Perdido Street Station, China Miéville

 

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

Started: August 18, 2026
Completed: August 29, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

This was, in many ways, a book without any redeeming character.  The destruction of basically all of the characters in the book (not necessarily death) was unrelenting.  The prose, however, was excellent.  I just could not stomach the plot and it all unraveled at the end.  It seemed as though the characters which most deserved destruction did not get it, those who seemed to deserve enrichment did not get it and those in between fell either side of the line with little more than randomness.  In that sense it was realistic.  Well written, but hard to walk away thinking of anyone to whom I should provide a glowing recommendation.

The Time Ships, Stephen Baxter

 

The Time Ships by Stephen Baxter is a continuation of HG Wells' short story, The Time Machine.  I'm not thrilled about someone glomming on to someone else's work, but I was curious about this one.  This was authorized by the Wells estate.

Started: July 22, 2026
Completed: DNF
Recommendation: N/A
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Paperback

Review:

Wells had a certain breathless observational mode.  This book captured that well, but, frankly it is unendurable.  150 pages into 510 and I just could not keep it up.  The book wore me out.

Languages of the Mind, Ray Jackendoff

 

Languages of the Mind:  Essays on mental representation by Ray Jackendoff

Started: August 20, 2026
Completed: DNF
Recommendation: N/A
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Trade paperback

Review:

I thought this book would be about how the brain talks to itself.  It is not that.  I was instantly bogged down in technical material that I could not decipher.  It seems like this is a pheneticist thinking about the brain purely from the perspective of language.  And, treating the brain as a machine.  I just couldn't get through it.

Zeno of Elea, H.D.P. Lee

 

Zeno of Elea:  A text with translation and notes by Henry Desmond Pritchard Lee

Started: August 18, 2026
Completed: August 20, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Media: Paperback

Words for which I sought help:

otiose -- of no use; pointless or superfluous

puerile -- immature, especially in being silly or trivial; childish

Review:

There is very little reference to Zeno in existing works and no original works of Zeno have been found as of now.  I feel that Lee goes as far as possible with the small scraps he addresses.  I never thought of Zeno as the founder of the dialectic (I thought it was Socrates, but I was clearly wrong) and am glad to know more of him.

Being You, Anil Seth

 

Being You:  A new science of consciousness by Anil Seth

Started: December 2, 2023
Completed: August 17, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Anil Seth at a lecture he gave

Review:

It took me a long time to read this book.  That was true for two reasons:  1) I often read to escape and this book is no escape and 2) the material required thought.  The basic argument is that living and consciousness are linked (the need to protect one's life is a significant part of consciousness).  "Living" does not rule out computer based life, but it would have to have a threat to its existence which required maintenance and occasional careful consideration.  I found the argument broadly compelling.

For We Are Many, Dennis E. Taylor

 

For We Are Many by Dennis E. Taylor is the most recent book in the Bobiverse series

Started: March 26, 2026
Completed: August 12, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio on CD

Review:

I wondered how far von Neumann machines as a center point for a story could go.  I didn't think very far, but this book is excellent.  It is amazing to me that Taylor keeps coming up with complex and believable ideas on how the future might unroll.  Really enjoyed this book.

Villa Coco, Andrew Sean Greer

 

Villa Coco by Andrew Sean Greer

Started: July 31, 2026
Completed: August 6, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My Wife
Media: Audio

Review:

This book was fun!  There was a bit of a mystery, a bit of romance, and a bit of conniving.  All of that blended together in Greer's odd style to create an enjoyable read.

Senlin Ascends, Josiah Bancroft

 

Senlin Ascends by Josiah Bancroft is the first book in the Books of Babel series.

Started: July 23, 2026
Completed: July 30, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: A reviewer on youtube.
Media: Audio

Review:

I kind of thought that a series about the Tower of Babel would have religious overtones, but this does not have any overt religion (there are some moral lessons, but it doesn't seem to be an allegory or anything like that).  Instead, the tower serves as a backdrop for a search and rescue or mission oriented story.  The character development is interesting, although some characters seem to follow a basic structure, none are particularly strongly correlated with the basic structure.  This was a fun read with plenty of unexpected adventure and largely the story of naïveté graduating into a better understanding of how to work with the world in which one finds ones self.  Bancroft has done a good job with world creation and sets a nice backdrop for the main character to do the things that seem well beyond a school head master.

Athens and Sparta, Adrian Goldsworthy

 

Athens and Sparta:  The rivalry that shaped ancient Greece by Adrian Goldsworthy

Started: July 10, 2026
Completed: July 23, 2026

Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

This book is a little dry and assumes awareness of some Ancient Greek history.  Goldsworthy is clear about the areas where there is speculation and he is quick to try and bracket things like troop estimates realistically.  He is also straight forward in pointing out that the history was written basically by the victor as there are no significant records of the Spartan perspective.  I think that this was a good overview of the relationship between the cities and offers a good foundation for a deeper study.

The Dragon Round, Stephen S. Power

 

The Dragon Round by Stephen S. Power

Started: June 14, 2025
Completed: July 22, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By:  Power and I chatted on Twitter several (maybe 10?) years ago (I think he was an editor for a book I had enjoyed, but my Twitter account is no more since Musk took over).  He was an interesting person and I wanted to support his work, so I picked up the book.

Media: Trade paperback

Words for which I sought help:

grue -- a shiver or a shudder

penteconter -- An ancient Greek sailing vessel (used for both war and trade) with 50 oars

Review:

I enjoyed this book which is sort of a castaway story.  Parts of the book felt rushed to me, but it is a good story.  The argument for personal revenge is not made as strongly as I would have liked and while it feels like the main characters undergo some growth and character change, as the book comes to its end, it feels like the characters have reverted to form.

Divine Rivals, Rebecca Ross

Started: June 20, 2026
Completed: July 21, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My niece

Media: Collector's Edition Hardback

Review:

I have enjoyed Ross' work for the character development and for the fun of the read.  The mystery rarely is challenging.  In this book, the mystery gets a little better, but the character development falls flat.  The ending was quite surprising.  In general, though, I enjoyed the book.
 

Mark Twain, Ron Chernow

 Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

Started: January 26, 2026
Completed: July 9, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

It took a while to get through this book as it is so huge that I had to cycle through the library several times in order to listen to the whole thing.  I have a lot of respect for Chernow, but only the broadest of understandings of Twain.  My brother visited a Twain exhibit and brought back a book of his works which I have not yet read (though I had read Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Connecticut Yankee in my youth as well as other short stories like, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County").  What a knew of Twain you could fit in a thimble in comparison to this book.  I knew his era, but did not realize how many celebrities he knew all over the world--for that matter I was only vaguely aware that he had moved from Missouri to New York City.  I knew nothing of his wife or family (oddly, the last surviving member of which died only a few years before I was born) and had only heard peripherally about his interest in young girls (which seemed platonic from Chernow's perspective or at least only fantasy without any desire to actually act on his interest)--though disturbing in concept.  I was also completely unaware of his personal struggles and perspectives on religion.  I was aware of his role as a publisher from Chernow's Grant.  This book was so insightful and shed light on so much of Twain's life that I found it fascinating.

Angel Down, Daniel Kraus

 

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Started: June 15, 2026
Completed: June 18, 2026
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: My niece thought that this would be a book I would enjoy (and she gifted it to me!)
Media: Trade Paperback

Review:

My niece would like to have an honest review, which is kind of where I live.  

I did not enjoy this book.  The format is unusual (it is a stream of consciousness book) and the subject matter (in the World War I trenches) was pretty tough.  Moreover, I am trying not to read depressing books.  So, this book, just by virtue of the subject matter was tough for me.  Of course, I have read and enjoyed books that have all of those qualities.

*SPOILERS BELOW*

This book did not reward good behavior (for the most part).  The pair who jump over the trench wall (go over the top) and go to rescue (put out of his misery) the screamer are not particularly good people.  In fact, nobody in the novel is a decent person.  Everyone is busy pursuing his own thing and trying to grind down everyone else.  When push comes to shove, they each show their true colors and the angel is the worst of them all.  I just could not find a redeeming quality in any of the characters, the story line, or the theme.  Of course, war is horrible and each of the characters showed a characteristic of humanity that leads to war.  I just did not enjoy reading about how awful we are.

Stoner, John Williams

 

Stoner by John Williams

Started: June 4, 2026
Completed: June 8, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: The New Yorker
Media: Audio

Review:

This is a character study book.  The characters are all odd, but not dysfunctionally odd, just odd.  All of them seem to function within the world that they inhabit, but seem unable to traverse between their different worlds very well.  The book is a bit dour, but there is humor to be found.  The interactions seem so realistic to me that it seems Williams has created actual people who could exist nearby.  This book was well worth the read for someone who likes a good turn of phrase and complex character development.

Papyrus, Irene Vallejo

 

Papyrus:  The invention of books in the ancient world by Irene Vallejo

Started: May 26, 2026
Completed: June 4, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I had hoped that this book would be more about scrolls then books, but it was not.  Not that scrolls were lacking.  In some ways, this was a writer's adventure in writing and in others it was a bit of survey of surviving works.  I imagine that Vallejo will be inclined to add to the book as more of the Herculaneum scrolls are read.

1929, Andrew Ross Sorkin

 

1929:  Inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history--and how it shattered a nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Started: May 16, 2026
Completed: May 22, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My mother
Media: Audio

Review:

This book adds humanitarian details to the crash.  I learned a little more of the big players and learned more about the role of copper stocks then I had previously known.

The Founding Myth, Andrew L. Seidel

 

The Founding Myth:  Why Christian nationalism is un-American by Andrew L. Seidel

Started: May 6, 2026
Completed: May 12, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: My wife recommended Seidel to me
Media: Audio

Review:

This is an excellent analysis of how completely wrong Christian Nationalism is about Christian influence on the founding of the United States.  To the extent it is possible to tie Christianity to the founding, those influences have been detrimental (e.g. slavery) and reversed.  The detail and methodical analysis is both useful and enlightening.

A World Appears, Michael Polan

 

A World Appears:  A journey into consciousness by Michael Pollan

Started: May 1, 2026
Completed: May 6, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Cannot remember
Media: Audio

Words for which I sought help:

lacuna -- An empty space or a missing part; a gap

Review:

This book started by quoting Anil Seth's Being You which I have been struggling to read for a couple of years now.  Despite that daunting start, the book was highly readable and covered a lot of ground.  While I am not usually swayed by a personal journey, in this particular case it created a framework which allowed Pollan to go from concept to concept cleanly.  Well worth the time.

Family of Spies, Christine Kuehn

 

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn

Started: April 27, 2026
Completed: May 1, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio Book

Review:

This story is personal to the author.  Her shame drips from the page.  The heart of the book is an interesting inside story of Pearl Harbor, just from the German/Japanese side.  The family shame, of course, is linked to that and Kuehn does a good job of making it clear that she is telling this story reluctantly.  She also clearly had help writing this book.  On occasion the same material is reiterated which seems to be happening a lot more than I had experienced in the past in non-fiction books.  It is not awful, just wasteful.

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, K.J. Parker

 

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with it by K.J. Parker

Started: April 17, 2025
Completed: April 21, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I have enjoyed this series so far.  I did not enjoy this one as much as Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, but that may come from the move away from engineering to theater (both of which I dabbled with in college).  The protagonist's mother was fantastic, but she was only a small part.  The general approach of the book was the same as its prequel, but it was harder to buy that a playwright pulled off all the engineering.  Maybe it was also the novelty that grabbed me so strongly in the first one, but seemed to be missing from this one.  Still a good read!