#books

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Ben Mezrich: Breaking Twitter (2023, Grand Central Publishing)

Breaking Reality

I was on a train to Edinburgh for a short break and rapidly running out of pages of Zoe Schiffer's book Extremely Hardcore. Not wanting to carry two large hardbacks with me, I'd left my copy of Character Limit by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac back home; now I was going to need something else to feed my appetite for Twitter meltdown reading material over the next few days. There was a book I'd remembered reading a particular review of citing its lack of any sort of insight but at least it was about the Twitter buyout. And it was long enough ago that I figured there was a good chance by now I'd be able to pick up a cheap paperback of it to fill the void. That book was Ben Mezrich's Breaking Twitter and, now having finished it, I wanted to write a cautionary warning to anyone else …

reviewed Die Herren des Abgrunds by Adrian Tchaikovsky (Die Scherben der Erde, #3)

Adrian Tchaikovsky: Die Herren des Abgrunds (EBook, Heyne)

Vor beinahe einem Jahrhundert hat die feindliche Alien-Zivilisation der Architekten beinahe die Menschheit zerstört. Dann …

Gelungener Abschluss

Im dritten und letzten Teil gibt Tchaikovsky nochmal Gas. Im Gegensatz zum zweiten Teil lässt der Spannungsbogen zwischendurch nicht sonderlich nach. Alle bekannten Charaktere sind voll in die Geschichte involviert, Bündnisse werden geschmiedet, die Handlung wird insgesamt etwas actionreicher. Alles läuft auf das Finale hinaus, und eben dieses hat der Autor hinbekommen. Mal wieder eine gute Space Opera.

#sciencefiction #sf #buch #books #tchaikovsky

reviewed Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr: Cloud Cuckoo Land (Hardcover, 2021, Scribner)

Elaborate but tenuous.

(3 stars = I liked it)

Three time periods are braided together by an ancient Greek tale: 15th century Constantinople, the modern day, and a space-faring future. Elaborate but tenuous. On their own each story has potential, but together they don't quite make a whole. Like Cloud Atlas but less enthralling.

Reading time 7 days, 89 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #HistoricalFiction #SciFi

reviewed Account Rendered by Melita Maschmann

Melita Maschmann: Account Rendered (Paperback, 2016, Plunkett Lake Press)

A cog in the Nazi machine

Autobiography of a woman who was a committed & diligent National Socialist (#Nazi), of her experience in youth work & propaganda, and her journey coming to terms with the truth of what she participated in. Description of the clinical dispossession of the Poles is disturbing (and new to me), as is the readiness with which everyday mediocre people were led into misguided beliefs, alternative facts & constrained thinking, to do prosaic work with horrifyingly evil outcomes.

Reading time 11 days, 26 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #Autobiography #Biography #Nazism #WorldWar2 #WW2

Octavia E. Butler: Parable of the Sower (Paperback, 2000, Warner Books)

In 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful …

Prophetic for its time

Adapting & building community during social collapse. Prophetic for its time, remains unsettling. God as Change could be a genuinely useful belief system. Only half a book, with ending sudden & too convenient (there is a sequel).

Reading time 5 days, 62 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #CliFi #SciFi

Lively, enlightening & optimistic

Dismantles the many myths & prejudices outsiders hold about monolithic "Africa", along with a startling reminder of its colonial history and an overview of its many forms of dictatorship. Lively, enlightening & optimistic without being overly simplistic.

Reading time 6 days, 59 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm

Ngugi wa Thiong'o: Wizard of the Crow (Paperback, 2007, Anchor)

From the exiled Kenyan novelist, playwright, poet, and literary critic--a magisterial comic novel that is …

Amusing & insightful but long

A satire of African dictatorships and coups. Nearly everyone is stupid, superstitious or greedy. Lightly amusing & insightful but exceeedingly long.

Reading time 24 days, 32 pages/day

#BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm

Lewis Carroll: Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (2016, Scholastic)

Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (also known as Alice Through the Looking-Glass …

Ruby Hamad: White Tears Brown Scars (2020, Orion Publishing Group, Limited)

For readers of White Fragility, White Tears/Brown Scars is an explosive book of history and …