A fun book about what we know about the human body based on science. It talks about the body section by section. The book is filled with trivia including a lot of mentions of people who are not well-known by folks (including some scientists whose research was co-opted by others who took all the glory). I knew some things, I learned some things, and I thought “Oh I think that’s changed” about a few things (book is from 2017). Readable and fun.

A very moody seaside novella about a young man making his living in the hardscrabble world of shanking, scraping shrimp from the low waters with his horse and cart, coming home to the simple cottage where he lives with his mom, getting up and doing it all over again. One day a man appears who wants to put him in a movie, waving money and just the whole concept of “something else.” Just the idea of something else changes him. This book was slow and evocative and a nice place to be in.

This is a great short novel about some North Korean spies, a South Korean who runs a restaurant in Oxford, and an American spy of Korean descent who is also part of this whole thing. It bounces around a bit in the timeline, but overall tells a story of what it means to be Korean, or to consider Korea “home” (or not) and what it means to have family (or not). Very self-contained and event-filled without being thriller-y. I liked getting to know these characters and what made their lives complex as well as interesting.

Emma is a French graphic novelist who wrote this book in 2017, later translated into English. She is admittedly late to feminist topics and her author bio says that her comics, which run in the Guardian, “have a history of going viral.” I think this would be a better graphic novel for someone newer to feminism and activism than I am. She covers topics like female sexuality, household domestic labor divisions and racist police. All good topics, decently illustrated but some of them felt a bit obvious while some were more sophisticated looks into feminist topics. Overall a bit uneven and more like essays made into pictures most of the time.

Unfortunately, this book had nothing to do with the programming language 😆 This was the second in the Harbinder Kaur series and it was good. Sort of had the same issues as the last one, a lot of characters, a few which are nicely built out and a lot of others with generic names who are almost NPCs. A lot of nice views of Scotland. Kaur makes progress with her more-traditional family. As a nighttime book that I wasn’t expecting too much from, it was pretty good.

I had read Takei’s earlier memoir about being sent to an internment camp with his family. This one details his personal and professional journey, only coming out as a gay man in his sixties, when he had already been in a committed relationship for two decades. It’s well-told, poignant and sweet (and a little rage-inducing), showing the fear he had about someone discovering his secret, but also the ways he found to live his life and become the gay icon he is today.

From the author who brought us Book of Doors, a story about a group of people sworn to keep a small set of magical objects away from the general public lest they become dangerous. But there are secrets even within the society and messy magical conflicts result. There’s a lot of “This book would be fifteen pages long if people would only tell each other the trusth” but it’s engaging nonetheless. Taking place in, among other places, London, Alabama, and Hong Kong, this is a well-done story about being careful about what you wish for.

A different series by Elly Griffiths who I have liked. This is the Harbinder Kaur series. Kaur is a mid-thirties British Indian gay woman who lives with her parents. She is also a great detective. This book, the first, is about a spooky horror story and goings on at the high school which used to be the home of the horror writer. There are a few murders. A lot of different narrative perspectives which I enjoyed more than I expected to.

A sort of fun look at what sorts of things were considered rude or just beyond the pale and what other things were just not as big a deal back then as they are now. Goodman goes into topics like sex, drugs (well, alcohol) and fighting and looks at old documents, primarily court records and wills but also a few books published at the time, and talks about what “behaving badly” at that time, really looked like. A lot of differentials between the genders which is not that surprising. I learned stuff.