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This was fine. I likely would have been more into it if I were more deeply steeped in TMNT--it's probably perfect for the person who has a parasocial relationship with Eastman.

Annihilation on a sealed passenger train crossing corrupted Siberia in the 1890s.

Overall very good. Strong vibe of crushing vulnerability in the haunted unknown throughout. Perhaps a few too many characters in the ensemble: I found some of them hard to track from one appearance to the next.

A snarky, chatty, supportive 101 on backpacking. Not that much information that was new to me (I, like the author, spent much of my youth on trails) but a fun read and sound advice. Very much reinforced the "it's been too long" thought that made me pick it up.

A short cyberpunk-lite whodunnit starring an angsty AI journalist (ze/zir) investigating zir own previous instance's disappearance. Fast read with meditations on personhood and a good sense of humor without being comedic.

Picked this up expecting a book on food systems. It was not that.

While it contains many charming personal anecdotes about specific foods, as well as historical vignettes about those food items, those are primarily used as metaphors to address economic topics. E.g. you assume at your peril that an item without a "spicy" icon on a sichuan restaurant menu does not contain chili peppers -- and nor should you assume that care work does not matter just because it is not paid.

Overall, an entertaining taster menu of critiques and alternatives to the free-trade/free-market hegemony of contemporary economic practice, though you'll need to look elsewhere for a deep dive into any of the topics covered.

A novella of roc trainers in fantasy not-Persia. I quite enjoyed this, as an example of fantasy where only a couple things from a folklore are taken as part of the setting, and a human story told around those changed points. Pacing a little off in places and might have had trouble holding together a longer book, also CW for a killed child.

I'll read anything Doctorow puts out. Enjoyed this techno-thriller, though the pacing felt vaguely off at times. Had a bit of Heinlein-esque unsubtle author monologuing through the mouths of charismatic and hypercompetent characters on the nature of technology as at best a tool for connecting and enabling humans to participate in person-to-person organizing and democracy, rather than as a magic wand that makes the world better -- you can clearly feel the period and mood he was writing this in.