"The Soul of a New Machine" is a non-fiction book written by Tracy Kidder and …
Review of 'The soul of a new machine' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
I have complicated feelings about this book, which I read when I was just starting my career in tech and re-read this week after 30ish years. On the one hand: it is a super-compelling nerd fable, and some of the best layman's descriptions of computer engineering ever written. On the other: A total blueprint for for how to sign tech workers up for abusive working conditions, and convince them that it is all about the passion. I need to sit with it for a while.
Teenage detective Nancy Drew uses her courage and powers of deduction to solve the mysterious …
Review of 'The hidden staircase' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I seem to remember I was the most obsessed with this specific book in the Nancy Drew series, because SECRET PANELS and HIDDEN PASSAGES were just the coolest thing ever. I was so disappointed when I could not find a single hidden passage in the suburban house I grew up in.
This is the original 1930 version of the book in facsimile. Like The Secret of the Old Clock it is really dated, with horribly racist character portrayals, and yet it is a fast and fun read. There is actual danger in this book as well, with Nancy's father kidnapped and held prisoner midway through, and the parts where Nancy is exploring the secret passages are genuinely scary.
A Study in Scarlet is an 1887 detective novel by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle. …
Review of 'A Study in Scarlet' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Well no wonder the Sherlock Holmes canon is so popular; this was a super fun read. There is an abrupt turn in the middle where it turns into a completely different book (a western! With mormons!), which is not that bad a story and eventually makes sense as backstory for the mystery, but the unexplained shift is deeply puzzling. None the less: fun!
Nancy Drew's keen mind is tested when she searches for a missing will.
Review of 'The Secret of the Old Clock' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
This is the original 1930 version of the book that started the Nancy Drew series. Like most girls I was completely obsessed with the series, but mostly I read the yellow-cover revisions that even I can remember were very poorly written potboilers. For nostalgia's sake I’m planning to reread at least the first bunch of books in the series, and also because I’m curious about the original versions.
This book was both so much better than I expected it to be, but also a product of its time in a terrible cringey way. The characters are really thin and stereotyped; the bad people are bad in every way and the good people are nothing but good. There is a really horrible racist portrayal of a black caretaker in the middle of the book that was painful to read. Nancy herself is independent and plucky but intensely privileged; she’s clearly super …
This is the original 1930 version of the book that started the Nancy Drew series. Like most girls I was completely obsessed with the series, but mostly I read the yellow-cover revisions that even I can remember were very poorly written potboilers. For nostalgia's sake I’m planning to reread at least the first bunch of books in the series, and also because I’m curious about the original versions.
This book was both so much better than I expected it to be, but also a product of its time in a terrible cringey way. The characters are really thin and stereotyped; the bad people are bad in every way and the good people are nothing but good. There is a really horrible racist portrayal of a black caretaker in the middle of the book that was painful to read. Nancy herself is independent and plucky but intensely privileged; she’s clearly super smart, just out of high school, with her own car, but lives with her father and does not seem to have any ambition at all. In between solving mysteries there is lunch, and shopping, and vacations at the lake, and charity balls. Nancy is about as unwoke as a well-off white teenager can be, and despite her being the heroine it’s hard not to view her unfavorably with today’s lens.
On the other hand the plot is action-filled and fast-moving, the mystery is a bit obvious but still compelling, and the original art from is really well done.
A publishing event: Bestselling author Ken Liu selects his award-winning science fiction and fantasy tales for a groundbreaking collection—including a …
A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent …
Review of 'The Turn of the Screw (Penguin Popular Classics)' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I love me some 19th century gothic horror, but OMG the half-page Jamesian sentences that take two turns around the lake before wandering off somewhere into the woods take a lot of getting used to.
A brilliantly imaginative talent makes her exciting debut with this epic historical military fantasy, inspired …
Review of 'The Poppy War' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Hugely ambitious epic fantasy set in an alt-universe China. Starts out light and familiar for fantasy (smart plucky girl goes to magic school) but then makes a abrupt left turn into a war novel that is unrelentingly violent and grim. Uneven pacing, thin supporting cast, protagonist makes baffling decisions, and very hard to read in the last third. I was impressed with the ambition but conflicted about the craft. The author is very young and this is her first novel. I'll give #2 a chance.
Victor breaks out of prison with the help of a young girl with great abilities …
Review of 'Vicious' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I'm still kind of puzzled that I really didn't like this book given how much I loved the Shades of Magic trilogy. Young people with newly acquired superpowers feels like well-trodden ground at this point, but I gave an extra star for the mixed-up timeline plot structure, which was well done, and the gleeful portrayal of the detestable main characters.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at …
Review of 'The Secret History' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I have a lot of conflict over this book because I love Donna Tart's writing style, and it is wonderfully written. It is a book that I admire a lot for the craft of writing but I just didn't really like it all that much. Unlike many reviewers I didn't have a lot of issues with the main characters being so dislikable, although that they are excessively drunk or casually rich or both made them very difficult to like. For me it was more that the characters were dislikable in similar ways so I had trouble telling them apart, and the various choices those characters made over the course of the book often seemed forced and strange. I adored the Goldfinch but this book came up flat for me.
Space Opera is a 2018 science fiction novel by Catherynne Valente, about a galactic version …
Review of 'Space Opera' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The first chapter of this book is perfect. Absolutely perfect. I finished the first chapter and then I went back to page 1 and read it again. The rest of the book is...not as perfect, but it is still a huge amount of fun. It is SPARKLY AND CHEERFUL, and I would like more of that please.
