Really just a short story, but a fun one. The power of money extends beyond what you can simply buy, and the author pokes a bit of fun at this.

This story was recommended in a list of books about heists and cons, and while it is sort of a con it doesn’t quite fit the definition that I had in mind. Still, very entertaining and surprisingly on point given its age.

Next I am reading The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson.

This was an intriguing look into how online shopping and delivery works in China, and what life is like for the working class that are trying to make ends meet.

The first thing I felt was just the huge logistical scale, and how the workers really seemed to be left to struggle through things. With no shortage of workers, companies could constantly turn over staff and have little incentive to improve working conditions.

The first half of the book is all about the jobs that the author had in Beijing, the majority of which were related to parcel delivery. I liked the way of thinking of the author – they thought through what was happening around them and approached problems with an even temper. It is hard to imagine a more stressful atmosphere to try to earn enough money to survive.

The second half of the book is a description of other jobs that the author had before delivering parcels, and I found this section less interesting as it got really bogged down in the minutiae of each job, which would be useful if I was going to do that work but less useful to understand it on a high level.

I was really eager to hear how the situation changed during the COVID lockdowns, but the author did not really address it very much – I understand that this book was written during the lockdown but I’d have liked to have heard more about the effects on Beijing and its residents.

The book contains a lot of deep thinking by the author and they lay their soul bare for all to see, talking honestly about their challenges. I hope that they will have a successful career as a writer in the future.

Next I am reading The Million Pound Banknote by Mark Twain.

Wow, this was a really good example of great science fiction. I already knew the author was good at this – but this book really brought a few different genres together into one great story.

My favorite book of his, Children of Time, took a look at the evolution of spiders, with a guest appearance by a hive of ants. This book idea maybe sprang from the ants and their hive mind. It did also seem awfully close to the aliens in Pandora’s Star, which I read recently. But the aliens are only half the story – the humans have a unique part to play here too.

The story developed with a nice sense of pacing, and wasn’t in a hurry to get you to the conclusion. The unexpected close-up inspection of the Shroud moon was scary at first and fascinating later, skillfully written to bring us around to some startling conclusions.

I didn’t have many complaints – if anything I thought the bad guys were a little simplistic, but the author provides some background for this and I guess I could let it slide. I really enjoyed reading this book – impressive!

Next I am reading The Stand by Stephen King. I think this might be my third or fourth time reading it. It is a long book so if any library books come up in the meantime I’ll squeeze those in, too.

As usual with Dungeon Crawler Carl there is a lot going on. The writing for this book was typical for the series. The floor this time was a little easier to grasp than some of the others. I laughed out loud more than once, which I guess is the main reason I enjoy the series.

I read one of these books every 2-3 months, which is enough time for me to catch my breath and not burn out on the series, but also just enough time to forget some of the side characters and plots. I have to ask an AI to give me quick summary before I restart, which helps.

Somewhere online I saw a person (sounding a little exasperated) asking what the attraction is for these books. For me it is nice to turn off your brain, sit back and let the goofy action happen. Just like other series you kind of know what to expect, and it is good to relax and not over-analyze things. If you miss a reference or forget a character it is no big deal.

I’ll check back in with Carl and Donut after a couple of months! Next I am reading Tokyo Daze by Mark Coughlin.

When I picked up this true crime book I had no idea about the subject – a serial killer in England in the 1950s. There is some pretty horrendous stuff in here, and I was surprised to read just how big a story it was back then, and over the past 70 years there have been plenty of screenplays, miniseries, and books written about the murderer and his victims.

Because it was all new to me I didn’t really have any preconceptions, but it seems like this book was written to challenge them. It was sort of billed as providing new answers to questions that have been circulating. I think I was satisfied with what we get in this book, and I’m perfectly happy to accept it as the truth as best we can get.

The writer is great at putting us there and setting a terrific pace, and making things feel real. A side benefit of reading this book is getting a closer look at how English society treated people that were not white or male. We’ve come a long way, baby.

But two thirds of the way through I thought everything was wrapped up, key characters gone and buried, but the book continued on to try to answer some more questions, and it was around here that I was getting a little tired of all the details and clues. Not the author’s fault – just that I had my fill of the story. But I am glad I finished the book.

Besides all the details I did have the distinct feeling that the author was leading the reader to a specific conclusion, and not really leaving it up to you to decide the answers at the end. That made we a little worried that I was being led earlier on as well, but I guess that is always a risk when reading true crime.

Next I am going back to Dungeon Crawler Carl – I am reading Butcher’s Masquerade by Matt Dinniman.

I picked this book from the library because I thought I had heard something about it, but it turns out that I had read another of the author’s books a few years ago. I’m a little torn on this book – but I guess overall it was worth reading.

First, the story sort of borrows a gimmick from All You Need is Kill (Edge of Tomorrow), in that there is a way to control and change time. I love books that deal with time travel, and enjoy getting to learn all the rules. Even better, the author has created an entire world that is similar to reality, but diverts the timeline very early in an interesting way. How it diverts and when is one of the keys to understanding what is going on in this book – but you don’t absolutely have to notice it. Clever!

One of the themes of this book is what makes a legend – what is necessary to create an enduring symbol and what needs to happen for it do truly endure. It is a noble theme to examine, which makes it a little weird when the author includes some strangely graphic sex scenes here and there. Maybe we can blame Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarrow for steamy graphic fantasy – but it doesn’t really fit here.

There is a lot of complexity in the plot – enough that it takes quite a bit of explanation and iterations to spell it all out. On one hand I like the idea that it is turtles all the way down and things are happening on a deeper level than we first suspect. But on the other hand I think the author could have pared down the levels and made a tighter, evenly paced story. It felt like they wanted to be sure to tie up every single thing, and it felt like it had become a lot of work.

Again in this book most of it is written in the second-person perspective (haven’t I just read another book that tried this out). I guess there is a reason that the second person is not widely used – it is a little exhausting to read. Two characters alternate chapters making it sometimes difficult to remember who is talking and who they are talking about. You this, you that, and I’m confused.

It was a good attempt and sometimes quite entertaining, but I guess it could have been better.

Next I am reading The Peepshow by Kate Summerscale.

Murderbot is back and still dealing with the same issues – learning to live with humans – and while it didn’t really break any new ground it was enjoyable for what it was.

I really like the point of view of Murderbot as a hacker, and he spends a lot of time solving problems in real time while you follow along. This time the setting was a little different – at first I thought it was a big space station but the scale ended up being even larger this time around. The humor was great, as usual, and I think the author just wanted to stick to what worked and I’m sure it will make a nice miniseries one day.

After taking some time off from the series I did find it hard to remember who was who and what had happened, so I recommend a primer from your favorite AI chatbot to get you up to speed.

I ran out of books so picked one from the library that came up and seemed a little intriguing, it is The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow. Let’s see if serendipity works in my favor this time.

A young British boy is orphaned and is raised to be a wizard, inwardly dealing with the lack of parental figures in his life. Despite these parallels with Harry Potter this book is really its own beast, for better or worse.

I really enjoyed it – especially the character of Bartimaeus, the djinn that is called to assist (and actually give the boy his powers). The world of magic in this book is a little more complex (and interesting). Here these different magical beings are enclaved by their magician masters. The boy in this book barely has control of Bartimaeus, and that control slips out of his hands quickly. This djinn has a long history and his character, experience and clever quips (including footnotes) really make this book stand out.

The book seems to be aimed at a slightly younger audience, even though there are some abrupt deaths and some heavier themes. The bad guys are not so complex, but I think there is more room for that in the future books.

I would have liked to explore more about some of the issues that are only lightly touched on here – magicians vs. regular people, magical beings and what their life is like being temporary slaves, etc. But this book has a lot of heavy lifting to get the world introduced and allow us to see where the characters are starting. Luckily Bartimaeus is fully developed already and happy to cause trouble right away.

Next I am reading Platform Decay by Martha Wells.

The good news – this book had a lot of information about the art of improvisation (it isn’t just humor) and why aspects of it can help to improve your life. The book is fairly brief, and the writing style is friendly and easy to read.

Unfortunately I found a lot of the advice given was sort of common sense (to me) and sometimes it felt like a bit of a stretch to tie together these improv skills with so many real life situations.

The author has a deep interest in Eastern religious philosophy and frequently ties into various schools of thought, but despite this most of the advice in this book seems to be culturally centered around Americans.

I guess I was hoping for more nuts and bolts about how these things strategies can work for you. It would have been nice if the author took one more step in the direction of practical.

Next I am reading The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud.

I really enjoyed this book – written in a more intellectual style that is challenging, confusing (in a good way), and addresses some big issues without being preachy.

The format is simple – three main chapters that are named after hotels that are keys to the story. Each chapter is in a different stage of the story and we see characters in different stages while major hints about what is happening are dropping everywhere. After finishing the book I went back and saw how well the author had placed information that seemed superfluous at the time.

A major component of the story is the effects of the COVID pandemic on these people, and it was interesting to see all that craziness from a little distance (has it been five years already?) Unlike other books featuring people dealing with the pandemic, this one was written a little bit later when things have settled, and it was a much more interesting take.

One twist that I enjoyed (at the risk of spoiling a bit of the story) was that the guy who was hoping for (and probably needed) a clear transcription of his interview was in stark contrast to another guy who didn’t really want it but got more than he would have liked fully transcribed in the end. That one of them was a son and the other a mentee was a solid twist.

Excellent book – I really enjoyed the world that these people lived in, and appreciated that things weren’t dumbed down. The author trusts that you’ll be able to figure things out.

Next I am reading Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson.

Two not great books in a row. This one has an interesting take on the labors of Hercules (Heracles) and tells his story through both his point of view and his patron goddess Hera. I won’t go into how the author’s take is interesting for fear of spoiling, but I did like the originality of it.

Unfortunately there isn’t much else I liked about the book. The author has modernized the speech to the level of a contemporary American high school student, which gets old quickly. Especially the character of Hera comes off as an angry tween – you’d think that living for an eternity as a god would make someone a little wiser and thoughtful.

A lot of the book is concerned with how Heracles treats with kindness, and through this the author manages to wedge in uses of alternative pronouns, as well as overly-emphasized LGBTQ themes. It all made me wonder who the target audience was for this book.

The format of alternating points of view means that we get a lot of direct messages to the read as if the character is praying or speaking to someone (or their image of someone) which means that there is a whole lot of the word “you”. For some reason it began to grate on me but it is throughout the whole book making it a chore to get through.

Oh well, hopefully the next book is better. I’m going to read Transcription by Ben Lerner.

This book seemed like it would have been better as a thought experiment short story than a full novel. The initial concept was cool, and it began at a very brisk pace, but things quickly got repetitive and boring.

The story is strung out a little too long and had me at times shaking my head. The writer kept raising the level of silliness, all the way to the ridiculous ending. The main character’s three year old son had horrible dialog. Yes, I am criticizing the word choices for a three year old boy, but it was so caustically awful that it pulled me right out of any possible suspension of disbelief.

Obviously the writer put a lot of thought into his message and I think that wrapping it in this particular story was not the right choice.

Next I am reading Wearing the Lion by John Wiswell.

Dipping back into non-fiction, this one interested me because it seemed like investigating what makes things funny and how that can be integrated into business would be useful. Maybe not for my own situation, but advising others who plan to go do business overseas in America.

I got a lot out of this book, especially the analysis of what makes something funny. By hearing from actual comedians as well as professors you could start to see the anatomy of a joke. I especially liked the model showing the structure of levity -> humor -> comedy, and understood the need to keep a sense of levity in my own teaching situations.

That being said humor is of course highly culture-dependent, and I would say 90% of what is in this book would absolutely not fly in a Japanese business situation.

There are sections of this book where they are clearly talking to American CEOs or leaders, and when they switch on the business-speak it was a little unnerving for me. I am so glad I am not subjected to that kind of vocab on a daily basis.

Next I am reading The Man Who Saw Seconds by Alexander Boldizar.

This book was sort of a slog to get through. It was full of intelligent writing that I would be happy to spend more time with if I felt more compelled by the story and characters. It is rare for me to read a book where I dislike every single one of the characters. A few good side characters appeared but they were quickly left in the dust.

This book was quite long – perhaps because it is coming back to back with another long (but more pleasurable) novel it came off quite exhausting to read. I felt like there were a lot of things that seemed unnecessary to the story.

A lot of the events in this book relate to history in Asia, specifically between Japan and Korea, and since I live right in the middle of it I had expected to be more interested. Maybe people unfamiliar with this chapter in their history might get more out of the story. I could see what was coming and so for me it was just a matter of waiting to get there.

Next I am reading Humor, Seriously by Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas.