Bragan Keeps Turning Pages in 2022, Part 4

So, here we are in the waning months of 2022, and here I am with a new post for the new quarter! I may be behind on absolutely everything, having just gotten back from vacation, but, hey, at least I'm managing this.

Let's start with the Stories Thus Far:

January
1. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
2. Beyond Earth’s Edge: The Poetry of Spaceflight edited by Julie Swarstad and Christopher Cokinos
3. We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry
4. Ignorance: How It Drives Science by Stuart Firestein
5. Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams
6. Oddball: A Sarah's Scribbles Collection by Sarah Andersen
7. Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
8. Who Is the Doctor by Graeme Burk & Robert Smith?

February
9. Nyxia by Scott Reintgen
10. The Orville Season 2.5: Launch Day by David A. Goodman, David Cabeza, and Michael Atiyeh
11. The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman
12. Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
13. The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz
14. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
15. This Is How You Die edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki
16. Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Skottie Young

March
17. James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips
18. Meet Mr. Mulliner by P.G. Wodehouse
19. In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
20. The Apollo Missions: In the Astronauts' Own Words by Rod Pyle
21. Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett
22. Let Us Compare Mythologies by Leonard Cohen
23. Scratchman by Tom Baker, with James Goss
24. Trinity: a Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm
25. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
26. Red Clocks by Leni Zumas

April
27. Junk Science and the American Criminal Justice System by M. Chris Fabricant
28. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol 7: I've Been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You by Ryan North, Erika Henderson & Rico Renzi
29. The Reverse of the Medal by Patrick O'Brian
30. The World of The Orville by Jeff Bond
31. The Office of Historical Corrections by Danielle Evans
32. Dead on Deadline by Lara Bricker
33. A Diary of the Plague Year: An Illustrated Chronicle of 2020 by Elise Engler
34. The Miseducation of Cameron Post by Emily M. Danforth
35. Tiassa by Steven Brust
36. A Stitch of Time: The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life by Lauren Marks
37. Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke

May
38. The Galaxy, and the Ground Within by Becky Chambers
39. Knocking on Heaven's Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World by Lisa Randall
40. The Verifiers by Jane Pek
41. Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett
42. The Second QI Book of General Ignorance by John Lloyd & John Mitchinson
43. Sleepwalk by Dan Chaon
44. At Childhood's End by Sophie Aldred, with Steve Cole & Mike Tucker
45. If This Isn't Nice, What Is? by Kurt Vonnegut

June
46. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 edited by Charles Yu
47. Bowlaway by Elizabeth McCracken
48. Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach
49. The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain
50. Vita Nostra by Marina & Sergey Dyachenko
51. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
52. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 8: My Best Friend's Squirrel by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, & Rico Renzi
53. Highway of Eternity by Clifford D. Simak

July
54. A Trillion Trees: Restoring Our Forests by Trusting in Nature by Fred Pearce
55. Inside Out & Back Again by Thanha Lai
56. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami
57. Conversations with People Who Hate Me: 12 Things I Learned from Talking to Internet Strangers by Dylan Marron
58. Ruby Slippers, Golden Tears edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
59. Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
60. Who Is the Doctor 2 by Graeme Burk & Robert Smith?
61. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 9: Squirrels Fall Like Dominoes by Ryan North, Derek Charm, & Rico Renzi

August
63. Hair: A Human History by Kurt Stenn
64. The Handsome Man's De Luxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith
65. Locklands by Robert Jackson Bennett
66. Open Skies: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Its Impact on US Radio Astronomy by Kenneth I. Kellermann, Ellen N. Bouton, and Sierra S. Brandt
67. On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane by Emily Guendelsberger
68. The Orville: Sympathy for the Devil by Seth McFarlane
69. Carnivalesque by Neil Jordan
70. Roving Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, and the Exploration of the Red Planet by Steve Squyres

September
71. The Railway Children by E. Nesbit
72. Night of the Kraken by Jonathan Green
73. Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant: Confessions of Cooking for One and Dining Alone edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
74. A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomas
75. The Orville Season 2.5: Digressions by David A. Goodman, David Cabeza, and Michael Atiyeh
76. Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World by Bill Nye
77. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

An now, onward into October and the remainder of the year:

78. Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King



This is Book 5 in the Dark Tower series, and at this point, I have to admit, my insistence on carrying on through this series is pretty much the very definition of the sunk cost fallacy. I've put too much time into this thing to give up now, dammit!

All right, it's not unmitigatedly terrible. If it were, I'd probably find it easier to quit. There really is the skeleton of something interesting and exciting in this series somewhere. It's just buried under so very, very, very many dull, stifling layers of flab and nonsense. This particular volume features a town in desperate need of help, in the grand tradition of Westerns, but with a science fantasy twist, and that's a little bit interesting. Things are also getting increasingly meta, which is normally something I enjoy. But the most relevant fact about Wolves of the Calla is that it's well over 900 pages long, and there's enough story here for maybe 300.

Also not helping is King's continual chalking up of every massively coincidental plot contrivance or random thing he wants his characters to do for no reason to "fate." Although I could probably manage to mostly suspend my disbelief, accept the concept, and wait for a cool, satisfying payoff for it all, if The Stand hadn't taught me decades ago that King is not to be trusted with this sort of thing.

And, on top of all that, the characters themselves are sometimes so awful here that it's getting harder to think of them as the good guys, and I don't think that's exactly King's intention, even if he is trying to make them complicated, or whatever. But I especially have zero patience right now for men taking it upon themselves to "forbid" a woman to have an abortion even though the fetus probably isn't even human and may very well kill her. I hope the monster baby kills them instead. Slowly and painfully. Not that I hold out much hope for that. The killing part, I mean. Whatever happens, I think we can count on it being slow, and I'm not exactly betting against it being painful.

Ah, well. Five books down, two to go! I can do it!

Rating: 2.5/5

>2 bragan: I read this series years (decades?) ago, and remember little except the ending. OMG. Really? Can't wait to see what you think.

Here's wishing you happy reading and everything else for Q4-22.

>3 labfs39: The other reason I don't trust King is because I've heard people... let's say "expressing very vocal disappointment" about the ending. At this point, I might also be finishing in large part just to satisfy my curiosity about just how bad (or not) it is. :)

>4 rocketjk: Thanks! And right back atcha!

Happy new thread. I just haven’t taken to King.

>6 dchaikin: Thanks!

I often find myself defending King, as I think at his best he's genuinely good, and at his somewhat-less-than-best he can still be entertaining and interestingly creepy. But at his worst, he's a slog, and there's a definitely list of specific things that he's not good at. Self-editing being chief among them.

79. Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland, M.D.



Dr. Julie Holland is a psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist who worked in the psychiatric ER at New York's Bellevue Hospital from 1996 through 2005.

This memoir wasn't exactly the collection of wild stories the cover blurb seemed to promise, and it also wasn't quite the nuanced and thoughtful exploration of the treatment of mental illness that I was hoping for (although it does certainly have some of the latter). What it was, mostly, was, well, a memoir. Holland spends a lot of time talking about herself, her relationships of various kinds with other doctors, her own psychological issues, and the insights about herself she's taken from psychotherapy. Part of me can't help but find some of that a little self-absorbed or over-share-y, although I do appreciate her ability to be honest about her own faults, and those personal ruminations do both tie into the larger issues of mental health support and illuminate some of what it's like to do this particular job.

Whether it's quite what I expected/wanted to read or not, I did at least find this interesting as a glimpse into this world, with all its medical and emotional complexities. But, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's also pretty depressing, since it's crystal clear throughout that the systems we have in place for dealing with mental health crises and substance abuse problems are pathetically, horrifically inadequate (something Dr. Holland definitely appreciates, even if she's mostly fairly low-key about addressing it).

Rating: 3.5/5

Hey, Bragan. If you get a minute, we have a discussion over on the "Questions" thread about science and science books. Would love to have your input (I'm nudging the hubby, too).

>9 avaland: Why do these kinds of discussions always happen when I'm far, far behind on reading Talk? Oh, well, possibly because I'm usually far, far behind. :) I'll give it a look! How much I'll have to contribute, I don't know, but I do love me a good science book.

80. Galactic Empires edited by Gardner Dozois



A 2008 anthology featuring six novellas, all in some way touching on the theme of, you guessed it, galactic empires. I picked this one up because I was feeling a bit nostalgic and thought I might be in the mood for some good old-fashioned space opera, even though that's not something I read very much of these days. I don't know that good old-fashioned space opera is quite the best description for these, actually, although they're certainly closer to that than they are to the kind of modern SF that'd inevitably use the theme of galactic empires to engage in social commentary about imperialism. There is a lot of big, grand sense-of-wonder stuff, which I do like, but, there are also, I fear, a lot of reminders why I don't read too much of this kind of thing these days, anyway.

Some comments on the individual stories:

"The Demon Trap" by Peter F. Hamilton: This one is set in Hamilton's "Commonwealth" universe. I haven't read anything else from this series, although I think I may have one or two relevant works sitting on my TBR shelves. And it was... okay. It's a sort of detective story, in which a couple of police officers are sent to investigate an act of terrorism. The plot didn't do much to hold my attention at first, but there did turn out to be some interesting SF wrinkles to it. Although I'm not sure quite how I feel about all the ideas involved, and there's one particular thing that strikes me as something of a plot hole. There's also a pretty high exposition-to-story ratio here, although at least it's somewhat less clunky than such things often tend to be. I am rather intrigued by the setting, in which one can take commuter trains between stars, thanks to a system of railways and wormholes. That's a pretty nifty idea, and now I'm kind of surprised no one seems to have thought of it before. Still, otherwise it was mostly forgettable.

"Owner Space" by Neil Asher. A ship full of people escaping from their oppressive government makes a run for an area of space controlled by a godlike superbeing who'd probably feel right at home on classic Star Trek. I have mixed feelings about this one, too. It's a little more fun to read than the previous one, if a bit violent. And there's an interesting-seeming alien, even if we really only get a very small glance at it. But making the oppressing government literal Evil Space Soviets is a very strange choice, at least for a story published in 2008, and maybe not one that works terribly well. Plus, there's never any real explanation or character exploration or anything for the godlike superbeing, so he ends up feeling like little more than a deus ex machina contrivance, which is very unsatisfying.

"The Man with the Golden Balloon" by Robert Reed is set inside an unfathomably large, ancient alien spacecraft on a multi-million-year journey around the galaxy, and features a married couple exploring an unmapped area of the ship and meeting a mysterious representative of a shadowy, unperceived empire that exists only in unnamed places. Robert Reed has apparently written multiple stories in this setting; I read one of them in a similar collection to this one a while back and remembered liking it. I'm much less sure quite what to make of this one, especially the ambiguous and somewhat confusing ending, but it's certainty a lot more attention-grabbing than the last two pieces. However much sense it does or doesn't make, there's a very cool sense of scope, and weirdness, and wonder about it. Pity that it's so ridiculously easy to irreparably mar an otherwise decent story by being so afraid of the word "said" that your characters keep "commenting" and "remarking" and "suggesting" and "concluding" things whether those verbs fit the actual dialog or not, an annoying literary tic that always drives me to complete immersion-breaking distraction from the first moment I notice it.

"The Six Directions of Heaven" by Alastair Reynolds. In an alternate universe where the Mongolian Empire conquered the world and then expanded out into space, a government operative is sent to investigate reports that strange vessels have begun appearing from... elsewhere. And after the previous stories, this one felt like a breath of fresh air. It wasn't a five-star knockout or anything, but I was able to enjoy it without any reservations. (Well, all right, except for the one brief but highly disturbing scene of animal cruelty.) It reads so much better than the others, I think, because Reynolds never stops for a single paragraph to spoonfeed us exposition about the world we're in, but rather writes in a way that lets us come to understand it naturally as we go along, with seamless ease. Of course, this is no doubt helped a bit by the fact that the reader can probably be expected to have at least some vague familiarity with the relevant part of history, but even so. This is a hugely underrated and very important skill in SF writing, and Reynolds' mastery of it made this a much better reading experience than it otherwise would have been.

"The Seer and the Silverman" by Stephen Baxter features aliens who abduct humans, humans who want to kill them for it, and a literal attempt to change the laws of physics. It's part of Baxter's Xeelee series, which I've read some other works in. But I have to confess... I enjoyed the first couple of works of Baxter's that I read (most notably The Time Ships), but I've long since gone off him completely. Talk about exposition-to-story ratios: Baxter's often asymptotically approach infinity. And I think he may in fact be an alien, based on his level of understanding he has of how humans actually talk to each other. All right, okay, this one was more readable than some of his stuff, and it has an interesting science-y idea or two in it (that being the main thing that Baxter, at his best, is actually any good at). But it still did very little for me, and the ending is just ridiculous.

"The Tear" by Ian McDonald introduces us to a world whose inhabitants have some kind of ritualized system of multiple personalities, and the aliens who've stopped in their solar system to refuel. It then goes on a long journey from there. McDonald's prose is, I think, a notch or two above the usual bare-bones Hard SF style, and the story is full of a lot of cool ideas, except... Well, all right, it might be too many cool ideas. I quite like SF that throws me into a world without a guidebook and lets me figure it out as I got along, but not so much when every time I start to get my feet under me, there's a sudden time jump and I'm somewhere completely different with a whole new set of weird alien things going on. It doesn't help the confusion levels any when the main character keeps changing names and (supposedly) personalities every time, either. Ultimately, it kind of feels like maybe there's mostly just a bunch of big ideas strung together here without a whole lot of coherence.

Rating: 3/5

81. Whispers Under Ground by Ben Aaronovitch



Book three in the Rivers of London series, starring Peter Grant: London cop, apprentice wizard, and not-so-secret nerd. I read the first two of these a number of years ago, and then stalled out on it for no particularly good reason. At least I'm finally getting back to it now!

This installment features Peter investigating someone who was stabbed to death on a railroad track with a shard of magical pottery, a case that ends up taking him through lots of tunnels, secret passages, and (unfortunately) sewers. The mystery plot was okay, but not exactly compelling, and it did feel like it was maybe wrapped up a bit too suddenly at the end. But Peter is an appealing character, and there's a lot of humor, some interesting fantasy elements, and an entertainingly earthy depiction of police work, so it's mostly a fun read, anyway.

Rating: A very slightly generous 4/5

82. To the Stars by George Takei



George Takei is, of course, best known as Star Trek's Mr. Sulu, and this autobiography was published after the 25th anniversary of Star Trek and is, perhaps, in part a celebration of that. But it covers a great deal more than Star Trek. Takei talks about his experiences being imprisoned in Japanese-American internment camps as a kid with a perspective that combines childhood memories and adult understanding. He talks about his acting career, and specifically about his experiences as a Japanese-American actor. He also talks about his involvement in politics and political activism. And, yes, he also talks about Star Trek, featuring lots of anecdotes and musings, his feelings about his co-workers (including some very frank opinions about William Shatner), and the story of his constant campaigning to see Sulu getting some career advancement or character development.

There's nothing particularly grand or glamorous here, really, but Takei is an interesting guy who's had an interesting life, and certainly has some interesting perspectives on the world, so I found this generally very engaging and worthwhile. Honestly, it would be entirely worthwhile just for the parts where he's talking about the internment camps, as that's a story that absolutely needs to be told, and to be heard. Although for those who are interested in reading about that, but perhaps not so much the rest of it, he also has a graphic novel on the subject, They Called Us Enemy, which I'm fully intending to read at some point, as well.

There are, by the way, also some moments where he's very funny. I genuinely laughed out loud at his comically over-the-top declarations of how much he hated Walter Keonig before he actually met (and liked) the guy, and even louder at his horrified vision of what a Star Trek movie directed by Shatner might look like as soon as he'd heard Shatner'd been given the job.

There is one thing that feels odd and notable in retrospect here, though. At the time this was written, Takei was still more or less in the closet, so while there is plenty of focus on his identity as a Japanese-American, there's no discussion of what things were like for him as a gay man as well, and his now-husband, Brad Altman, who I believe he was already involved with at the time, gets no more than a brief mention as a "good friend" and a rather coded-feeling nod in the acknowledgments.

Rating: 4/5

>13 bragan: I bet that was interesting. I read They Called Us Enemy last year, and it was excellent.

>14 labfs39: I already have a copy of that, actually. But I figured I should get to this one first.

83. Random by Penn Jillette



Bobby Ingersoll owes $2.5 million to a gangster to cover his father's gambling debts, or his whole family is going to die horribly... until a couple of fantastically unlikely events lands him enough money to cover it and still be ridiculously rich afterward. So, since randomness saved him, Bobby decides to devote himself fully to randomness, rolling dice for every decision and allowing at least some possibility of taking any action that even some small part of him wants. Various highly random shenanigans then occur, including multiple people still trying to kill him.

It's a terrific premise, but the execution, while mildly entertaining and sometimes funny, doesn't really live up to it. It's big and weird and nutty, full of digressions and rants and gratuitous sex, all of which is about what you'd expect from Penn Jillette. But, while I often find Jillette enjoyable, in his own gleefully obnoxious way, I'm not sure his style works all that well for fiction. It's all a bit... much. And underneath all of that A Bit Muchness, there's not really all that much there. I can't help thinking it'd work better if it were toned down several notches (which would leave it still plenty wacky enough), if the plot were a little more focused, the humor a little more pointed, and the main character a little more of an actual person as opposed to a pointless bundle of thrown-together craziness.

Rating: 3/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

84. The Halloween Moon by Joseph Fink



A Halloween-themed middle grade book by Joseph Fink of Welcome to Night Vale fame, featuring thirteen-year-old Esther Gold, who really, really, really loves Halloween. Although maybe not quite enough to live in the dream of it forever, which is currently in danger of happening.

This was a decent kids' novel, with some nifty ideas, some fun moments, and some pretty good thematic stuff about growing up and being willing to change. I did kind of wish the main bad guy and the supernatural elements surrounding her felt a bit better-defined, though, as I kept waiting for an deeper exploration of them that never really came. The story also feels like it's constantly verging on being really nicely creepy, in a way that I do think would be fine for a kids' book, but it constantly stops just short of being satisfyingly spooky.

I do find the narrative voice kind of interesting. It's very much the voice of an adult, even though the story is written from the POV of a kid, and it sometimes gets a leeeeeetle now-I-will-offer-the-kids-a-lesson preachy. Other times, it goes off on philosophical digressions that are well-written, but that leave me wondering if they're likely to really connect with kids or not. I keep trying to imagine how I'd have felt about it when I was in the target age range, but I genuinely don't know whether I'd find it deeply meaningful, or just a bit boringly adult.

All of which probably means people should go and ask an actual kid for an opinion of this one, really, rather than listening to ol' middle-aged me.

Rating: 3.5/5

85. The Forest Unseen: A Year's Watch in Nature by David George Haskell



This is the best book about a guy staring at the same spot on the ground for a year that you could possibly imagine.

That's honestly not an inaccurate description. The author picked out a small patch of ground in an old-growth forest in Tennessee -- he refers to it as "the mandala" by analogy with Buddhist sandpaintings meant to represent the cosmos in miniature -- and returned to it regularly over the course of a year, examining it closely and musing on what he found there. And those musings are fantastic, a thoughtful, poetic blending of science, philosophy, and human emotion that illuminates the natural world and reflects on our place in it in a way that feels to me utterly and profoundly right. It's also full of lots and lots and lots of insights and facts about various plants, animals, and fungi that leave me repeatedly exclaiming "How did I never know this before?!"

Rating: 5/5. I think that's actually the first book this year that I've given the full 5 out of 5 to, so that should tell you something about just how highly I think of it.

>18 bragan:

Gimme! Sounds like it could be a repeat of those starry childhood Lewis Thomas experiences.

>19 LolaWalser: I 100% unhesitatingly recommend it for people who appreciate the likes of Lewis Thomas.

Click!

86. Monstress, Volume 7: Devourer by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda



The seventh collection of the horror/fantasy comic Monstress. This one features, among other things, dreamscapes and glimpses of the past. I still feel about this the way I pretty much always do: that it's a great series I am doing a huge disservice to by reading it in widely-spaced installments. There's some very intense stuff happening here, but I'm quite sure it'd feel a lot more intense if I hadn't just had a year-long interruption in the story and managed to forget a lot of the complex details of what was going on. Hopefully once it's complete, I'll find the time to re-read the whole series at once and appreciate it properly. In the meantime, even so, this one was still interesting, and the artwork is just stunning. Perhaps even more so than usual.

Rating: 4/5

>18 bragan: Have you read The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating? It's a similar sort of nature/life reflection in miniature, in this case a woman confined to bed watching a snail. I loved it, which makes me think I would like The Forest Unseen too.

>23 labfs39: I have, yes, and also really liked that. There's some stuff about snails in this one that was just making me think about that book, too. I'd say this is a pretty safe bet on the "if you liked that, you'll like this" front.

87. Atonement by Ian McEwan



In 1935, 13-year-old Briony is witness to a sexual assault, but thanks to a series of bad assumptions, her limited child's viewpoint, and a willingness to let herself express more certainty than was actually justified, she identifies the wrong man, only admitting her mistake to herself years later. The result is a novel about guilt, but also about human fallibility, the art of writing, and war.

I can't say it's my favorite of the McEwan novels I've read so far -- that might be Enduring Love, actually -- but it does remind me of a thought I've had about McEwan's writing before: that his characters are so realistically human that they make me realize, with a sense of startlement, just how fictional everyone else's are.

Rating: 4/5

>25 bragan: Funny enough Enduring Love is probably my favourite McEwan as well, I think because it went in so many different directions I didn't expect.

I enjoyed Atonement. It's up there in the group of McEwan books I really liked (also On Chesil Beach and The Cement Garden). His novels can be very inconsistent for me. I've read nearly all of them now; something keeps bringing me back to him even when I've gone through a spate of not liking what he's written.

He spoke at a literary festival I went to last month and I have to hand it to him - he was terrific. Just a natural storyteller and observer of people.

>26 AlisonY: Yeah, Enduring Love goes all kinds of interesting places. I think I particularly liked it, too, because it's from the POV of a science-y guy, and McEwan gets him and his mindset 100% right, something that seems to me vanishingly rare in litfic circles.

I've actually only read a few of his books so far, although I have several more already sitting on the TBR shelves. I had to take a bit of a break from him, myself, after reading the story collection First Love, Last Rites, which was disturbing to me in some of the wrong ways (albeit deliberately so). I figured Atonement was a good one to get back into his stuff with, since it seems to be his most high-profile novel.

88. The Library: An Illustrated History by Stuart A. P. Murray



A history of books and libraries from ancient to modern times, with a particular focus on the United States. Indeed, the author's specialization is in American History, and I think it shows here, as the chapters on US libraries feel a bit more detailed to me, as well as taking up a disproportionate amount of the book. Overall, it's really not particularly in-depth. The writing isn't exactly lively, either, and it's a bit disjointed, as each chapter is divided into small sections that don't necessarily connect to each other. The illustrations are plentiful and interesting, though, and despite the special US focus, it does cover a lot of history, however broadly. Which might make it a pleasant browse for book-lovers, except that it turns out that much of the history of libraries is a history of libraries being burned (accidentally or deliberately) and/or looted, so it's a bit more depressing than you'd think. Despite that, it does come across, often, as a bit of a low-key celebration of freedom of speech and the preservation of knowledge.

Rating: 3.5/5

89. Hawk by Steven Brust



Book number 14 (by publication order) in Steven Brust's fantasy series about Vlad Taltos, former assassin/crime boss and current fugitive. Although this time, he's got a plan to remove the price from his head.

I'll be honest, I possibly often end up talking myself into thinking I like the books in this series better than I actually do, just because they seem so much like things I ought to really like. But I'm pleased to say that this one didn't require any such mental effort. Mind you, it could have. The way it plays coy with Vlad's plan, showing him gathering up all the elements of it without explaining exactly what they're for could have been annoying, as could the somewhat arbitrary-feeling ways in which he gets his hands on some of those elements. But the payoff for it really worked for me. The plan itself was a bit ridiculous, but in a fun way, and it left Vlad in a fairly interesting place in the end. And I enjoyed Vlad as a character quite a bit here, too, as he's portrayed with just about the perfect balance of smartassery and weariness.

Rating: 4/5

90. The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams by Lawrence Block



Former burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr has sworn off his life of crime to open a bookstore. But when he finally gives in to the temptation to backslide, he finds he's just broken into an odd locked room mystery. And then he's accused of a different burglary that he didn't even do.

This isn't a book I probably ever would have picked up on my own. While I do occasionally enjoy a mystery novel, it's really only a genre I dabble in, and I'm disinclined, in general, to start any series in the middle. Which this is, being the author's return to this particular series after a long hiatus. Also, the plot revolves around collectible baseball cards, which strikes me as one of the more boring possible things for a plot to revolve around.

But a friend bought me a copy and assured me that I'd like it. I'm pretty sure I was giving him a skeptical look at the time, but, as usual, he turned out to be right. Because I definitely enjoyed this one! The plot is ridiculous and convoluted, but in a fun way. Indeed, it seems like the whole thing sits just inside an ambiguous gray area between being a mystery novel and a parody of mystery novels, and it's remarkably comfortable in that spot. The writing is breezy and funny, with a sense of humor that's a strangely delightful combination of wit and silliness. It was even amusing and entertaining enough to quickly overcome my visceral dislike of people who get their jollies breaking into other people's homes and to make me sort of like the main character despite myself. Which is actually kind of impressive.

There is one sour note, which is a bit at the end where it treats a possible very creepy sexual assault in exactly the same flippant manner as it treats everything else, which... Well, let's just say that hasn't aged well since the novel's 1994 publication date, although I'd like to think that even then it would have taken me aback somewhat.

That aside, though, it was lots of fun. I'm not sure if it ever quite made me laugh out loud, but it did make me smile a lot. Oh, and it also features books and a cat, so I suppose it really was kind of up my alley, after all.

Rating: 4/5

91. Rage by Bob Woodward



Woodward's second book on Trump's presidency, this time featuring the results of many interviews with the man himself. It was finished in July of 2020, and covers the Mueller investigation, North Korea, Black Lives Matter, the coronavirus, and Trump's relationships with various people who seemed to be trying very hard to inject some competency into the White House, often only to find themselves being fired suddenly via tweet.

It's kind of useful, I think, to take a somewhat detached, fact-checked look back on all of this, and there is a certain train-wreck fascination to it all. Although, man, I think I'd sleep better at night not being confronted with evidence of just how close we came to going to war with North Korea before Trump and Kim decided they were bestest buddies instead.

The title comes from a quote of Trump's about how he induces rage in people, something he doesn't sound remotely unhappy about. But I find at this point that bearing witness to his delusional narcissism just leaves me feeling weary and sad. Based on Woodward's tone in the last chapters, I think that makes two of us.

Rating: 4/5

>31 bragan: But I find at this point that bearing witness to his delusional narcissism just leaves me feeling weary and sad. Based on Woodward's tone in the last chapters, I think that makes two of us.

And T has announced he's going to run again. Emotionally exhausting

>32 labfs39: That is absolutely the phrase for it.

92. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 10: Life Is Too Short, Squirrel by Ryan North, Derek Charm, Naomi Franquiz, and Rico Renzi



The 10th collection of comics featuring The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, the Marvel superhero with the power of squirrel and the power of girl! Also the powers of friendship, computer science, math, and healthy conflict resolution. All of which are in use in the main story here, which starts with the apparent death of Squirrel Girl. But -- shock! twist! -- it turns out she isn't actually dead at all, but had been replaced with an alien duplicate. Lots of fun, at least one actually kind of surprising twist, and a typically pleasant, uplifting resolution follow. There's also a short standalone story featuring a villain with an obsession for quizzes and trivia, and also some guy named Peter Parker.

I always enjoy reading these. Squirrel Girl is honestly the only superhero I have any real interest in following in comics form.

Rating: 4/5

93. The Round House by Louise Erdrich



It's 1988, and 13-year-old Joe's mother has barely escaped with her life after a brutal rape. If she knows who the perpetrator was, though, she is refusing to say, leaving Joe determined to learn the truth.

There are, I think, places where this novel feels more than a little resonant of the kind of mystery story where plucky kids investigate crimes, but it's a version of that sort of thing that's infinitely more adult, complex, dark, and sad.

It's also interesting to think about it in terms of discussions I've seen in recent years about stories that feature the rape of women, but focus not on the experiences of the women themselves, but on those of the men around them. Far too often, what happens in such cases is that the women become little more than props in a male character's story, there to provide something for them to be upset over and to motivate their actions. Which is ugly on multiple levels.

On the surface of it, I suppose you could characterize this as one such story, and maybe one could legitimately criticize it for that, but Erdrich's use of this particular narrative feels anything but cheap and misogynistic to me. This isn't really a story about a woman being sacrificed on the altar of some male hero's dramatic character development, so much as it is a larger story about various kinds of justice and injustice in the lives and the history of Native Americans, both men and women. And that, I think, it does in nuanced, thoughtful, and affecting ways. Also with a last line that left an achy feeling in my heart.

Rating: 4/5

>35 bragan: Great review. The Round House left a lasting emotional imprint on me.

>36 labfs39: Erdrich is good with the lasting emotional imprints, I think.

>35 bragan: I really liked your review. I am still wondering what my first adult Erdrich's book should be (I rea Volume 1 of The Birchbark House series earlier this year). I was feeling that The Round House was too violent for my taste, but your review makes me reconsidering my position as it does not seem that this violence is the main focus of the book.
Is there a lot of explicit physical violence in there? And would you recommend it as a first Erdrich read?

>31 bragan: Thank you for reading the Woodward book so I don't have to.

I always love your mix of reading....

>38 raton-liseur: For what it's worth, the rape itself is not described in detail, but the violence and trauma of it are very much conveyed from its aftereffects. There are other acts of violence in the story, and they're not written in a way that plays up gory details, but they are definitely there. Basically, while there is certainly not violence on every page, it is an element of the story. (And that's about as well as I can say that, I think, without getting spoilery for pretty much the whole novel.)

This is only the third Erdrich novel I've read, so I may not be the best person to advise on which one to start with. I will say that this is set in the same world as her earlier The Plague of Doves, but I think you can read those entirely independently and it probably doesn't much matter which of them you read first. I can also say that The Plague of Doves was fantastic, but that story does very much hinge violent events of the past. (At least, such in my memory. It's been a while, and the details have faded for me.) My own first Erdrich novel was Shadow Tag, which isn't one that seems to have ever gotten very much attention as far as I've seen, but it certainly worked to hook me into her writing. (Completely by accident, as it happened. I ordered it by mistake from the Book of the Month Club, or one of those similar organizations, and decided to read it instead of sending it back, which proved to be an excellent choice.)

>39 avaland: I wasn't going to read Rage. I felt like I'd done enough just getting through the first one and all of the depressing effects it had on me. But then I came across it for a dollar at a library sale and thought, well, maybe I ought to continue informing myself, if the opportunity lands in my lap.

And, yep, I'm still keepin' it eclectic! :)

>40 bragan: Thanks for taking the time for a detailed reply.
I'll keep checking the bookstore and second-hand book shelves. Unfortunately, many of her titles are difficult to find and/or sold out.

>41 raton-liseur: She's written a lot of books, and I've found several at library sales. Hopefully you'll be able to turn up something.

>42 bragan: You're right, but she is not that famous on my side of the ocean, in France.
I had never heard about her before this year or last year in CR (I am not a good indication of authors' fame, maybe it's just that she writes darker books than the ones I usually read so never notice her). The two books that really caught my eyes, Tracks and a short stories collection are unfortunately both sold out. But I'll keep my eyes open and hope I'll be lucky!
Thanks again for your recs.

>43 raton-liseur: Yes, I can imagine her stuff might be a lot harder to find there. I wish you luck!

94. Alien Oceans: The Search for Life in the Depths of Space by Kevin Hand



A look at the moons of the solar system that have, or might have, oceans underneath a layer of ice, and the prospects for life on such worlds. The book does go into a fair amount of scientific detail, and while it does explain the basic concepts of physics, chemistry, and biology behind the ideas it's talking about, I'd say it's the kind of science writing where you do have to be pretty into the nitty-gritty science-y stuff, as opposed to just wanting a gosh-wow interplanetary travelogue. The writing isn't really engaging enough to be satisfying in itself, either, although it's perfectly fine. But if you are into the nitty-gritty science-y details, they can get pretty interesting. The description of the indirect methods used to figure out the composition of moons during spacecraft flybys elicited an "Oh, that's really cool!" out of me when I read about it, it was just such a clever combination of various kinds of scientific reasoning.

Most of the discussion of the possibilities for life on these places is very much what the author refers to as "fun speculation," and even if it's speculation very much informed by scientific understanding, it is important to note that it is 100% speculative, sometimes very imaginatively so. It is fun, though, if you're interesting in thinking about, say, how life forms that evolve around geothermal vents underwater might develop something that could be considered farming. For instance.

Rating: 4/5

95. The Woman Who Walked in Sunshine by Alexander McCall Smith



Book number 16 in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. This one sees Precious Ramotswe taking a holiday from work. Somewhat amusingly, given that fact, I think it ends up spending more time than usual focusing on a detective case. Not that that's saying much, as the plots are never really the point of these. For me, the point is more about getting the chance to hang out for a while in the calm, pleasant, reassuring presence of Mma Ramotswe. Sixteen books in, and somehow that presence, and these books, have never stopped being comforting. I've been having a rather stressful time lately, and reading this has been like having a nice cup of tea, a hug, and a chat with a wise friend who can put all of one's troubles in perspective. Definitely the right choice of book for this particular moment!

Rating: 4/5

>46 bragan: i read the 1st earlier this year and really enjoyed it. So your description about hanging out here makes perfect sense to me.

>46 bragan: Sorry to hear you've been having a tough time, but am glad you found the right book for the right time.

>47 dchaikin: Sixteen books in, these novels still feel very much the same as the first one, and it honestly amazes me that that hasn't worn thin for me yet, but it really, really hasn't.

>48 labfs39: Thanks. Things could certainly be a great deal worse, as Precious Ramotswe herself gently reminded me, but I do hate it when life is annoying!

96. The Blood Cell by James Goss



A Doctor Who novel featuring the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald. This one sees the Doctor being held in a prison on a remote asteroid, where dangerous power failures are increasing in frequency, and there may be something nasty stalking the corridors.

Very unusually, it's told entirely from the point of view of a guest character, the governor of the prison, who, while he is not exactly a villain, isn't a particularly good person, either. But the shades of gray present in all human beings is a bit of a theme here, which is a nice contrast to some of Who's more two-dimensional bad guys. Also, towards the end, there is some stuff about plagues, anti-vaccine movements, and dirty elections that seems eerily prescient in its topicality, given that this was published in 2014. It's a bit arguable just how substantial the plot is and how well it all hangs together in a coherent way, but that's often true of the show, too, and, as is also often true of the show, I think this novel does enough interesting things to get away with it. Among other things, there are some fun scenes between the Doctor and Clara, even if they do spend much of the story separated. Overall, I found it enjoyable, and appreciated it as an interesting departure from the norm.

Rating: 4/5

97. Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell



Bruce Campbell's follow-up to his first autobiographical volume, If Chins Could Kill. He originally conceived of this as less of a memoir and more of a travelogue, and there's still a significant focus on different places he's been, including the quirky area of rural Oregon where he bought a house that was half underground; Bulgaria, where he filmed the twin classics of modern cinema, Alien Apocalypse and The Man with the Screaming Brain; Miami, where he spent seven years making Burn Notice and sweating heavily in the heat; and Iraq, where he and co-star Jeffrey Donovan spent time entertaining US troops during the second Gulf War.

None of it is particularly compelling, or insightful, or surprising, or anything like that, but it's a pleasant, easy read in a way that was exactly what I was in the mood for. Bruce comes across very much the way you'd expect him to: unpretentious and mildly sarcastic, with a fun, if slightly cheesy, sense of humor. And even though I've always been more of a casual viewer of his stuff than a die-hard fan, I find I've come out of this feeling nicely nostalgic about his body of work. I'd forgotten just how much I enjoyed Burn Notice, really. And now I have a very strong desire to dig out my DVD copy of Bubba Ho-Tep and give it another re-watch. (Seriously, that was a genuinely good movie!)

Rating: A generous but unapologetic 4/5.

98. The Midnight Library by Matt Haig



Nora is miserable with her life, which seems to be full of nothing but regret and unrealized potential. But when she finally decides to end it all, she finds herself hovering between life and death in an infinite library full of all the possible lives her alternative choices could have led to, presented with the opportunity to explore more "successful" variations in a search for a happier, more fulfilling existence.

It's a pretty good premise, but the execution is... Well, aside from an inevitably pat and sappy ending that had me rolling my eyes a bit, I didn't hate it or anything. It was pretty effortlessly readable. But it also feels really... shallow. Matt Haig has a message about life to impart, for sure, and it's not a terrible message, by any means, but it's also not exactly deep and original and insightful, either. And he's not making you really feel it by creating a believable character and giving her profoundly moving and relatable experiences. Maybe he's trying to do that, I don't know. But I'm afraid the result feels less like a novel and more like a motivational poster in the form of a novel.

Rating: 3/5. Which is probably generous, really, but the fact that I can say all of that about the book and still just mostly feel meh about it instead of completely hating it is probably worth something, at least.

One thing typical with such premises is the idea that "the roads not taken" would have resulted in something better, but I have yet to see anyone show that the "good" versions equal, let alone outnumber the "bad" ones. Sure, if we could relive our lives with the experience of the first run, we may avoid making the same mistakes. But we'd just make new ones!--and without any guarantee that they won't, in the end, lead to something even worse.

I know this probably looks as if I'm taking a breezy fictional premise too seriously... I'm just saying, there are other tunes you could be playing, tambourine man.

>53 LolaWalser: Actually, the book is to some extent making that exact point. I also think it kind of wants to be taken that seriously, whether or not it really earns it. Ultimately, it's sort of a motivational lecture about not stewing in regrets because, no, your life wouldn't be perfect if you'd just done that one thing differently, and you should be focusing on the present and the future instead of the past, anyway. Which is a perfectly good message. I'm just not much of a fan of motivational lectures.

>52 bragan: felt the same way,with the same eye rolling. I gave it a 2. had lots of questions about how she was supposed to choose another life without context knowlege of the time, and what happens to the people you leave behind. Too many time travel conundrums for my taste

>55 cindydavid4: The thing that kept bothering me when I know I wasn't supposed to think about it is what happened to the versions of her she displaced when she slipped into their lives. There was some handwaving about that, but I found it unsatisfying, and, assuming they were actually real, which it seems we're meant to believe they are, the whole thing seemed massvely unfair to them.

what happened to the versions of her she displaced when she slipped into their lives

yup another time travel conundrum. Whats funny is that it didn't bother me in Time Travelers Wife a book I loved and forgave alot. But it was also written much better.

Thing that also bothered me is that there was little talk about her depression and suicide. Would that magically go away in another life? if her way of thinking stays the same then its likely to happen again with out intervention

>57 cindydavid4: I notice that the point is repeatedly made that she was diagnosed with situational depression, it's just that her situation just never seems to get any better. Which seems to me like the author maybe trying to cover himself on this one in a way that's a bit of a cop-out.

>58 bragan: It may be that shes in situationa depression, but its bad enough to lead her to commit suicide. I think there is a reason why she canceled her wedding, dropped out of the band and something else I dont remember. Something was wrong somewhere. Yeah, I agree its a cop out, as well as misleading to readers

99. Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel



Ethan works for a dating app startup that's doing very well... except that it's plagued by a weird bug where users' uploaded pictures sometimes show up as black boxes. But when he stares long enough into one of these boxes, he finds himself briefly transported somewhere else, into some elusive other world.

It's an intriguing premise, and some of what it's trying to do is interesting, but sadly this one just didn't quite work for me. It pretty much lost me early on, because the way that both the characters and the author approached the investigation of this "bug" was completely underwhelming. I was expecting something exciting and weird, an appreciation for a mysterious and unexpected thing happening in the world, and instead got something low-key, low-energy, almost blasé. Which would have been fine in its own way, if I felt instead like I was being drawn into this compellingly absurd world where people almost take things like this in stride. Based on what happens in the rest of the novel, I do think that was, in fact, the idea. This is clearly intended as a work of high-tech magic realism with a satirical edge, an approach that can certainly work well for me. Most recently, Calvin Kasulke pulled it off brilliantly (and hilariously) with Several People are Typing. This novel seems to be taking its inspiration more from Robin Sloane, though, who I've had somewhat more mixed reactions to, but who's mostly entertaining enough to carry me through despite my reservations. This one, not so much. I never fully entered and accepted its world and the impossible weirdnesses in it, nor felt like I was vibing with the author as we both looked at things with a shared satirical wink. Mostly I just sat there thinking that this was all a load of nonsense, and that nothing else -- the characters, the parody of Silicon Valley culture, the attempts at philosophical moments -- was interesting enough to make up for that.

Mind you, maybe a lot of this is just me. Very possibly readers who don't catastrophically trip and fall over their own suspension of disbelief early on may find more to like about it.

Rating: 2.5/5

(Note: This was a LibraryThing Early Reviewers book.)

Felt the same way about Midnight Library. Harmless enough, but pretty cruddy.

>61 AlisonY: At least it didn't bore me quite as much as the book I read after it, but I'm ready to end the year with something better now!

100. The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman



A look back at the 1990s, including the decade's music, technology, politics, sports, significant events, and general zeitgeist, with a lot of contemplative commentary about it all.

I've read and really enjoyed several of Klosterman's other books on various things cultural and pop-cultural, and this one is similar to those in a lot of respects -- for instance, the structure of longer chapters alternating with shorter interludes -- but I think it has a somewhat different feel to it. There's less humor, less hyperbole, fewer personal anecdotes, and, interestingly, less of a distinctively ironic Gen X voice... which, considering that he is, among other things, writing about distinctively ironic Gen X voices seems, uh, kind of ironic, I guess. The overall sense is that Klosterman is trying much harder to be taken seriously here, which makes it somewhat less fun to read. It also my be a bit counterproductive, as I think Klosterman's writing works best not when it's inviting you to rationally evaluate his analysis and decide whether he's making coherent points you agree with or not, but when it provokes you to go off and think your own thoughts about the subject matter and relate the things he's saying to your own ideas and experiences.

Fortunately, though, he does still manage to do that here. At least, he did for me. Certainly I've spent the last few days thinking a lot about my own experiences of the 90s and how different living through them was than looking back at them now. Which I have found very interesting and worthwhile, because, to be honest, I've been finding it increasingly hard to wrap my brain around those memories and perspectives on my own. For ages, the 90s seemed as if they'd happened only a few years ago, even as they receded further and further into the past. But then at some point while I wasn't looking, they suddenly transitioned to seeming like they'd happened a million years ago on a completely different world. Which, in some ways, maybe it was, and not just because the world is always a very different place for someone in their 20s than for someone in their 50s. I think I probably needed a bit of a push to help me start chewing over the realities of that different world, and what it all meant, and how that world turned into this one. So, even if this volume is less fun than his other stuff, even if its more serious-feeling tone leaves me wondering whether I should approach it more critically than I have, I'd say I ultimately got something very worthwhile out of it, and it's left me with plenty of thoughts to ponder.

It's also left me wondering how any of it might come across to people who didn't live through the 90s, because I expect the reading experience for those folks has to be very, very different.

Rating: 4/5

I felt similarly about the Klosterman, although I rated it considerably lower. I like what you say here: The overall sense is that Klosterman is trying much harder to be taken seriously here, which makes it somewhat less fun to read.

I definitely felt the lack of fun, and agree that he seemed to be writing a lot less off-the-cuff than in Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs.

>64 ursula: I think the reason I rated it as highly as I did probably had a lot more to do with the things Klosterman made happen in my head than the ones he actually wrote on the page, but then, I think that was probably true of his earlier books, too. So on that level, I suppose it was almost as successful. I did miss the humor, though, and this one kind of felt like it worked for me almost despite itself.