Corey McCaffrey

Good, though I am a little surprised by its immense popularity. It's Holocaust fiction that focuses on a family of Righteous Gentiles trying to get by in their town amidst the rise of the Nazi party and surviving the war (rations, bombings, etc.).

The mother's nonstop verbal abuse (and occasional physical abuse) is jarring— she constantly refers to her husband and daughter as “asshole” and “bitch” respectively, and the daughter picks up this habit with her friends. But it's always written out in German, so it's somehow meant to be more endearing?

Mostly enjoyable, but only after I started thinking of it as a short work of nostalgic fan fiction rather than canon or “Harry Potter #8” (even though it is canon now, of course, and picks up right where the epilogue of HP 7 left off).

It was interesting to learn the origin story of the Silo in book one, but otherwise mostly disappointing. The protagonist is not particularly relatable or likable, especially compared to the heroine introduced in book one.

I really enjoyed Duhigg's The Power of Habit. I found this one less inspiring.

Good conclusion to The Lost Gate trilogy. The low average review surprised me.

Enjoyable follow-up to The Lost Gate

Entertaining entry in the post-apocalyptic dystopia genre. However, the two sequels in this trilogy were a bit of a letdown.

The Lost Gate trilogy features a compelling magic system (“gates”) to propel a story about feuding descendants of mythological gods.

The format surprised me. It's really a compendium of one creative person's routine after another. Looking for patterns, gleaning insight from an artist's routine, or understanding the connection between an artist's routine and his or her productivity are exercises left to the reader.

Great telling of the history, science, and drama behind the search for a planet between the Sun and Mercury to explain apparent oddities in Mercury's orbit.

If, God forbid, you or a loved one ever need surgery, and you have an opportunity to ask questions before the operation, ask the surgeon whether he or she uses the WHO Safe Surgery Checklist. If you don't think this sounds like a big deal one way or the other, please read this book.

My former law firm's IP department used a variety of checklists to great effect. If you're not using checklists in your job, consider reading this book to understand how nearly every industry and profession can benefit.

Excellent hard science fiction story

Great collection from a great blog

Twisty, globe-trotting thriller with cybercrime, espionage, and more

Start with the author's TED talk. If you like her style and message, you'll enjoy more of the same in her book, plus some field research, like her entertaining observations participating in a Tony Robbins seminar.

Clever and thought-provoking; really enjoyed the world-building centered around cloistered mathematicians and physicists and their relationship with engineers and the rest of the outside world.

Disappointing follow-up in the Ender's Shadow series. I'll probably still read the final installment Shadows Alive anyway to see what happens. I can't say enough good things about both the Ender Quartet and the Shadow series, but I wish Card had stopped this series after Shadow of the Giant.

Thought-provoking hard science fiction about trying to start a colony in a neighboring solar system. It's cleverly written as being narrated by the spaceship's on-board AI.

I'm not sure why this is rated so much lower on average than Ready Player One. I thought they were both fun, quick reads, each enjoyable in their own way.

Really fun, quick read.

It also reminded me that even 80s geeks can have wildly different expertise in different sub-genres...

One of the first puzzles to get solved was something about Dungeons and Dragons that felt so esoteric to me that I almost lost interest in the book, thinking “These are not the 1980s references you were looking for.”

Later, I was rewarded with a clue that should have been so obvious to anyone who played text adventures. But, bafflingly, the clue was so challenging to the general population of players in the book that this puzzle went unsolved by any character for a significant length of time in the book.

The first book is the best in the trilogy, but Visitors was still a good conclusion.

The first book is the best in the trilogy, but Ruins is a good follow-up.

Great concept and cool magic system involving various abilities for manipulating time.

I would have been fine just sticking with the movie and Wicked. I don't feel compelled to read any of the sequels. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I'd first read it as a kid.

Good short story. In hindsight, it feels like something that could have been set in the American Gods universe.