Rated The First Bad Man 8/10
Every Miranda July story is about two or more people whose ability to function in a social setting is deeply compromised in a distinct, different way, and how they react to each other. It's always a little disorienting and it's a weird place to spend a lot of time. I mean this in a good way; she is a lovely and clever writer.
Rated Crude: The Story of Oil 6/10
Great until it goes extremely wrong.<br/><br/>Most of the way through, this book is quite good - a well-explained, brief-but-detailed summary of the history, science and economics behind oil and the problems our reliance on it can cause, with an obvious but not obtrusive left-wing analytical lens. However, it was written in 2004, and as such it is badly dated - missing major events later on that expand, complicate or change the story Shah is telling. Chapter 9, in particular, is premised on the concept of "peak oil" - the idea that we're running up against the limits of the reserves available and our production of oil is going to enter a new era of decline and scarcity. What has happened, instead, is a remarkable growth in our ability to extract and refine oil from "unconventional" sources. Shah alludes to mining tar sands, but doesn't get into hydraulic fracking and other methods of producing oil from formerly hard-to-reach sources. If anything, the biggest problem we have with oil now is that there's more of it than we can safely use and not enough incentives to get off of it.<br/><br/>There are many developments in the story of oil that Shah by necessity misses by finishing up in 2004 - including the long slow spiraling out of the Iraq War, the soured "Arab spring" that led to crisis in Libya, and the rise of ISIS in Syria; the Obama administration's new fuel economy standards and investments in renewable energy; the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; the political battles over pipelines; the Paris climate agreement; the emergence of the electric vehicle market, particularly in California and Europe; and most recently the 2016 election, with its possible promotion of Exxonmobil's CEO as Secretary of State. But by far the biggest thing she misses is the boom in unconventional oil development, only faintly visible from her vantage point in 2004 and now half of U.S. oil production. <br/><br/>First chunk of the book would merit 4 stars; the closing section drops it to 3. Needs a new edition, at least.
Rated The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks 6/10
Light and breezy yet encyclopedic. Kinda like getting cornered at the party by the foodie who wants to tell you all about the appetizers. You can skip around at your leisure rather than trying to read it straight through, but it's full of fun factoids.
Rated Vampires in the Lemon Grove 8/10
Like Catherine, I'd give this 3.5 if I could - some stories are great and some are ok.<br/><br/>Russell is probably the author I feel the most envy aout, because she writes like I'd like to write (fast-moving but atmospheric, perceptive internal viewpoints from distinct characters, sneaky magic realism) and because she's just a little younger than me.
Rated The Spy Who Came In from the Cold 8/10
Wants to read 199 Cemeteries to See Before You Die
Wants to read Books of Blood: Volumes One to Three
Wants to read Growing Up Jung: Coming of Age as the Son of Two Shrinks