User Profile

Badger AF

Badger_AF@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 months ago

This link opens in a pop-up window

Badger AF's books

Currently Reading

2025 Reading Goal

16% complete! Badger AF has read 2 of 12 books.

Glenn Frankel: Shooting Midnight Cowboy (2022, Picador) 4 stars

A great book about a groundbreaking movie

5 stars

This book is like a core sample of the late 1960s and the changing cultural and sexual mores of the time. I was only 5 years-old when this came out, but I saw it later on television in the mid-70s.

I was shocked at the squalor of then NYC but it also opened me to how others live.

Yes, the movie is dated in how it viewed homosexuality, and it is still a product of the times, but it succeeded in telling a story about outsiders.

The book is incredibly comprehensive (if a little overlong) and gives you an intimate background on how movies were made then.

avatar for Badger_AF Badger AF boosted

As a Blind person i never thought i would be on social media savoring photos. But the communal Mastodon alt text game is so strong that sweet, poetic or silly descriptions abound on my timeline. Thanks to legions of people who take time to write a meaningful description of the ephemera they post, i learn so much about insects, plants, buildings, memes — all dispatches from a dimension of the world that i otherwise wouldn't experience. If you're wondering whether anybody reads these things: YES.

avatar for Badger_AF Badger AF boosted

Bishop Budde made waves this week when she spoke directly to Trump during her Inauguration sermon.

She urged him to have mercy on those who fear for their lives under his administration.

She spoke of compassion for the LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities he seems intent on destroying.

He of course lashed out, demanding an apology and calling her names.

Make no mistake, what she did was an act of bravery. For a few minutes she had a considerable platform, and she used it to speak up for those who can’t speak up for themselves.

She stood up to the bully. She showed us all what it means to be an ally.

Did you know she also provided a final resting place for Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in a gay hate crime at the age of 21?

He was interred at the Washington National Cathedral in a service she presided …

Dave Eggers, Dave Eggers: Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? (Paperback, 2015, Vintage) 3 stars

Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is a 2014 …

Your Novel, Why Is It So Relentlessly Boring?

1 star

My better half picked this up at a library book sale for me and so I felt obligated to read it. I ended up staying up late to finish it to see where it would go. It turned out to have no destination whatsoever. It's a series of conversations with the maladjusted antagonist of the story just posing a series of questions to people who he has felt shaped his life outcome.

None of the characters are drawn out - they're just a delivery device for big questions the author wants to ask. You're better off skipping the book.

Jonathan Lethem: Motherless Brooklyn (EBook, 2011, Vintage) 4 stars

From America's most inventive novelist, Jonathan Lethem, comes this compelling and compulsive riff on the …

Relentlessly smart, inventive

5 stars

Probably one of my favorite books by Jonathan Lethem—miles away from his other outstanding sci-fi work. The story follows a third-rate detective with Tourettes who has to solve a case on his own after his mentor is killed. The dialogue pops and you're constantly guessing where this is all leading.

It was made into a movie which added on a superfluous subplot. Just stick with the book.

Ernest Freeberg: The Age of Edison (Hardcover, 2013, Penguin Press) 3 stars

The late nineteenth century was a period of explosive technological creativity, but arguably the most …

Interesting history!

4 stars

I picked this up at a Dollar Store and kept it around for a while before I finally sat down to read it. It has a pretty sweeping history of how light (and steam-power) began the modernization (and electrification) of America.

Miles Harvey: The King of Confidence (Hardcover, 2020, Little, Brown and Company) 4 stars

A history of the life and times of James Strang, a 'prophet' who tried to …

Good, But Not Great

4 stars

It's an interesting read, more for the history of the mid-19th Century and its bizarre parallels with early 21st Century America. Newspapers were the social media of the time and James Strang took full advantage of creating his story as a lawyer, legislator, prophet, pirate, and 'King of Heaven and Earth'.

The writing wasn't as good as I hoped, but the story is pretty amazing.

Andy Weir: Project Hail Mary (Hardcover, 2021, Ballantine Books) 4 stars

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission--and if he fails, humanity …

Review of 'Project Hail Mary' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I enjoyed this work quite a bit. The only criticism I have is that at some point in the novel you reach crisis fatigue. Yes, piloting a starship based on technology that's been developed in the past year or so is going to present some issues, but it sometimes feels like it's unrelenting.