Man did I enjoy this more than I expected to. It was an impulse buy – thanks Barnes and Noble for the “buy two get the third free” deals that always get me to buy books I might not otherwise … damn your siren song! – and it just seemed like the kind of book that could easily be dry and bloodless. I’ve read too many dystopias that veer into freshman philosophy territory, derailed by how terrible everything is and how humanity is doomed to […]
I wanted a deep dive; this was more like a splash pad
To answer the obvious question, yeah, I bought this on the strength of NPR Science Friday host Ira Flatow’s name. I was hoping for something like Mary Roach with a harder scientific bent; a guided tour for the layman of modern science’s leading edge. It ended up feeling like the abstract of 20 or so different books, with each chapter reading more like a summary of different experimental fields. The chapters are too brief and explores where each branch is heading so shallowly that one […]
A Horse and Carriage DID Get Replaced With Cars, You Know
This was one of several books I purchased from the bibliography of Aziz Ansari’s AMAZING Modern Romance – seriously, go buy that book – in an Amazon order that made my husband very nervous upon delivery. (I’m not looking to divorce you, dear; I just find social histories fascinating). However, the book that I kept thinking of when reading this was Future Shock. This book is barely a decade old and thankfully one major component is already out of date with the legalization of gay […]
But damn, that title
I went into this book knowing nothing about it other than having heard the title. But, damn, that title is great. I figured anyone who can write that hook couldn’t do too bad with a novel, but judging a book by its title is only marginally less idiotic than judging by its cover. I was an English major so I don’t need every book to be literary popcorn, but at the risk of seeming like a dullard, I was bored to tears by this book. […]
I Laughed, I Cried… It Was Better Than Cats!
So, I DID like this book, but my title overstates how much I did a bit. I couldn’t resist, though, because A) I both laughed out loud reading this book and shed actual tears, which is really uncommon for me when reading, and B) I think Savage himself might have found the reference funny. Anyway, thematically this book most resembles the still-great Skipping Towards Gomorrah, my least favorite of his books, but with less cohesion. This is slightly more in depth than an average Savage […]
I Used to Be With It, But Then They Changed What It Was
It’s surprising when books written about the future are still relevant decades later, and non fiction ones especially. In my experience the speculative tends to be dystopian, novels that seem relevant because human flaws are fairly consistent and easy to extrapolate from – Hi there 1984, Handmaid’s Tale, and Brave New World; I really wish we weren’t still power-hungry, misogynistic, and ready to amuse ourselves to death, but y’all weren’t wrong. It is much harder to predict where we’ll go right, because hell, then success […]
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