Before diving into some more weighty tomes, I opted for this mental palate cleanser of light fiction. Very entertaining and enjoyable. Meet Nora, whose life is not going well. After a series of terrible turns and even worse choices, she finds herself alone, jobless, friendless, cat-less, and broke. She decides to end it all. Losing... Continue Reading →
The Suite Life, by Christopher Heard. Pub 2011
I bought this book in ~2015, from the bargain bin at my favourite local bookshop. After starting it, I was distracted by something else, and the book moved to the dusty bottom of my shelves for several years. In my reorganization of books earlier this year, I found it again, and chose it as my... Continue Reading →
Lady Romeo, by Tana Wojczuk. Pub 2020
I heard about this book on the podcast “This is Love”, in an episode where the author was interviewed. This was the first time I’d ever heard of Charlotte Cushman, “America’s first celebrity.” After the interview, I sought out the book. Cushman rose to their* celebrity in the early 19th century, ahead of, through, and... Continue Reading →
Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir. Pub 2021
This book was recommended by three friends. The first read it as part of a book club at their work. The second is the partner of the first. The third is a friend of the first and second. Like so many I’ve read this year, this is a sci-fi book and not typically in my... Continue Reading →
On Tyranny, by Timothy Snyder. Pub 2017. Graphic edition, with illustrations by Nora Krug. Pub 2021.
This book has popped up on reading lists and various sites over the past few years. I expected it to be a weighty slog (turns out, it’s quite short), but the graphic edition makes for an easier, if just as sobering, read. Snyder is a professor of history and human sciences. Krug is an award-winning... Continue Reading →
The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Pub 1990. 20th anniversary edition, 2011
I chose this book after recently completing Burning Chrome by Gibson. The premise of this intrigued me, and I wanted another sci-fi book for my other book club project. The titular difference engine is a reference to an early computing machine created by Charles Babbage. He subsequently merged the difference engine with the Jacquard machine... Continue Reading →
Burning Chrome, by William Gibson. Pub 1986
I first read this book in the early 90s, a gift from a friend. I enjoyed it very much, but never returned to it as sci-fi is not my favourite genre. However, I've read a few good sci-fi books lately and enjoyed them, so I returned to this one to see if it stood the... Continue Reading →
Trespassing, by Usma Aslam Khan. Pub 2003
I’ve had this book on my shelves for a long time. I bought it after reading Fallen by David Maine (and a few of his other books), and reading in the author notes that his wife was also an author. For whatever reason, I never got around to reading this one until now. Trespassing is... Continue Reading →
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and Other Jazz Age Stories, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Pub 2009
Last year, I listened to an episode of Backlisted (a favourite podcast) about American fiction, where one of the panelists recommended the story, “The Diamond as Big as The Ritz”. I was interested enough that I sought out a collection of 19 Fitzgerald stories that included this story, and was surprised to find that he’d... Continue Reading →
Fire Weather, by John Vaillant. Pub 2023
This was an impulse purchase when visiting a friend with whom I'm working on a nascent book review podcast project. In that "club" we have to read the same book, and then have a discussion about it over Zoom, with the recording (with some editing) becoming a podcast episode. So far, we've only made two,... Continue Reading →
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