Colin Gooding

Re-Read thoughts:I picked this for book club and decided to re-read it as a refresher, this time via audiobook from the library. It holds up for me! I couldn't put it down again. It's written in a relatively simple way that still manages to just convey who each character is so efficiently and move the pace along briskly. Just a fun read!———Original Review:What a wonderful book.There was something so charming about it to me. The main character isn't exactly a new archetype: the narrator who has had a tough upbringing, yet is naturally witty and intelligent, able to raise herself up, only to come crashing down at times due in part to her inability to fit in. But hey, it's a fun archetype when it's done this well. The character feels fully alive for this entire book and is just fun to spend time with. I actually thought it was really interesting that this was written by a male author and told in a first person viewpoint from a female character, with almost all the important secondary characters female as well. Maybe I don't read enough, but that seems very rare. The character relationships felt authentic to me and were very touching. I loved how the narration effortlessly jumps around in time. The narrator will recall a past event and began discussing it in the past tense, and as the scene develops, it somehow just gradually becomes the present tense, and as a reader you are just living in that moment now, completely invested in these new surroundings and it's happenings. Then suddenly you are snapped back into the real present and the weight of that event washes over you. Just beautifully done. I haven't even talked about the main thrust of this story yet, which I kind of wish I didn't know about before starting it, so I won't even mention it here even though the cover art gives it away. I'm a sucker for this kind of “magical realism” and I loved it here, I was constantly arguing with myself about what it symbolizes and how it would develop in the story. This is one of my favourite books I've read in awhile. It gives me the same feelings in a lot of ways as when I read [b:The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time 1618 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Mark Haddon https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479863624l/1618.SY75.jpg 4259809]. Shout out to my wife for recommending this to me, she had taken the ebook version out from the library on a whim since it was trending and looked interesting, and after she got a few chapters in she found a hard copy at the library so that I could read it as well.

I really like this series, these characters, and Sanderson's writing, but this one felt especially long to me. There are certain points where everything is happening at a mile a minute and I couldn't put the book down, but other times dragged quite a bit for me.

There are some things that happen, especially in the climax and denouement, that seem very cliche and yet still mostly work with the way that Sanderson is able to build momentum into a frantic blur of scenes. There's a fight near the end that feels like something straight out of a final boss encounter in a video game.

Sanderson has built a great world in this series and tends to dole out interesting new ideas at rapid pace, but it seemed like in the last act so many new ideas came out of seemingly nowhere (though I do admit I may have just flat out missed some foreshadowing) that it lost some of the impact for me as it felt as though literally anything could have happened.

I still enjoyed this book quite a bit and couldn't stop reading for the last quarter of it or so, and I'll eagerly await the next one.

This scratches my sci-fi itches both in fully exploring a “What If” premise with further and further “What If” questions, and uses the premise to examine different elements of our humanity.

I thought some of the characters behave a bit inconsistently just for the melodrama of it, and it's a bit sex obsessed at times, but overall the world and characters are very engaging and kept me guessing.

I'm pretty sure my workplace practices some form of at least 90% of the ideas and advice in this book, so this is a bit hard to review given that I didn't really learn much from it, but it has a clear influence on my daily life.

It was still an easy listen and hearing it straight from the horses mouth with some clear examples from Google was interesting.

I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. I picked it up mostly just because I was curious what Rowling would do under a pseudonym and without the shackling of Harry Potter.

I think the writing here is terrific. There's a rather large cast of characters that come into the story at different points, and each one of them had a distinct personalities and backgrounds. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Robert Glenister and he does such a great job with voicing the characters that I don't know if I would have loved the characters as much had I just been reading it. I loved hearing all the slightly different London accents and the way he captured the emotional state of all these people.

Giving the main character, Strike, an estranged father who was a famous rock star is a stroke of genius. It makes sense of the way all these rich socialites deal with him and gives him ins to certain situations that he shouldn't be in otherwise. I think there are a few little nice touches like this throughout the book.

I also kind of just love this type of hard-boiled detective story. There isn't really even a lot that happens throughout the actual events of the novel, it's a lot of interrogating and recounting of events, but I found it gripping my attention the entire time.

I was really close to giving this 5 stars, but ultimately the story isn't super unique or daring, even though I think it's quite excellent for what it is. And the central mystery, while things are teased out a bit and there are threads left out there for you to connect before the big reveal, results in a scene that really dumps everything on you at once. I liked it, but I think it could have been handled a bit more gracefully.

I didn't realize there were three more books in this series when I started it, I'm excited to check them out at some point now!

I really thought I was going to love this book early on.

The first chapter is told from the perspective of a kleptomaniac, who lies to her boyfriend about the actions of a woman whom she stole something from. Her boyfriend goes on a rant about the (false) actions of the woman, and the narrator becomes “irked by his obliviousness even as she strove to preserve it”. That line to me was just a brilliant representation of a weird internal conflict that I was hoping would continue.

Unfortunately, while the first few chapters delve into these sort of human weaknesses, as I got further into the book I found it dipping farther into more of human depravity that I did not find enjoyable. And by the end, the “future” premises are entirely ridiculous (even if that is supposed to be the point), where society has become so commercial that babies just a few months old have their own advanced cell phones and are directly marketed to, I was just completely checked out.

I think there are some neat things here and there. Each chapter jumps around in time and to different characters that were usually tangential characters in a previous chapter, which is something I haven't really seen before and is often effective, but almost as often is very unsubtle (“Hey, remember that time that thing happened 30 pages ago?”).

I listened to this via audiobook from the library on the Libby app. The narrator Roxana Ortega was good. It felt like she chose a single main tick of each character to base her voices of them around (in control, frantic energy, sultry, etc), which can be a bit on the nose, but does a good job of differentiating a big cast and allowing you to understand the character quickly.

DISCLAIMER: I listened to this on the Libby app through the Library, which listed this as an unabridged audiobook, however it was actually a three hour BBC radio adaptation miniseries. I'm still going to count this as read, haha.

This was well produced with several different voice actors, including Brian Cox in the lead role, giving great performances. It was a neat way to experience the story.

I thought it was a bit slow to start and I'm not sure I was following all the setup as well as I should have been, but once the story goes into full intrigue mode it had me hooked. Each new piece of information revealed keeps you changing your mind as to how things will resolve. The book also raises some broader political and moral questions, asking how far is too far for the greater good.

I'll probably try to read some more le Carré in the future, maybe even another BBC production!

I'm not sure if it was just through the writing or the voice of the narrator (Cassandra Campbell) of the audiobook I was listening to, but one of my favourite things about this book was the way it establishes a sort of dreary tone that hangs over the whole thing. The suspenseful moments work well and you can feel the discomfort and fear of the characters.

There are some weird story beats and expository details that took me a bit out of the book as I wondered if they really made any logical sense, but the story kind of innately has a built-in way to dismiss people acting in such ways. And there are some moments and decisions that really do land well.

Definitely enjoyed it overall, curious to see how Netflix managed to adapt it.

I already knew a lot of the main talking points here from co-workers and I like to think that I'm both empathetic and honest in my conversations with others already, but the book has a lot of little tips on how to be more constructive with feedback without being mean and highlights a lot of a good examples of how to use Radical Candor in different situations.

Kim Scott has had an interesting career, working for several different high profile companies, so it's interesting to hear her perspective on how some of them operate drastically differently while still being successful.

I got the audiobook from the library after a few month waiting period and learned that you can't renew a book on Libby when it has that long of a wait list, so I ended up listening to the last half of it on ~1.5x speed, which I never do. It's read by the author herself though, and she can be a little slow and monotonous, so I didn't feel too bad about it.

I was excited to read this after always hearing good things and seeing recommendations for it everywhere, but I didn't really like it at all...

It should have been called The White City (Featuring a Devil) because like 90% of this book is just about the logistics of setting up the World's Fair in Chicago and how the buildings were built. I found most of it pretty tedious, though there are a few interesting segments, such as the one about the first Ferris Wheel, and the actual writing is quite good.

The “devil” sections were pretty interesting, but besides the last hour or so of the book (which I actually really enjoyed) they seemed few and far between. I found myself losing the plot on these parts thigh, partially because of the infrequency and partially because of waning interest in the Fair story that it was interspersed in.

I listened to this on Audible (via their “Send this Book” feature, thanks Katie!) and Scott Brick is an excellent narrator. I've listened to him do Moneyball and In Cold Blood as well, and he just had a great voice for this.

A fun little memoir filled with lots of great little behind-the-scenes anecdotes and also inside opinions on stories I had already heard. It was well placed and never dwelled on any one subject for too long, so I found it really easy to read through quickly.

Reiss packs a bunch of little joke asides in constantly and for the most part they are pretty funny, but one problem I had (which I'm sure Reiss would find hilarious) is that sometimes I couldn't tell if something actually happened or was just a joke. There are so many strange things that have happened on The Simpsons (such as Michael Jackson appearing as a guest star, yet bringing a voice impersonator to do his singing parts) and Reiss also throws in statements that are clearly not true for laughs (stating that a Feng Shui expert ensures the animation is in harmony before the show is aired), that when he makes an aside about something strange that I hadn't heard of before I have no idea if its true.

Anyways, I'm going to go watch some classic Simpsons episodes now.

@DownGoesBrown is one of my favorite Twitter follows, he's clever and quick to react to breaking stories in the NHL. So I bought this in part just as a way to support someone who's given me tons of free entertainment.

The book was good, but it didn't live up to what I expected from him. There are some neat stories here and a few good jokes, but nothing overly memorable.

I like a lot of little ideas in this book, and like most Stephen King I have read it is well written and easy to consume, but it just felt like it wanted to go in so many directions at once.

The setup is interesting, but the mid section of the book is a bit meandering and drags. I think I understand what King was going for here, though ultimately for me the ending didn't land enough to justify all of it. It was a nice little idea that just missed the mark for me.

I listened to this via audiobook from the library, and while it as pretty long at ~31 hours, Craig Wasson's narration was really good.

I'm of two minds about this book. On one hand, I think it has a lot of neat ideas and character moments. It is well written in a lot of ways and certainly has many gripping scenes that I read intently and I was quickly done a chapter and onto the next without realizing it.

But at the same time, this is the most fedora-tipping, gentleman wish-fulfillment thing I have ever read that's not an internet meme. I think the most perfect example of what I'm talking about is a scene in which the main character's rival/bully is flirting with a girl who is clearly unwelcoming to his advances. He's reading her a poem that he wrote, and our hero steps in and says:

“I'm not sure I can trust the literacy of someone who tries to rhyme ‘north' with ‘worth.' No wonder you have to hold women down to get them to listen to it.”

“My lady scriv” I said to her with a bow....

This was a bit different than I expected. I had seen the movie years ago and had kind of assumed that the book was a bit more analytical and the movie had just expanded upon slight narrative threads that may have existed in it, but actually the book is very invested in Billy Beane as a character and spends a lot of time on small vignettes of many players. A lot of the stories are nice little land-of-misfits success stories that can sometimes be a bit cheesey and seem a bit overindulgent, but I still enjoyed quite a bit.

I listened to this as an audiobook from the library. Scott Brick does an excellent job narrating and I can't even really putting my finger on why. He just has a nice, engaging voice that adds to the material.

This was a fun string of tales from Norse Mythology that are well told, but there weren't really any unique perspectives or stylistic flourishes.

I found myself just not really drawn into this one too much. I'm not sure if it's the fact that it was an audiobook or not, as I've had various degrees of success with them, but my mind wandered while listening.

It has some well written scenes and interesting themes, but just didn't hold my attention unfortunately.

This book occupies a kind of strange place for me in that I found myself thinking of it as sort of a pulpy horror, but King's writing is great and elevates it beyond that, yet I think I'm willing to overlook some flaws because of that initial label I put on it going in.

Anyways, I just think this is a great little single-location thriller/character piece. I have not seen the movie version, but I'm familiar enough with it that I was expecting to just picture Kathy Bates and James Caan the entire time I was reading it, but I found my imagination creating completely different images for some reason. Annie is so interesting because her madness is a strange perversion of logic and justice. Paul's overactive imagination as a writer adds a lot to the narration.

I listened to this via audiobook from the library and I really enjoyed Lindsay Crouse's reading of it. She puts on a voice for Annie with an appropriate amount of subtlety, as I think it would be easy to play her as way over the top.

I listened to the audiobook from the library for this, it adds a lot since Tina Fey herself narrates, doing impressions and sarcastic voices and all that.

There are some interesting insights into 30 Rock and SNL, but a lot of the book deals with her growing up as a young woman and is written to be relatable to other women, and while it was entertaining in parts, I definitely felt like I was missing something since I'm outside of the target audience.

A lot of her jokes are borderline uncomfortably stereotypical as well, be it race or sexual orientation... Not always offensive, sometimes just thrown in for cheap laughs. I found it a bit off putting.

Overall, Fey is charming enough that this works, I was just expecting more.

I haven't read too much of King's work, but I know enough about him to find him interesting, and I've always wanted to write something and have never really pushed myself to try, so I figured this would be a fun read.

It's a great mix of autobiography and advice on how to write. Because of how prolific and successful he is, King has so many examples and stories at his disposal using works that most anyone is familiar with to showcase what he had learned while writing and how the aspiring writer can learn from it too. Even without the Writing Guide trappings, I think he tells some excellent stories here, and that extra layer just makes it all the more engaging.

I listened to this via Audiobook from the library, which King himself narrates. He can be a bit monotone, but it definitely adds some weight to the whole thing, especially in the more personal moments. His story of his wife tearing up after he told her that Carrie had been successfully sold four a large sum of money really got me.

I really love Miller's writing style. She manages to make things feel epic, but still focuses on small moments. There's a distant detachment at the description of certain scenes, and then very personal, emotional stories.

The characters are well known and play towards their archetypes, but she adds in little twists and depths to them that make them come to life. I particularly love the way that she depicts Odysseus both here and in Circe.

Reading this after Circe though, I did not find it quite as compelling. While the central romance is certainly core to the story, it's not really engaging during the middle section, though it is well paid off in the end.

At certain points I just couldn't put it down though, the urgency of the battle scenes and the desperation of the characters really come though. I'm excited to see what Miller decides to do next.

This is the third Ishiguro novel I've read, the other two being The Remains Of The Day and Never Let Me Go, and I am struck by how different their subjects are.

I did enjoy this book as well, though I thought it was a little drawn out and the cryptic qualities of some of the characters' intentions and the reveal of the world didn't always work.

I did love the prose when it was very specific such as in some of the dueling scenes. Ishiguro is great at dealing with the dignity of his characters and those scenes really brought that to light here.

Fast paced read, with a neat hook that goes places I didn't really expect. Some of the characterization is a bit eye-rolley, but the nature of the story kind of makes that necessary I suppose?

I thought the plot was interesting and ambitious, and the dialogue was mostly really sharp, but a lot of the rest of the writing was pretty uninspired. There were pages of conversations where every line would be ‘“blah blah”Dahl said' and then ‘“Yada yada” Duvall said'. I found it very distracting.

Great modern epic

I love how this reads like an epic poem, and yet still feels modern. The writing is beautifully I descriptive and gives great characterization to each god and hero as soon as you meet them.

I've read or am at least familiar with a lot of the mythological stories referenced here, but seeing them from this perspective as Circe weaves in and out of the events was really fun.

This thing read almost like a cheesey crime tv drama. The amount of different and creative ways that Mitnick found to get information out of computer systems, and actually more often, the people using them, is fascinating.

He talks about little things like telling people incorrect information and having them correct you, rather than suspiciously asking directly for it. There's another story where he talks to a developer and asks to be sent something confidential, but the developer informs him that for security reasons it can only be delivered in person, so instead he tells the developer he won't be in the office anytime soon and convinces him to leave the package with the secretary instead. He is then able to convince the secretary to send it to him.

There are a ton of little things like this and the book actually moves along at a pretty brisk pace. Mitnick is almost insufferably egotistical while kind of writing as if he is being humble throughout the story, but it actually kind of humanizes him a bit.

I think I'll try reading another one of his books later on.