This was a pretty good read for me. All about life in a train-based circus in the 1930’s, the writer skillfully tells a story that is well-balanced and full of funny situations.

Obviously there was a lot of research that went into this work, but the result is a very easy reading book, and although the story was a little predictable and the dialogue at times a bit unnatural, it was worth it to get to the end and see how things turn out.

Reading about circuses in the 1930’s never struck me as something I’d be interested in before, but this was clearly a rich vein of material to draw from. There was quite a bit of nostalgia/Americana included, but in this book it didn’t rub me the wrong way like it does in other books.

Apparently there is also a movie, so I’ll have to rent it and watch it sometime soon.

Next I am reading The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton.

This was a short, clever book that took all the things we have learned in the fantasy genre (elves, orcs, wizards and magic) and leveraged that background knowledge to tell a story that shows it is OK to be yourself and trust in your own instincts and friends you make along the way.

Another book that seems to fall into the “cozy” category, it is fun to read about a warrior who sets aside her broadsword and instead tries to open a coffee shop in a place where they have never heard are tasted the beverage.

The story is cute – lots of friendly characters (and a few unfriendly ones) but the stakes here are low and the whole things builds up to a satisfying conclusion. There is emotional support in here for shy/introverted people, cat lovers, minorities and people that experience prejudice, gay and lesbian people, and even reluctant lute performers.

I enjoyed this book – it was a quick read but satisfying and a sort of balance with the gritty and bloody world that is more often described in works of fantasy recently.

Next I am reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen.

This was a warm and fuzzy book about a secretary to the emperor of the entire world who takes a chance to break protocol and ends up shaking up just about everything.

This is a pretty long book – more than a thousand pages – and I was satisfied and felt the story was complete about halfway through the book. The main character is a kind, proactive civic employee doing his duty in a very subtle way. The book goes out of the way to show what a kind person he is, and indirectly shows that his (huge) family back home doesn’t really know what he does or how great of an effect he has had on the world.

The worldbuilding by the author here is phenomenal and deep. There is a lot of history for each of the areas of the kingdom and their people, and it is amazing to think how much time the writer has thought about this. One complaint I had was that given this huge world and the multitude of people within it we spend an inordinate amount of town with just the main character. We hear about other people only indirectly through him.

The root of this book seems to be the transitioning of a mere secretary to the emperor with some slight access to power to someone who wields power on their own. Even though our secretary rises through the ranks and becomes a powerful person he never seeks to use this for his own benefit, and the book spends a lot of time fawning over what a great person he is and how his family doesn’t really understand how hard he has been selflessly working.

As I said, at the halfway point I felt like we had reached a logical and satisfying ending, but unfortunately the author continues to go on and on praising our main character, giving comeuppance to people that look down on him or his people, and even creating entirely unbelievable and perfectly arranged situations for this guy to lead the triumph of humility of selfishness. 500 pages of this. Really! There must have been an editor involved with a book of this size but I felt like they really should have stepped in and chopped out a lot of this to make a more readable and enjoyable book.

Next I am reading Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree.

It is not often in my reading when I come across a completely new writing style. This book is written in a weird combination of Lee Child’s short staccato sentences combined with sudden changes in point of view characters – it can be hard to follow. This really odd style together with a spelling mistake in the first few pages almost had me give up on the book, but I decided to push through. I guess I am glad that I did.

The book is about a train ride and a heist but also it seems to be about America and its beauty and shortcomings. There are some really awkward interactions, a mystery villain, some believability problems, and a few red herrings.

By the end of the back I was satisfied with the resolution (that still seemed a little forced). I don’t think I’ll read any other books by this author, though. Not on my recommended list!

Next I am reading The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard.

This book was a surprise for me. At first I thought it was a typical sort of book with lots of characters who gradually come together in the end for either happiness or tragedy. As it turned out, the book was more than that, and I was pleasantly surprised.

It starts off pointing out some of the residents of a public housing project (nicknamed “The Rabbit Hutch”) and their private activities in their private spaces inside the large building. But from there, the story expands to include the area around it, and especially focuses on one very intelligent disadvantaged young woman. She is finding her way in the world, attending a private school and hoping for something better out of the world around her.

The way the book is written is very non-traditional, characters and situations are presented in odd (but effective) ways. One chapter is entirely of illustrations. I appreciated the extra creativity here and the bravery to break the mold.

The book has many opportunities to make social commentary on contemporary America, especially the areas that may be less affluent. The author has a genuine talent in writing – especially writing about emotions and heartbreak. It also contains a lot of support for young women growing up in a place that carries some real risks for their mental and emotional health.

With all this unusual writing there were some misses for me – I sometimes found it hard to follow the streams of some of the character’s thoughts, and sometimes it felt like one or two weird people were weird just for the sake of being weird. This was an ambitious novel and so I could forgive these points.

So finally I enjoyed this surprising book. Not a perfect book but well-written and one that takes chances.

Next I am reading This Train by James Grady. I’ll bring this book and some old favorites along with me on our winter trip to Malaysia and Vietnam. There should be some time to read while relaxing near a pool, hopefully!

This cookbook was recommended by NPR (I think) and so I thought I’d check in on my Cajun/Creole recipes and see if there was anything new to learn.

The book has a wide selection of recipes, and I found 3-4 that I want to try in the future. There is also some great photography in here, food and otherwise.

Part of this book is a plea to save the disappearing Louisiana Bayou areas that are rapidly disappearing thanks to river damming and climate change. Also the availability of cheaper overseas fish/seafood is highlighted as a reason for the area’s decline.

There was also a sort of strange streak of sexism here – the author felt that men representing her cuisine’s cultural heritage was inappropriate given that “women run the kitchens” where she comes from. She states that “women hold our cuisine, culture, and traditions together.” I’m not sure why it is important that a man or a woman is cooking this food – I don’t think that anyone is evaluating it based on the sex of the chef – but I felt this element distracted from the rest of the story.

I’ll give the recipes a try over the next few months – hopefully they are as tasty as they looked in this cookbook.

This book is sort of like a companion book for The Passenger, released at about the same time. While The Passenger was a full-blown novel, this is quite a bit shorter, and deals almost exclusively with one character from The Passenger.

The story takes place in the form of notes between an institutional psychologist and his patient. To me it felt like an excuse to peek into the author’s thoughts on mathematics, death and mental health. All of these were covered in the other book (some quite extensively) but apparently the author wanted to follow up with a bit more.

I enjoyed reading most of it, with the exception of a description of drowning that was quite disturbing. Having read the other book we are aware of some of the backstory, and in this knowledge we get the most out of Stella Maris.

As usual McCarthy’s books are pretty cerebral and mentally taxing (in a good way) and so the next few books will be a little lighter.

Now I’m reading Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa M. Martin.

This was a fantasy book written in a slightly different way – using an African theme and introducing a completely new world. The writer throws you in the deep end with the prologue, and then spends most of the book backfilling all the lore and information you need to understand things.

Luckily this information is demonstrated over time instead of a massive information download from some character. It felt natural to me, even getting some critical information about the cultures here halfway through the long book.

Despite the name of the book there aren’t many appearances of dragons, and I thought they might be a bit more interesting if the author wrote about them more.

Although I liked just about everything in this book I found the main character to be a little too one-dimensional. He’s bent on revenge and to be the most powerful soldier so that he can exact that revenge. He shows little in the way of thinking more deeply about the situation, what his long game is, and almost no curiosity about the people and institutions he has sworn to destroy.

There was a little bit of a Hunger Games feeling, too. All these scripted events and competitions and rules and whatever served just as a way to show the main character building his following and his skills. All these events had just the right timing and were held in just the right place so that our hero could take advantage.

This book was described elsewhere as revenge fantasy, so I suppose we shouldn’t let realism get in the way. I’m probably overthinking things anyway – it is best to just sit back, relax and enjoy the story.

Next I am reading Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy.

It has been a while but it was interesting to come back and re-read this one. Even though it was written earlier in Stephen King’s career you can see some of the trademarks of his writing, standing out more clearly when compared to his more recent work.

I found that I didn’t remember the ending as being quite so brutal (but it was) and I found myself more interested in the supernatural history of the “semetary” this time around.

Reading this made me think that it would be good to go back and read “The Stand”, which in its unabridged edition is a serious one month commitment for me to finish. Maybe after retirement?

The next book on my list is The Rage of Dragons by Evan Winter.

This was my first book by this author – often referenced in books by Paul Theroux – and I thought it was time to see if his writing would fit my interests.

Apparently this book was one of his early writings, and it felt a little rough sometimes. It didn’t fit into what people might call a “travel book” these days, but at the time of writing (1962-1964) there really wasn’t a popularized genre like travel writing quite yet.

The writing in this book is quite good – especially the descriptions of natural scenes and scenes from urban life and poverty of India are written in a way that really brings them alive. He often writes quite harshly about individuals which seems rare these days – hopefully he has changed the names.

I liked the storytelling style here – and the writer fills the stories not only with events but his own reactions, sometimes surprisingly visceral/judgmental or raw. It seems like he felt like he needed the reader to understand his reactions to what he was seeing in India at the time, so there was no hesitation baring his soul.

I’m not sure I liked the format of this book – it wasn’t a traditional journey and there were some chapters that contained commentary on a single topic or a sort of literature review on an element of Indian/British culture – these didn’t seem to fit smoothly with the stories of his journeys around the country.

And for a world traveler the author seems to get ruffled pretty easily. I’m sure things were a lot more stressful traveling in those days, but it seems like it doesn’t take much to piss him off. Maybe his anger just seemed so sudden while he writes his calm descriptions.

I’m not sure if I’ll read more from this writer – but later on I’ll check reviews from some of his other books to see if there is a shift in tone for his later works. For some reason I’ve read a lot about India in the last year or so – maybe I need to shift to some other countries.

Next I am (re-)reading Pet Semetary by Stephen King. I haven’t read this one since I was in junior high school – it’ll be interesting to read it again after all this time and see how I like it!

This was a brilliant book that took its time to tell a complex story of how America has changed with shift away from a manufacturing economy – and especially how Amazon has affected and profited from this change.

First, the book is focused on the long game, so a little patience is required to follow the theme, but it is rewarded with a very wide view of the issues. This shift in how America works is huge, with real consequences across many different industries and lifestyles, so a quick “Amazon is bad” message would be inadequate. The writing here is investigational style, with facts and figures to help illustrate the message. The writer doesn’t tell you what to think as much as frame the issue in a way that leads to your own conclusions.

Coming at this from my point of view as someone who no longer lives in America, the changes described in the book don’t resonate with me as I’ve not seen them firsthand, but I guess that people living in the USA will find a lot they recognize.

And as for Amazon in Japan, it was interesting to see how things are different here, especially surrounding the issue of lower income workers and dying cities. For various reasons the broad changes that swept through the USA over the last two decades are not occurring here at nearly the same pace.

I’d like to read more of these kinds of books – taking a methodical look at social issues like this one does seems to be my style of reading.

The next book I am reading is An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul.

This was a sci-fi book with an interesting idea, a person whose job on a mission to colonize a planet is to do all the dangerous jobs fully expecting to die – and then have his body (and consciousness) rebuilt and spit out of the generator for another go.

The story reminded me a bit of the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell, and also a bit of the book The Martian by Andy Weir. Like in The Martian, the character here is talking directly to you, and so the background and information of the world comes to you conversationally. That means a lot of information download, and so the book is filled with telling rather than showing, which felt a little dry.

Mickey, the main character(s) is kind of a smart-ass and was trying to be funny all the time. He was funny some of the time, but for the most part it kind of grated on me after a while. The opportunity to explore the universe is here for him but he seems to mainly focus on cracking jokes.

I did like the book – it had a lot of good imaginative sequences and it was fun for a short read. Maybe it would have worked better as a short story?

Next I am reading Fulfillment by Alec MacGillis.

This book told a story – a semi-fictional episode in the life of George Sand and Frederic Chopin – using the voice of a ghost haunting the abandoned abbey in Mallorca where they stay to get away from Paris for a time. The ghost at first seems like a character in the book, but by the end seemed like only a gimmicky device to explore the future and past of Sand.

There are a lot of side stories in here that were well-written: thoughts on gay/lesbian relationships in that era, the joys and perils of small town life, clever antics performed by the ghost to try to exert influence on the living. But most of this is a sort of biography on George Sand and her unique life. I was totally interested in her story, but the storytelling of the ghost and some of the other characters got in the way for me.

There is some beautiful writing in here, sadly not enough about food (with “delicious” in the title I was hoping for a more food-centric story) and I think I’d like to read a happier story written by the same author.

Next I am reading Mickey7 by Edward Ashton.

This was the second book in a series, released this year. It seems like most fantasy/sci-fi novels are written as part of a trilogy at least, and this one is no different.

Just like the first novel, this one is well-written, and adds a few new character’s points of view to tell the story of a world where dead gods are being brought back to life, and changing the world as we know it. The Viking setting is unique enough to make the story interesting, and we’ve gone into full magic mode in this book.

Again the author spends a lot of time describing the equipment, the weapons and armor, and how each piece works together. This is to be expected in the first book, but it got a little tiring for me in this second book. I guess if you heavy into medieval and Norse weaponry this is the series for you.

The author writes really well about the small details of a battle – the confusion, fear, panic and adrenaline and the tiny in-between moments between life and impending death. As this series develops there are more scenes on a bigger scale – armies moving and going to war – and this isn’t as well-written. Anthony Ryan writes some great large scale battle scenes in his books. Hopefully these big scenes will improve in future books as I think they’ll become more and more important based on how the story is developing.

The pace of development continues quickly (too quickly?) and as the characters travel around the world we look forward to key interactions – similar to Brandon Sanderson’s epic novels. I found myself guessing what will happen next, who will die, and what twists might get thrown in. The good news for me was that I was almost never correct in guessing what will happen.

Based on the length of the first two books in the series it will be a long while before I can read more – at least the author provided a summary of the previous story in the beginning of this one.

So overall, more of the same but in this case it is a good thing. Next I am reading Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens.

This short novel takes a cool concept and attempts to make a story out of it. For me there wasn’t quite enough here to make this a great story, but I give it high marks for potential.

The best part of this book is that it introduces this distant planet inhabited by long abandoned colonists that have restarted a civilization, with one “modern” anthropologist in cryogenic suspension awakened occasionally. This book throws together the modern with the primitive and allows the reader to see events unfold from both perspectives. It is sort of a gimmick that works to an extent – I’d have liked to see it explored a bit more.

The world building here is excellent. Tchaikovsky has a great sense of scale in science fiction – beyond the day to day he also shows generational shifts over a very long time. All the background info that he packed in here had me begging for more details, more development, more exploration. Instead it seemed like he was trying to wrap up the book as soon as possible. Maybe he has other things he wants to get to.

I’m not sure I’ve read anything like this – the barebones of a story draped over a rich universe of lore, ideas and background information that are pretty much left untouched. Hopefully the writer will come back to this at some point and expand it.

Next I am reading Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne.