Finished reading: The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami is a dystopian view of where we’re headed with data-driven algorithms. I enjoyed the story, despite the scary implications 📚
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Finished reading: Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a really good first contact with aliens story 📚
Finished reading: Pines by Blake Crouch is an exciting start to the series. I appreciated the Twin Peaks vibes 📚
Finished reading: The 51st State Votes by Justin Ling is a good overview of what happened in Canada’s recent, strange election campaign 📚
Finished reading: The Blacktongue Thief by Christopher Buehlman is great fun: humour, adventure, and imagination, as a thief tries to rescue a queen 📚
Finished reading: I’ll confess that I skipped through parts of Foreign Bodies by Simon Schama. I appreciated the message of the book that vaccination has always been controversial and only diligent science with careful public health communication have been persuasive. I just found the details of the book too overwhelming: so many names, dates, and locations to keep track of, which I wasn’t up for 📚
Finished reading: City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer is an imaginative, richly detailed, and difficult book to read. I appreciated the world building and overall strangeness, but the lack of plot and central characters made for a challenging read 📚
Finished reading: I really enjoyed Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. A clever and poignant story. Not sure why it took me so long to get around to reading it 📚
Finished reading: Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe is a fascinating and disturbing book about The Troubles in Ireland with interesting questions about political violence and accountability 📚
Finished reading: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz is a delight 📚
Finished reading: Superbloom by Nicholas Carr is a fascinating, alarming, and important book about how communication technology and social media are shaping society, mostly for the worse 📚
Finished reading: Canada by Richard Ford is remarkable. A good cottage read 📚
Finished reading: I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne is quite the tour through rock and roll debauchery. Hard to understand how he got anything done. Great excuse to revisit the music though 📚
Finished reading: A Theory of Everyone by Michael Muthukrishna is a compelling and fascinating book about us, our culture, and our future. Any book like this has a unifying principle and I found this one’s focus on Energy Return on Investment intriguing. 📚
Finished reading: I really liked the premise of The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley: how would people adjust to being brought from the past into the present? Well written too. The last third was a bit too much standard time travel plot though, which detracted from the cool premise 📚
Finished reading: Although it took two library loan periods, I enjoyed Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan 📚
Finished reading: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older continues a fun series: solving mysteries on a gas giant planet. 📚
Finished reading: Tapper’s Day Off by Dan Moren is a fun short story. I’m glad to read more in this universe 📚
Finished reading: Despite having watched and really enjoyed Slow Horses on Apple TV, reading the first book by Mick Herron was still great fun. 📚
Finished reading: An Immense World by Ed Yong is a remarkable book. A fascinating exploration of the senses and what we can learn by trying to understand the perceptions of other animals📚
Finished reading: A Field Guide to Lies by Daniel J. Levitin is a clear and thorough summary of all the ways we need to be on guard for misinformation. Targeted to beginners though, so not a lot of new information for us veterans of the internet 📚
Finished reading: The Longbow, the Schooner, and the Violin by Marq de Villiers is an interesting exploration of wood via those three objects. A bit clunky in sections, though pretty good overall 📚
Finished reading: The Tomb of Dragons by Katherine Addison continues the great Cemeteries of Amalo series. I’m impressed with how casually and simply such a rich and complex world is created in this series 📚
Finished reading: Blindsight by Peter Watts is an interesting mix of sci-fi, horror, and philosophy. I enjoyed it. Vampires in space!📚
Finished reading: Outlive by Peter Attia is a comprehensive approach to health. Although we need to be careful about influencer nonsense when it comes to health advice, Attia’s work is carefully considered and researched. My main takeaways are the importance of strength training, monitoring my protein consumption, continuing to prioritize sleep, and carefully considering mental resiliency 📚
Finished reading: Livesuit is a fun short story in the Captive’s War series by James S. A. Corey. Based on this and the first book in the series, a promising start 📚
Finished reading: I picked up World War Z by Max Brooks on a whim from the library. Lots of fun and much better than the movie. I enjoyed the unique structure and storytelling 📚
Once again, my library loan timed out on a Robert Jordan book before I finished. The immersion in a long story is part of the appeal. I just have to write down what chapter I was on and wait a few months to check it out again 📚
Finished reading: Revenger by Alastair Reynolds is easy entertainment with pirates in space📚
Finished reading: Moonbound by Robin Sloan is a fun and imaginative sci-fi retelling of the King Arthur story (and much more) 📚