And if there’s anything I want to explore in more detail I certainly don’t need to wonder if there’s an explanatory essay I could read. There’s seven centuries’ worth! <br/><br/>Glad I read this, and it’s more engaging and less chore-y than I expected.

Wants to read Virtue