Mr Fred
Okay this was amazing. I listened to the audiobook version and had to pause it frequently to think and re-think what was said, to let it sink in when one of the concepts I knew scientifically wasn't sacrosanct but didn't fully “grok” was challenged and explained by the author. In college, I focused very little on monetary theory, but I always found it fascinating in its own right, a collective illusion that is so strong, entire societies would rather perish clinging on to their idea of it than alter their opinion. In that sense, it is among the most human of inventions, and like all human inventions, we should perpetually challenge it and improve on it for the betterment of mankind.
What a remarkable first book from this author. If you like adrenaline-fueled spy stories, David against Goliath, this book is for you. As always, it required a very heavy dose of suspending disbelief (Delphi and the things it does make no sense, sorry), but when you immerse yourself fully you can't help but root for Sam from the first to the very last page.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Wooooow. The Roach is a classic antihero, and throughout the book it fascinated me how we simultaneously understand him more and more and also start to feel his sadness, weakness, and eventually, remarkable strength.
What I suspected was going to be a straightforward action novel turned out to be much more than that, with twists and turns until the very last page.
A remarkable book.
Note I received a free review copy on Booksirens for the promise to review it honestly when I'm done.
A great memoir from a medical illustrator turned forensic anthropologist, including her work on some of the most notable and devastating mass fatalities the US has seen in the 90s and early 2000s.
Craig describes her path, and her craft in detail, without sugarcoating the grosser parts of death that she deals with daily.
Some have noted that at times, she can sound mildly self-aggrandizing, but she shall be forgiven, for being a pioneer, in general, and a woman in a male dominated field, requires an exceptional amount of determination and confidence. Besides, it is what competence looks like, both the confidence about the tools of the trade, and the all-consuming struggle against failure and letting everybody else and herself down that she so often describes.
Ultimately Craig reveals little groundbreaking new, but her insightful, empathetic, and sincere account is hard to put down.
A quintessential German coming of age story, about children in an all-boys boarding school discovering friendship, courage, empathy, and so much more.
I found it tremendously powerful because it conveys these concepts not with the raised finger of a preacher, but through the lived experience of the boys and their teachers themselves. As such, they are not perfect, they are loud, self-absorbed, boisterous, but when it matters they stick up for each other, they show bravery and kindness and gratefulness and mercy. It's like the reader finds themselves once again in school, reliving their own youth, recognizing their own failures and struggles and successes and learning once more what it takes to grow up a decent person.
Kästner writes beautiful German prose, observant and vivid and yet straight to the point. A wonderful book.
A great book, an exciting adventure full of mystery and wonder. And, despite the young target audience, it's a masterfully assembled piece of German prose.
Alas, some of the casually deployed cultural, social, and racial stereotypes, as well as a minor, somewhat strange (i.e., entirely unnecessary for the plot) biblical tie-in show the book's age. Not enough to make it a bad read (let alone to scratch it off the list of best children's books), but probably enough to warrant a little bit of contextualization/commentary by the adult reader.
It's great that the author highlights the fates of women who would become the worst kind of involuntary pioneer: who had to suffer and die for people, lawmakers, corporations to start caring about a modicum of workplace safety and worker protection.
The writing itself starts smoothly and easy to follow, alas after a while gets repetitive and lengthy recounting every single minute event in detail and it seems a good editor could have shortened the book substantially.
Four stars for the subject, three for the writing.
Dorian Gray is a master class in cynical misanthropy. Sir Henry, the ever so witty man shamelessly encouraging Gray to embrace his vanity, all for the thrill of it. Gray himself, becoming hopelessly enthralled with his picture and himself, at the cost of leaving everyone hurt or, quite literally, dead in his wake. And through it all we wonder, is Dorian the crazy one, or the “high society” that is too busy admiring his antics and enabling his narcissism to take him down to earth when he really needed it.
A wonderful story, for young readers ostensibly, but Ende has, as always, put together the German language masterfully, and painted a picture of a world so vivid in its imagination, so full of surprises, so believable yet so absurd that it's hard to even think about putting down the book for the sheer delight of it all. What blessing that there's a sequel.
A great book. Not only the well known story of Mowgli, but a bunch of other ones too, and in each, the author does a masterful job of anthropomorphizing jungle animals, not as a cutesy caricature but as multi-faceted being, understanding their place in society, following their needs, desires, and a deeper honor code by which all animals of the jungle must abide.
No wonder this is a classic.
Bourdain was a brilliant and eloquent observer who could be found mincing many things except words, and his fans, myself included, loved him for it. His fascination with and simultaneous disdain for humanity matches my own and so, when I read or watch the things he's written and produced, I feel not so much entertained as I feel seen. For that, I'll be forever grateful.
This was a blast from the past from my masters in economics, but I still enjoyed it cover to cover because it made a lot of concepts very tangible and puts decision shortcuts and effects like preference reversal into societal context as opposed to merely claiming irrationality. No wonder it is such a popular book.
This one was interesting. A continued series after the death of the original author, that does not always go well. I was pleasantly surprised. It's a suspenseful read that was hard to put down.
Still, while Lagercrantz tells a story full of action and suspense, he sometimes gets lost in mathematical or technical details (specific Android app names?) that seem aimed at building plausibility but instead strike as a filler where plot development should've gone.
In this novel, Liesbeth comes across as broken yet determined to fight for justice as ever, but the character development remains limited to third party discussions about the childhood spent with her sister. Unfortunately, rather than more mysterious and unapproachable, it keeps her, the most interesting character of the story, looking shallower than necessary.
Overall, a good read and I have enough questions about the continuation of the story that I'm certain I'll pick up the next volume.
3.5 rounded up to 4.
