Pratik

Gilbert covers a lot of ground exploring incidences of women exploitation in music, entertainment, reality TV, and the even porn. The more things get better, the worse things are for women. Even the ones with power aren’t spared. Some of the things mentioned in the book are truly revolting and disgusting.

A provocative but deliberative read by one of the professors I know at UT Austin. If you thought the nature-nurture debate was settled, be ready to re-engage because, like everything that life throws at you, it's not that simple. Even among idential twins that share the same DNA. The author is a lapsed Christian but knows enough about the Bible and her evangelical upbringing to hold forth on biblical interpretation (hence the title) and how it shapes our behavior as well.

Our bumbling and dysfunctional Holmes & Watson are back for their sixth murder. This one is more meta and explores Hawthorne's relationship and past more than the previous editions. But I liked how that part dovetailed nicely into the murder they were solving.

Three thousand years of history can be extremely difficult to capture in one book, but Wilkinson does a great job of not only walking us through Egypt's past but also examining the influences and context that shaped the events. There's a lot of information here, and I listened to the audio version, so I took my time going over it over the past two months. I'm sure I can't give an exam on Egyptology anytime soon, but at least things seem more familiar now, and I have a better understanding of the region. It was not just building pyramids and tombs, although it seemed to take up a lot of their time, but also intense politicking, controlling people for their own selfish ends, and making horrendous strategic errors that doomed a long line of people. But it's a wonder that the civilization lasted so long, especially considering how quickly empires have collapsed since then.

I'm conflicted about this one. Louise Penny's writing remains impressive at creating the right mood and vibe for cozy mysteries, but starting with 'All the Devils Are Here', the plots get grander. I understand that it may be difficult to have enough murders in a tiny village and not come across as being the murder capital of Canada, if not Quebec. But going from someone with a mysterious past who died in a remote cabin to world domination plots in which Gamache is now hobnobbing with world leaders (spoiler?) seems more far-fetched than the plot of 'The Black Wolf'. Set as an immediate sequel to 'The Grey Wolf', the action (see, this is what separates her earlier work from recent plots) continues unabated. These last two books have been set up as action thrillers rather than cozy mysteries in which Three Pines features only as a place where characters return to contemplate, ponder, and host dinners with prisoners from Supermax. Isabel and Jean-Guy are less than supporting roles in these books, as they simply dance to Armand's directions, and only in the end does one of them get pissed at being reduced to caricatures of their former selves. We're told they are impressive police officers only through the words of other characters and not by their actions.

The plot, which seemed far-fetched, may not seem so when it was written, because the world changed so rapidly in 2025 ("There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"). But that's the world we live in, and I'm sure many an action-thriller author may be frustrated at being cheated out of their livelihood. Penny has collaborated with Hillary Clinton to also write an action thriller, but we don't read Penny for the action. I hope she gets back to her roots and perhaps finds another tiny village that she can propel to the murder capital status.