A short novel which was written in a response to an event that had happened in Korea. I did not know that aspect of the book and so it just felt like an odd mood piece of a novel that I wasn’t sure I was understanding. The loose idea is that people’s shadows can rise, and it’s very important not to follow them. Also there is a young couple who are just starting dating. Once I read the author’s statement at the end, a lot of it clicked into place for me.

Not sure I finished this. It’s a “choose your own adventure” (ambitious). A note at the beginning says you can also just read it straight through. I made a “choice” near the beginning that propelled me close to the end and there seemed to be plot points I had missed. Was this because I was reading it on an old Kindle? I hit a few “error” pages saying go back. One chapter was there twice. Was this part of the story? Ultimately confusing, too bad because I really like Shepherd’s stuff. I may try to read it again in hardcover.

Pargin is someone known to many people online but I didn’t know him. This book is a romp of a weird road trip with a mystery box with a cast of characters many of whom are or were part of the army of the Extremely Online. The story itself is told somewhat through Reddit forum posts which I found charming and real-feeling but might not be to others' tastes. A lot of discussion about online factionalism, with a few good jokes in there. The book has one central mystery throughout and a lot of characters who have some pretty serious flaws so it’s tough to figure out who to root for.

Markoe tries to get back into her own head as a teen by going through her diaries and sketching out her first graphic novel combining what she remembers with what she thought then. She was a horribly awkward pre-teen and teen with a lousy (maybe?) family and the usual “I am out of place, feel weird about boys” feels as well as some actual “I dealt with antisemitism at my school from the school administration” experiences. Illustrations very individualistic and quirky.

I’ve had this book suggested to me for a long time now and finally read it. It’s the first in a series. This one is about a guy who gets laid off from his job and had to scramble to find money, gets wrapped up with some unsavory white men (he’s a black man, WWII vet) and a woman who is nothing but trouble. They’re in LA, but a lot of his friends are from the South and many people move back and forth between locales. A good story, a little violent and a little tough to read just because many of the characters are variants of certain kinds of archetypes and they’re not all nice people. I’ll pick up the next one.

Definitely a book up my street. This dense discussion of science and history talks about how some major world shifts happened because of situations involving illness and widespread disease. Like who was able to take over whom because disease had ravaged the part of the population who might fight back. How did 500 guys take over parts of South America? Why some colonized areas get settled and some just get resource-extracted. What helps and what doesn’t. A great read.

Again, after the last book, I read most books I see that are about books. This one is mostly not about books, it sort of fits into the Rivers of London type of “What if London were more magical?” genre only with fewer cops. There is a whole magical London backstory and a lot of magical creatures, some benevolent, others much less so. I liked the bones of this story quite a lot also (the loose plot where the protagonist is trying to track down her father who has left a LOT of mystery in his wake), but ultimately I am not much of a fantasy reader and it felt too “dragons vs wizards” for me at the end (i.e. magical conflicts where it all feels kind of random) but a good book overall.

I’ll read nearly any book with a library/bookshop in it even if it’s in a genre (romance) not normally my jam. The one downside to knowing it’s a romance kind of novel is that there’s usually a premature realization that things are all going to work out. This was one of those “two stories converge” novels where one story takes place in the past and one is taking place pretty much nowadays. I liked the bones of this story a lot, some of the implementation a little less so. There is a lot of trauma (domestic abuse, involuntary commitment) as a backdrop which can be a tough read, as well as people wearing white gloves to read old books which always makes my librarian brain nuts.

This is a weird (in a good way) novella about a world in which aliens kinda sorta come and take over but all they mainly do is help people understand that we’re all in it together. The book mainly covers the time after they’ve shown up, so there’s not a lot of “first contact” sort of exploration. We watch society transform as people make “better choices” en masse. But sometimes people miss the options to make bad choices. There is a small rebel faction. The aliens also enable some magic so that you can grow horns or have hooves or become a baby again. One woman’s wife decides to become a baby and we’re watching her manage that grief (and her right to be sad) in a post-scarcity world. There’s a lot of general metaphor about what does it mean to be truly yourself.

Found on a list of detective-type books that are not by white authors and mainly don’t have white characters. This is about IQ (his initials, real name Isaiah Quintabe) who is a scary-smart young man in a rough neighborhood with a keen problem-solving mind. He gets sought out by people, some of whom pay him and some of whom don’t, or only pay in muffins. I really liked the main character and some of the supporting ones, the book was a little too violent for me and has some roughed up dogs. You get a lot of insight into his backstory in this one. I might read one more to see how they are.