book

Finished reading Mind: A Brief Introduction

Finished reading De onzichtbaren

Rated Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B. Calhoun 8/10

Finished reading Objectivity

Finished reading Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir

Wants to read The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

Rated The Woman in Cabin 10 8/10

Rated Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder 6/10

Finished reading When the Moon Turns to Blood: Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, and a Story of Murder, Wild Faith, and End Times

Rated My Friends 10/10

Wants to read The Frenzy: Stories

Reading Consider the Lobster and Other Essays

Wants to read I Have Some Questions for You

Wants to read Capital Is Dead. Is This Something Worse?

Finished reading Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation

Finished reading Muskisme: Een gids voor de verbijsterden

Finished reading Neuromancer

Finished reading Rogue Protocol

Rated Ancillary Justice 8/10

<div>I really liked this and will probably read the second one at some point, but I hope I don't have to read about anyone's lips having "quirked" again.&nbsp;</div>

Rated Circe 9/10

Rated Rivers of London 8/10

Vivid voice, fun and dark and original.<br/><br/>I wasn't sure what I was getting in to reading Rivers of London (recommended multiple times on socials), especially as I kept finding the teens/young adult book cover for it (reminding me of the multiple covers the Harry Potter books had) - but I decided to jump in.<br/><br/>I quickly got sucked into the book and the narrative style that Aaronovitch used. For some reason I had Millie Bobby Brown as the voice which caused me a little confusion when I learn that the protagonist and narrator is called Peter Grant (I really didn't read the blurb) - but decided that she could still run the inner monologue.<br/><br/>The Rivers of London is a very London and British book (which I always especially enjoy because I can vividly see the places, hear the accents and usually feel the weather) that's a mix of modern copper plod story with fantastical (and certainly for me: original) characters from gods to vampires to ghosts and wizards.<br/><br/>There's a good balance of funny and witting against the (some times) gruesome and frankly pretty terribly bad things that make for the primary investigation for the protagonist, Grant, to work through.<br/><br/>Really fun stuff - I can definitely see myself returning for more in this series.

Wants to read The Finest Hotel in Kabul: A People's History of Afghanistan

Rated The Air Raid Book Club 6/10

Quick easy read. Little repetitive, but shines a nice light.<br/><br/>The story starts in 1938 and we follow Gertie as she plans to retire as a widow having run a bookshop and successful book clubs for many years.<br/><br/>That's put on hold when she agrees to take in a child from the Kindertransport - which I'd know about but hadn't read a great deal of detail. <br/><br/>As a parent myself, this is the first part that breaks my brain a little, and indeed this part is entirely based in history. An amazing effort and so terrible too. <br/><br/>The story then follows Gertie as she takes care of Hedy, a 15 year old German Jew who also longs to be reunited with her family.<br/><br/>The story takes us through The Blitz, the air raid shelters, rolling blackouts and rationing that took place over the years as Hitler and the Nazis spread through Europe.<br/><br/>I've not read any wartime books, so this was an experience. Obviously: harrowing. The story does also do a good job of making me believe the life that tries to march on.

Rated Reasons to Be Cheerful 6/10

Honestly not sure what I thought of the book…<br/><br/>I'm unsure how I got this on my to-read list. I think I was looking for funny books from the last few years. I didn't laugh once reading this book though. It was a sweet story, set in the 80s, but I'm not sure where the arc was.<br/><br/>The story is told from the perspective of Lizzie, an 18 year old young woman who moves out of home to work as an assistant to a dentist. The dentist himself is fairly sexist and xenophobic. The mother (of the protagonist) is … hard to describe. In short, she's a pain in Lizzie's arse - though she definitely loves her.<br/><br/>I think there's some part of flying the nest and finding your own feet, but Lizzie somehow ends up in a very similar place by the end of the book. There's times I was reading and thinking surely she's going to realise that she herself is actually a good dentist and will take that path, but nope, she ends up as a clothes store assistant, so … I don't know.<br/><br/>It was cute to have 80s nostalgia peppered throughout the book, the highlight being the salad spinner (which my own mother still owns and I definitely remember spinning it for fun).<br/><br/>I guess I was left with the sense of _why did I read what I read_?

Rated Tokyo Express 6/10

Lovely old time detective story.<br/><br/>I do love an old book. Written in 1958, post war in Japan, mostly a story about...sort of...trains. <br/><br/>I knew Japan was big on trains (similarly to the UK, it's our mode of transport), but reading about how they would plan their journey often sleeping overnight, upright, on the train to get from one place to another.<br/><br/>The crime is linked to trains and journeys and planning. <br/><br/>It's a nice, short enough, straightforward detective story that cross from one generation of detective (old, slow, "classic"), to young(er) and determined.<br/><br/>There are parts where I'm wondering what _real_ evidence they have to follow up or chase down particular individuals, but it gets a pass being nearly 70 years old.