Reviews and Comments

A captivating tale of a young wizard. I was especially taken by the form that magic takes in this world, and it seems like there's lessons and insights there that can apply to our world also. I can't wait to find out what happens to Ged next.

Much of this book consists of quotes from various scriptural texts that are either easy or hard to reckon with. I would have liked to see more context and explanation of why the various passages wound up on the best and worst lists. Which I guess is a very different book than what these people were going for...

Yet another through tale of adventure in Middle Earth featuring complex characters and intricate webs of plot and a multitude of lore/history

I have no idea why this book exists, never mind how it ended up in my house. And yet, it makes me happy that someone decided writing poetry about math seemed like fun. And the illustrations are fun too.

My impression of the movie is that it's kind of like a nature documentary of New Zealand. My impression of the book is that that's not necessarily inauthentic, but I enjoyed the lore, and having a map was also helpful for following what was going on. In short, there's a reason the song lyric currently in my head is "I like the books way better than the movie, because some parts got left out."

This book somehow manages to be simultaneous dry and accessible, and yet there's still a point at which I find quantum mechanics to be inscrutable. I also found myself wishing that there's an updated version - the book is now 35 years old, and I'm sure there's been new developments in the search for a Grand Unified Theory that I haven't heard about. But overall, I'd say this was an interesting read.

I gave up after the first section because I couldn't stand the manipulation and emotional bullshit. But then after reading the synopsis on Wikipedia to see how it turned out, I thought the later part sounded interesting, so I jumped ahead to the third section and read the rest of the book (and later went back and read the second half of the second section).

The half of the book that's about unraveling the tapestry of deception is much more up my alley, but there's plenty of books that do that without spending as much time having the protagonist suffer at the hands of an unlikeable asshole, so I can't really recommend this one.

It doesn't help matters any that I'm still not sure whether I've read this before, or just a different corporate espionage book of Chrichton's that I didn't like either.

While I already knew the gist of what happens from the movie, this was still enjoyable. It's a captivating story, and I rather enjoyed the various asides and commentary that comes through more in words than in movie. Also, I'm wondering how much of the movie was the <10 page battle at the end...

While this is an enticing story full of twists and turns and daring subterfuge and historical details, I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't already been familiar with the /actual/ Great Train Robbery, which bears very little similarity to the story described here except in high level details, which led me to wonder about the truth of all the rest of the so-called historical details. I agree with the comment Greg made on the Futility Closet podcast episode about the Great Train Robbery questioning why Chrichton didn't use the real story as the basis for the novel because that's just as much of a thriller.

This book is chock full of interesting facts and tidbits, some of which I might like to know more about, though there's so many I'm not sure where to start, and some of the stories might not have any more details that have survived. I found it to be a good book to read while traveling or otherwise likely to be interrupted because every half page or so is the start of something completely new. But I did have to mentally add "as of the mid 80s" to any fact referring something about the present day...

This is an interesting summary of homosexual activity and gender variance historically and around the globe. Maybe a little high level, especially in the later chapters, but a) it kinda has to be in order to cover the entire globe in one reasonably sized book, and b) I have to wonder how much material actually exists on the subject anywhere.

Maybe I should have expected this from a book called Queer /Magic/, but I really wasn't expecting the little interstitial bits aimed at practicioners of witchcraft or something up that avenue. I think I would have enjoyed the book more without those.

This is an incredibly informative book while still being entertaining and easy to read. Schrefer dives into a variety of examples of animal species that not infrequently display non cis het behaviors. Queer humans aren't as alone in the natural world as it might seem.

Much like Furiously Happy, this book is a captivating mix of depression honesty, stories about lawn gerbils, run-on sentences, and everything in between. Or something. A lovely reminder that there are other weirdos out there, and people struggling, and ... I totally had a third thing I wanted to add but now I don't know what. I'm sure it was something awesome though. Oh, and quite a few laughs. Laughs are good.

Was lovely getting a view into the wide variety of experiences people have as nonbinary, especially the fact that this variety spans different generations and ethnic background.