Finished Right Thing, Right Now: Good Values, Good Character, Good Deeds, by Ryan Holiday, which had some interesting historical anecdotes.
Next up: Firefly: The Magnificent Nine, by James Lovegrove, a tie-in novel to the TV series, and The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection, by Louisa Thomsen Brits.
Like I said earlier, once a horse pees, things pick up.
That is certainly true. Likely several horses.
Mycroft Holmes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* and Anna Waterhouse
A Holmes adventure featuring Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft, who travels to the West Indies to investigate mysterious disappearances that may be connected to his fiancee.
Entertaining book.
*Better known as a Hall of Fame NBA basketball player
And big jet co-pilot!
OH! I’ve read that one! It was good, better than I expected going in.
No, that was Roger Murdock. He had a uniform and a hat and a nametag and everything!
He is Kareem. I’ve seen him play (in youtube)…
I think he’s the greatest. But my Dad says he don’t work hard enough on
defense.
Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes!
Finished Firefly: The Magnificent Nine, by James Lovegrove, a tie-in novel to the TV series, which was okay; and The Book of Hygge: The Danish Art of Contentment, Comfort, and Connection, by Louisa Thomsen Brits. Not recommended.
Now I’m reading Kitchens of the Great Midwest, by J. Ryan Stradal.
I readThe Masquerades of Spring by Ben Aaronovitch. It was good to see Nightingale as a younger man. I enjoyed the novella a lot.
Finished All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby. A very well-written (and extremely well-narrated) novel that takes place in a small Viriginia coastal town. The story begins when a much-loved white high school teacher is shot to death in his classroom by a troubled young black man, who in turn is gunned down on the schoolhouse steps by two white deputies. The aftermath of the shootings and the investigation into the motive fall on the shoulders of the newly-elected black sheriff, who uncovers some dark secrets of the town while fighting his own demons.
Strong recommendation.
Next up: A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson.
Paradise Bronx Ian Frazier
A long history of the New York City borough, which went from rural idyll, Revolutionary War battlefield, 20th century decline and rebirth.
Lots of interesting detail and very well written
The Tainted Cup, by Robert Jackson Bennett. Grishaverse, Rex Stout, and Pacific Rim stirred together and poured into a book mold. A murder mystery in a fantasy universe where the magic is genetic engineering based on the kaiju that regularly emerge from the depths to threaten civilization, and the detective is homebound and sends her eidetic-memory assistant out to gather clues.
This wasn’t great literature and isn’t on my best-of-year list, but it was a helluva good time.
Finished Kitchens of the Great Midwest, by J. Ryan Stradal. Meh.
Next up: Brian’s Song by William Blinn and The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke. (The latter is set in the world of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.)
Finished Brian’s Song by William Blinn, which I enjoyed. I was surprised by how funny it was. I also really liked The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke, but it’s slight–I’d recommend it for people who’ve read Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. Clarke has an afterward in The Wood at Midwinter saying that she was going to tell people to reread a certain footnote in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, but when she looked for it, she realized she’d never actually written that footnote!
Now I’m reading Starter Villain, by John Scalzi.
Finished Starter Villain, by John Scalzi, which I enjoyed. It’s probably the funniest book I’ve read this year.
Next up: Heads in Beds: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality, by Jacob Tomsky; and A Concise History of Scotland, by Sir Fitzroy MacLean.
Just read Mal Goes to War by Edward Ashton, about a near-future war in the US and a sentient bit of software that gets caught up in the war.
Did not like.
An AI native to digital space might battle other AIs, but it will absolutely not visualize its battle using human metaphors like castles and sieges. Why on earth would it? It would comprehend castles and sieges using metaphors like hacking and code-sniffing.
This is persnickety, but it’s emblematic of the problem I had with the book: I could never suspend my disbelief that I was reading a narrative of an AI. Mal read like a human badly cosplaying as software.
Other than that, it was pretty diverting; but that was a pretty fatal flaw for a book that had one job.
I loved Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and am looking forward very much to The Wood at Midwinter. I have a feeling Santa might be bringing me a copy.
My son and I are about halfway through John Scalzi’s Starter Villain and are enjoying it.
Just finished Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora and liked it, all in all, but probably not enough to go on to the other two books in the series - at least, not immediately.
I’m now reading John McPhee’s short 1966 book Oranges, all about the fruit, its role in history, its integration into Western cuisine and how it’s cultivated today (or was, at the time McPhee wrote it). Mostly interesting; McPhee has a calm, conversational style that I enjoy.