Cid
A cozy mystery set in 1920s Britain that was… ok. Nothing special, easily solved.
I found the POV character, Charles Knox, a bit of an idiot and just wished that it was actually about Angela, one of the other characters who seemed much more interesting. And it seems that the rest of the series is about her, so I wasn’t alone in thinking that! For that reason alone I will read the next in the series and see if it’s worth continuing.
An absolutely fascinating look at life after death — the lives of all those who deal with the aftermath of death. The author speaks to all sorts of people in the “death industry,” from morticians to crime scene cleaners, and also learns a lot about her own response to death.
The audiobook is read by the author, who does an excellent job. It makes her personal journey hit just that little bit harder, I think.
I would recommend this to fans of pop-science like “Stiff” by Mary Roach and year-in-the-life bios like “The Year of Living Biblically” by A.J. Jacobs.
Disclaimer: I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Really enjoyed this. Weir fleshed out the small amount known about Anna von Kleve with some very interesting what-ifs and made her come to life. The most interesting portion to me was the beginning, about Anna growing up in Kleve — so few books are set at the smaller German courts in this time period.
It's like history within history, a matryoshka doll of travel writing. Published in 2004, about Kapuscinski's travels in the 1950s and 60s, while reading and deliberating on Herodotus's investigations from 2000 years before that, which were often set centuries before his time. Two thumbs up!
[Complete tangent: apparently matryoshka dolls were created in the 1890s during a period of interest in “folk art” but were not actually based on anything historically Russian. They just looked “folky” and people in places like Paris had a hard-on for what they thought Russian peasant life was like. I learned this fact from a completely different book.]
Normally Rainbow Rowell books are solid 5 star books for me, but this one suffered a little from lack of plot. Or maybe too many plots?
Of course, the lovely relationship development (both Simon/Baz and Penny/Shepherd) came damn close to making up for it. Throw in some very interesting new characters and flying goats and I'm still a firm Rowell fan!
I started reading one of the Voyager Relaunch books and was confused by spoilery thing that had apparently happened since the previous relaunch book, so I went looking and found out that there was a multi-series trilogy dealing with spoilery thing. But many people suggested that I should read this other book first, or this other book, etc etc.
And now I have 20 YEARS of Star Trek books to catch up on!
Anyway, this was the first TNG book I've read and I quite enjoyed it. I'm not a huge Section 31 fan, but that part of the storyline didn't really detract from the TNG-ness. Plus, a gay POV character in Star Trek... in 2001!?! I would guess this was a first.
This has been on my “someday I will get around to it” to-read list for almost 20 years, and I'm really not sure why. It was strange and disturbing, and I am now even more worried about the world we live in than I was before I read it. Also, the audiobook was read by the author himself and he just seemed gleeful about all this weird shit. I think I'll go back to books about plagues and mosquitoes killing mankind instead.
I bought this on Audible years ago, but just finally got around to listening to it. I think it would have been a completely different book to me pre-Covid...
Excellently written, with the perfect combination of wit and scientific knowledge. It covered one plague I knew absolutely nothing about (Encephalitis Lethargica) and a couple I knew less about (crazy lobotomy dude! Typhoid Mary! I mean, I knew the name but not much more.)
Very US-centric for the last half of the book, what a shock. Despite that, I highly recommend!
What a strange headfuck of a book. I haven't a clue what to rate it — I loved it and was disturbed by it in equal measures. On the whole, I would recommend it... I'm just not sure to whom!
The audio narration (by the author) was brilliant, and I hope he is making enough in royalties to pay for years and years of therapy. Good to know that lots of religions produce fucked up human beings...
Liulevicious is the best Great Courses lecturer that I've come across. I've listened to everything by him that I can get my hands on, even courses that I was uninterested in the subject of (like this one!) He just makes it all interesting, and he has such an enthusiasm for his subject matter!
I highly recommend his A History of Eastern Europe.
I originally read this years ago and was just reminded of it recently, prompting a reread. I probably would have given it 4 or 5 stars then, I remember that I loved the Harriet Vane books more than the others in the series.
This time around... kinda boring. Very expositiony, no emotional growth. I did like some of the minor characters like Miss Climpston and Bill Rum, but Peter seemed rather static. I may just have to reread more of the series!
I really, really wanted to like this book, so I kept reading past where I probably would have given up normally. Unfortunately, the last few chapters that tied up both storylines actually made it even more disappointing.
I found Tayeb a fascinating character and really wanted more details about his past in Yemen and his experiences in England. I found him a more sympathetic (and interesting) character than Freida.
As for the 1923 timeline... I don't know why I found it boring, since I'm pretty interested in Central Asian history. Usually I like the whole epistological conceit, but I think in this case seeing everything only through Eva's eyes made the focus too small. Now I want to find a good history of the area to find out what exactly was going on and why.
I also have a lot of thoughts about the portrayal of queer characters in the book, but I'm finding it too hard to organize them enough to be coherent. Basically, just a mishmash of negative stereotypes employed that left me coming away from the book feeling slightly greasy.
The writing itself was beautiful and I think it was very well researched, so I hope other people enjoyed it more than I did!
A really lovely retelling of a lesser-known fairy tale. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of this (interesting characters, good plot, etc.) but my absolute favourite was that it had a fantasy setting not based on medieval Europe! What a shock! The Mongolian basis for the world was perfect and DIFFERENT.
I think I possibly love Shannon Hale's worldbuilding... it was good in Princess Academy as well. I really must get my hands on more of her books!