machinery – Cannonball Read 17

Kind of scary if you think too much about it

Life Ever After by Carla Grauls

October 31, 2021 by crystalclear Leave a Comment

Life Ever After By Carla Grauls I picked this up for free at some point as an Audible Original, and I thought it would work for the Machinery Bingo square. It’s short, less than 2 hours, and I wanted to “get it over with” to move on to other things. At first, I thought it was all going to be some spoken word commentary on society or something like that. The opening does feel very spoken word. But then we move into the main […]

Find yourself in the rhythm and the ride

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

October 31, 2021 by Wanderlustful 1 Comment

In the late 1960s, a narrator who very closely resembles author Robert M. Pirsig embarks on a summer motorcycle trip with his adolescent son and some friends, traveling from their home in Minneapolis to San Francisco. Twinned with descriptions of their physical journey across the great plains is Pirsig’s descriptions of his philosophical journey, his theory of life as analogized through his relationship with his motorcycle. For the narrator/author, the physical act of motorcycle maintenance, the attention to detail, the willingness to devote time and […]

Late arrival on the Colson Whitehead Train, but I’m here to stay

The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead

October 24, 2021 by msvreadsbooks Leave a Comment

I’m using this as my #machinery square in Bingo! I originally bought this book for an undergraduate class, like 15 years ago. And we never got around to reading it. Ever since, it’s been on my “to read” list. I can’t believe I waited so long! Colson Whitehead has risen to prominence for his other works – especially The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys and Harlem Shuffle – but this is his first novel. And it’s fantastic. The Intuitionist takes place in an alternate […]

“For a being as sophisticated as you are, it is baffling how little understanding you have of the composition of your own mind.”

Network Effect (Murderbot Diaries #5) by Martha Wells

October 19, 2021 by faintingviolet 3 Comments

It has been almost three years since I last ventured into the land of Murderbot (January 2019) and while I had to wait like everyone else for Network Effect to publish, I also put it off a little while, over a year in fact. I blame Pandemic brain. Because the minute I picked this one up, I was back with Murderbot and it felt like almost no time at all since I last visited this part of fictional space. Murderbot is still working out this […]

Facts, fiction, and women’s work

The Daring Ladies of Lowell: A Novel by Kate Alcott

August 30, 2021 by ElCicco Leave a Comment

Cbr13bingo Machinery The Daring Ladies of Lowell is a work of historical fiction set in a textile mill in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1832-33. In addition to including much historical fact about women’s working conditions and life at the mill, it also involves a love story and a murder mystery taken from real life. Kate Alcott (pen name for Patricia O’Brien) takes her readers into the world of her fictional heroine Alice Barrow as she begins work at the mill, gets to know her fellow workers in […]

Scrivers Create Marvellous Machines, Contend with Unspeakable Powers

Shorefall by Robert Jackson Bennett

August 15, 2021 by LittlePlat 2 Comments

I don’t know what my problem is, really I don’t. I love Robert Jackson Bennett’s works. And I really loved Foundryside, the first book in his Founders Trilogy. I knew Shorefall had been released Why did I take so long to get to it? Is it the pandemic? I’m going to blame the pandemic. Foundryside was a glorious blend of magical and political drama that had a really interesting premise: what if coding—known here as scriving—was actually magic, leaving to the development of whole […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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