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Read last year for Urbanist book club. Book has some good and interesting points about the complexity of fixing the urban canopy in disinvested/redlines neighborhoods. There's a strange current throughout where the author, a white woman, talks about the importance of listening to minority communities while almost entirely focusing only on her own perspective.

A short read about space exploration in search of other life forms. Some interesting thoughts about ethical science, and some imaginative world building. But overall it's a bit thin and ends in an unsatisfying way that feels a little forced.

Unfinished. Not because of any issue with the book but because for me, as someone who has read a dozen or so urbanist books, it's a little bit of a retread, and I just found myself gravitating elsewhere.

@jonn I listened as an audiobook as part of my work bookclub. I rarely read fiction, maybe one or two a year. Mostly I don't like too much escapism.

But this one just tickled me just right. It was a great feminist interpretation of Milan, with just the right amount of interpersonal drama and historical nerdy accuracy. I also really liked Disney's Mulan as a child, and I think this version felt like the "grown up" equivalent.

It's not deep or particularly symbolic or anything, it was just the right amount of fun at the right time.

I can't speak to the rest of her bibliography, but this felt well researched and like the author wanted to "respect" the traditional source material. In the afterword she says that her publisher suggested (commissioned? Idk how these things work) this one for her. That might explain the difference from her usual style.