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The Everyday Guide to Wine brings this rare opportunity right into your home with 24 …
I enjoyed listening to the Audible book on a drive, but all the time I was wishing I could taste (and spit out) the wine the author mentions. This will need a longer study. ;-)
Flowers in the Attic is a 1979 Gothic novel by V. C. Andrews. It is …
I started reading this in the spring. Terrible prose, clumsy dialogue, and a terrible suspension of disbelief mostly because the villains were paper doll characters. Sad story, but worse because a premise like this is a gold mine, and it's sad that only pyrite was exploited, and fools came for the pyrite anyhow.
The Paper Magician is a 2014 fantasy novel by American author Charlie N. Holmberg, published by 47North. It is Holmberg's …
Ella has a Thing. She sees a classmate grow up to become a caring nurse. …
Brilliant. I love this historical fantasy set against the stark times of the last 25 years. I also love how it tells a larger (much more hopeful) story against the backdrop of so much violence. Great characters. Beautiful style and evocative language. The audiobook (read by the author!) is especially awesome.
First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving …
Kershenbaum has written a great speculative book that reveals depths about the nature of Contact and how evolution and game theory are important clues about the nature of alien societies even without studying them in person. It's about life more than alien life. Very good science-forward book with excellent references.
Bob Howard is a computer-hacker desk jockey, who has more than enough trouble keeping up …
Pretty cool series. I loved Stross's Accelerando, so I tasted the Laundry Files. It's a cool series with great takes on modern society's weird bumps, all couched in a spy-vs-spy world where the laundry is key. Great dry humor too.
Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum …
Research for how culture spreads in ancient societies. A very good book with many interesting stories. Sometimes a little too cute, but the main problem is the way the information is organized. It is good for storytelling (story behind each drink) but hard to find the data later, at least that's my experience.
Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, …
Frank Herbert tells a character-driven story of wonder and enchantment with political, military, and economic worldbuilding in full display.
House of Chains is an epic fantasy novel by Canadian author Steven Erikson, the fourth volume of his series the …
Marion Zimmer Bradley was a bestselling science fiction author, a feminist icon, and was awarded …
A long, horribly sad account of child molestation and its aftermath. The scenes are described from the tortured perspective of the victim, then a little girl, Moira Greyland. The references to Avalon indicate one of the villains, a sff author who peaked in her craft in the 1960s and 1970s, a period of experimentation and questioning why our society makes its choices, all of which are valid questions to ask. What is not permitted, however, among any civil society, is to advocate victimization of children, who have no agency or ability to give consent, because dammit, they are not adults. So, it's sick and horrible, and yes, I too, believe Moira. I believe she believes her story too.
The only issues I have with the book (and they are both killers, two stars each, in fact) is that first the language is often homophobic. It spreads misinformation about homosexual people, …
A long, horribly sad account of child molestation and its aftermath. The scenes are described from the tortured perspective of the victim, then a little girl, Moira Greyland. The references to Avalon indicate one of the villains, a sff author who peaked in her craft in the 1960s and 1970s, a period of experimentation and questioning why our society makes its choices, all of which are valid questions to ask. What is not permitted, however, among any civil society, is to advocate victimization of children, who have no agency or ability to give consent, because dammit, they are not adults. So, it's sick and horrible, and yes, I too, believe Moira. I believe she believes her story too.
The only issues I have with the book (and they are both killers, two stars each, in fact) is that first the language is often homophobic. It spreads misinformation about homosexual people, generalizing the behavior of some criminals (her parents) to an entire subset of humanity. That's completely wrong. Also, getting puppie Vox Day to edit and write an introduction drains the story of all credibility. I find myself believing Moira, but with Day involved now I wonder... Vox Day is an issue that bleeds the book dry of truth. Too bad. What were you thinking?
"'Grunt' tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries-- panic, exhaustion, heat, …
Mary Roach's books are great, but this was a bit of a miss for me. Essentially it's a study of how humans overcome conditions in order to better kill each other and (in the case of the sub crew) not blow up the world when sleep-deprived.
Great look behind the scenes at a major league baseball front office.
National Book Award Finalist - Here is the unforgettable story of the Binewskis, a circus-geek …
As one might expect this is not an easy read, but it does echo much about how willing people are to follow causes only to find themselves unalone. Some characters are fairly astonishing in their lack of empathy, but they are not reimagined. They are original.
The plot kind of ambles along and the destructive outcome is signalled all along. We are just waiting for the right time and are rewarded, but then there is the question of whether the characters made good choices, and honestly, the parameters they use have brutal values.
Winner of the 1982 World Fantasy Award for best novel.
