Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny

 

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny is the next Inspector Gamash novel.

Started: 10/22/2021
Completed: 10/28/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My Parents

Review:

I liked this book better than the last, which had me worried.  The idea of Gamash as an action hero is a little hard to wrap my head around and I don't think Penny intended that, but it comes off that way (of course contrasted repeatedly with his fear of heights).  The mystery in this novel was many fold and it is nice that this novel was layered among several characters, several subplots, and several locations.  As the book began I was worried that Three Pines would be abandoned, but that did not happen and familiar characters returned.

The Ship, Antonia Honeywell

 

The Ship by Antonia Honeywell is a book about a dystopian future.  I have largely given up these books, but this one has been in the stacks to read for a long time, so I must have purchased it at a time when I still read this type of stuff.

Started: 10/17/2021
Completed: 10/22/2021
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This story is modelled on a traditional coming of age story.  It seems like a petty, small story of a petty, small main character in a horrid situation.  I did not enjoy any of it.

The Giants of Irish Literature, George O'Brien

 

The Giants of Irish Literature: Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, and Beckett by George O'Brien is a series of lectures by a Georgetown expert on Irish literature.

Started: 10/3/2021
Completed: 10/21/2021
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The material itself is interesting, but the absolutely horrible delivery by O'Brien makes it almost impossible to listen to these lectures.  I literally used them to help me fall asleep on those days when I found sleep challenging.  The only reason I was able to complete this set of lectures at all was a strong desire to try to understand more about Irish literature.  I cannot recommend these lectures to anyone ever.

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles

 

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles is the most recent book by Amor Towles.

Started: 10/12/2021
Completed: 10/17/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Towles has a way with words and his characters are vivid.  The book leaves no string neatly tied.  Every story line is some sort of unlimited possibility and only one character's story has an ending.  I found the change of character from chapter to chapter enticing and the indication that one of the characters in the book wrote it (though that seems quite impossible--it remains yet another tantalizing possibility).  The book is quite compelling and each character seems to explore a fundamental flaw, though none completely.  This is well worth the time for any reader, but particularly for those who enjoy classical philosophy.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty

 

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty has been hailed by a bunch of people as the key to current economics.

Started: 7/8/2021
Completed: 10/15/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By:  Nobody in particular...keeps showing up in articles I read

Words for which I sought Help:

lacuna -- an unfilled space or interval; a gap

Review:

"When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income...capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based."

This book explains, in good detail, how capitalism can destroy democracy and how democracy can bring capitalism in line.  Of course, the risk is serious and imminent.  The book is about 10 years old, but still holds up well.  I would really like to see more about how the most recent changes in the economy effect what Piketty says.

Democracy in America, Alexis De Tocqueville

 

Democracy in America by Alexis De Tocqueville is so important to any student of the revolution that I thought it was important to read it.

Started: 10/10/2021
Completed: 10/12/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I understand, now, why this book is referenced with reverence.  It contains amazing insights and accurately reasoned conclusions.  It is not all gold, but the mining to retrieve excellent material is trivial.  In particular, the argument for the division of labor between men and women which leaves women constrained to the home is, at best, simplistic.  It seems that when confronting bias, Tocqueville sort of went with his gut and the concept of women having a constrained life aligned with that gut.  It did so to the point of willful ignorance (claiming that women did not toil in the fields when most, if not all, did at least at harvest--surely the slaves he observed included women in the fields).  In any case, I benefited highly from the book and will keep in mind some of the insights--particularly those gleaned from the observation of the desire for equality and for freedom.

Time and Again, Jack Finney

 

Time and Again by Jack Finney is a book that later served as the basis for a movie.  I read a little about the movie and it got mediocre reviews, but it gave me enough to interest me in the book.  Finney is better known for Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  There is a sequel to this book published just before Finney's death.

Started: 10/9/2021
Completed: 10/10/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a decent story, but not terribly compelling.  Part of this might be because I have read so many of the time travel genre that the miracle of time travel does not draw my attention as it might once have.  Thus, the method of time travel is more interesting and the impact of time travel was also interesting.  This is a unique form of time travel and it seems that the consequences are brutal.

Charged, Emily Bazelon

 

Charged: The new movement to transform American prosecution and end mass incarceration by Emily Bazelon has been on my list for a while and, when I acquired it, it moved to my "must read" pile.  It was subsequently buried by a ton of other "must read" books as I tried to understand the Trump administration.

Started: 10/3/2021
Completed: 10/9/2021
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I now understand two sides of what keeps people incarcerated.  I learned about how fees tie people down in A Pound of Flesh and now I understand how prosecutors use heavy charges in order to force guilty pleas.  Through jury duty, I have learned how little evidence is required in some cases and how much evidence in others in order to go to trial.  Through the Innocence Project and Just Mercy I have learned about truly wrongful convictions.  Through books like The Sum of Us, A Peculiar Indifference, and Golden Gates I have come to understand how people are stuck in positions from which they cannot possibly unstick themselves.  People (like James Comey and Sonya Sotomayor) who understand and operate within the system have concluded that it is broken in profound ways and the books I have read explain that in great detail.

This book looks at two people in order to illustrate the nature of problems in the justice system.  Both look at ways of dealing with crime.  The first is a case of divergence--giving someone a way other than jail to deal with criminal activity--and the second is a case of wrongful conviction and withholding evidence from the defense.  Both cases aptly described the broader issues in micro that the whole book addresses in macro.  The book is very well written and extremely compelling.  It would be good for everyone to read this book.

the Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo

 

The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo is one of the Hugo award finalists.  It is the first book in the Singing Hills Cycle.

Started: 10/3/2021
Completed: 10/3/2021
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Hugo Awards

Review:

This story is told through a series of found objects.  The narrator seems to be a collector of stories and the subject is at the end of life telling the stories of her life.  It helps that these stories, literally, define a kingdom.  I did not find the stories themselves particularly compelling.  I did, however, really enjoy the ending.

Network Effect, Martha Wells

 

Network Effect by Martha Wells is in the Murderbot Diaries series, but I read it without the rest of the series due to the Hugo Award nomination.

Started: 9/30/2021

Completed: 10/3/2021

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Hugo Awards

Review:

I like the way that this story is told.  Trying to see the point of view of a "construct" (more machine then human, so cyborg doesn't seem right).  I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.  Having multiple copies of the "construct" made things odd and throwing in the addition of an alien life form brought a lot of complexity.  I probably would have done better with this book if I had read the beginning of the series so that the numerous "new" things wouldn't have seemed so new.