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Matthew Royal

masyukun@bookwyrm.social

Joined 1 year, 10 months ago

Database consulting engineer who loves singing music from the Italian Renaissance. Sci-fi, biographies, nonfiction.

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Lilian Jackson Braun: The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern (Cat Who..., #2) (1995) 4 stars

The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern is the second novel in Lilian Jackson Braun's The …

Review of 'The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern (Cat Who..., #2)' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Enjoyable, and beginning to set the tone of the rest of the series. It's remarkable how much better the first book in the series is, like it was not written to formula like all the rest. Still, a perfectly enjoyable cozy mystery for housework and shopping.

The Sandman: THIS IS MY SURFBOARD: A Long Composition with a Reference Section That Looks At Aspects of the Sandman's Life between Three Years and Fifteen Years (1996, ABC Books) 4 stars

Review of "THIS IS MY SURFBOARD: A Long Composition with a Reference Section That Looks At Aspects of the Sandman's Life between Three Years and Fifteen Years" on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I'm happy to finish this original series of Sandman comics right before the television series starts tomorrow on Netflix. It's remarkable timing, given I didn't read the comics on a schedule.

"Life is no play. We meet people once, and never see them again. There is no shape to events, no point at which we turn to the audience for their praise. No time at which we step behind the stage, to see the actors changing their wigs, and painting their faces, and muttering their lines."

Neil Gaiman has a pattern to what he writes. He rides a line of greatness and self-confidence/cringe that I'm afraid I'll get sick of, but never do -- even if someday I figure out how the magic works enough to do it myself, I'll still come back and re-read, re-watch, and re-feel what he's made.

Lilian Jackson Braun, Jean Little: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (Cat Who..., #1) (2003, Berkley Trade) 4 stars

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards is the first novel in Lilian Jackson Braun's The …

Review of 'The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (Cat Who..., #1)' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is a delightful cozy murder mystery series! I love the premise that the newspaperman lives in a town obsessed with art. It's just the sort of fantasy world I'd want to live in -- close to our own, but with marked improvements.

This was a revisit to this series. I intend to listen to all the audiobooks in order while doing housework for the next year or so.

Kevin Burrows: Fuck yeah menswear (2012, Touchstone Book) 2 stars

Collection of anonymous blogs on men's fashion.

Review of 'Fuck yeah menswear' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This is a survey of and meditation on the "douche-bro" subculture of men's fashion. It does not feel complete for this reason. It is an oddly prescriptive guide, but is not disciplined enough to be a complete guide. Rather, it reads like an idea notebook with a mix of great ideas and crude inside jokes.

There are occasionally clever riffs on fashion photography, but there is far more noise than signal in this book -- it needs to be tightened up and reissued.