So I have to admit I don’t know that this book (series) is for everyone. There’s a conversation I had or something I read or heard about the difference between a puzzle and a mystery. A puzzle is designed to be solved and the pieces and clues necessary to do so are all available. And so whether you’re going to an Escape the Room or playing a Resident Evil game or reading an Agatha Christie novel, you’re enmeshed in an a puzzle or series of […]
Today was my last teacher workday, so I read this.
Diane Ravitch doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories, and neither do I. If you hold the belief that education is a funneling institution designed to make people dumber and more compliant and more consumerist and all that, I think you’re foolish and wrong. If, though, you talked about how one of the effects of a schooling based in testing, accountability, profit, and various other aims that are not really part of the goals of education is some version of the above, then I might agree with […]
Kind of dips back into familiar territory.
It’s hard to give this minor collection of stories more than a three because it’s only two stories and they’re kind of well-worn territory for Butler and one of them was even commissioned, and it’s fine, but it’s just not quite the same as something a little more inspired. That said, these are definitely Octavia Butler stories. There’s all the trademarks, and if you’re especially familiar with her work, namely the two early series of novels she wrote, then these feel either very familiar or […]
Weirdly this reminded me of “Split”
So I haven’t read The Hallowed Hunt yet, but I will probably this summer. But otherwise, I don’t find the World of the Five Gods to be particularly funny. But luckily this book was funny, and it reminded me of how funny a lot of the Vorkosigan Saga is. Even the more serious books like Memory or Barryar have their moments, but the outright comedies like Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance and A Civil Campaign are not only funny, but constructed like comedies, where the stakes can be real but ultimately work […]
Eminently OK true crime
For a book about someone killing people with axes, this isn’t the most interesting book I’ve read….this week. This is the story of a New Orleans serial killer who targeted primarily Italian shopkeepers in the early 20th century. This book is drenched with a time in the country in which anti-Italian sentiment was pretty strong, and this book investigates that aspect of these crimes. But it oversells the “racial” dynamic of these crimes. As weird and sad as these crimes are, the real miracle is […]
May be total bunk, but perfectly entertaining
So my caveats are: This is pop history and all its trappings are possible and present within this. I don’t know almost anything about the Boer War going in so I can’t challenge anything. I listened to the audiobook, so any reference material used was not directly cited. But I found this very entertaining. It’s about Winston Churchill’s Boer War experiences first as a combatant and then as a war reporter who is captured and then escapes, and then spends a bunch of time […]
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