J

Wow.

This book is devastating. I can't speak to the historical accuracy (though apparently Twain did extensive research and claims that all Joan's actions are taken from evidence), but his version makes for one hell of a story. This might top The Gilded Age as my favorite Mark Twain story.

I'm not sure how I'd never heard of this book compared to Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn. (OK, it's because they're standard in a lot of curricula.) This book is amazingly full of satire and commentary on the world of the time, done amazingly well. It starts slow and takes time to shine, but once it starts rolling you see every manner of bullshit artist laid bare. The dialogue captures the "art" of spin perfectly. This book reaches masterpiece status for me.

I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't really this. Picture a 1600s low end noble with schizophrenic delusions that he's one of King Arthur's Knights, and the entire rest of the nobility trolls him, and you're kind of there. It's a weird thing to say when I read a lot of harsh, violent stuff with sadistic characters, but it kind of feels mean? It might be because of the comedy element, which is definitely there, or because of how close it feels to real mental illness, but there's a level of gut reaction discomfort to that for me. It is a product of its time and the lack of knowledge, and it is a pretty convincing portrayal that's reasonably sympathetic, so I can't bash it for it, but it's there.

I don't like the whole "historian" shtick and all the ways it takes you out of the story, but I tend to dislike a lot of framing devices more than most. I do like several of the individual characters and stories we see along the way.

Ultimately, I do like the two main characters, and did enjoy the read. I think, with today's lens, the fact that he made a character that's mentally ill convincing enough to trigger a visceral reaction is impressive.

Simply fantastic. Sci-fi, from 125 years ago, that still holds up and is relevant today. Obviously the setting is telegraphs and trains instead of cars and airplanes, and the writing itself is slightly dated. But the meat of the story could easily be written, and still feel like futuristic sci-fi, today, with very minor cosmetic changes.

This is comfortably my favorite of my recent efforts to read/reread a bunch of classics I have broad strokes knowledge of but want to get the real deal as an adult. Moby Dick is "the book" everyone thinks of on obsession, but this is a far more interesting examination of it to me. (I also vastly prefer that he mostly just tells the story without the bombastic, repetitive style.) Edmond is obsessed with revenge almost beyond reason, and at several points flirts with where the line is and who he's willing to sacrifice to achieve it.

It also feels like it lays the outline for modern heist movies, with intricately laid plan on intricately laid plan that you get to watch slowly unfold.

I'm not really qualified to review this book, as much of what I found most compelling were the mini-essays included in the portrayal of the invasion of Russia by Napoleon, and I just don't have the historical context required to understand how much is accurate, how much is a product of its time, and how much was genuinely novel.

They are, however, fascinating. The portrayal of Napoleon is interesting, and the emphasis on focusing on the "spirit" of the people (both soldiers and civilians) as driving history is compelling. There are other parts that are easier to reject (divine direction, his presentation of marriage) with modern ideas, but I don't know how to put them in the context of his time. I will, with or without additional context, likely come back to many of them to read again.

The actual story is slow and plodding (especially the first two books), and there are bits I would remove. And despite the slower pace, some of the personality changes felt abrupt enough that they'd be concerning as pure mood swings. But despite this, I was connected to the characters and their journeys. It's hard to "recommend" this without knowing whether an individual is going to be able to stick through the long, slowly paced story, but I definitely don't regret the read. Ultimately, this is a classic for a reason, and it's not just to meme on the length.

This is not a moral handbook, and if you routinely practice the ideas this book lays out, your behavior is probably not OK.

However, like Machiavelli's The Prince (to a lesser extent), the choice to ignore morality and lay out behavior that real people actually use (often successfully) provides a useful view of human behavior and thought. If you read this book, you will see patterns of behavior you recognize.

You shouldn't use it to guide your own decisions, but you absolutely could use a handful of the ideas to help build out a villain as a writer.

This is officially my favorite secret project. The story as a standalone is better than Tress or Yumi, while also being steeped in Cosmere lore. Sunlit Man gives you a couple tidbits; this loads you up instead. And it does it without getting in the way at all, or making it overly difficult as a first entry into the Cosmere either.

Additionally, Tress and Yumi are great, but feel like their stories are told. Emberdark is a complete story, but it also feels like a beginning. Sanderson could very easily build the main cast into an extended series of adventures in the future Cosmere, and I would buy the hell out of them.

I can kind of see why elements capture the imagination, and how elements of the mysticism have evolved lives of their own. I don't generally have an issue separating the art from the artist, and also allowing for era. Stuff like Django Unchained, that goes heavy on slurs, but for a clear reason also doesn't bother me.

But this was just hard to get past. Between a cat named "n***** man" that is referenced by name what feels like every sentence in one story, calling people mongrels and a variety of similar terms, how other races are portrayed, and some of the ideas and tone, it just permeates the work in a way that makes it impossible for me to separate the horror from the horrifying.

So clearly, a complete collection of the short stories of a prolific writer is going to have some variance. There are some that are forgettable, and some that are just stories for the sake of stories. But Clarke relatively frequently evoked, for me, a sense of wonder, of imagination, of desire to unlock the secrets of the universe, even with the advances in science since.

He also has a knack for completely reframing a story with a new idea in the last paragraph, or even sentence, to leave you thinking.

As I read, I wrote down some of the stories I found memorable for one reason or another:

• Rescue Party
• Lion of Comarre
• Hide and seek
• Breaking Strain
• Nemesis
• Second Dawn
• Superiority
• If I forget Thee, Oh Earth
• Encounter in the Dawn
• Refugee
• The Next Tenants
• The Man Who Ploughed the Sea
• Let There Be Light
• Out of the Sun
• Cosmic Casanova
• The Songs of Distant Earth
• A Slight Case of Sunstroke
• Death and the Senator
• Before Eden
• Dog Star
• Maelstrom II

I can see why Sanderson calls this a curiosity. There are elements cannibalized (and improved on) for the Stormlight Archive, and because this isn't canon, this particular story will never be finished in that form.

The bones are damn good, though. I love Sanderson in all his varied forms, but Stormlight is stylistically my favorite, and this feels very similar, even beyond the elements he plundered, and [You Know Who] is pretty much fully developed and the fantastic character he always is in his regular Cosmere appearances.

I would not recommend this before Stormlight, because it feels like it might pull a couple punches away from it, but it is an excellent read. It's also an interesting look at his process, to see how he built kernels here into master strokes in Stormlight. Well worth it for Sanderson fans, maybe not standalone material for others because you'll never get a resolution.

This is set in the same world as Curse of Chalion and Paladin of Souls, but a different era in a different part of it.

Lord Ingrey kin Wolfcliff has been sent to investigate the death of Prince Boleso, and bring his killer, Lady Ijada dy Castos, back to the capital to face judgement. There is no real mystery about the circumstances, as she killed him in self defense during his attempt to sacrifice her as part of a forbidden ritual, however, the tense politics and corruption around the pending succession of the throne of the dying Hallowed King make the path to a just ruling very much in question. Additionally, the interruption of the ritual has released strange, poorly understood magic.

In terms of review, I'm going to copy paste this part across all three five gods books I've read. The theology and magic are excellent. The characters are strong, and, while in desperate circumstances and compelled to take impossible risks, do so in bold and interesting ways. There's some setup to get into the action, but Bujold weaves the stories together in a way that keeps the action flowing while making it impossible to predict what will happens next, in a way that never feels forced or unearned.

This one is harder to go into details without spoilers for either it or the Curse of Chalion (read that first), but it follows Iselle's mother Ista, after the events of the first book. She feels smothered by her overattentive companions (due to the aforementioned madness) and decides her only escape is a holy pilgrimage. Her household questions her capacity to make this decision and tries to surround her with enough pomp and ceremony to prevent anything interesting from happening, but she ultimately gets her wish for an adventure. She does not, being God-touched once before to disastrous result, get her wish to avoid the influence of the Gods once again. She must confront her past head on, and make peace with both the Gods and herself.

In terms of review, I'm going to copy paste this part across all three five gods books I've read. The theology and magic are excellent. The characters are strong, and, while in desperate circumstances and compelled to take impossible risks, do so in bold and interesting ways. There's some setup to get into the action, but Bujold weaves the stories together in a way that keeps the action flowing while making it impossible to predict what will happens next, in a way that never feels forced or unearned.

If I had a complaint, it would be that the book isn't longer. What's here works, but it feels like a shame to leave the "alien" storyline where it ends. I want to know what happens next.

This is the Bias Bible. If you want to get a brief overview of how your brain works, and lots of information on how you aren't the rational actor you see yourself as, this is the book.Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on human judgement covered in this book, and played a key role in the development of the field of behavioral economics. If you read one book on the brain, this is the one.

(If this is overwhelming and you want an accurate, but less in depth alternative, I also highly recommend Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.)

Malcolm Gladwell maybe has a place introducing ideas in broad strokes, but it's a lower tier of informative than books written by psychologists who have broad understanding of the research and have done some original study of their own. If you want an extremely accessible introduction to the idea of expertise and the value of practice, this is OK, but he doesn't pretty clearly understand the science and the book is riddled with inaccuracy as a result.

If you want a well sourced, more comprehensive understanding of what the research does and doesn't say, and how to apply the principles supported by the research, read Peak by K Anders Ericsson and Robert Poole. It's denser, but it discusses some of the flaws of Gladwell's presentation and is overall held to a more rigorous standard.

If you want an inscrutable text on moral philosophy that covers every possible interpretation of every influence in the field, this isn't it. You may or may not gain anything if you've read the huge body of philosophy material that's out there.

But for the rest of us (even those with reasonable high level understanding of many of the core ideas he covers), this is an approachable, humorous presentation of many of the main schools of thought that are out there. Micheal Schur did his research for the show The Good Place (or The Good Place arose from his interest in philosophy). It showed in the questions the (excellent) show contemplated during its run, and the core "just try to be better" idea is definitely a key takeaway from the book as well.

You won't become a moral philosophy professor from reading this book, but it does give you some tools to make better choices tomorrow than you did yesterday, and it does it without being the chore to read that a lot of other work on the subject can be.

I'm glad her mom died, too.

Jennette McCurdy is hilarious. Her mom is the textbook "living through her kid" Hollywood parent, and it's not comfortable. But the way she tells her story is fantastic. She communicates her innermost thoughts in an incredibly transparent, non-judgmental way, while at the same time highlighting how absurd her damaged thought process was through an excellent sense of comedic timing and structure.

This story could easily come across as incredibly dark, because it is, and in many cases similar situations have turned out with dark ends as well. Fortunately, Jennette made it through and got the help she needed to grow into an incredibly healthy person. Both how broken she was, and the fact that she's better now, come across crystal clear just through the way she tells the series of stories. I am generally not a fan of memoirs, but I'm glad I made an exception for this book.

Lupe dy Cazaril, Royesse Iselle dy Chalion, and Betriz dy Ferrej are up against a powerful curse that plagues the land and the Chalion royal line, as well as corruption that rules the land in the name of Iselle's half brother Orico. The curse has driven Iselle's mother Ista mad, rendered Orico incapable of rule, and is coming for Iselle next. With little but their wits and strength of will to guide them, they must clear the curse and cleanse the land.

In terms of review, I'm going to copy paste this part across all three five gods books I've read. The theology and magic are excellent. The characters are strong, and, while in desperate circumstances and compelled to take impossible risks, do so in bold and interesting ways. There's some setup to get into the action, but Bujold weaves the stories together in a way that keeps the action flowing while making it impossible to predict what will happens next, in a way that never feels forced or unearned.

I don't know how I got suckered into buying this book, but it's one of the worst things I ever read. This is cult tier stuff masquerading as science.

Wow. I'm not going to go into detail, but what a ride.

The main spoiler bit is that I was expecting more arcs to conclude, but he pivoted the whole thing into feeling like a true beginning of the war for the Cosmos. I do hope the choice of timescale for the next half doesn't cut too hard on the threads he left open.It's pretty clear there will be some passage of time, but most of the characters don't feel like their stories are finished.

I really enjoyed her other two books. “Thinking in Bets” is a really respectable lighter alternative to Thinking Fast and Slow while still being backed hard by the science.


This one really spoke to me, though. It's not the only book that advocates for embracing failure/when to walk away, but the way she outlines the thought process and just how extremely well supported it is really struck a chord for me. I feel like this book frees me to take moonshots in a way nothing else has managed.

Is this the single definitive Karen Rose book? Nah. If you haven't read her work, I recommend starting at the start of a city. That's Quarter to Midnight here, or Say You're Sorry, or Closer than You Think, among others. (Warning that most of them have children victimized somewhere, though not directly depicted. The real world is dark and she doesn't shy away from that).

But even a less standout Karen Rose book is really well crafted, with believably broken characters who heal over the course of the book. She's a master of her craft, and my personal favorite author. Minus a little main character plot armor, every lengthy mystery is incredibly believable and full of characters it's hard not to like (or hate). As an avid reader of nonfiction psychology, all of her motivations of all of her characters hold up really well to me.

This book specifically is fine standalone, but Phin's history with his family as a result of his PTSD is something you see start in Alone in the Dark, and there's been a level of suspense seeing him as a side character in the New Orleans series, waiting for his turn. The resolution of his relationships are emotional and reasonably well done.

Karen Rose is a master at her craft and I'd happily put any of her 26 mainline Romantic Suspense series against any other mystery/suspense book out there. Her story telling is masterful and her characters are extremely well fleshed out. As an added bonus for the audiobook format, Hilary Huber (from the Cincinnati series) is back with her excellent interpretation of Rose's subtext.

Cold Blooded Liar has Rose's trademark flavor, but the pacing is slightly different. Her other novels fully explore the two primary characters over the course of their 500-600 pages. Cold Blooded Liar only scratches the surface, and combined with the altered naming convention, sets the expectation of future books in the sub series where their story continues to be at center stage. Because Rose is my favorite author and has stuck to the same excellent pacing (with each book exploring a new pair of primary characters, but strong continuity of the story line among different groups in different cities), the departure caught me a bit off guard. However, as I have often wanted to see many of her characters more, I look forward to seeing how the story of Sam and Kit develops over future books.

If you've read Stephanie Plum, you have a good idea how Janet Evanovich writes. It's absurd, nonsensical, and amusing. If you want a realistic plot, you won't find it. If you're willing to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride, you're in for a good time.

The Recovery Agent is more of the same, in the best possible way. It is written in third person, so while mostly focused on Gabriella Rose, it allows brief perspective shifts to fill in the blanks of other people's actions. Gabriella describes herself in her Stephanie Plum appearance as “skilled, but unlucky”, and the result is a steadier stream of progress that allows her the resources to span the globe for a light fun adventure.