michelle

3.5 stars

3.5 stars

Sedaris loses one rating star for not enough original material. Half of these essays were published in The New Yorker over the past few years.

Great concept, clunky execution.

Mercifully short “bad” novel that examines the Bay Area's changing culture in the meta-manner of a Stewart Lee monologue. Amusingly familiar for anyone who lived in San Francisco between the late-nineties and today, but probably best for those who have left. Not sure the author deserves to be so cynical about a city he only lived in for only four years.

For Sedaris enthusiasts only.

Prepper-lite. More interestingly, a very general overview of how the world works, and how the Industrial Revolution and agriculture got us to this point.

Interesting to be reading this book now, as its prequel is being serialised in newspapers across the globe.

I <3 the UK, and so does Bill Bryson.

Seemed the right time to re-read this book.

Unintentionally, another book about atemporality.

Quantum Leap + The Girl With the Dragon Tatto + (a dash of) Sherlock. Thoroughly enjoyable.

At times utterly charming, at other times tedious and bitter. With my red pen I'd have made this into a lovely book, half as long, with a companion blog. In fact, why isn't this man blogging? He clearly keeps a journal.

Re-read this book after being in the UK for 6+ years. Most of Bryson's observations on British culture are still relevant. I hope he'll write an update next year for the book's 20th birthday.

Though I'm not considering writing about time travel, I find the concept to be an interesting thought experiment. I won't pretend I understood about 25% of this book due to lack of advanced understanding of math and physics. Still, it was enjoyable and imagination-sparking.

Fascinating investigation of toilets and sanitation systems around the world. It might not sound like a savoury topic, but Rose George tells a lot of interesting and important stories. How often do you think about what happens after you flush the toilet? Ever considered how it's handled around the world? Lack of adequate and hygienic conditions lead to more deaths a year than AIDS, TB or malaria. It's an important issue, and one that's very tricky to fix.

On par with his last novel, Solar, this book is reasonably enjoyable but not as much so as some of his previous work.

Funny memoir that reads like a series of articles in The New Yorker. Oh wait, I did read a few of these as articles in The New Yorker! Still enjoyable, and a nice companion to Caitlin Moran's memoir that I just finished.

British newspaper columnist, Caitlin Moran, offers up tips on how to be a strident feminist (which doesn't mean you hate men), in this part-memoir, part humourous rant. Very enjoyable, and recommended to all current and latent feminists (men included).

Actual science is so much more interesting than science fiction. Unlike the space-age vision of sterile space capsules pensive floating, actual space travel is full of fear, bravery and lots of bodily functions. Roach discusses the very human concerns of people in space, and the history of how we got there. Fascinating, and some of her best writing. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions.

Any book with a chapter discussing pauses in popular songs (with The Four Tops' “Bernadette” being a particularly great one) is doing something right. Egan is a very skilled writer, who says more in a paragraph than other writers say in a chapter. Though her characters were really well drawn, I didn't particularly like any of them. So while I savored every page, it felt like something was missing.

Not Ronson's best book, but still enjoyable. If you listen to This American Life you'll be familiar with some parts of the book. Also not as much about psychopaths as I expected, given the title. Oh, and now I'm eyeing everyone I know with suspicion.

I'd give this one 3.5 stars if I could. Second of Higson's post-apocalyptic/zombie trilogy, this was better than the first. The characters were better drawn, and we're getting to know more about how the other survivors are living in zombie-plagued London. I'm looking forward to the third book, if only so I can stop thinking about the living dead for awhile.

* Update - This isn't the second book, it's the third! (I think the clue is in the title as listed on GoodReads.) I'm so disappointed that I've read these out of order, but it doesn't seem to matter. Each book covers a different set of kids and timelines. If that's the case, then this book ends on a cliffhanger, and I'm looking forward to the next installment!

In this book Bryson explores the history and culture of Victorian England (and the U.S.) by talking about each room of his Norfolk home, built in that era. There are many tangents into architecture, the Industrial Revolution, agriculture, and historical figures, all stories told with Bryson's flair for honing in on the most fascinating human details. My only criticism is that, in an effort to tell the most compelling story, he perhaps omits details and in some cases contradicts himself. The fact that it took me 18 months to finish this book is because, if anything, it's too interesting, and I wanted to take my time savouring the details.

Reasonably entertaining post-apocalyptic zombie novel set in London. The best part is imagining where I'd hide from the zombies in this big city.