[I've been
reading]
« December, 2020 »
The Fractal Prince

More confusing than the one before it. Still enjoyed it, just a really different kind of scifi novel. Great female characters. This one felt more fantastical than the last one. Picking up the next/last one next and will be sad when the series is over

Sitting Pretty

Rebekah Taussig has put together a great book about growing up as someone using a wheelchair & how she experiences the world, going from her super-supportive family to a not-very-supportive world it’s a great explication of the social model of disability

The Quantum Thief

A great scifi sort-of mystery, some of it’s confusing, there are a lot of new vocabulary words, and you’re never quite sure who to root for but by the end of it I felt like I more or less knew what was going on and wanted more. The “quantumness” means it’s a little unclear sometimes what is real and what it unreal but it turns out it mostly doesn’t matter

The Patriarch

Some of these books feel more phoned-in than others. This one intro’d a flurry of new characters only a few of whom had real roles and got confusing, with a plot that had a return to good food discussion (yay) and ancient-seeming Russian history (boo). I came out of it feeling I understood more about French/Russian relations over the last fifty years but still wasn’t sure who was related to who.

Bull’s Eye

A discard from the local tech center library. A slightly-dated but truly interesting look into the medicine goings-on as people tried to figure out wtf was this weird new-seeming disease in CT. Good to read about another disease for a change. A few kinda long chapters about individual men (and it’s nearly all men) who are finding out different things. Dragged in places but overall pretty interesting.

A Bridge of Years

Turns out I had read a bunch of book by this guy before but his name hadn’t rung a bell. This was an interesting, more classic time travel novel but surprisingly good despite that. An interesting take on the general trope, taking place in 80s PacNW and 60s NYC. Redemption for most of the characters, covers a lot of ground. A lot of complicated morality choices that people have to make during the course of this book which feels like a much longer story, in a good way.

The Once and Future Witches

Another absolute delight of a book. Such a great story of a possible (and future) history of witchcraft and the (mostly) women who wield it. This turn of the last century long-form fable is a classic tale of good vs. evil but also a lot more than that. There are a lot of fun things to discover in this book under a close read but on its own it’s a very woman-centered tale of intrigue and problem solving.

The Psychology of Time Travel

I don’t know how I missed this when it came out. Just a great book about (mostly) female time travelers which is rich and deep but not too confusing even though the timelines weave and cross one another. There are a lot of interesting female characters both good and bad. It’s a little mysterious but not totally confounding. I am sorry this book is over, would have read one 5x as long.

Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris

I found out about this book while I was watching a documentary about smells. This is a book about one man’s hunt for ambergris and the things he learns along the way. Entertaining, lots of fun pictures, lots of quirky history and more information than I had previously known about the spendy, smelly stuff. As someone who grew up not too far from old time whaling places, and whose father loved Moby Dick, I think I may have known more about ambergris to begin with since when I mentioned this book to people many people didn’t know what it was about. Just the right length, a really good read.

Ready Player Two

I gave this book a solid fifty pages but listening to a manbaby billionaire be unable to deal with his life and take it out on those around him was just unreadable.