Review:
This is a very technical review of economic policy in general and tax policy in particular. I learned a bunch and feel like I understand the situation much better. This seems like the kind of reference that our congressional leaders need.
Review:
This is a feel good book where the librarian is a hero! How great is that. The characters are all interesting and compelling. This short book does not do development so much as revelation and the interactions between unrelated characters are sufficiently minimal to make them realistic, but sufficiently present to bring coherence to the whole story. Extremely well done.
Review:
It is good to hear a Republican condemn Trump (as Cheney did). This book, however, feels like a story of how Trump betrayed his party as much as how Trump betrayed the United States. Since I feel like the GOP made Trump (yes, Trump took over the party, but it was sliding his direction since Mitch McConnell decided to make the Republicans the Stop Obama party and worked to make him a one-term President. Some might point back to Gingrich, but I think the "win at all costs" mentality may have been formulated by Gingrich, but it became a party mindset under McConnell and has culminated in Trump. So, Karl does his best to point Trump as a non-Republican and as a loser (I agree that in many ways he is both), while not accepting that the Republican party has fully embraced Trump and it is hard to see where that will end.
Review:
Indeed, Dickens is a word smith. Lots of detail and tons of nuance is lost in the adaptations. The way in which the ghosts are described, the methods by which Scrooge and the ghosts move, and the nature of the change of heart. I always felt that Scrooge thought of himself as liked, but is shocked to discover he is not. The actual story shows the incredible lack of introspection that governs Scrooge's life and how his devotion to money was not a last grasp, but a fundamental part of who he was which grew out of his own impoverished and largely unloved history. Scrooge is much more human in Dickens' telling and represses his memories and feelings leaving him bitter and unfeeling. The ghost of Christmas past is critical in the original telling, because this is what awakens Scrooge and forces him to remember his loving past. The ghost of Christmas present is fleeting in the original telling, though, he seems to dominate in modern adaptations. The use of words to describe people moving (they don't just flock into the street, they appear in large groups and slip into the scene from back alleys and side streets calling out to one another and roiling into a larger group--a description of "flock" which is much more enticing) is wonderful and lush with both description and a sense of motion. He is truly a wonderful author.
Review:
This book starts to address how to save democracy in the United States. The steps laid out are those laid out by almost anyone who thinks about it. The process of correction, however, is interesting. The authors argue for voter registration drives and grassroots organizing at the state level. While they recognize that this is where Democrats are weakest, it is probably for that reason that they point it out. They are also quick to point out that this is not a one term or even one decade effort. The current Republican ethos is draining and wearing away at Democrats who mostly seem to want government to help those in need rather than becoming engaged in rule games. Republicans, however, seem to revel in the games and thrill at the "winning." I don't know how this is going to go. The lack of Republican approach to reality means that they claim to win while they are losing. Indeed, a single short-term victory seems to fill their sails for numerous more journeys into uncharted waters where it feels Democrats are truly spending their time dealing with a constant barrage of nonsense.
Review:
What a staggering book. The concept is that there is no free will. Sapolsky makes a compelling case that free will is an illusion and while I am not ready to accept everything, the evidence is pretty strong. It is pretty overwhelming to imagine that we do what we do because that is just the way our bodies and brains are wired. Oddly, it is equally overwhelming to imagine that is not the case. If Sapolsky is correct, then our criminal justice system is kind of like burning people at the stake for being witches. It is wrong, it is inhumane, and it is horrifying. I do not know what to make of it right now, but Sapolsky does a decent job of arguing that we simply treat each other poorly. He makes the argument that we have overcome fear and bias in other areas and now attribute actions to a disease and not the person in numerous cases. Our society is no worse for this attribution and is truly better. It is hard for me to imagine where this goes--what a society based on no free will looks like. Very worth thinking about, however.
Review:
This is a hard read. The details are significant. The heroes of the day (the framers of the Constitution and the early American rebels) are almost all taken down a notch and several many notches. The intertwining of slavery and the formation of the country are no shock, but the details of how this happened and, particularly, who supported it and why, are marked. My favorite, John Adams, suffered under the glare of reality (as he has in so many other ways). This is a good look at what it means to be on the "right" side of history.
Words for which I sought help:
tyro -- a beginner or intermediate
Review:
This is a short book, but it is heavily packed with quotations and analysis. It took me a long time to read because I wanted to spend time with each concept and I wanted to work through the arguments being made. Around the chapter on logic, the book became increasingly analysis and less quotations (though it was still dense with quotation). By this time, however, the book was hitting Aristotelian concepts with which I was much more familiar and some of which I still remembered from reading Aristotle in translation. At this point, the book went much quicker and was, for me, walking down a well marked path.
Words for which I sought help:
ruckle -- compress or move (cloth or clothing) so that it forms a number of untidy folds or creases
Review:
This is a short story in the form of a Fairy Tale or Folk Tale. I enjoyed how the author played with both time and place as well as tying in recurrent characters who helped place the story in one form of reality or another as well as one of the main characters who helped bridge the gap. This story didn't make sense and it shouldn't. I enjoyed, however, the playful made up words and the deeper philosophical concepts explored.
Review:
The soft port theme continues. This one escalates from "struggle to survive" to "struggle to save the world." *SPOILER* The return of Jack is unpleasant and not well explained. The "will they won't they" continues to be annoying. It feels like this book is a collection of cliches and I find that mildly annoying. So, not certain I will read any more of this series. Still, I have to admit that the concepts are good and some of the staging is excellent. The dialog is stilted at best and check caresses combined with the ardent desires held at abeyance for the other is droll. I just feel like this book would have been much better if there was more time on the way friendships form and less on the "need" for one another. I almost laughed out loud at some of the dialog..."you are my gravity." So, I can mildly recommend it if you can skip/get by the soft porn, oh, and the torture (which is not as graphic, thankfully, as it could have been).
Review:
As usual, HCR brings historical context to events of the present day. In a sense, however, that is the shortcoming of this book. It is backward looking. It would be nice to know how to awaken democracy rather than document that the awakening may be imminent and really important. So, this book is not really action oriented, more contextual.
Review:
My wife and I followed Reilly's reporting on Twitter when we were both on that platform. Reilly is a journalist, so there is a small amount of retelling. Given the myriad stories, however, this is closer to being actually helpful than it is annoying. Reilly has done a very good job of mixing together the stories of individuals (those who perpetrated the insurrection, those who defended, and those who covered) so that if feels like the huge tapestry of that day, its precursors and its postlude are well laid out without spending a huge amount of time on well-covered personalties.
Review:
Martin Baron is the former executive editor of the Washington Post. This book was, therefore, much more about the Post then it was about anything else. Bezos, as the owner, showed up and his foil, Trump, did as well. More though, this book was about the culture of the Post and Baron's effort to keep an even hand. From the book, it seems Baron despised both Trump and Clinton, so his politics were adequately hidden. This book is written by a journalist and reads like that. There are frequent explanations of the same topics throughout the book as though one has only read a chapter and not the book in its entirety. This often happens in books by journalists who are used to constantly re-explaining the context of the current story with the group of larger stories that have graced the medium. I really dislike that. I also didn't particularly enjoy the remarkably defensive tone throughout the latter half of the book which is often Baron on Baron. Overall, this was a decent book with a modern history of The Post as told by the one who crafted it. I can recommend it, but it is not a read that grabbed me and it did not live up to its title.
Review:
This was such a hard book to read! Italicized quotations in several different languages went untranslated--I was constantly looking up Latin phrases. One might argue that these didn't really matter to the book, but it feels like that conclusion is the author looking down at the reader. The book was plodding and the plot was disjoint. I truly didn't care about any of the characters. Blech.
Review:
A political book about Texas? How is this not something like eating a bowl of vomit? It is funny and that helps. A lot. The romance is weak and the recovery is weaker. The political stuff had some merit and the effort to build a buffoon and then make him a real person worked reasonably well. The lobbyist was, well, greasy, and that is what you expect. The other personalities were all fairly weak including the protagonist who played the role of Mr. Smith going to Washington. So, I don't have a lot to recommend it. It wasn't like eating a bowl of vomit.
Review:
Overall I enjoyed this book and I liked the way that all of the different details of an alien civilization came to light. I think it is worth reading the second. I especially liked the use of portals and looking at how that changed the world.
Review:
Groff seems to have one voice: suffering. This novel is an ode to suffering with most of the varieties of suffering possible discussed. It is an unpleasant read, though well written.
Review:
The main character in this book is not very interesting. The book jolts back in forth in time and I found the plot plodding. What "foreshadowing" there was was extremely obvious and kind of lead to a certain amount of dread. I don't remember any foreshadowing that lead to good things. The main character is repeatedly described as intelligent and seemed to do well in a school environment yet remained mystified by simple concepts like the stock market. I found the details about clothing and makeup made no difference to the story...maybe they are the kind of details that "set the scene" in the way a description of a landscape does, but it was hard to me to take anything away beyond the image itself. Maybe this is a me problem. Normal major events (divorce, marriage, birth of a child, etc.) seemed to occur between chapters while masturbation, hook ups, and cheating seemed to occupy whole chapters. This book oddly seemed to be about sex without being graphic. I don't know, it was just a weird mix and I found it hard to enjoy.
Review:
For most of this book, this seemed like an academic parsing of words. I guess I should have been ready for that from the title. Towards the end, there was a little bit more on the application. As theory books go, this was very readable and very approachable. Like most political theory, I felt that this book described what already happens rather than builds a coherent theory. I know that is unfair to this author who is a full fledged theorist and who went to great lengths to make this book coherent from a theoretical point of view. All the same, it sort of felt like using "liberal" as an adjective was pointed at, "what is the liberal version" of a lot of different types of politics. In addition, he did address what types of politics are simply incompatible with "liberal." I guess the heart of the issue is that the way that Walzer defines "liberal" (which may be entirely correct) was at odds with my understanding (which probably is closer to "progressive") so I frequently found his uses of the term jarring leading to less understanding and not more.
Review:
To me, this seemed like a modern take on Frankenstein. The world building was quite good and very consistent. I was fully enmeshed in each new concept as it came and the idea of using life force as a source of magic is a good one. I look forward to the next book in the series.
Review:
This is a light read. The octopus is used to move the plot forward and bring together the human main characters. It is a fun change and ascribes a lot to an octopus, but makes the book enjoyable.
Review:
So, wow, there is so much to this book. It has an incredible amount of detail that blew me away. I thought I knew about the brain group behind the atomic bomb, but I only knew part of it. As I learned more about Oppenheimer and how he came to work on the project there was a tremendous amount of stuff that happened beyond simply learning and teaching physics. I learned more about Oppenheimer as a person who was struggling with what the right thing was to do his whole life. I feel like his participation in the atom bomb project is the only reason that we know so much detail. His life was otherwise ordinary in many ways--particularly his difficulty with his family life. How he handled the things he faced, however, was novel. Instead of leaning into the problems and working to resolve them, he seemed to skirt them. It felt like he found physics a puzzle that he wanted to solve, but his daily life held no such interest and his troubled childhood (as a child of luxury, but often on his own) set the stage for the rest of his life where he was provided endless resources, but his personal life seemed fragile. Now, of course, I want to see the movie!
Words for which I sought help:
sauternes -- a French sweet wine from Sauternes in the Graves section of Bordeaux.
Review:
What an amazing book. A story within a story within a story within a story. Yep, that many layers. And each story teller has an interesting and distinctive way of telling their own story. I cannot imagine what it took to put this story together but I was riveted. Simply awesome.
Review:
The incredible amount of detail layered into this book reminded me of Housman's poem, "Yonder See The Morning" writ large. The endless detail, however, builds a mat of reality that binds the characters to the world from cold tears on the bottom of one's chin to wiping crumbs from one's mouth with a detailed description of a white on white napkin.
"Revelation is the way things make sense when we are wired for some type of knowledge but not yet switched on." I found this statement remarkably insightful--I keep coming back to it. It feels like it is broadly emblematic of the book where revelations crystalize repeatedly and this wandering through some pretty basic lives is an enjoyable path to walk.
Review:
I had a hard copy of this book sitting around, so when it showed up in audio at the library, I put it on my list. I have no idea why I bought it. This book is just one incredibly sad scene after another. Of course, I know what slavery was like (particularly for women) and I've stared hard into the face of it. I did not, however, need a full length novel dramatizing the inner horror for me to get it. I cannot imaging having to live through it. I just cannot read it. It is bad for my soul to know in gory detail how horrible humans can be to one another.
Review:
The positions in this book are well argued, well crafted, and compelling. Goff aligns with several other philosophers whose impression of the world I find compelling. Pan-psychism is a big pill to swallow and, though the arguments were compelling, it is so unsettling a concept that I think it deserves a lot more thought.
Review:
At first I thought this would really be a biography of Senator Church, but it really is a biography of the Church Committee. While there are some biographical components of Church and others, for the most part this looks at his efforts to try to hold the intelligence community to account and, as mentioned in the afterword, Cheney was still fighting the battle when he got post-9/11 legislation passed to relieve a lot of the strictures put in place as a result of the committee's work. This lead, of course, torture among a handbag of other despicable acts.
Review:
I spent 5 hours listening to this book (about 23%). The severe violence and torture was just too much for me to take. I could not finish it.
Review:
Kudos to Miles Taylor for facing the death threats, suffering the office, and destroying his savings trying to stop Trump. Despite any smear anyone may make, this is a person who saw an opportunity to make a difference for his country and leaped on it. He also lost his personal life. And there was the drinking. So, this is a guy who faced some pretty daunting stuff and he was pretty honest about how he really didn't feel up to the moment. It is difficult to tell in any personal recounting how big a role an individual had in a larger movement (in this case "Never Trump"), but if Taylor is to be believed, he provided a fulcrum on many occasions and carried the lumps for his efforts.
Taylor is definitely not my friend. He harkens back to the "compassionate conservative" era. You remember, when Reagan made up the lie about welfare mothers all gaming the system. Or, "read my lips" Bush who converted his time in the spook world into the highest office in the country (sound familiar Putin?). Or, Bush 2 who couldn't seem to talk his way out of a box while starting wars and claiming that the "mission was accomplished" after it had only begun. I always wondered why all conservatives didn't want to be compassionate and from asides in this book, it sounds like a little boy who is repeating what his Mama told him to say. To be fair, however, Taylor did fight against separating families at the border and numerous other truly horrific ideas that Trump developed and tried to implement.
I do think that he wants to find a way to negotiate with the irascible Democrat, but "common ground" always seems to end up deep into the red. Taylor is a non-MAGA Republican which is an important step away from the cliff that democracy faces. It is clear, however, that Taylor does not see clearly how the Republican party laid the ground work for Trump and continues to provide the infrastructure that feeds his kind of horror. It is clear, however, that he figures if he can move 8%, he's stopped Trump from being elected which should give you some insight into how deeply down the hole the vast majority of Republicans are.
I truly want to like this book. It literally ended with book burning talking about how pretty it was when the pages burned. I think this was intended as a metaphor for Taylor getting rid of his hidden past as Anonymous. It is a literal example, however, of the current Republican Party approach to cultural issues (burn it down). It is also entirely too close to home with the LGBTQ book banning. I dunno, the book was a pile of mixed messages with a few decent ideas. It is interesting to me, however, that there was never talk of trying to find a middle ground with Democrats, just a middle ground with the far right and right inclined independents.
Words for which I sought help:
eructation -- a belch
tumescence -- the quality of being swollen, or a swollen part of the body, especially caused by sexual excitement
Review:
This book is well written. The material, however, is abhorrent. I found it unpleasant to read each piece and, while I enjoyed both the turns of phrase and the literary references, I kept thinking that at some moment there would be some kind of rejoinder which would somehow make reading the previous sections palatable. That did not happen.
Review:
I enjoyed this retelling of Sleeping Beauty. The idea that the beauty might be a menace was refreshing and I enjoyed the way this played out. I also liked the nuance of the Wicked Witch being neither wicked nor a witch. The approach to magic was both coherent and enjoyable itself. A nice read.
Review:
This was much more of a young adult novel than the predecessor. All the same, I am not sure how I would feel about my young adult child reading it. There are decidedly adult themes and both clever and interesting approaches to feelings of shame and inadequacy. The plot became transparent and exceedingly predictable. I'm not sure if I will read the next in the series.
Review:
This is not an easy read. The anticommunist movement is more than just McCarthy--it destroyed lives and arguably countries the world over. This is a look at how the US was so intently focused on anticommunism that it lost sight of almost everything else and helped foster some of the worst human right abuses in the world including genocide. If you have the stomach, this is worth the time.
Review:
Gamache is back in the murder capitol of Canada and this is a very twisty novel. I think that Lacoste really comes into her own in this book and the next novel, I think will start to show Gamache moving to the background.
Review:
I cannot recommend this book. Over half of it is discussing history (literally dinosaurs). If you know anything about computers, this book is non-revealing. If you know nothing about computers, this book may help you, but I am not that person.
Review:
I wish that I could read Portuguese. There is little doubt in my mind that this book has not been translated well. Tortured sentences like, "Fascism is the appropriate name to speak about the right-wing extremists that returned from the underground of history to our days," are constantly present. Even sentences that I think I could reword, "We can define as fascism the phenomenon involving the rise of Jair Bolsonaro," into "Jair Bolsonaro's rise is the very definition of fascism," seem to lose something. I, unfortunately, cannot parse the language used by the translator.
Review:
This is a great collection of columns. The columns are brief, to the point, and organized by topic rather than by time. The introduction before each column sets the stage and the coda afterwards offers context after the column was written. This was a quick read for me as I was very familiar with the context of all of these and I really enjoyed going through them. Well Done!
Review:
This is a rich collection of characters against the backdrop of invasion. It is hard to say that there has been a loss of way of life, but there has certainly been an overwhelming change. A motley crew of characters tries to navigate the changes and, at least slightly, to fight back. This is not a book of revolt, but is much more a book of character development in a rich tapestry of life. Of course, this is not a life that any of us would recognize so there is a fair amount of world building that goes into it. Really enjoyable and rich. Well worth the time.
Review:
This is remarkably dry and assumes a ton about people and places I can hardly identify. Way too in depth for me and after six months I had to call it quits.
Review:
There is a heroic run from slavery. This is not, however, the story of a couple who "went on the lam" and hid constantly dodging slave catchers. Instead this is the story of a couple who used cunning and careful planning to make a clean escape in broad daylight. They did have to run from slave catchers eventually (after the fugitive slave law was passed and Daniel Webster was the AG of Massachusetts). I think that this book is more about perseverance under life threatening adversity. This isn't really a full biography and it is told in a narrative format although the research is top-notch.
Review:
This is journalist as writer. The same passages repeat throughout the book. The story is relatively thin as the murderer was not terribly inclined to speak about his crimes to O'Connell. Thus, the book is sort of a biography of the author and his experiences while interviewing the murderer. This might be OK if there was some sort of life changing event, shocking revelation, or gritty effort. While there is no doubt that O'Connell worked hard to get his interviews and he literally spent years talking with the murderer, insight was missing. The murderer was a weirdo (using O'Connell's description). He tended to talk about his crimes in abstract terms which conveniently seemed to omit the murderer. While the murderer's regret may be genuine (O'Connell thinks so), it is hard to understand whether there is regret for personal losses or genuine remorse at the harm he caused to others. I just did not find the book compelling (tidbits are surely interesting) and the manner of writing seemed plodding--like someone who had to expand a long article.
Review:
This could have been a very sad story, but it mostly wasn't. The protagonist, Shelly, definitely wears rose colored glasses, but this is not naivete, rather it is mostly a desire to find a way forward no matter the circumstances. Ma does a good job of throwing a lot at the characters and does an excellent job of making them bewildering to Shelly. At the same time, Shelly is observant and while he may miss some things and ascribe improper motives (often looking on the bright side), he is generally rather astute when he puts his mind to it. I enjoyed the "fish out of water/coming of age" troupes that were used and twisted slightly to make them much more interesting.
Review:
I enjoyed this book and liked how the characters were each given a patois that made them distinct. McLean did this by identifying these characters as largely war comrades which allowed them to be from anywhere. Even the locals, however, had their own manner of speaking which largely reflected the way that they dealt with the world. I have not experienced this in real life, but it was welcome in the novel where I was quick to identify who was speaking and was able to anticipate some of what that character was thinking. Maybe I just need a simple book in order to fully understand it. I once watched Dennis Franz get into the character of Andy Sipowicz on a talk show and it was both body and manner of speaking. I kind of feel like the characters in this book have that full transformation as I read the transitions from one to the other.
Review:
This is a very interesting book. The thesis is that the hero story is fairly consistent across all forms of human history. There is a good reason to believe that this is true. There are a ton of hero stories that follow the same general path across social group after social group. I also learned a fair amount about myths with which I only had a passing aquaintance.
Review:
I lasted through about 10% of this book. I have no idea what is happening and I hate that. There are definite literary allusions I did not get. It was time to move on.
Review:
I am not thrilled with the romance (will they won't they) that has started to take a larger part in fantasy novels. I am OK with the concept, but the implementation has the feel of a "take off your shirt" romance novel and a tad of porn (hmmm...given that Yarros is a romance novelist, this should have come as no surprise). I am really cool with the protagonist fighting off a real problem like EDS. The writing is pretty good overall and without the "steamy" there is decent world building and an internally consistent magic system. The plot is enjoyable and I will likely pick up the next book in the series. I probably won't be breathless waiting for it to drop.
