Rated Piranesi 10/10
Edited 32d ago
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Finished reading Da animali a dèi: Breve storia dell'umanità
Rated This Close 10/10
Not many short story collections are entirely wonderful. One or two stories, while not necessarily UNenjoyable, usually feel like filler. And yet, Jessica Francis Kane's new collection is quite near perfect. It left me wishing for one more story, which likely means that the length of the book is exactly right. Twelve stories, some related and some standalone, navigate the yearning for connection and the complex interior lives that we all have. <br><br>(My full review appears on <a href="http://glorifiedloveletters.blogspot.com/2013/06/this-close-stories-by-jessica-francis.html">Glorified Love Letters</a>.)
Rated The Many Daughters of Afong Moy 3/10
<div>Too many similes, too many words lifted from other people. The overall concept is interesting and understandable, but I didn't care for the the execution. In short, not for me.</div>
Finished reading How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment
Edited 32d ago
Edited 32d ago
Wants to read A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences
Rated Walden by Henry David Thoreau 8/10
Edited 32d ago
Finished reading What Judgments Come (Star Trek: Vanguard)
Rated This Inevitable Ruin 8/10
Edited 32d ago
Rated Doctor Who: The Chimes of Midnight 10/10
What an audio classic. I really had to listen to so much more of the Eighth Doctor and realize the connections and references to other things to really appreciate it. A proper British Spooky Christmas Mystery that also manages to be quite funny. The story also goes back to that recurring theme in Doctor Who of, "I've never met anybody who wasn't important."
Rated Judging a Book by Its Lover: A Field Guide to the Hearts and Minds of Readers Everywhere 4/10
This started out better than it ended. The title is very misleading, and I'm also not very interested in faking my way through my reading life or pretending like I've read things I haven't.
Rated Terror of the Master 8/10
This is a near-perfect Third Doctor/Master story, and Jon Culshaw does a great job with all the voices. Very much enjoyed this.
Rated One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This 10/10
<div>"It is a hallmark of failing societies, I’ve learned, this requirement that one always be in possession of a valid reason to exist," Omar El Akkad writes. Later in the book, he adds, "Much like the insidious foreign plot, the notion that people simply aren’t prepared for democracy is a fundamental rhetorical tool of failing regimes."<br><br>If you want to understand how the world largely works, look at how we talk about the horrors of Palestine, the occupation and destruction, and look at the parallels between that treatment and what we're expected to stomach in our own country. When you wonder why tf Greta Thurnberg has shifted her focus, it's because she understands it's all connected.<br><br>"Many people’s governments are cruel, many people’s governments are indifferent. It’s this relentless parachuting of virtue. It’s these speeches and statements of eloquently stated concern for human rights and freedom and the demand that those who abuse human rights or withhold freedom be held to account. And it’s the way every ideal turns vaporous the moment it threatens to move beyond the confines of the speeches and statements, the moment it threatens even the most frivolous parcel of self-interest."<br><br>Much has been written about this book, and much will continue to be by people much smarter than me, but let me be another person who says, if you haven't already read One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, please do. <br><br>"When the time comes to assign blame, most of those to blame will be long gone. There will always be feigned shock at how bad things really were, how we couldn’t have possibly known. There will be those who say it was all the work of a few bad actors, people who misled the rest of us well-meaning folks. Anything to avoid contending with the possibility that all this killing wasn’t the result of a system abused, but a system functioning exactly as intended."<br><br>So what are you going to do right now? How will you withhold your participation in this system? How will you lessen the damage? Your lawn signs will never be enough.<br><br></div>
Rated The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin 8/10
<div>I had a free month of audiobooks.com, and instead of using my credit on one book, I used it to stream as much as I wanted from their sci-fi audiobook club, which included this collection of Ursula K. Le Guin novellas. I didn't love every story, but the writing is excellent throughout, so I'm glad to have listened. She was such an innovator. We also get to hear what happens when women are finally inching into the world of Earthsea wizardry, which is cool. (I've only read the first Earthsea book, so I'm sure I didn't glean all the references to previous books.)</div><div><br></div>
Rated Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Sun 6/10