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Rated Project Hail Mary 10/10

Wants to read Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat: How Two Great Minds Battled Quantum Randomness to Create a Unified Theory of Physics

Rated The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn't, and Get Stuff Done 4/10

Rated A Handbook for New Stoics: How to Thrive in a World Out of Your Control - 52 Week-by-Week Lessons 10/10

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

Wants to read A Big Bang in a Little Room: The Quest to Create New Universes

Wants to read A City Is Not a Computer: Other Urban Intelligences

Finished reading Declassified

Rated Walden by Henry David Thoreau 8/10

Rated This Inevitable Ruin 8/10

Wants to read The Starving Saints

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 Doctor Who: Situation Vacant 8/10

Wants to read Hymnal for Dirty Girls

Rated Doctor Who: Neverland 8/10

Good stuff. Includes Lalla Ward as Romana, ends on a cliffhanger as a lead in to the next story, Zagreus. Definitely liked this one.

Rated Death at Morning House 7/10

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.

Finished reading Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout

Wants to read We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Wants to read From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought

Rated Lanark 8/10

<div>&nbsp;is one of the wildest, most ambitious books I've ever read. Sort of set in Glasgow, also set in the Glasgow-like city of Unthank, the story is so many things at once. It's a disillusioned youth losing grip on his sense of reality, it's a surreal Vonnegutian descent into bureaucratic hell, it's an allegory for the slum tenements destruction in '70s, but also the oncoming storm of the corporate '80s.The references and acknowledgements sections are handled in perhaps the most inventive way I've ever seen. Not everything holds up since its publishing in 1981, but I hope more dedicated people than me have written papers on this weird, perpetually interesting book.</div>

Rated The Haunting 10/10

<div>Even better the second time through.&nbsp;</div>