Bragan Reads Stuff in 2024, Pt. 4

Hi, Club Readers! (Club Readies?) Welcome to my final thread of 2024. I've been a bit busy lately, so my first book of October might take a little while yet, but look at me, keeping on top of things by starting my new thread before we're much further into the quarter!

Here's the story of my reading thus far this year:

January

1. 13: The Story of the World's Most Notorious Superstition by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer
2. Uprooted by Naomi Novik
3. Monty Python's Big Red Book
4. The Letter of Marque by Patrick O'Brian
5. Peril by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa
6. Adventure Time, Vol 5 by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, & Braden Lamb
7. Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
8. Images of America: White Sands National Monument by Joseph T. Page II

February

9. I Am the Master: Legends of the Renegade Time Lord by Peter Anghelides, Mark Wright, Jacqueline Rayner, Mike Tucker, Beverly Sanford and Matthew Sweet
10. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
11. Confessions of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell
12. The Narrow Road Between Desires by Patrick Rothfuss
13. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
14. Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger

March

15. If This Book Exists, You're in the Wrong Universe by Jason Pargin (aka David Wong)
16. Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
17. The Everglades: River of Grass by Marjory Stoneman Douglas
18. Adventure Time Vol. 6 by Ryan North
19. Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
20. Toilets, Toasters & Telephones: The How and Why of Everyday Objects by Susan Goldman Rubin
21. Some Possible Solutions by Helen Phillips
22. The Colors of All the Cattle by Alexander McCall Smith
23. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: The Making of the Classic Film by John Tenuto and Maria Jose Tenuto
24. Married with Zombies by Jesse Petersen

April

25.The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson
26. A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
27. The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays for Today, Tomorrow, and Beyond Tomorrow by Ray Bradbury
28. Roadmarks by Roger Zelazny
29. How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question by Michael Shur
30. Clockwork by Phillip Pullman
31. The Soulmate by Sally Hepworth

May

32. Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich
33. Lyorn by Steven Brust
34. Adventure Time Vol. 7 by Rayn North
35. If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda
36. Science Fiction: The Best of 2003 edited by Karen Haber & Jonathan Strahan
37. The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel
38. My Effin' Life by Geddy Lee
39. The Furthest Station by Ben Aaronovitch
40. The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

June

41. What We Talk About When We Talk About Books: The History and Future of Reading by Leah Price
42. Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin
43. Star Stories: Constellation Tales From Around the World by Anita Ganeri & Andy Wilx
44. Lingo: Around Europe in Sixty Languages by Gaston Dorren
45. Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree
46. The Thirteen Gun Salute by Patrick O'Brian
47. The Puzzler: One Man's Quest to Solve the Most Baffling Puzzles Ever, from Crosswords to Jigsaws to the Meaning of Life by A.J. Jacobs
48. Adventure Time, Vol 8: Mathematical Edition by Ryan North and Christopher Hastings
49. Swamp Story by Dave Barry

July

50. The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert A. Caro
51. Disenchantment: Untold Tales, Treasury the First presented by Matt Groenig
52. The Book of Pslams: 97 Divine Diatribes on Humanity's Total Failure by God, with Jesus and the Holy Ghost, as dictated to David Javerbaum
53. Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny
54. Gratitude by Oliver Sacks

August

55. Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson
56. A Nice Class of Corpse by Simon Brett
57. Seven Kinds of People You Find in Bookshops by Shaun Bythell
58. The Book of Bill by Alex Hirsch
59. Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
60. Starlight Detectives: How Astronomers, Inventors, and Eccentrics Discovered the Modern Universe by Alan Hirshfeld
61. The Witch's Vacuum Cleaner and Other Stories by Terry Pratchett

September

62. The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson
63. Happy-Go-Lucky by David Sedaris
64. The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch
65. Adventure Time Vol 9 by Christopher Hastings
66. New Mexico: A Photographic Tribute by John Annerino
67. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer
68. Gravity Falls: Journal 3 by Alex Hirsch
69. Grizzly Confidential: An Astounding Journey into the Secret Life of North America's Most Fearsome Predator by Keven Grange
70. To the Land of Long Lost Friends by Alexander McCall Smith

Finally, my first book of October!

71. A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor by Hank Green



This is the sequel to Hank Green's An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, a novel about social media and giant alien statues. It's been long enough since I read the first book that maybe I've forgotten a bit too much to properly judge, but I do think this works quite nicely as a sequel. It explains a lot of stuff that was left mostly mysterious in the first book, and those explanations are interesting and reasonably satisfying. There also a lot more social commentary on things like fame, wealth inequality, the impact of technology on our lives, and the divisions in modern society, all from the perspective of an author who has some real firsthand knowledge about weird internet fame. I wouldn't call it flawless -- the climactic action perhaps ends a little too abruptly for one thing -- but I think those who liked the first one will probably also enjoy this one.

Rating: 4/5

>1 bragan: "(Club Readies?) "

In setting up his first Club Read thread, he readies to be one of the Club Readies.

Or is it Club Readites? Club Readitarians?

Or, to put it more simply, happy new thread!

>3 rocketjk: LOL, thank you! There are so many interesting name possibilities... :)

>2 bragan: LT says I probably won’t like An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, so of course I want to try it. But though it may not be absolutely true that I wouldn’t like it, it’s probably true that I wouldn’t, right at this moment. Maybe another time though.

>5 FlorenceArt: You never know with LT recommendations, although I do find they're often right for me. And I also find that if I'm interested in something and it says I won't like it, it can make me perversely more interested, too. :)

72. $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer



A short book about people in the US who are surviving on almost no cash income, and how governmental aid programs are failing to help them they way they're supposed to. Most of the book consists of frankly rather heartbreaking profiles of individual families: how they ended up in such financial circumstances, what life is like for them, and how difficult it is for them to improve their conditions. There is, however, also some history of the welfare program, how it's changed, and how it works (or fails to), with some suggestions for improving matters that are designed to appeal to even the most conservative of Americans. Certainly, the book makes it very, very clear that the problem is not that "people don't want to work." And yet, somehow, I suspect we'll never stop hearing that idea expressed by people who have no idea what it's like to desperately want a job, but to live in conditions that makes it almost impossible to find or keep one.

This was published in 2015, and no doubt things have changed since then, but it's not like this is a problem that's going away, so it's still worth reading, and perhaps for some it is likely to be eye-opening.

Rating: 4/5

73. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia



Well, this title of this one is a pretty good case of truth in advertising. It's set in Mexico (in 1950), and it's chock-full of gothic elements: a large, crumbling house; a misty graveyard; disturbing family secrets; a woman afflicted by what might be madness or might be ghosts... you name it. It does good things with all of those elements, making them feel as natural as if they'd just been invented solely for its own purposes, and while the story builds a bit slowly, it does so not at all unpleasantly and eventually ends up in some fairly impressive flat-out horror.

Rating: I'm giving it 4/5, but I feel a bit stingy with that, and am having a giant debate with myself as to whether to give it another half star, if only for how engaged with it I was by the end.

74. The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman



A small group of folks from a lovely English retirement village get together every Thursday to try to solve cold case murders provided by their ex-cop friend Penny. Penny, sadly, is now no longer in any shape to participate, but, to their great excitement, a real live murder has just landed in their laps. And then another one follows, this time in the village itself, and the more digging they do, the more secrets they find lurking around the place.

This was an enjoyable one. The mystery plot was interesting enough to hold my attention, there's some low-key humor, the characters are good -- especially the chirpy, easy-to-underestimate Joyce and the formidable Elizabeth, who could tell you what she used to do for a living, but then she'd probably have to kill you -- and there are moments where it gets surprisingly emotional. Definitely interested in reading the rest of this series now.

Rating: 4/5

75. The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson



Rachel Carson's short but detail-packed 1951 book covers many different aspects of human knowledge about the world's oceans, from their history and geography and life, to their tides and currents, to commercial prospects for extracting minerals from seawater.

I can't exactly recommend it as a source of good information for modern readers, just because it is, of course, very dated. Actually, the version I have is a revised edition published in 1961, featuring a preface and a number of footnotes offering updated information, and it is truly astonishing to me just how much scientific discovery on the subject there was in those ten years, no doubt due in large part to the International Geophysical Year that fell during that interval. There has, of course, also been a great deal since, not that our knowledge of the oceans is anywhere near exhaustive still. It is also strangely fascinating to contemplate the things that the book acknowledges but doesn't realize the importance of, like the already-rising sea levels.

Dated or not, though, I certainly did find it worth reading, not just as an interesting snapshot of mid-20th-century science, but also as the classic example of science writing that it is, and especially for the way that Carson balances scientific precision with some very evocative prose.

Rating: 4/5, with all of the above caveats about it not being an up-to-date source of scientific information.

76. The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison



Maia is the youngest and least-favored son of the Emperor of the Elflands and has lived all eighteen years of his life in an isolated corner of the kingdom, most of it in the abusive custody of a cousin bitter about having been banished from the court in disgrace. But after his father and older brothers die unexpectedly in an airship crash, he finds himself elevated to a throne he was never raised to take, in a place whose workings he doesn't understand.

All of which maybe makes it sound a bit, I don't know, bigger and messier and plottier than it actually is. I don't know if this exactly counts as "cozy fantasy" or not, but it's definitely at least in the same ballpark. There is something like a plot, but it's not so much developed as occasionally checked in on. Almost entirely, it's just about Maia and his attempts to figure out how to fit into his new role while being insecure and very human (or "human," since he's actually mixed-race elf and goblin). Mostly he just goes around being a really nice guy. His particular variety of niceness does, I think, sort of border on a trope I find irritating, which is when a character who is both a shining example and a perfect champion of 21st-century liberal values gets plopped down by authorial fiat into a historical or fantasy setting and proceeds to demonstrate how awful and benighted everyone else in their culture is by contrast. Fortunately, the writing here is deft enough to avoid falling all the way into that particular cliche, especially as it there are some actually good reasons for Maia's ideas and feelings to be out of step with those around him. And he does actually feel pretty believable and sympathetic and relatable. Enough so that for quite a while, I was reasonably happy to just sort of follow him around through his day-to-day watching him acclimate and enjoying his company.

Five hundred pages of that, though, turns out to be a little bit much, and somewhere in the last third or so of the novel, I turned from being fairly content just to spend time in this guy's company to feeling impatient for it all to be done with. It probably didn't help that there were a few too many characters to keep track of, not all of whom stood out very well, and a lot of details that got skipped over or summarized, and some clear indications that the author was much more interested in showcasing certain aspects of the worldbuilding than in others. (I do have to give a shoutout, though, to how smoothly she handled the importance of formal and informal pronouns in the characters' speech while writing in a language that no longer uses them.)

Rating: I'm giving this a 3.5/5. I don't feel great about that, and it'd definitely rate higher if only it was a bit shorter and didn't overstay its welcome.

>11 bragan: Aw, I loved that book! She wrote a couple of other books in that same world, but I guess you'd feel the same about them.

>12 FlorenceArt: A lot of people loved it! But then, a lot of people loved Legends and Lattes, too, and that book bored me silly. I think I lack some gene or something for appreciating the cozy fantasy stuff. At least this one was borderline enough that I did enjoy it to some extent.

77. The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager



After the death of her husband, actress Casey Fletcher has holed up in her family's lakeside summer home, where she does very little besides drinking... until the day she saves her across-the-lake neighbor, a former supermodel, from drowning, then finds that she can't keep herself from spying on the woman and her husband in their all-glass house. And something weird and dramatic seems to be happening over there.

So. There's a problem I often have with thrillers like this, that all but shout "Hey, there is AN INCREDIBLE TWIST in this one!" from the dust jacket before you even open them. Which is that I spend far too much of my time while reading trying to imagine what the INCREDIBLE TWIST might be, and I can imagine enough possibilities that whatever it is, it likely will involve something I've already thought of. Well, that's true for one or two of the INCREDIBLE TWISTs in this one, but not all of them. Mainly because the biggest of them is batshit insane.

Which, in itself, isn't a problem, actually. I've enjoyed stories with batshit insane twists before. But I think there are some important criteria for a good twist, batshit or otherwise, and it may be that the crazier it is, the more important it is to get it right. Ideally, a narrative twist should recontextualize everything we already knew, or thought we knew, about what's going on in the story in a way that snaps everything into a new and clearer focus until it all suddenly makes a different, better kind of sense. Done really well, it can lead to a "Holy shit!" epiphany that feels like nothing so much as an orgasm for the brain. What a twist should not do, in my view, is make you feel like the author has been dishonest with you in order to make the twist work. Which is a different thing from having an unreliable narrator, and can be the case even if technically you were never told anything false.

There is one pretty good moment here that made me go "Oh, I see, you didn't actually ever say the thing I was assuming. OK, clever." There was a less-good moment where I was just kind of, "WTF? We're really going here? Well, OK..." And there was a bad one where I genuinely felt like the author had lied to me, or at least misled me in an unfair way. Which might have been less annoying if I'd found more to love in other aspects of the books, but... Eh. It was... fine? Diverting enough, I guess. A quick read, for sure. But I am left sort of wondering whether or not it was actually worth even the relatively short time I took to read it.

Rating: 2.5/5

78. The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr



This book wasn't quite what I was expecting. What I was expecting was a thorough, systematic, fact-filled look at the operation of the American grocery industry, probably including an exposé of some of its more disturbing practices. Well, the exposé part is definitely here, and it extends well beyond the grocery chains, including some deeply disturbing explorations of everything from exploitative practices in the American trucking industry, to the complex and wholly inadequate system of food inspection, to slave labor in Thai shrimp fishing, all of which the author investigated personally. But, ultimately, this is less a thorough declaration of facts than an extended philosophical meditation on the taken-for-granted bounty and the hidden horrors of the most mundane-seeming aspects of modernity. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about this, at first, as in places it did kind of feel like it bordered on the pretentious, but ultimately I did find it rather powerful, with lots of disturbing -- if you'll forgive the pun -- food for thought.

Rating: 4/5, although by the end, I was very tempted to give it another half star, honestly

>15 bragan: hmm. Disturbing food for thought on food. I’m now not hungry

>10 bragan: enjoyed your post on Rachel Carson. I think this is a special book. And I was charmed how Richard Powers used it in his new book Playground (it’s referenced a couple times). Definitely dated, but how much we knew then is pretty cool.

>16 dchaikin: I haven't read Playground, but it's always good to see Carson being appreciated.

79. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020 edited by Diana Gabaldon



Well, here I am making progress through this anthology series. I'm now only four years behind!

I thought all the previous volumes in the series ranged from very good to excellent, and have generally been impressed by their consistency, both from volume to volume and within the individual collections. This one, though, didn't quite live up to those standards for me. There is definitely some good stuff in here -- Victor LaValle's "Up from Slavery" is a stand-out -- but there are a few too many pieces with interesting ideas but unsatisfying executions, and a few too many whose social commentary heart is in the right place but whose delivery feels a bit too clunky and on-the-nose.

It is kind of interesting to me, looking back on what I wrote about previous installments, because apparently I commented more than once that even the stories that didn't entirely work for me were still interesting. I'm trying to think what the difference is between that appreciative response and my current somewhat disappointed "too many interesting ideas with unsatisfying executions" response, and I'm thinking it might just be that in the former case the anthology had so many stories that did work perfectly for me that it made me feel much more charitable towards the ones that didn't, instead of feeling impatient with them.

Rating: A possibly uncharitable 3.5/5

80. Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton



Shit Turd (or, mercifully, S.T. for short) is a crow, formerly the pet of a colorful redneck called Big Jim, although he considers himself more human (or, to use Big Jim's terminology, MoFo) than crow. But something has gone very wrong with Big Jim, and so S.T. sets out into a changed world with his friend Dennis the bloodhound to look for help, only to find himself with a much bigger mission.

This is a weird book, even more so than the premise might suggest. Initially, it seems like a black comedy version of a zombie apocalypse novel, and as such I found it utterly delightful. But it seems to turn into something else as it goes along, and ultimately it feels more like some sort of fable or fairy tale, complete with the talking animals. It's also laced with a lot of odd philosophical musings. I'm not sure quite what all of that adds up to, and there were aspects that worked much better for me than others, but even during the times when I sort of found myself wondering what the heck it is I was reading, I was still interested and kind of impressed by its audacity.

Rating: Despite flaws and uncertainties, I think I have to give this one 4/5, if only for its sheer creativity.

>19 bragan: I started reading that a couple years ago. Still on my TBR to get back to....

>20 WelshBookworm: I've just realized there's a sequel to it out now, too, so possibly neither of us are finished with it. :)

81. On Record: 1983 by G. Brown



A look back at the music of 1983, or at least at the significant albums released in the US in that year. I'd say it's fairly dominated by rock of various kinds, but it features a decent helping of stuff from other genres, as well. The first two hundred pages or so showcase selected albums, with each getting its own two-page spread: one page with a very nice, high-quality black-and-white publicity photo of the artist or band (showcasing a delightful array of early 80s fashions and hairstyles), the other including a small image of the album cover and a few paragraphs about the album itself, what was going on with the band at the time, and some well-chosen quotes from a band member. This section is followed by 150 pages or so of additional albums that get only the cover art and a sentence or two, interspersed with a lot more photos. It's a big, well-made, visually appealing book, and very nice to page though.

It's also made me deeply nostalgic. The music of 1983 was the music of my tween years, and that stuff apparently does stick with you. Although a surprising amount of it I didn't really listen to and come to love until my college years in the early 90s, about when everyone else was starting to move on to grunge and alternative. Well, what can I say, I've always been kind of behind, pop-culturally. Doesn't make my affection for some of these songs and albums, or the pleasure of revisiting my memories of them, any less strong.

I got my copy of this through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and, if I recall correctly, the promotional material with it suggested that this book and the others in the series, which covers multiple years, should make a good addition to the collections of public and music-themed private libraries. I can only agree, but I'd add that for those of us not curating libraries or specialized collections, just picking up a single volume from a year of one's youth is a pretty good time. The only thing that gives me pause about recommending the experience is the rather hefty price tag I see printed on the back of my copy, which makes me extremely glad I was able to get it for free. Although it must be said that you do get a hefty book for it!

Rating: 4/5

Hi Betty! I'm just stopping in to say hi after some time away. I really appreciate the details that you provided in several of these reviews, which enable me to make a well educated guess whether I will like the books or not. I'm glad you enjoyed The Thursday Murder Club; I liked the second one quite well and am in the middle of the third.

>23 Jim53: Hi! Nice to hear that the reviews are appreciated/useful, thanks! Also glad to hear you're enjoying that series. I am definitely planning to read the rest of it at some point.

>22 bragan: I was 20 in 1983. Your comment on hairstyles made me think of the TV series Dallas 😂

>25 FlorenceArt: Oh, I remember when people were obsessed with Dallas! :)

82. Gravity Falls: Lost Legends by Alex Hirsch



Having recently read The Book of Bill and Journal 3, I of course had to complete the trifecta of Gravity Falls spinoff books with this graphic novel. We have four complete stories here, namely:

"Face It": When a monster steals Mabel's face, Dipper and Pacifica have to go on an adventure together to steal it back. This one very much feels like it could have been an episode of the show. And I like the fact that Pacifica, despite having undergone some character growth and graduated from "nemesis" to "frenemy," clearly has not changed entirely overnight in some pat and unrealistic way. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the possible vague hints of Pacifica/Dipper romance, but I guess this isn't exactly the first place I've seen them.

"Comix Up": A very meta little tale, in which our heroes get sucked into comic books, romping through a variety of different styles and genres. I started this one thinking, "this is silly, but cute and kind of clever," started laughing uncontrollably somewhere in the middle, and was going "awwwww" with a great deal of feeling come the end. Not sure you can hit the right notes for this sort of thing any better than that!

"Don't Dimension It": Mabel accidentally gets dragged into the multiverse through a dimensional tear, and Stan and Ford set out to rescue her. Lots of interesting weirdness, lots of bickering grunkles, lots of Mabel. All great stuff! The only thing that gives me pause about this one is the fact that it's hard not to read it as a reply to those people who like to blame Mabel for everything, making the point that, yes, OK, she can be self-centered, but basically she's a good kid. Which is absolutely true, but I'm sorry, her detractors do not deserve one Mabel, never mind a multiverse full of Mabels!

"The Pines Boys in: The Jersey Devil's in the Details": This one features the elder Pines twins as kids. It's the one I was most looking forward to, and, boy, did it not disappoint. The story is lots of fun, there are some jokes that made me flat-out guffaw (although the throwaway joke that made me laugh the hardest I suspect you have to actually be from New Jersey to be amused by), and I adore these kids. Especially lil' Ford, who is a nerdy little cutie pie. I just want to cuddle him and share my science books with him. (OK, admittedly, I might feel the same about the older version, too, but never mind that.) And their sibling bond here is so sweet and lovely. It's simultaneously heartwarming and, knowing what comes later, heartbreaking. Although it does, of course, end on a happy note.

So, anyway, yeah. It's all good stuff, and it satisfyingly captures all the things I love about the show itself: the strangeness, the great characters, the humor, the perfectly blended combination of goofiness and genuine heart. Definitely recommended to fans of the show, of all ages.

Rating: Well, heck, I've given every other Gravity Falls book a 4.5/5, I guess I'm not going to stop now. What can I say? They're delightful!

>26 bragan: "Oh, I remember when people were obsessed with Dallas! :)"

Who shot J.R.????

>28 rocketjk: I don't actually remember, but I remember people who were not me really, really caring. :)

>29 bragan: Exactly! I didn't care either, but the character was shot in the last episode of (I think) the first season, in a cliffhanger, and then (and this was the days of summer reruns, remember) all that season the question was asked so much that it became a punchline. And, no, I don't remember who the culprit was either. I never actually watched the show, though I do remember the hoopla!

83. Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout



The third volume in Strout's series about Lucy Barton, who grew up very poor in a small town in Illinois, but who is now living a rather more high-class life in New York City. This one focuses on her relationship with her ex-husband William, as he deals with some newly discovered family secrets and with being left by his current wife.

Strout, at her best, does this thing that I don't entirely understand but am always very impressed by, where she writes in this very, very plain, almost ridiculously simple kind of way, with prose that is so unpretentious that it might almost seem to border on inarticulate... and from that, she creates this incredibly insightful and realistic-feeling depiction of what it's like to be a human being and the complicated, half-understood stuff that's going on in our minds all the time.

That's at her best. I'm not sure this one quite achieves for me what the previous books in this series have, though. The extremely simplistic prose is here, and the human realism is here, but instead of the former somehow magically giving rise to the latter, this time I could see the seams between the two, and I kept getting distracted by them and feeling vaguely annoyed by some of the narrator's repetitive linguistic quirks. Is that because Strout has handled her narrative less smoothly this time? Or is it something to do with me as a reader, whether because I went in with too-elevated expectations or approached it in the wrong mood? Maybe William as a character didn't quite interest me enough for me to become sufficiently engrossed.

In any case, it's not that I didn't enjoy this one, or appreciate what it was doing, or find the characters believable and well-observed. I did. But it still just didn't quite do for me what I remember the previous volumes doing.

Rating: 3.5/5, although admittedly it's that low only because I'm making comparisons.

I've always been kind of behind, pop-culturally.

This is the test that I saw somewhere: check out the posters for Coachella 2025 and deduct the number of names you recognise from 70. That's your "real" age. :)

I did so badly it turns out I'm at least decade older than my real age...

>33 dchaikin: so interesting to read your response. I really enjoyed Oh William!, but I’m mixed on Strout overall. I think what interested me about Oh William was the connection Lucy and her ex had - it wasn’t about a their history or their love or hate, it didn’t impact Lucy’s current life or relationship. They just had a deeper level connection, a kind of bond, and he knew only she could possibly understand what he was going through, and she largely did.

>32 LolaWalser: I did so badly it turns out I'm at least decade older than my real age...

Oh, god, so am I, and that's even if I include the ones where I'm sure I've at least vaguely heard the name before, but have little idea who they actually are.

>33 dchaikin: The relationship was definitely interesting, but I'm not sure quite how drawn into it I felt, i that makes sense.

>32 LolaWalser: I looked at that, too, but the print was too small for me to read most of the names. So that makes me older than dirt, I guess.

>34 bragan: clearly not as much as Strout hoped. 🙂

>35 rocketjk: I googled the lineup instead of looking at the posters. I already know I need new glasses. :)

>37 bragan: Well, what's really sad is that I was wearing my reading glasses at the time. :)

>37 bragan:, >38 rocketjk:

I say we deserve a pat on our age-bent shoulders for knowing what "Coachella" even is.

I had no idea what Coachella is (the Newport Jazz Festival or the EFG London Jazz Festival is more of my speed) but I had to look at the Coachella lineup, just to see what a dinosaur I am. As it turns out it predicted my age exactly (63), but only because Shaboozey, who I hadn't heard of, performed at the halftime show of today's first NFL game.

>39 LolaWalser:, >40 kidzdoc: I may be a bit fuzzy on the details of what Coachella entails, but at least I know the general idea. I will decide to believe that makes me young at heart. :)

>39 LolaWalser: Yes! Points for us!

84. Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy by Jamie Raskin



Congressman Jamie Raskin ended 2020 and began 2021 in one unimaginably tragic and difficult week. On the last day of the year his beloved son, Tommy, committed suicide. And the day after he buried his son and went back to work at the Capitol was January 6.

Raskin, understandably, spends a great deal of the book talking about that first and more personal event, and his son's physical absence but continually felt presence permeates everything that follows. Tommy Raskin really does seem to have been a special and rather inspirational person, and I appreciate that his father wants to share those things with the world. But while the tribute to his son is touching, I have to admit that some part of me found it a little awkward to read, just because it feels so much like what it no doubt is: a man therapeutically processing his grief in the form of writing, a process that I can't help feeling that I, a total stranger, should perhaps not be quite so deeply involved in.

I'll admit, I picked this book up mostly because I was interested in Raskin's account of living through the events of Jan. 6 from inside the Capitol. That part of the narrative, however, is not especially detailed or vivid. In retrospect, this isn't necessarily all that surprising. As disturbing and frightening as it was for those hiding from the insurrectionists, they didn't actually know all that much about what was happening at the time.

Much more interesting and substantial, however, is Raskin's account of leading the impeachment trial that followed. This is a good chunk of the book, and certainly the most interesting and worthwhile part, as he lays out very clearly and convincingly all the legal arguments they used and describes the decisions that he and the other impeachment managers made and the reasons behind them. Maybe a lot of it isn't likely to be unfamiliar to most readers, but as someone who honestly couldn't deal with following the news too closely at the time, it did fill in some gaps for me in ways I very much appreciated.

My main feeling about this book, though, is that... Well, mostly I really, really wish I'd gotten around to reading it before the election. Because right now, even though I'm sure this is not in fact the reaction Congressman Raskin would want me to have, it just makes me feel despairing and depressed. Raskin repeatedly raises a rhetorical question here: "Is this the America we want?" Do we want an America of racism, of corruption, of lies and authoritarianism and violence? Well, America seems now to have answered that question, and the answer is yes. What the hell am I supposed to even do with that? What was the point of any of this? Only that you have to try, I suppose, but at the moment that's rather cold comfort.

Rating: I'm not sure my feelings about this one can remotely be translated into a star rating, but, eh, let's call it 3.5/5

>43 bragan: Do we want an America of racism, of corruption, of lies and authoritarianism and violence? Well, America seems now to have answered that question, and the answer is yes. What the hell am I supposed to even do with that?

Sigh

>44 labfs39: "Sigh" is pretty much the mildest possible reaction, but I guess it's better than screaming and tearing all your hair out.

Sigh.

>45 bragan: Today I started reading Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right in an attempt to understand how regular people can vote like they do. It's written by a sociologist who went to Louisiana and interviewed Tea Partiers and others to try and explain the Great Paradox. Although the book was published in 2016, it's still relevant I think, especially in answering How did we get here? I have to take breaks because stress is making my right eyelid twitch!

>46 labfs39: That sounds potentially worth reading, but, yeah, very stressful. Not sure I'd be up to it in the near future, myself. I need a break after that last book.

85. Terminal of Despair by Steve Lyons



A short Doctor Who novel, featuring the Eleventh Doctor, Amy, and Rory, who land in a spaceport terminal and discover it's full of stranded passengers and creatures that very literally eat their hope.

There's some pretty good ideas in here. Something relatable about how soul-sucking being stuck in an airport can be, something about the importance of hope and community in coming together to solve problems, and a lot about how hope is at the white-hot center of who the Doctor is and what he represents. And the character voices are good, too. But despite all that, reading it left me feeling a little bit "meh." I think this is one of those cases where the story would work way better in the form of a TV episode than it does on the page, especially in the very simplistic kind of prose these DW novels use to be accessible to kids of all ages. Although it doesn't help that the narrative keeps trying to present these creatures as some kind of scary physical threat, which they're absolutely not, instead of leaning into the psychological horror of it more.

Rating: Giving it credit for the ideas and characterization, I'm calling it 3/5

86. The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog by Dave Barry



A very short little book featuring church Christmas pageants in the 1960s, narrated by a kid who's playing a shepherd this year. It's a bit rambly and there's maybe not a whole lot of point to it, but it's amusing and very charming, and the vintage photograph illustrations are fun, too. I don't know if it's quite gotten me into the holiday spirit yet, but it's definitely warmed me up on the subject a little.

I will point out by way of warning that it does feature the death of a dog (from old age). It felt much more sweet than sad to me, but I can imagine that's not a subject matter that everyone is going to want to deal with at Christmas.

Rating: 4/5

87. The Milky Way: An Autobiography of Our Galaxy by Moiya McTier



A popular science book with a twist: it's written as if narrated by the Milky Way itself, as the galaxy takes us through its history, its structure and its stars, its possible future, its crush on the Andromeda galaxy, and the shameful secret that is that giant black hole in its center. Its a fun conceit, but one that I found got a bit old for me pretty quickly, maybe partly because I can't help the killjoy feeling that science needs less anthropomorphism and imputing of consciousness to natural processes rather than more, but also just because the galaxy's rather snarky, condescending tone didn't hit quite the right note for me. Plus, after a while, the imagined intergalactic psychodrama all just gets to be a bit much.

Still, it is at least a novel and interesting way to present the material, and it features a lot of interesting scientific tidbits, including some fairly advanced topics, in a way that I imagine a lot of readers might find nicely accessible. It also weaves in mythology from various cultures involving the Milky Way, the stars within it, and the universe as a whole.

Rating: 3.5/5

88. The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian



Book 14 in the Aubrey-Maturin series sees the characters dealing with the aftermath of a shipwreck, fighting the French, visiting a rather horrific Australian penal colony, and, in Stephen's case, hunting for platypuses and receiving various significant bits of news from home.

I think this is one of my favorites of the series. It does perhaps lack for laugh-out-loud funny moments, even if it is occasionally amusing, but it's got everything else, and it's just entirely engaging, start to finish, with none of those moments where things get so thoroughly nautical that my eyes start to glaze a bit. I'm very pleased to still be enjoying this series, so many books in.

Rating: 4/5

89. Monstress, Volume 9: The Possessed by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda



The ninth volume in the dark fantasy graphic novel series Monstress. I always feel like I'm reading this series at a huge disadvantage, because the storyline is so complicated and I tend to completely lose the thread of it in the year-long wait between volumes. But I'm pleased to report that I was very much drawn into this one, anyway, and while I might or might not have fully understood all the developments here, I was definitely always interested in them.

There's a lot to like in this series. The dark, lush visuals, the intricate plot, the worldbuilding, the complex and damaged characters, they way it treats women the way most literature throughout human history has treated men... But I have to say, the thing that possibly most impresses me is the way that's it's made me feel deep affection and concern for a man-eating Lovecraftian monster. And if anything, that's just getting stronger. So help me, I sort of want to hug that thing at this point.

Rating: 4/5

90. How Things Work: The Inner Life of Everyday Machines by Theodore Gray



Theodore Gray, who wrote a fantastic series of books about elements, molecules, and chemical reactions, turns his attention here to something a little more macroscopic, and it turns out he's every bit as knowledgeable and obsessive about machines as he is about chemistry. Specifically, we get chapters on locks, clocks, scales, and textiles, the last of which features cotton gins, looms, sewing machines, and Gray making the world's most expensive potholder by personally doing everything from the cotton farming on up.

I'm going to be honest here: I am so utterly mechanically inept that even with Gray's carefully labeled pictures -- and, like the previous books, this one is a beautifully laid-out visual feast -- I am as often as not incapable of understanding what I'm looking and and how the various parts are even supposed to move. But the explanations of the basic principles are good, sometimes downright fascinating, and can really make you appreciate the human ingenuity behind this stuff. Plus, the author's enthusiasm is infectious, and his sense of humor is a delight. I absolutely recommend everything he's done, and this one is no exception.

Rating: 4.5/5

>53 bragan: How Things Work sounds very interesting. I'll add it to my library wish list.

>54 kidzdoc: It's very cool, and rather fun.

91. The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer



Lucy is a kindergarten teacher's assistant who is desperate to adopt a traumatized little boy, if only she could afford to do it. Then she gets an invitation to a game being held on the private island of her favorite children's book author, featuring a prize that could make all her dreams come true.

This sort of seemed like it should be up my alley, as someone who very much appreciates the spell woven by the books we love as kids and the effect they can have on our lives. But, well... I am absolutely certain that this one will be someone's ideal feel-good read, but I'm afraid I can't say it's mine. It's a bit hard to say why. The only way I can think of to put it is that, even while I was reading, it never seemed true. Everything about it: the characters' various sad backstories, the sweet little kid, the blossoming romance, the writer's bits of verbal whimsey, it all just felt so carefully, conspicuously crafted to evoke the right kind of sentiment that it got in the way of me actually feeling the right kind of sentiment. I also just can't quite sink into the wish-fulfillment fantasy of an eccentric but lovable rich person swooping in to solve one's problems, being far too keenly aware of how much that doesn't happen in reality. It might be appropriate that I read this over Christmas, because I can't help feeling that the novel reminds me of nothing quite so much as a Hallmark Channel movie. At least, I think it does. I haven't actually watched those much, because they're really not my kind of thing.

Which isn't to say it was bad, really. There were things about it I appreciated. The ending is predictable enough, but it manages to avoid feeling too cliche in the process of getting there. I really like the fact that the romance subplot wasn't forced or speedrun, which I fully expected it to be. And even my apparently cold, dead heart responded a bit to the themes of found-family parental love. Still, overall, it wasn't really what I was hoping for.

Rating: a personal and subjective 3/5