It has been a little while since I’ve read some science fiction, and this book was recommended as something a little different.

The book had all the right stuff for good science fiction – an interesting world (universe?), a deep backstory, and some likable characters. The story itself is quite short, however, and I was hoping for more details.

It seemed like some writers could really expand on the events of this story, and for whatever reason this author kept it short. Apparently there are more books in the series, so I may give the other ones a shot later on.

Frequently science fiction books end up in trilogies or series – what is it about the genre that lends itself to serialization?

Next I am reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

This one has been on my list of books to read for a while now. It is an eye-opening view of a reporter who after losing her job when her newspaper goes under finds entry-level jobs at McDonald’s, Amazon, and a call center company called Convergys.

What this book showed me was that these jobs have completely changed over the past twenty years, and these changes are focused on squeezing every bit of productivity out of each worker to the detriment to the happiness, health, and mental condition.

I’ve often heard people say that “flipping burgers” back when they were younger was a time that was carefree, with low wages but low stress. This book outlines the changes that employers have made to automate scheduling through software and algorithms to use the least amount of workers to do the job if they are working all out.

The workers (including this author) are pushed to their limits, and when they leave or quit there are plenty more to replace them. The author reminds the reader that she always had the option to leave – but for most of her coworkers that option was much less viable.

The book was grim, but also it showed the cost of rock-bottom prices and 24 hour customer service. Sometimes the tone got a little over dramatic, and although there were sources for some of the academic journals cited other times it felt like more word-of-mouth when relating the point of view of the workers themselves.

She wrote in a very approachable way, and it was fun to kind of sneak into these jobs and see what they are like on the inside. But in the end it tells a pretty depressing story, and shows just how easy some of us have it.

Next I am reading Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather.

The second time reading this was as good or better than the first. This time around I focused more on the tone, the writing, and the characters – and you could see the effort and skill that went into every sentence of this novel.

One genre of fiction I’ve seen become more popular lately is the “cozy” book. While not entirely fitting into that category, this book is sort of the ultimate cozy book for me. The whimsical, almost fairy-tale like tone, the main character as we get to know his situation, history, and how he expects a gentleman to behave.

It is hard to define exactly why I like this so much. If I could figure that out, I could look for other books with a similar style. So far I haven’t found anything quite like it.

I am looking forward to re-reading this in the future, after a few years, and I’m sure it’ll be just as good then.

Next I am reading On the Clock by Emily Guendelsberger.

This is the second (or third?) time reading this book – I was recently thinking about the story so thought I’d read it again to see how it held up.

For the most part it was as good as I remembered it. Lots of details that I didn’t recall from previous reads, and a couple of twists that I luckily had forgotten about.

Of course I knew the big surprise delivered towards the first part of the book, so it wasn’t really a WTF? moment for me this time. But it was good to see how well Crichton set up his stories, and his skill at taking on topics with a blend of science, realism, and fiction.

Without an understanding of quantum mechanics I can’t really comment on whether his scientific portions held up, but I did like the blend of action and (pseudo)science.

For another re-read I am going back to Amor Towles A Gentleman in Moscow. I really liked it the first time – one of my favorite novels ever – so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes the second time around.

This is one of those, “I heard the book was better than the movie” choices. I don’t remember the movie very clearly, so I thought it would be a good time to read the book.

There are a lot of good stories here – mainly about the survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The stories are told by the survivors in a sort of interview/Q&A style, and told in the past tense as the Zombie War has already been won.

Because the storytelling style is unique it lends a certain amount of realism. Lots of characters use lingo that was created during the war, with the author providing footnotes to explain them. Often the interviewees will treat information they give out as common knowledge (which of course it is not for the reader) and the methods that the writer has to employ to overcome this gap didn’t feel very graceful to me.

In the end the format of the book caused more problems than it was worth. I’d have liked to hear some of these stories told in the first person as they happened, but I suppose that once the author committed to this format they had to follow through.

So a so-so zombie book, but not as interesting as I had hoped.

Next I am re-reading Timeline by Michael Crichton.

What starts out as a story of a hired assassin with a heart of gold turns into an improbable but I think successful meta exercise on writing.

This book is set in an entirely real (no spooky ghosts in this King book) contemporary America just before the pandemic begins. It outlines the situation and places the lead character in a position of writing a book to pass as a writer. This gives the author (Stephen King) a chance to write about an author who is in fact a killer. King skillfully sets up the situation so we can explore the power of writing, and get a taste of why he likes it so much.

It takes some writing skill to get us to care about (and start to really like) a hired killer. The way the story develops is a little too perfect – the right things happening at just the right moments – but I was willing to forgive based on being a fan of his other work. And I thought that the “book within a book” device was a little forced. I even cringed a little when the typeface changed – and had a feeling of dread near the end when the current events of the “real” story had the typeface as well. It is hard to explain without giving away anything here.

This novel was a quick read but I really enjoyed the time I spent with it. Next I am reading World War Z by Max Brooks.

This is my first time reading anything by Faulkner, and unsure where to start I chose this based on a few comments in other books.

My initial impression was confusion. The book introduces a lot of characters early on, peeking into their minds as they describe things from their perspective in a stream of consciousness style. I’ve read more modern books written in a similar way and it made me wonder if this was the first book to be written in this style.

Characters appear and disappear suddenly, speak from dead, kids speak like kids do, and the initial bout of confusion turned me off. Fortunately as I read things cleared up a bit, but there is a lot to unpack here after reading.

This book did an excellent job of showing the reader what life was like back then for poor people living in America, and it was tragic and poignant. It was less dated than I had expected given that it was originally published in 1930.

So in the end I liked the book for the skill of writing rather than the storytelling style, and for the ending which was absolutely perfect. Will I read more by Faulkner? Still not sure about that but we’ll see!

Next I am reading Billy Summers by Stephen King.

I think this is the first book I’ve read by this author. I’ve been interested in trying out his writing, especially about travel, and apparently this is his newest book.

The idea of this book is his exploration of finding “paradise”, and exploring what that word has meant to people throughout history and across the world. It is a pretty ambitious theme, and maybe since I had few expectations I wasn’t really disappointed with the result. It was interesting to read about some of the places that we have been – Sri Lanka, Bali, India, and Japan. Some of the holy sites that he visited were completely new to me.

The writer’s writing style is pleasant to read and tends towards dramatic prose. He seemed to look beyond what he was seeing and add some kind of spiritual element to just about everything. In fact, most of the book seemed centered on spirituality, religion and the metaphysical. Writing about paradise I suppose will slant the book a certain way, but I prefer to read more reality-based writings (for example, Paul Theroux).

In contrast to other travel books there is less interaction with local people. There were hired guides in this book, but unfortunately few conversations with people who live in these places. That makes us depend exclusively on the writer’s view of these places.

One thing that comes up a lot is the author’s friendship with the Dalai Lama, and it seems like his name and his words are over-invoked to explain all sorts of things.

I wonder if his writing is similar in other books. For the time being I got my fill, but it wasn’t as interesting a book as I’d hoped for.

The next book I’m reading is As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner.

I really enjoyed this book showing the hidden world of British spies, operating in London while digging up (and hiding) secrets.

While it started slow, part of that was me getting used to the decidedly British feel of the prose. After a while it was fun to learn the unfamiliar words – however some expressions left me baffled.

There are plenty of interesting characters here, all with a deep backstory. The writer was skilled at misdirection, too. There were plenty of surprises, but once I realized how many misdirections were happening I started to read more carefully to watch for the next one. It just seems to be his storytelling style.

There are quite a few other books, so I’m looking into continuing the series when I’m between other library books. Highly recommended!

Next I am reading The Half Known Life by Pico Iyer.

This was a beautifully written book on certain subcategory of Americans living off grid in southern Colorado, with the author sort of falling in love with the lifestyle and joining them.

I often enjoy books where people make a big change to their lives and start over in a new place. There was a lot of people making dramatic life changes in this book. For most of them, however, they are doing it because they have few other choices, or as a last desperate measure. One exception is the author, who continues to live in New York while dabbling in this lifestyle, with the option to leave any time he needed to.

The book moves at a pretty slow pace, covering the history of the area, meeting many of the inhabitants, and exploring why they (and countless other Americans) would live so far away from civilization. Thanks to his writing and the beautiful photos included the author shows why people would be attracted, but it is clear that life there isn’t for most people.

Since there are not really many police or any kind of governmental presence in the area people have more freedom to do what they like (legal or otherwise). Also there are wider cracks to fall through without a safety net.

While hearing about the hardships of living here I sometimes wondered what the mission of the author was in this book. Sometimes he follows stories or gives out information that while curious or interesting didn’t seem to lead his tale anywhere. At the end of the book I knew a lot more about the area but I’m not sure I felt like I got a deeper meaning out of the book.

I’m glad I read the book just for the writing – especially describing the natural beauty of the area and the people that live there. He made great efforts to depict the residents fairly and without prejudice, rather than focusing on the more scandalous parts of their lifestyle. There was a delicate balance of happy and sad stories, but the balance worked.

It is hard to say without ever having seen the area, but just from reading this book I don’t think off-grid living is for me. Maybe when I was younger, or maybe with a seriously powerful generator and a well-stocked wine cellar. But it was certainly interesting to read about.

Next I am reading Slow Horses by Mick Herron.

It has been a while since I read a cookbook. This one is focused on vegetables, and since that is mostly what we eat I borrowed it from the library.

This one isn’t a comprehensive reference but it is written by someone who knows how to grow, choose, and cook veggies in combination with meat or fish, so it closely matched up with how we eat at home. The food photography is really well done – someone should get an award just for the photos! I also liked how creative the author was in the kitchen. Sometimes it is hard to do something interesting with winter root vegetables besides roasting them up.

The author is based in the northern mid-west so most of the veggies are ones that grow there and therefore the book is pretty USA-centric. Some of the personal stories didn’t really click with me, but that is kind of par for my course.

Overall it was a good cookbook – I put it on my wishlist for when it goes on sale.

Next I am reading Cheap Land Colorado by Ted Conover.

While searching for new and interesting travel books this title sometimes comes up – Steinbeck and his dog travel America by camper in 1962, trying to get a feel for what “America” is.

I thought I should finally read it since I liked East of Eden so much. There was a lot to like in this book – beautiful descriptions of the United States, and excellent writing about people, places and even conversations with a dog. Sometimes the dated expression and old fashioned English idioms appear, and the modern reader is left clueless and searching the internet to figure out what these things mean. But for the most part it is a pleasurable read.

By the time he wrote this Steinbeck was a famous and successful author, and the same year this was published he won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I imagine writing this work of non-fiction came with some pressure – even though he traveled anonymously around America his words were read widely and his opinions therefore seem slightly tempered here. There is a lot of responsibility in writing when you reach his level.

One of his goals was to go out and talk with regular American people and he had conversations with people that he met and their comments are related in the book. In the foreword of my edition it was mentioned that some of the people he met were in fact fictional, and that in order to tell a story of his journey he made up a few things to make it work. Because of this it is hard to compare it with other travel books. I certainly would have liked to have heard from more people – Steinbeck is comfortable with his own (and his dog’s) company. I thought the balance of the content was tilted more towards Steinbeck’s opinions and less toward what regular American people were thinking at the time.

I liked reading this book because the author had some real insight into the trends at the time and ultimately what might end up happening in the future (our present) if these trends continued. This was a unique chance to see Steinbeck’s America in the early 1960’s, but it should be read as his story – not America’s.

Next I am reading Ruffage by Abra Berens.

A book that contains two novellas that relate stories about young people dealing with loss and depression, Kitchen is a translated work by a Japanese author who is apparently quite famous in Japan.

I read about this book in the Japan Times, where they especially recommended the scenes including food. While there were some of these moments in the book, it wasn’t as detailed as a foodie like me would want. But the stories were a nice snapshot of Japanese life, and overall I think reading about how the characters dealt with depression (by semi-magical means or more practical ways) would be a benefit for young people growing up in a high context society like Japan.

Reading translated work is always a strange experience – you start to second guess the translator sometimes – and I felt occasionally felt like the translator had made some awkward choices. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to translate this kind of book where most of the events take place inside people’s heads.

Not sure I’d recommend this for everyone, but as a youth-oriented read (maybe for teens experiencing loss?) it might be worth reading.

Next I am reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

My first time reading anything by this author, I was surprised how readable and funny this book was. For some reason I had some image of beat poetry and coffeehouse drug deals – but that wasn’t it at all.

The vibe running through this book is a guy who is avoiding hard work, and a constant search for immediate gratification rather than a hard grind to success. A lot of the things in here probably wouldn’t fly in contemporary books, but as a snapshot of the past it was a great read.

I especially like his sense of humor. It was funny to read about how he treated his “career”, and when things got to be a pain in the ass he had so little invested in it that he could just walk away. Maybe this was written as a fantasy response for those caught in the rat race at the time.

So this was a pretty short book but very entertaining. I’m looking forward to trying more prose from this author.

Next I am reading Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto.

This book caught me by surprise. I don’t remember where I got the recommendation and so I went into it completely blind, and I’m glad I did.

It is hard to describe the story, and I don’t want to give anything away in case somebody reading this ends up reading the book. Instead of talking about the story I’ll say that the author did a great job balancing all the characters and pieces of this story, and made sure that the reader doesn’t get lost in any potentially confusing situations.

Apparently this was a debut novel – so even more respect to someone with the determination to tell such a complex story in such a satisfying way. I highly recommend this book to readers with an open mind, attention to detail and enjoy a good mystery.

Next I am reading Post Office by Charles Bukowski.