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This book is a little slow and the plot is thin, but it is some of Le Guin’s most beautiful and thoughtful prose. “The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.”

The worlds (plural!) she imagines are complex and interesting without feeling at all didactic. She is exploring ideas here, not preaching. Perhaps the best part is Shavek’s rallying speech, which is wonderful in the moment, and also feels very current.

<spoiler>It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help …

I’m not sure why I had never read this book. It was in the back of my mind for years as something I should read. I heard Stephenson in an interview discussing the 30th anniversary of its publication and decided it was time. I’m so glad I did.

If there’s one thing I love in a book, it is an authentic voice. Something the author is wholly committed to, and is not quite like anything else. If you’d like to know if this novel’s voice will appeal to you, just read the first chapter. It’s only a dozen pages, and it’s a whirlwind.

I really enjoyed the premise of this fictional universe. It was imaginative, slightly deranged, and steeped in history, linguistics, and computer programming—all things I love. If you want to pick on the book, it is definitely “tell-y”. You’ll find long chapters where the protagonist (who’s name, …

Shūsaku Endō’s masterpiece, Silence, is easily one of my favorite books of all time. As soon as I read it I wanted to read more, and finally got around to it. This book definitely didn’t disappoint. As you would expect it is beautifully and thoughtfully written. (And the audiobook reading by David Holt is also wonderful.)

I wish modern Christianity had more in common with the version in the hearts of Endō’s quiet and unassuming characters.

I went looking for something to listen to after finishing a book and found this sitting in my Audible library. (It turns out my daughter’s girlfriend was on a drug-memoir kick and used my acount to listen to this free book.) I don’t have much to say about it. It’s a book aimed at teens and meant to give a frank explanation of the risks of drug use. The information seems sound, although the second half is a little like reading an encyclopedia.

Dare I say it? This book is a little boring. I suppose Gibson’s earned the right to just explore techno-future ideas without worrying too much about character and plot after giving us a lifetime of great stuff. As always, the tech is interesting and the language is fun. But overall not nearly as good as The Peripheral.

I grabbed this to listen to on a long drive with my wife. It’s a moving story, with a steady plot. And it does a beautiful job of exploring the interior lives of several characters. Each one feels distinct and authentic, and you can identify with each in a different way. It really is masterful work on the part of the author.

It also has a striking and beautiful cover.

Marie Bashkirtsef painted one of my all-time favorite portraits. She also plays a role in one of my all-time favorite memoirs, I Await the Devil’s Coming. So I have had this, her teenage diary, on my TBR list for a long time.

Taken all together it’s a bit of a slog, but it is also at times totally engrossing. Marie is undeniably a natural writer, and she gives us a close portrayal of the life of a girl in the late 1800s in European society. She is dramatic (“I’m condemned to a slow martyrdom.”), funny (“I am the bravest when there’s nothing to be brave about.”), vain (“We were very beautiful, the two of us, my dog and I.”), judgemental (“Here is a woman who will pass her life in church and in bed.”), and sometimes surprisingly self-aware (“I don’t know whether I am truly in love or only …

I’ve only read a little Gibson, but I love his imaginative future-tech worlds. And I especially love his inventive use of language. I think my favorite example of this is the way the characters in this book use the word “funny”. It has such a distinctive usage in this world, wich is so close to one way we would use it, but then not quite. It becomes a very believable micro-detail in this very-near-but-not-quite-current-future world.

It also makes up for a weak-ish plot with great characterization. I really liked the kind, understated reluctant hero.

A remarkable book that everyone should read. For folks like me, it is an important history lesson about Africa and the devastating impacts of European imperialism. And for everyone, it is a bright, beautiful, touching love letter to Africa.

And I’ll give an honorable mention to the hilarious and sad send up of Hollywood’s two-dimensional take on Africa.

Regardless of plot: you must start your film with the camera high in the sky, surveying vast rolling grasslands that stretch until they simply cannot stretch any more. Let the camera hang still over the title sequence as our eyes settle on Real Africa. No signs of a modern, technologically advanced civilisation should visually block the view of these rolling plains: no tall buildings, paved roads, or illuminated billboards advertising expensive fragrances.

Land. We should just see land.

The sun should ideally be rising…

And from there it goes and goes, and …

This book was published in 1977 and revised in 1993, so it is definitely a little dated. But the period of time it covers was well understood at the time, so the information is still accurate.

I enjoyed every page. For me it strikes the right balance: not too technical that I can’t keep up, and not so basic that I feel talked down to. And unlike so many slightly-more-in-depth science books, it is very well written.

I loved this passage, after talking about a series of miscommunications, mis-interpretations, and missed opportunities along the way to understanding the early universe.

I have dwelt on this missed opportunity because this seems to me to be the most illuminating sort of history of science. It is understandable that so much of the historiography of science deals with its successes, with serendipitous discoveries, brilliant deductions, or the great magical leaps of a Newton …

I’ve read Gaiman’s wonderful retelling of classic Norse myth at least twice before. I did a quick listen while doing housework today, and it was just as charming as I remembered. So very highly recommended.

Zweig is a genius and this little gem is funny, sweet, and devious. I adore this clueless mischievous little boy.

This is not so much a book as a collection of images and ideas that somehow, against all odds, condense into something deeply thought-provoking. It’s a quick read, but one you’ll want to revisit and reconsider. The last page is an invitation to go back to the start and think about each page in a new way.

It is full of precise and concise descriptions of phenomena I think every human can probably recognize, but maybe not really put a name to. I especially loved this description of a psychological sensation I have known most of my life:

I have had the experience of looking at the world in a nonallusive manner. This state of mind comes on me suddenly, and I’m aware of my topographic position, and am newly alert to geometry. Suddenly the world seems a purely optical phenomenon—it is reduced to light and its vectors—and I have …

Is this the first time McCarthy has given us a female protagonist? I’m not sure. He’s certainly given us brilliant women—think the Dueña in All The Pretty Horses. But if I’m remembering right, every interesting woman he has written has served some story-purpose. She is an object of affection. She is a tool of exposition. While she may be deeply imagined, and even complex, we do not enter into her the way we do McCarthy’s male protagonists.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Cormac McCarthy fan. But this is a weakness.)

This is what makes Stella Maris so special. Finally, we get to see McCarthy bring us deep into the inner life of a woman. All the classic McCarthyisms are here: the language, the philosophy and science, the oppressive doubt.

This is a sad story about a remarkable woman brought down by her own brilliance. I see in …

This book is a minor miracle. (As I often do with a book this good, I read it in print and listened to the auido-book back to back.) It is just as beautiful and introspective as McCarthy’s best books, with fewer pretensions. (I find it interesting that McCarthy and Richard Powers—both men of immense linguistic ability—toned down the literary pretense as they aged, and perhaps got better for it.)

If you’re a plot person, this book may infuriate you. But I love its bold willingness to refuse to answer any story question, while trying along the way to answer so many things unanswerable.

Mercy is the province of the person alone. There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.