Rated The City We Became 8/10
Inventive and energetic.
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Rated The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 8/10
A brief and touching book about a lonely Ethiopian immigrant living in DC. An interesting snapshot of history, both of the Ethiopian political upheaval of the 1970s and 80s and the gentrification of DC in the late 90s.
Rated Interior Chinatown 8/10
A really fascinating book - ostensibly about an aspiring actor named Willis Wu and his Taiwanese immigrant parents, it blurs the line between the roles they perform on tv and the roles they perform in life as it explores, in semi-screenplay form, the roles Asian people have been put into in American popular culture and American life. The “interior” refers to the screenplay-style setup of the story but also the interiority of Willis’ perspective. A quick read and a rewarding one.
Rated The Donut Legion: A Novel 8/10
A very silly, enjoyable beach read. Breezy and clever with a little sex and violence, some twists and turns, and a lot of down-homey similes.
Rated Blood Colony 6/10
A generally enjoyable sci-fi-ish adventure. It's a twist on the vampire concept: the premise is that there's an ancient sect of immortals from Ethiopia, except the world is out for *their* blood. Detailed, plot-heavy, and pretty compelling, if a little corny and pulpy at times; it's the third in a series and I don't know how much that was clunky about it comes of picking up a series partway through and how much is inherent to the writing. The shifts between the characters' perspectives - especially as some of them can telepathically connect to others - are well-handled and subtle; the efforts to make the book grimdark and "topical" are less so. I liked it but don't know that I'm super-inxlined to seek out the rest of the series.
Rated The Sparrow 8/10
wild-ass book - a unique take on the first contact story. Bleak and weirdly compelling
Rated Lord of Light 8/10
Finished reading The House of the Spirits
Edited 86d ago
Rated All This Could Be Yours 8/10
A skillful and fast-reading unhappy-family drama, from multiple perspectives.
Wants to read Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Added Crossroads of Twilight Book Ten of 'The Wheel of Time' to Read Books
Edited 99d ago
Rated Walking on the Ceiling 8/10
I like the way this starts out like it’s going to be one thing and then expands out. The narrator’s relationship with an older writer is the structuring device but it’s really about her relationship to her family, Turkey, and her Turkish identity. A little meandery, but a quick and enjoyable read.
Wants to read Stranger in a Strange Land
Wants to read Anansi Boys
Rated The Devils 10/10
Amazing and intoxicating big fat weird brutal imaginative gory fantasy novel. Huge (I had to read it sitting at a table). Joe Abercrombie is back!
Wants to read Die Wasserstoffsonate
Wants to read The Left Hand of Darkness
Wants to read Manhunt
Rated Writing and Being 6/10
A series of essays on the writer's responsibility to depict their time and place, through critical review of the authors Naghib Mahfouz, Chinua Achebe, and Amos Oz, ending in Gordimer's description of her own involvement with the anti-apartheid movement. A little academic - the final essay is the most compelling.
Rated I, Claudia 8/10
A clever and fast-reading YA, adapting "I, Claudius" to a California high school. Generally pulls off what it's attempting; as with all adaptations of this type, there are ways it illuminates the original material, ways it stretches the premise delightfully, and ways it stretches the premise clunkily. Recommended if you like Veronica Mars, Megan Abbott's books, or any of those movies/books where it's, like, "here's Shakespeare but with surfers" or whatever. Objectively it has some eye-rolly aspects but I definitely found myself staying up too late or carrying my kindle around the house in order to keep reading, which is a good sign!
Rated The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes 10/10
An exemplary biography of a figure that I, like many, have *heard about* more than I've really *known about*. Carter makes an excellent case for the importance of Keynes through the 20th century and in our own time - it's insightful and grapples with Keynes' contradictions and misfires as much as it does the gravitational impact of his work on the world. A lot of this stuff is abstruse and opaque and Carter is a really good popularizer/explainer, putting into sharper definition a lot of ideas and concepts I'd struggled with. In particular, I think the last couple of chapters are really useful as they define the economic policies of the Clinton and Obama administrations as clearly - and harshly - as I've read in any text. Highly recommend!