The Casual Vacancy (review)

So, maybe you heard that JK Rowling wrote a new novel. Maybe you really liked the Harry Potter novels, and you’re looking forward to getting another book from the pen that gave you those. Well, don’t get too excited. The Casual Vacancy is an adult (as in meant for grownups, not as in pornographic) non-genre novel. ...

Books with animal protagonists

Matthew Bennardo (@mbennardo) asked on Twitter: Besides White Fang and Call of the Wild, does anybody know any good books told from animals’ perspectives? (Either first or third person.) Which is a very good question, I think, and worthy of a list of books. I used to love reading stories from the perspective of animals ...

Lois McMaster Bujold owns my soul

Well, not in a literal sense. It just kind of feels that way. Earlier in the summer, I asked friends to recommend audiobooks to me. Right now, that’s how I’m doing most of my reading. They’re ideal for bike rides (not only do you get to immerse yourself in a good story for two hours, ...

Leviathan Wakes

This was the last of the Hugo-nominated novels I needed to read. Good thing too, since I have to do my votes in the next week. I’m hoping to at least run through the short stories, though I’m afraid I won’t have time for anything else before the deadline, which makes me sad.  My feelings ...

Among Others

I don’t think I would have read Among Others (Jo Walton) if it weren’t for its Hugo nomination. That would have been a serious shame, since it’s a beautiful and interesting book. I definitely think that it deserves the nomination. SPOILERS FOLLOWSort of like Brave, I think Among Others isn’t really best served by the way it’s ...

Book: Twilight of the Elites

This book is both interesting, and depressing. Interesting, of course, in the way just about anything Chris Hayes decides to talk about is worth reading. What actually motivated me to give the book a read is that Chris Hayes has been a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow show, and he’s always interesting there. I ...

Embassytown

I’ve finally found a way to love China Miéville. Which I feel really guilty about. Not loving him before, that is. I’ve tried to read The City and the City and Kraken and I ended up giving up on both books. I couldn’t get into them. The prose was beautiful and simultaneously felt entirely opaque ...

Distrust That Particular Flavor

I spent my entire day taking samples of rock out of one plastic bag and transferring them into other plastic bags. For seven hours. I went through over 200 ziplock freezer bags and killed a sharpie. My brain has been reduced to pudding. So you’d think that wouldn’t be a good mental state for finishing ...

The Inescapable Gravity Well Located In Mikael Blomkvist’s Shorts 3

WARNING: Major, MAJOR spoilers ahead for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. At least the book. I have no idea what the movie is like. I am not going to spoil the central mystery of the book, by the way. I actually enjoyed that part enough that it’s what actually got me to finish the ...

At least I still have time to read. (The Other Boleyn Girl)

I finished reading The Other Boleyn Girl, though my version of the novel wasn’t listed as a movie tie-in. In fact, I hadn’t realized that it was a movie AND a BBC mini-series until that point. So I’ve thrown those two on my Netflix queue, even though I admit to some doubt about the movie. ...