History, fiction, sci-fi, nature, cycling… really anything that catches my attention.
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A novella of intrigue among a group of traveling actors. The setting is what is now France but perhaps 800 years in the future in a world that has mostly reverted to 19th century technology but with remnants of much more advanced tech. A fun read.
A reclusive journalist is suddenly thrown into a wild, suspenseful journey to rescue his kidnapped …
An engaging, if sometimes cliched, family drama with all the absurdity and violence of modern America as backdrop.
A storyteller “of great humanity and huge heart” (Minneapolis Star Tribune), Leif Enger debuted in …
This is another story of survival in a near future dystopia. There is the expected darkness here but also, at times, an odd soft-focus. Still, an engaging tale.
Of niche interest to be sure, Paper Dreams offers up a look at the PBM hobby from the start in 1970 or so through 2024.
This deep dive into the death of Lorca was researched and written when some of those involved were still alive for the author to interview. Worth tracking down a copy for anyone interested in Lorca or the Spanish Civil War.
This deep dive into the death of Lorca was researched and written when some of those involved were still alive for the author to interview. Worth tracking down a copy for anyone interested in Lorca or the Spanish Civil War.
It's a whole new moooooon.
One day soon, suddenly and without explanation, the moon …
Typical of recent Scalzi. Absurd and entertaining with a dose of social commentary.
An exquisite, genre-defying new book from the Booker Prize–winning author of The Narrow Road to …
Part memoir and part rumination, in Question 7 Flannagan improbably connects family history, H.G. Wells, colonialism, the bombing of Hiroshima and more. A fascinating read.
Overy looks at both the decision making process leading up to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as well as the role of the these bombings in ending the war. An interesting reassessment of the simplistic tale typically told.
Uhlman is best known as a painter and that comes through in much of his prose. Reunion is the story of a brief friendship between two students during Hitler’s rise to power. Like in Taylor’s Address Unknown, the corrosiveness of fascism is on full display here.
Also contained in:
Steinbeck wrote The Moon is Down for the Allied propaganda effort during WWII. A crisp little novella of the conquered and the conquerors.
Meet the Cooke family: Mother and Dad, brother Lowell, sister Fern, and Rosemary, who begins …
Memory, family and the line between human and other animals are among the topics Fowler explores in this odd novel. An intriguing cast of characters, not least the occasionally unreliable narrator, keep things interesting.
In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of …
I tore through this one. A history of the near future written in urgent prose and brief chapters. An adventure story of a family attempting escape from a flooded New York. A coming of age tale. Excellent.
The boy was raised as one of the Chained, condemned to toil in the bowels …
Samatar’s novella is set in the far future on a fleet of ships that escaped a dying earth. It offers biting commentary on social hierarchy and academia. A well paced and moving read let down slightly as the science fictional elements give way to the fantastical near the end in a way I found awkward.
Samatar’s novella is set in the far future on a fleet of ships that escaped a dying earth. It offers biting commentary on social hierarchy and academia. A well paced and moving read let down slightly as the science fictional elements give way to the fantastical near the end in a way I found awkward.
The Curse of Pietro Houdini is a coming of age story mixed with a World War II thriller set in and around Montecassino. Also an exposition of the ways in which fascism and war destroy empathy. A section in the middle bogs down a little and could have used an editor’s knife but this is mostly an engaging and well-told tale.
Everyone’s favorite lethal SecUnit is back in the next installment in Martha Wells’s bestselling and …
A little slower to get going than some of the other episodes but still left me hoping Wells isn’t done with Murderbot.