Else what's a heaven for?

1) An Offer from a Gentleman, Julia Quinn (electronic)
2) The Bridgertons Happily Ever After, Julia Quinn (electronic)
3) Raid of No Return, Nathan Hale
4) The Portrait of a Duchess, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
5) A Lady for a Duke, Alexis Hall (electronic)
6) American Queen, Sierra Simone (electronic)
7) Down City, Leah Carroll (electronic)
8) The Rogue You Know, Shana Galen (electronic)
9) The Villa, Rachel Hawkins (electronic)
10) Into the West, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
11) Turn Right at Machu Picchu, Mark Adams
12) The Blue Castle, L. M. Montgomery (electronic)
13) Addison Cooke and the Treasure of the Incas, Jonathan W. Stokes (electronic)
14) By the Book, Jasmine Guillory (electronic)
15) Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston (re-read)
16) Pompeii, Robert Harris (electronic)
17) Genhzn naq Erpbirel, Judith L. Herman (electronic)
18) I Survived The Destruction Of Pompeii, 79AD, Lauren Tarshis
19) Agent 355, Marie Benedict, Emily Rankin (audiobook)
20) Gur Obql Xrrcf gur Fpber, Bessel van der Kolk (electronic)
21) Among the Shadows, L. M. Montgomery, Rea Wilmshurst
22) Love's Labours, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese (electronic)
23) Goodbye Paradise, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
24) The Queen's Bargain, Anne Bishop
25) The Chalice of the Gods, Rick Riordan (electronic)
26) The Queen's Price, Anne Bishop (electronic)
27) The Hidden Oracle, Rick Riordan (electronic)
28) Dreams Made Flesh, Anne Bishop (electronic, re-read)
29) The House of Hades, Rick Riordan (electronic, re-read)
30) The Blood of Olympus, Rick Riordan (electronic)
31) Twilight’s Dawn, Anne Bishop (electronic, re-read)
32) The Demigod Files, Rick Riordan (electronic)
33) The Demigod Diaries, Rick Riordan (electronic)
34) The Dark Prophecy, Rick Riordan (electronic)
35) Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)

##

John Branch: a tonic to the media-obsessed, big-money, guide-led, fixed-rope conga-line parades on mountains like Everest. -12/6/23

Slate Star Codex: The implicit question is – if everyone hates the current system, who perpetuates it? And Ginsberg answers: “Moloch”. It’s powerful not because it’s correct – nobody literally thinks an ancient Carthaginian demon causes everything – but because thinking of the system as an agent throws into relief the degree to which the system isn’t an agent.

James Clear: if you commit to a task rather than thinking about a desire, you get something done.

1) The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett (electronic)
2) The Wife Upstairs, Rachel Hawkins (electronic)
3) Pbzznaq Zr, Geneva Lee (electronic)
4) Jvaare, Harley Slate (electronic)
5) Blood of a Gladiator, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
6) Surrey SFS, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
7) The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, Olivia Waite (electronic)
8) The Lawrence Browne Affair, Cat Sebastian (electronic)
9) Past Crimes, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
10) The Glass House, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
11) Bombshells, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
12) Nimisha's Ship, Anne McCaffrey (electronic)
13) Gnxvat Gheaf, J A Huss (electronic)
14) Unmasked by the Marquess, Cat Sebastian (electronic)
15) A Gladiator's Tale, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
16) The Conjurer, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
17) Rookie Move, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
18) Hard Hitter, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
19) Pipe Dreams, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
20) Guerr-Jnl Fcyvg, Elia Winters (electronic)
21) Whfg Cnfg Gjb, Elia Winters (electronic)
22) Magic Tree House Super Edition #1: World at War 1944, Mary Pope Osborne (electronic)
23) Bellweather Rhapsody, Kate Racculia (electronic)
24) Combustion, Elia Winters (electronic)
25) The Heiress, Molly Greeley (electronic)
26) One Last Stop, Casey McQuiston (electronic)
27) When Stars Collide Susan Elizabeth Phillips (electronic)
28) Don't Feed the Trolls, Erica Kudisch (electronic)
29) Death Below Stairs, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
30) Science Comics: Skyscrapers, The Height of Engineering, John Kerschbaum
31) Jolene, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
32) Scandal Above Stairs, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
33) Beyond, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
34) The Bright and Breaking Sea, Chloe Neill (electronic)
35) The Governess Game, Tessa Dare (electronic)
36) Bepuvq Pyho: Cnevf, Lila Davis (electronic)
37) The Echo Wife, Sarah Gailey (electronic)
38) What Abigail Did That Summer, Ben Aaronovitch (audiobook)
Didn't finish: The Dragonet Prophecy by Tui T. Sutherland, Razorblade Tears by S. A. Crosby (recommended by Stephen King!), Pbzvat Hc sbe Nve by Amanda Meuwisset
39) Peace Talks, Jim Butcher
40) The Book of Magic, Alice Hoffman (electronic)
41) Death in Kew Gardens, Jennifer Ashley (electronic)
42) The Deal, Elle Kennedy (electronic)
43) Loverboy, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
44) Heroes in Training: Hyperion and the Great Balls of Fire, Joan Holub
45) Dangerous Secrets: The Story of Iduna and Agnarr, Mari Mancusi (electronic)
46) This Poison Heart, Kalynn Bayron (electronic)
47) The Ex Hex, Erin Sterling (electronic)
48) Payback's a Witch, Lana Harper (electronic)
49) Olympus, Texas, Stacey Swann (electronic)

##

Sarah Lyall: ... as if the book were written specifically to help a lost prince heal his psychic wounds. 6/11/2021

A. O Scott: We aren’t so much addicted to screens as indentured to them, paying back whatever convenience, knowledge or pleasure they provide with our time and our consciousness. The screen doesn’t care what we are looking at, as long as our eyes are engaged and our data can be harvested. -7/15/21

Anatol Lieven: For all the real effort they made in Afghanistan, most NATO countries involved might as well have performed national dances at US presidential inaugurations to display their allegiance and amuse their imperial protectors. -8/27/21

Florence H. R. Scott: What we DO know is that she became an abbess through the virtue of her daddy, a king, building and giving her her own monastery. So if Mogg thinks saintly virtue and nepotism are the same thing, well I'm not at all surprised. So what we've got here is an emaciated sentient balustrade evoking the medieval Ivanka Trump for the purposes of a veiled (get it) nationalism when discussing corruption. Why? I have no idea. -12/13/21

Agnes Crawford: Like Johnson, Rees-Mogg wears his learning very heavily, but there seems to be little of substance below the bluster. -12/13/21

Nayland Blake: Think King Midas but everything he touches turns digital and he can no longer touch it. -12/16/21

Nayland Blake: In a terrain mined with snares for our attention and concern, where can we rest and do the work we need? -12/29/21

1) The Vine Witch, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
2) Rivers of London, vol 6: Water Weed, Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan, Luis Guerrero
3) Brooklynaire, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
4) Warprize, Elizabeth Vaughan (electronic)
5) Superfan, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
6) Moonlighter, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
7) White Tiger, Aravind Adiga
8) A Study in Sable, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
9) A Scandal in Battersea, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
10) The Bartered Brides, Mercedes Lackey (electronic)
11) Fhozvggvat gb gur Znedhrff, E. M. Brown (electronic)
12) Fhozvggvat sbe Puevfgznf, E. M. Brown (electronic)
13) The Wizard of London, Mercedes Lackey (electronic, re-read?)
14) Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (electronic)
15) Once Upon a Time, Alessandra Hazard (electronic)
16) Top Secret, Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy (electronic)
17) False Value, Ben Aaronovitch (electronic)
18) Master and Commander, Patrick O'Brian (electronic, re-read)
19) Beach Read, Emily Henry (electronic)
20) Dance Away with Me, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (electronic)
21) Inside Jobs, Ben H. Winters (audiobook)
22) Ynql va Erq, Zry Grfupb (electronic)
23) The Ickabog, J. K. Rowling (electronic)
24) The Glamourist, Luanne G. Smith (electronic)
25) The Duke I Tempted, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
26) The Kiss Quotient, Helen Hoang (electronic)
27) Overnight Sensation, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
28) Hanover Square Affair, Ashley Gardner (electronic)
29) The Beast of Beswick, Amalie Howard (electronic)
30) The Earl I Ruined, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
31) The Lord I Left, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
32) The Duchess Deal, Tessa Dare (electronic)
33) Tales from the Folly, Ben Aaronovitch (electronic)
34) A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby, Vanessa Riley (electronic)
35) The Red Tent, Anita Diamant (electronic)
36) Sure Shot, Sarina Bowen (electronic)
37) Beauty's Kingdom, A. N. Roquelaure (electronic)
38) The Rakess, Scarlett Peckham (electronic)
39) Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman (electronic)
40) Magic Lessons, Alice Hoffman (electronic, re-read)
41) Would I Lie to the Duke, Eva Leigh (electronic)
42) Fheeraqre gb Fva, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
43) Gur Qrivy'f Fhozvffvba, Nicola Davidson (electronic)
44) Spin the Dawn, Elizabeth Lim (electronic)
45) The October Man, Ben Aaronovitch (audiobook)
46) Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, Brian Kilmeade, Don Yeager (audiobook)
47) Obhaq gb or n Tebbz, Megan Mulry (electronic)
48) Poison or Protect, Gail Carriger (electronic)
49) Obhaq gb or n Tebbz, Megan Mulry (electronic)
50) Gur Qrivy'f Fhozvffvba, Nicola Davidson (electronic, re-read)
51) The Art of Three, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese (electronic)
52) Ready Player Two, Ernest Cline (electronic)
53) A Queen from the North, Erin McRae, Racheline Maltese (electronic)
54) The Art of Leaving, Ayelet Tsabari (electronic)
55) Tentacle, Rita Indiana (electronic)

##

Jacob Falkovich: Romance is the most complex and rewarding multi-player game that humanity has invented. -1/13/20

David Fahrenthold: The Trump Hotel was a Petri dish for bad ideas. -1/16/20

Michael Kimmelman: the coronavirus undermines our most basic ideas about community and, in particular, urban life... cities also grew, less tangibly, out of deeply human social and spiritual needs. The very notion of streets, shared housing and public spaces stemmed from and fostered a kind of collective affirmation, a sense that people are all in this together. Pandemics prey on this relentlessly. They are anti-urban. -3/17/20

Newsha Tavakolian: The fear is everywhere. Fear of death, fear of the future. Fear of a terrible year ahead. My past year has already been terrible. Like now with coronavirus, life forced me to stop and drop everything. It did so in ways I could’ve never imagined. -3/21/20

Anya Kamenetz: The phone is like a fentanyl lollipop; yes, it's possible to abuse, but our pain, and the massive pain of the world driving us to it, is arguably the real problem. -7/27/20

Megan Mulry: There it was: the realization that she wanted him to be happy. That she did not need to be the sole source of his happiness. That she would revel in his happiness as he reveled in hers.

1) Lies Sleeping, Ben Aaronovitch
2) American Nations, Colin Woodard (electronic)
3) Fhcreyngvir Fcrphyngvir Rebgvpn, ed. Cecilia Tan, Bethany Zaiatz (electronic)
4) Three Men in a Boat, Jerome K. Jerome (abridged, audiobook)
5) Provence, 1970: M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard, and the Reinvention of American Taste, Luke Barr (electronic)
6) White Noise, Don DeLillo (electronic)
7) Algorithms to Live By, Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths (electronic)
8) Daughters of the Night Sky, Aimie K. Runyan (electronic)
9) American Street, Ibi Zoboi (electronic)
10) Brain Rules for Baby, John Medina (re-read, electronic)
11) Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean, Edward Kritzler (electronic)
12) My Lady's Choosing, Kitty Curran, Larissa Zageris (electronic)
13) The Swamp Fox, John Oller (electronic)
14) Garlic and Sapphires, Ruth Reichl (electronic)
15) South of Broad, Pat Conroy (electronic)
16) Super Con, James Swain (electronic)
17) The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker (electronic)
18) And a Bottle of Rum, Wayne Curtis (electronic)
19) The City of Brass, S. A. Chakraborty (electronic)
20) The Kingdom of Copper, S. A. Chakraborty (electronic)
21) Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic, re-read)
22) Good Man Friday, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
23) The Flowers of Vashnoi, Lois McMaster Bujold (audiobook)
24) Diplomatic Immunity, Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read, electronic)
25) Fvera Pnyy, Phoebe Alexander (electronic)
26) Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel, Tom Wainwright
27) Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper, Fuchsia Dunlop (electronic)
28) The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor (electronic)
29) Cribsheet, Emily Oster (electronic)
30) Red, White, and Royal Blue, Casey McQuiston (electronic)
31) Quietly in Their Sleep, Donna Leon (electronic)
32) Orphan X, Gregg Hurwitz (electronic)
33) A Noble Radiance, Donna Leon (electronic)
34) Evvie Drake Starts Over, Linda Holmes (electronic)
35) Persuasion, Jane Austen (electronic)
36) Great at Work, Morten T. Hansen (electronic)
37) The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs, Steve Brusatte (electronic)
38) 97 Orchard, Jane Ziegelman (electronic)
39) Oernxvat gur Tvey, Kim Corum (electronic)
40) Royal Holiday, Jasmine Guillory (electronic)
41) Magic for Liars, Sarah Gailey (electronic)

##

Emily Oster: The literature is oddly lacking in discussions of what happens, physically, to the mom after the baby arrives. Before the baby, you’re a vessel to be cherished and protected. After the baby, you’re a lactation-oriented baby accessory.

Emily Oster: Parenting [an infant] is a bit like being the dictator of a small, poorly functioning country.

Lois McMaster Bujold: She'd gone into her silent, highly reserved mode, which Miles had to school himself not to read as unhappy; it might just mean that she was processing too hard to remember to be animated. Fortunately, the ivory-carved expression also simulated aristocratic poise.

Shira: What if I made the radical choice not to worry?

1) The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard
2) Binti, Nnedi Okorafor (electronic)
3) Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, Salman Rushdie (electronic)
4) Rivers of London, vol 2: Night Witch, Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan, Luis Guerrero, Rob Steen
5) Two Awesome Hours, Josh Davis (electronic)
6) A Concise History of the Caribbean, B. W. Higman
7) Blue Moon, Laurell K. Hamilton (re-read, electronic)
8) Everland, Wendy Spinale (electronic)
9) The First Two Rules of Leadership, David Cottrell
10) Hanging Tree, Ben Aaronovitch
11) Hook, K. R. Thompson (electronic)
12) Lauren Ipsum, Carlos Bueno (electronic)
13) Redshirts, John Scalzi (electronic)
14) Agent of Change, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller (electronic)
15) Smartcuts, Shane Snow (electronic)
16) A Fork in the Road, ed. James Oseland (electronic)
17) A Criminal Defense, William L. Myers Jr. (electronic)
18) Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman (electronic)
19) American Gods, Neil Gaiman (re-read, electronic)
20) Crooked House, Agatha Christie (electronic)
21) The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, Catherynne M. Valente (electronic)
22) Fortune's Formula, William Poundstone (electronic)
23) The Sculptor, Scott McCloud
24) Wet Grave, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
25) The Hanging Judge, Michael Ponsor (electronic)
26) In Light of India, Octavio Paz
27) The Drops of G-d, vol 1, Tadashi Agi, Shu Okimoto
28) Vanity Fare, Megan Caldwell (electronic)
29) Soho Dead, Greg Keen (electronic)
30) Princeless, short stories, Jeremy Whitley, et al.
31) Princeless, vol 3: The Pirate Princess, Jeremy Whitley, Rosy Higgins, Ted Brandt
32) Sphinx, Anne Garreta, trans. Emma Ramadan
33) Alex and Eliza, Melissa de la Cruz (electronic)
34) The Phoenix Project, Gene Kim, George Spafford, Kevin Behr
35) Days of the Dead, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
36) Dead Water, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
37) Dead and Buried, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
38) Rivers of London, vol 3: Black Mould, Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan, Luis Guerrero
39) The Angel Esmeralda, Don DeLillo
40) Tribal Leadership, Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright (electronic)
41) The Rules of Magic, Alice Hoffman
42) The Seven Wonders, Steven Saylor (electronic)
43) Death Comes to Pemberley, P. D. James (electronic)
44) One Man's Meat, E. B. White
45) Molly Fox's Birthday, Deirdre Madden
46) Great Ancient Civilizations of Asia Minor, Prof. Kenneth Harl (audio)
47) P. S. From Paris, Marc Levy (electronic)
48) A Beautiful Poison, Lydia Kang (electronic)
49) Five Nights in Paris, John Baxter (electronic)
50) Sister Emily's Lightship and other stories, Jane Yolen (electronic)
51) The Furthest Station, Ben Aaronovitch (electronic)
52) The Lost City of the Monkey God, Douglas Preston (electronic)

##

mallorys_camera: Every era you awaken into tries to choke you, tries to derail you with its own urgency, its own frenzy, its own chaos. Meanwhile, off in a corner of your peripheral vision, the truly important things are taking place. -3/19/2017

( Read more... )

Alexander Hamilton: Beloved by you, I can be happy in any situation, and can struggle with every embarrassment of fortune with patience and firmness. -8/1/1780

Melissa de la Cruz: He had only his wits - his ability to see through to the heart of a situation quickly and to render that truth persuasively in words.

Vann R. Newkirk: it’s hard to square a group of men with Home Depot tiki torches, wrinkled khakis, bad haircuts, and a love of memes who came down to Emancipation Park with the blood-curdling menace of Klansmen in my mind’s eye. -8/12/2017

Megan McArdle: It's like the world’s biggest small town, replete with all the things that mid-century writers hated about small-town life: the constant gossip, the prying into your neighbor’s business, the small quarrels that blow up into lifelong feuds. We’ve replicated all of the worst features of those communities without any of the saving graces, like the mercy that one human being naturally offers another when you’re face to face and can see their suffering. -8/22/2017

Howard Mansfield: In history, unlike heredity, we choose our ancestors.

Sarah Kaplan, Ben Guarino: Wedding rings and uranium bombs are elemental echoes of these merging neutron stars. -10/16/2017

1) Word Puppets, Mary Robinette Kowal (electronic)
2) Power Cues, Nick Morgan (electronic)
3) The Death of Ivan Ilych, Leo Tolstoy (electronic)
4) Graveyard Dust, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
5) Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko (electronic)
6) The Substance of Civilization, Stephen L. Sass (electronic)
7) The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz (electronic)
8) Nobody's Baby But Mine, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (re-read)
9) The Flux, Ferrett Steinmetz (electronic)
10) Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, Lois McMaster Bujold
11) Flash Boys, Michael Lewis
12) First Lady, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (re-read)
13) Lady Be Good, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (re-read)
14) Nightbird, Alice Hoffman (electronic)
15) Death by Silver, Melissa Scott, Amy Griswold
16) The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson (electronic)
17) Justice Calling, Annie Bellet (electronic)
18) Murder of Crows, Annie Bellet (electronic)
19) Pack of Lies, Annie Bellet (electronic)
20) The Blind Side, Michael Lewis
21) Shakespeare: The World as Stage, Bill Bryson (electronic)
22) Yesterday's Thief, Al Macy (electronic)
23) Ultimate Guide to Golf for Beginners, Robert Green (electronic)
24) Blood Orchids, Toby Neal (electronic)
25) Sleeping Embers of an Ordinary Mind, Anne Charnock (electronic)
26) A Spy's Guide to Thinking, John Braddock (electronic)
27) The Secrets of Mary Bowser, Lois Leveen (electronic)
28) The Art of Fiction, John Gardner
29) Rome and the Barbarians, Prof. Kenneth W. Harl (audio)
30) From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe (electronic)
31) The Only Golf Lesson You'll Ever Need, Hank Haney, John Huggan (electronic)
32) The Long Ships, Frans G. Bengtsson, Michael Meyer (electronic)
33) Lady Be Good, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (re-read)
34) The House of Hades, Rick Riordan (electronic)
35) Rivers of London, vol 1: Body Work, Ben Aaronovitch, Andrew Cartmel, Lee Sullivan
36) Bad Action, James Swain (electronic)
37) The Writer's Diet, Helen Sword
38) Hidden Blade, Pippa DaCosta (electronic)
39) The McKinsey Mind, Ethan M. Rasiel, Paul N. Friga (half electronic)
40) Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge, Larry Correia, John Ringo
41) New Orleans Noir, ed. Julie Smith (electronic)
42) Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic, re-read)
43) Prime, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic, re-read)
44) Soul Kitchen, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic, re-read)
45) Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Pts 1 and 2, J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne
46) New Orleans Noir: The Classics, ed. Julie Smith
47) First Star I See Tonight, Susan Elizabeth Phillips
48) Washington's Spies, Alexander Rose (electronic)
49) Sold Down the River, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
50) Die Upon a Kiss, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
51) The Condor Passes, Shirley Ann Grau
52) Simple Rules, Donald Sull, Kathleen M. Eisenhardt (audio)
53) The 5 A.M. Miracle, Jeff Sanders (electronic)
54) High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove (electronic)
55) Bright from the Start, Dr. Jill Stamm, Paula Spencer
56) Where Good Ideas Come From, Steven Johnson (half audio, half electronic)
57) The Change, Teyla Branton (electronic)
58) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (electronic)
59) The Far Side of the World, Patrick O'Brien (electronic, re-read)
60) Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners, Larry Correia, John Ringo

##

( Read more... )

Rebecca Traister: As a young Hillary hater, I often compared her to Darth Vader — more machine than woman, her humanity ever more shrouded by Dark Side gadgetry. These days, I think of her as General Leia: No longer a rebel princess, she has made a wry peace with her rakish mate and her controversial hair and is hard at work, mounting a campaign against the fascistic First Order. -5/30/2016

Wayne Barrett: He played every angle... I don't think he invented this manner of leverage, but it was certainly more than just donations... [Donald Trump] is an expert at compromising politicians. -6/1/2016

John Harris: Boris Johnson and David Cameron: the last four months has been a catastrophic contest between two men who went to the same exclusive school. -6/24/16

David Chang: the saltiness paradox has a very powerful effect, because it makes you very aware of what you’re eating and your own reaction to it. It nags at you, and it keeps you in the moment, thinking about what you’re tasting. And that’s what makes it delicious. -7/19/16

Don Winslow: I'm always amazed that progressive young millennials will picket a grocery chain for not buying fair-trade coffee but will go home and do drugs that are brought to them by the killers, torturers, and sadists of the cartels. -8/9/2016

lawnrrd: I don't know why you keep wanting me to trifle with a mere CB-6000 when I have two perfectly good kids. -8/23/16

Harley Flanagan: Scenes are for little kids. If you're grown up and still holding onto a scene for identity, then you haven't grown up. You've just gotten older. -8/31/16

Alan Moore: Human life as we experience it is a simultaneous multiplicity of genres. -9/8/16

I assume there's something about the publishing calendar that caused me to read lots of new science fiction and fantasy books toward the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Some were amazing, but there was a lot that I couldn't finish.

Ready Player One isn't very newish, but I read it late last year and liked it so much, it was the only book I re-read last year. My ladylove complained that the female character was an NPC - I'd argue she's a Hermione and there's almost no character development for anyone in the book - but who doesn't love the poor kid who uses arcane knowledge to win in a dystopian world story? Non-nerds, maybe, since the book is all about 80s trivia.

I started 3 different books bc Neil Gaiman wrote (part of) them. The Sleeper and the Spindle was published as a standalone story in a heavily illustrated edition and is quite good if you like fairy tale retellings with a twist.

I'm not sure why I picked up Trigger Warning, considering I have no trouble finding disturbing books on my own and it's not like Neil Gaiman is known for heartwarming tales with fluffy bunnies and unicorns. I also don't get what the book is: I know I've read some of those stories before. At a certain point I came to my senses and put it down.

I read all but one of the stories in Rags & Bone, which also includes The Sleeper and the Spindle, but even as a completist, there was no way I would read a creepy retelling of "The Monkey's Paw". I didn't love any of the other stories enough to think the book worthwhile.

Naomi Novik's Uprooted is creepy and contains all the fairy tale elements, but is an amazing book selection from TRQ. It pays to be old friends with a MITSFS cardholder, let me tell you. It starts with the sacrificial maiden, who is far from perfect and very plucky, and gets epic. Highly recommended.

The Sword of Summer is the start of another Rick Riordan tetralogy, this one about Norse gods. More observant readers of his other books will find it interesting the hero's name is Magnus Chase. I started reading it right after reading Michael Chabon's essay about his relationship with Norse mythology, so I should've loved it. Instead, it irritated me, despite being set in Boston, and I have no desire to read any more from this series, even though I inhaled the Greek tetralogy and read all the Roman ones. Maybe someday I'll read the Egyptian one.

I was so excited to get my hands on Jim Butcher's Aeronaut's Windlass, but it was basically steampunk Honor Harrington - it even has cats!!!! - so I read the last 50 pages and decided I didn't care what happened to the characters in between. I don't understand what happened to all the depth his writing gained over the first dozen Harry Dresden, but I need to stop trying to read his books.

I loved Michael Chabon's Sherlock Holmes essay, so I got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's Mycroft Holmes at the right time too. And still couldn't like it. Apparently the basketball player has taken up all sorts of hobbies since his NBA career ended and I'm totally cool with polymathic dilettantism. OTOH, it's not a very good book. It tries to give back story as to why this Holmes brother is such a loner, but it just doesn't feel true to what we know about Mycroft and instead feels like Marty Stuism.

I didn't read The Flux for four months after buying it, partly bc I read the free sample from Amazon and got turned off. I get that theferret was trying to do an action opening that quickly told us what the tensions were, but the more I think about it, the less I think it was appropriate to the characters or the rest of the book. The rest of the book is very good though and if you liked Flex at all, you'll probably like The Flux. I liked how he used the "obsession=magic" to create cinemancers although I really want to find that post someone wrote that explained all the references, bc while I noticed the mentions of Svtug Pyho, I missed the Sverfgnegre ones until the second reading.

I was all set to pay $15 for an early copy of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, bc not only is it the new Lois McMaster Bujold book, but it's about my favorite character, Cordelia. Then the early sample of the book on Baen's website read like fanfic and I decided to wait until the print copy came out, hoping it would get better. It did, a little. It's nothing like Cordelia's Honor or even A Civil Affair. In her mind, I think LMB thought she was writing a more mature book, that she could write a book that would be interesting without space battles, that allowed her to explore Cordelia's Betan side. She's written books like that - I really enjoyed Cryoburn and Lord Vorpatril's Alliance - but this book was boring. Once you know the big secret of the book, you've gotten half the pleasure of the book; the rest is just a telling of how that plays out in the post-Cryoburn world. Lots of things happen that remind me of the aimlessness of a lot of contemporary romance novels, although the last third of the book had a lot of great lines that made me LOL and/or scribble them down for my quotes page.

Sadly, the only book I'm anticipating at this point is the next Rivers of London book, which I don't expect to like and isn't out until August 2 :(

( Read more... )
5) The Lieutenant Don't Know, Jeffrey Clement (electronic)
6) The Casablanca Tango, James Lileks (electronic)
7) Foxglove Summer, Ben Aaronovitch
8) Funny Girl, Nick Hornby
9) The Status Syndrome, Michael Marmot
10) Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell (electronic)
11) The Last Chinese Chef, Nicole Mones (electronic)
12) Great Esquire Fiction, ed. L. Rust Hills
13) Take Down, James Swain (electronic)
14) Where the West Ends, Michael J. Totten (electronic)
15) Being Mortal, Atul Gawande (electronic)
16) Golden Girl, Sarah Zettel‎
17) More of This World or Maybe Another, Barb Johnson
18) The Mark of Athena, Rick Riordan
19) Noodling for Flatheads, Burkhard Bilger
20) The Confidence Code, Katty Kay, Claire Shipman (electronic)
21) Fortune's Daughter, Alice Hoffman
22) Flex, Ferrett Steinmetz
23) Bear in the Back Seat I and II, Kim DeLozier, Carolyn Jourdan (electronic)
24) Obhaq, Zrybql Naar (electronic)
25) The Rebel Raiders, James Tertius deKay
26) Cevfbare, Lia Silver (electronic)
27) That First Season, John Eisenberg (electronic)
28) New Orleans, Mon Amour, Andrei Codrescu (electronic)
29) The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, Ben H. Winters (electronic)
30) Easy Go, Michael Crichton (electronic)
31) The Housewife Assassin's Handbook, Josie Brown (electronic)
32) Reasons Mommy Drinks, Lyranda Martin-Evans, Fiona Stevenson (electronic)
33) Life Hacks, Scott Britton (electronic)
34) Gumbo Tales, Sara Roahen
35) The Sandman, vol 4: Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenberg
36) Driftwood, Elizabeth Dutton
37) The Housewife Assassin's Guide to Gracious Killing, Josie Brown (electronic)
38) Destruction, Sharon Bayliss (electronic)
39) A Man's Word, Martin Jensen, Tara F. Chace (electronic)
40) Sorcery & Cecelia: or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, Patricia C. Wrede, Caroline Stevermer (electronic)
41) Great Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt, Prof. Bob Brier (audiobook)
42) Starstruck Romance and Other Hollywood Tails, Julia Dumont (electronic)
43) Rough Riders, Theodore Roosevelt (electronic)
44) Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott (electronic)
45) Crow Hollow, Michael Wallace (electronic)
46) The Runestone Incident, Neve Maslakovic (electronic)
47) The Bellbottom Incident, Neve Maslakovic (electronic)
48) Pretty Good Number One, Matthew Amster-Burton (electronic)
49) Book of Bart, Ryan Hill (electronic)
50) Washington's Crossing, David Hackett Fischer (electronic)
51) New Orleans Mourning, Julie Smith (electronic)
52) The End of the Affair, Graham Greene, Colin Firth (audiobook)
53) The Glass Kitchen, Linda Francis Lee
54) Princeless, vol. 1: Save Yourself, Jeremy Whitley, M. Goodwin
55) Kingdom Come, Mark Waid, Alex Ross
56) Ybat Uneq Evqr, Lorelei James (electronic)
57) Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. (electronic)
58) A Model World and Other Stories, Michael Chabon (electronic)
59) The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, Elizabeth Grace Saunders (electronic)
60) Word by Word, Anne Lamott (audiobook)
61) Expo 58, Jonathan Coe (electronic)
62) Princeless, vol. 2: Get Over Yourself, Jeremy Whitley, M. Goodwin
63) A Free Man of Color, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
64) A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle
65) Crisis in Candyland, Jan Pottker
66) Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (electronic)
67) Fever Season, Barbara Hambly (electronic)
68) Marriage of Opposites, Alice Hoffman
69) Fitness Confidential, Vinnie Tortorich, Dean Lorey (electronic)
70) Football 101, Gilbert Klein (electronic)
71) Brotherhood of Warriors, Aaron Cohen, Douglas Century (electronic)
72) Liquor, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic)
73) Prime, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic)
74) Soul Kitchen, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic)
75) Second Line, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic)
76) First Frost, Sarah Addison Allen (electronic)
77) Ready Player One, Ernest Cline (electronic, re-read)
78) The Devil You Know, Poppy Z. Brite (electronic)
79) The Sleeper and the Spindle, Neil Gaiman, Chris Riddell
80) Alesia 52 BC, Nic Fields (electronic)
81) Conversation Tactics, Patrick King (electronic)
82) Uprooted, Naomi Novik (electronic)
83) The Sword of Summer, Rick Riordan
84) Mycroft Holmes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (electronic)
85) Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon (electronic)
86) The Dark Side of The Road, Simon Green (electronic)
87) One-Eyed Jack, Elizabeth Bear (electronic)

**

( quotes )

George Orwell: I have recorded some of the outward events, but I cannot record the feeling they have left me with. It is all mixed up with sights, smells, and sounds that cannot be conveyed in writing.

Burkhard Bilger: the older our country grows, the weaker our traditions seem to become; the more varied our food, the more predictable our cooking.

My ladylove: I'm just opposed to you beating yourself up over things that are completely outside of your control.

Elizabeth Dutton: Sometimes I think we stay still and the backdrop just rotates behind us.

Tennessee Williams: A high station in life is earned by the gallantry with which appalling experiences are survived with grace.

Richard Henry Dana Jr.: We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought upon our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or vice.

Poppy Z. Brite: He needed to be able to handle other people's crises now, not to be floored by his own. The glamour of the emotional, screeching chef was just a cliche, it didn't do anybody any good in real life.

Sarah Addison Allen: The men in their lives loved them the way astronomers loved stars, loved the promise of what they were, knowing there was something about them they would never truly understand.

Michael Chabon: Superheroism is a kind of transvestism; our superdrag serves at once to obscure the exterior self that no longer defines us while betraying, with half-unconscious panache, the truth of the story we carry in our hearts, the story of our transformation, of our story's recommencement, of our rebirth into the world of adventure, of story itself.

TWH: Learning about every available option is resource-intensive and high-labor, and doing that for every field is effectively a denial of service attack to memory and cope...options should be presented when possible with a few curated ones that experts in the field would recommend, and then a roll-your-own style version if that doesn't suffice. -11/28/15

immemor: If you need to march someone through the door of opportunity, it probably wasn't the right door for them. -12/1/15

We didn't have much in the way of plans for last weekend, so I pinged my siblings, who told me last minute they were going to the Hester Street Fair, which was a food festival guess where. It was like Smorgasburg, this past summer's obsession I failed to write about during the interregnum, except with more Asian food. When I got there, my siblings were queued for short ribs cooked with marrow, which is the opposite of surprising. (I'd had it at Smorgasburg and it was okay: if it were served with the right wine and the right sides, instead of trying to eat it standing up, it would probably be delicious.) There were two different vendors selling gumbo, next to someone selling fresh beignets and it made me realize I never wrote up my thoughts on books recommended/mentioned in my last New Orleans book post.

I'd heard Barbara Hambly's name before, apparently from TRQ, but I'd never read her Benjamin January books. They were perfect for what I wanted, a story that introduced the realities of early nineteenth century New Orleans and dealt with race relations and "commerce". Her writing is occasionally lyrical and better than I'd expect from a fantasy writer. The main character lived in Paris for a time, during roughly the same period as Alex Dumas, so it was fascinating to hear his musings on the differences between France of the time and Americanizing New Orleans. I liked them very much, but stopped after the second book, because the free man of color who is the series' protagonist put himself in so much danger in each one, my heart was in my mouth and I couldn't stand it any more. I know there are 13 books in the series, so it's unlikely he'll actually be sold down the river or killed, but still. The next one deals more with voodoo, which is one part of New Orleans I'm less into, but maybe I should give it another try. How many times can he get caught by unscrupulous slave dealers anyhow?

Poppy Z. Brite's Liquor series is at completely the other end of the spectrum, being about poor white chefs in the 21st century. It was also so amazingly what I wanted to read, I shoveled them up as fast as I could and bought two books of short stories just so I could strain out a little more time with the characters. (Almost every book I read comes from the library or borrowed from friends, so this is actually huge.) I so want to go to the restaurant featured in the book, with the gimmick that every dish is made with alcohol. PZB apparently also has a sordid history of writing vampire fiction and I wish she'd had the courage to avoid the mysteries in each of the novels, trusting that her insider's knowledge of restaurant kitchens - and yat life - would be enough to hold the reader's interest, because the mysteries were a bit over the top. The novellas and short stories suggested she had plenty of material to do so. Unfortunately, it seems that due to some issues with her publishers, there will be no more in this series, even if she hadn't retired. It was also interesting to read the short story collections because she calls out in the introduction that some of those stories are about an alternate universe her, one who is the coroner of New Orleans and also a dedicated foodie. It's also very interesting to read her take on a gay male relationship, given that she transitioned after writing the last of these books.

Intimate Enemies is on many lists of books to read before visiting New Orleans because it is the biography of the woman responsible for quite a bit of French Quarter architecture and probably gives quite the introduction to townie Creole society at its inflection point. I should be fascinated by it, because she lived in both France and New Orleans, and the first chapter was an interesting introduction to turn of the century New Orleans. Also, her father-in-law shot her multiple times and killed himself afterwards. Alas the book is over 400 pages - in part because the author wanted to show all her research - so after reading the last chapter, which includes the disposition of her will, which suggested the book would be about family squabbles, I gave up.