Dec 28, 2023Life Lived Wild
By Rick RidgewayRick Ridgeway's writing has a bit of a rough-hewn, simple style that I don't think will win many awards - and at first, that I didn't think I liked that much. But there is also a deep, earnest sincerity to it that makes his stories just a bit larger-than-life. That, and the fact that they are just completely wild, crazy things he's done, been all around the world and up on all the mountains and through all the forests. He writes and is a bit full of himself, as I suppose one must be to confront the extremities of the world at the risk of death, but his transparency there becomes a bit charming; his transparency makes the tragedies he faces all the more heartbreaking. There is also - I think maybe accidentally, but he presents his life in a bit of a fascinating fragmentation of time, reminiscent of Vonnegut? Recollections mostly in order, with insertions of the future and the past and sudden and unexpected jumps...product I guess of the growth of the book out of a series of instagram posts, but creating a pattern that I do appreciate. An excellent and engaging series of stories that weave together into a very good book.
Dec 25, 2023A Christmas Carol
By Charles DickensA classic that stands the test of time! Tiny Tim did not die and Scrooge was a doofus but he bought a goose so it is all good.
Dec 25, 2023The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms
By N.K. JemisinI think my threshold for good fantasy varies wildly from book to book, season to season. At times it is a comfort food, and seeking comfort and ease I find it and look no further - while at times I approach it more like I approach the rest of literature, seeking comfort and ease and beauty and grace and a compelling truth about the human condition.
Dec 22, 2023Wellness
By Nathan HillA double-negative in a sentence performs in my mind a kind of fascinating transformation of meaning; ostensibly the sentence works just the same without it, but practically there is something else, a différance that drives the meaning around and into a corner.
Dec 17, 2023System Collapse
By Martha WellsMurderbot continues to be a delight, maybe a bit more on the Real side with this one but still at the core the classic Murderbot running around, saving lives, struggling with Emotions, getting shot a few times. While quite enjoyable, I can't help but feel that the concept has about run it's course - and I hope Wells is onto something new soon. Can't really blame her for capitalizing on this to the extent that she has though.
Dec 15, 2023A Gentleman In Moscow
By Amor TowlesIt is a bit suspicious that this was published after Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel came out, but as much of a Anderson fanboy as I am, I think this may have done it better. Declining customs of an aristocratic hotel of the Old World, charm and poise pitted against the bureaucratic gray new age, a man out of place whose chief attribute is knowing how never to be out of place. Sweet, a bit twee, all in all quite solid, an excellent book to recommend to a grandmother or at least my grandmother.
Dec 12, 2023Red Sorgum
By Mo YanThere is I think probably a thread of brilliance that winds its way though this novel - but I was rarely quite able to grasp it. I am a bit suspicious of the translation; the writing has a kind of wet, glistening consonance that is either amateurish or a deliberate artistic style that emboldens the titillatory corporeal aspects of the book that I enjoy the least. The flatulence, death and shit comprise a blackly humorous take on the occasionally horrifying events that I suppose may be considered provocative or at least honest, but that reads to me more as just unnecessarily edgy.
Dec 7, 2023Into The Silence
By Wade DavisImpressive, compelling and detailed story of a bunch of crazy Britishers, gallivanting through life, clinging to the glory of a bygone era, callously causing wanton death and performing feats of greatness. It is astonishing their arrogance, what they lived through, what they accomplished.
Dec 4, 2023A City On Mars
By Kelly and Zach WeinersmithLife on Mars is great edutainment, clearly the work of people who are passionate about research, space, and space research. It is full of fun anecdotes and what seems like a difficult to assail argument that space colonization is not coming anytime soon - which, gotta say, is a bit sad to hear. The humor that defines the Weinersmith's brand is a bit thin, I imagine basically that it ended up being a bit less funny of a topic than they anticipated, and so perhaps it is a bit less entertaining than their Soonish and Zach's Open Borders. Nevertheless, a fascinating read for anyone who thinks space is kind of neat.
Dec 3, 2023Great Expectations
By Charles DickensDickens for me stands a bit a part as a master of the weave of a plot. Emblematic and mostly straightforward characters bounce around to surprising and delightful ends. I'm a bit concerned for the future of Dickens though - while the stories he tells are likely timeless, the style is a bit overwrought for the current day. And so reading is just a bit of a chore, for less of a reward than many contemporaries - Elliot, Melville, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky all provide much more to chew on. I enjoyed Great Expectations a bit less than A Tale of Two Cities, but that might just be because in retrospect, I think Dickens is best when read by a precocious young reader still figuring things out. These days I'm probably merely cocious.