Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
This is a great short story collection. I found it randomly in my local used book store and since picking it up I’ve seen in on all kinds of “best of” lists, which is great, because this book is great. As with most short story collections I pick up I read it over a bit of time and not all in one go. I like to use short story collections as palate cleansers while reading other books, so it’ll take me a while to finish […]
Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abul-Jabbar and Amy Waterhouse
This is the story of Mycroft Holmes, older brother to the famous Sherlock Holmes. If you are a fan of Sherlock at all you know Mycroft as the meddling older brother, the suit, the government lackey who is constantly pestering and annoying Sherlock by trying to get him to do things. How do you think Mycroft sees the situation? This book actually starts before that. Sherlock is still a teenager (possibly early 20s) and living at school and Mycroft is the young Secretary to the […]
American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West by Nate Blakeslee
My cousin recommended this book to me and, oh man, am I glad she did. I swear, I don’t think I have ever cried so hard reading a non-fiction book before. This is an examination and history of the reintroduction of wolves into the Yellowstone Valley. It’s a very broad look at the entirety of the re-introduction project started in 1995 following through until around 2014 or so, as well as getting really deep into the case studies of the various wolf packs, focusing predominantly […]
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
After reading this book I read an interview with the author in the back. In this interview she mentioned that her goal was to make a “completely unfilmable book.” I have to say that, at least in my opinion, she very much succeeded. I cannot imagine how this could ever be adapted without major changes of many kinds. This is the story of Estha and Rahel, two egg twins. It is also the story of their Ammu. It is also the story of an English […]
A Study In Scarlett by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet, is the first Sherlock Holmes mystery that Doyle wrote. Although I mostly enjoyed it, it’s pretty clear he was just starting this thing out. It’s a little rough in patches. Also, while I read this when I was younger, I had completely forgotten the weird Mormon/Native American Tracker (or is he a white dude adopted by Native Americans? It’s never quite clear.) tangent he goes off on at one point. The tangent does make me kind of want to ticket of […]
The Name of the Wind: (Kingkiller Chronicle, Book 1) by Patrick Rothfuss
This book has been kicking around my recommended lists, and I’ve seen it reviewed a couple times here and there, then I saw it was part of the Pajiba Book Archive (though the link to the actual article seems to be broken? Or maybe the article is just too old at this point.) so I finally picked it up and started reading it. It’s a good, solid first novel in a fantasy world. Kvothe the Kingkiller, Kvothe the Arcane, Kvothe the Bloodless, Shadicar, Lightfinger, Six […]
