As part of a recent push to read some new and fresh science fiction, this book was recommended on a website listing good new sci-fi. It is a debut novel by the author, and it turned out to be a really well-written book that had me reading through it (almost) non-stop.

Told from the point of view of a spaceship AI (which turns out to be weird in a different way than you might expect) the book describes a very lively and interesting universe. The story manages to work on several different scales – the operations and politics of local occupying governments, the ships and troops handling annexations, and even the lonely mission of a single person.

There are several unique points about this book – some work well and others seemed a little too confusing for me to consider them effective. For one example, in the major society that is depicted here there is no overt gendering (with language or otherwise) so everyone is called a “she”, which is (intentionally) confusing at first. As other societies are introduced you kind of figure this out, but I’m still not sure what the point was other than to throw the reader off initially.

But another unique point that worked really well was the idea of the “ancillaries” in the title – the AI of the ships is not only limited to the ship itself but also is spread through once human entities that are implanted with technology allowing the ship’s AI to control their bodies and sense the world through them. This makes for a real challenge for the writer – to describe simultaneous events seen from many different perspectives of what is actually the same consciousness. If you can divide your consciousness, is it possible for them to be separated? What happens then? Can you disagree with other parts of yourself? This is introduced slowly at first and the reader gradually is able to get used to it – it really is a unique and interesting way to tell a story. Later the book explores this idea in much more detail, so the mild learning curve was much appreciated.

So I really liked this one, and there are two more in the series. After a while I’m definitely coming back to continue the story and see how it goes. This was a very impressive book for a first time author!

Next is Jubilee, by Toni Tipton-Martin.

When I saw the movie “Inception” I was especially drawn to a scene where the main character and his wife had created a world within their dreams. The world was represented as a huge empty city slowly disintegrating as the ocean pounded at the edges. They lived there for years while in a dream. Maybe some people saw loneliness in that huge empty city, but I liked the emptiness, and felt the call to explore.

This book by Susanna Clarke reminded me a lot of that part of the movie. The book starts off with a profound feeling of disorientation and confusion for the reader – and we have to trust the author to tell the story their way. In this case it is worth it to keep reading.

There are at first many questions, and then there is the character of Piranesi, who is wonderfully earnest and innocent and self-sufficient. We watch his life and his environment and gradually we learn more. The writing of the setting is beautiful, and the relatively short novel moves at a quicker pace. When a mystery develops I was completely absorbed, and in the end I didn’t want to leave the world that the writer had created.

There are countless ways to write a book and tell a story. How you may start, finish, create, destroy – there is no need to stick to a formula. The writer of this book clearly did something completely new and I was fascinated. There are no rules with books, and this particular book was a powerful reminder of that.

The next book to read is Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie.

I haven’t read Ken Liu’s books before reading this collection, so I was going in blind. There are some parallels with another author I have read: Ted Chiang.

Both writers are Asian American, both explore themes related to fantasy (although Liu’s book is more technology and race focused) using short stories as a medium.

The stories in this book were sort of hit or miss for me. I couldn’t help but feel like the writer started with an interesting idea, shoe-horned in some shallow characters to illustrate the idea, and then checked the idea off the list and went on to the next one. Some stories were really well-written, including “State Change” about a quiet woman living in a world where people’s souls are contained in ordinary objects, “The Paper Menagerie” about bridging the cultural differences between generations, “All the Flavors” telling the legend of the Chinese god of war through a telling of Chinese immigrants to the early American West, and “The Litigation Master and the Monkey King” which tells a fable-like story of a clever man who pays a heavy price to preserve history.

Those were the good ones, but the rest of the stories felt too contrived to me. I’m sure the writer’s full length novels have the opportunity to flesh out the characters – writing short stories gives less chance to really develop things – so I may check out his novels in the future.

Next is Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

I recently found a list of recommended science fiction and fantasy novels put together by writers and fans, and so this was the first book I read off the list.

It starts off with a mysterious situation, and little by little reveals information, in such a way that you end up turning the pages to get to the bottom of the mysteries that are presented. This book has foundations in biology and science fiction, but it also has influences from Jules Verne, and the chock-full-of-mysteries TV show Lost.

The developments of the plot are largely happening within one character’s head – both in real time and in their memories. I would have liked to have more of the interactions with the group that starts the book, and the organization that sent them, but the focus here tends to be on the main character, who describes herself as anti-social so at least that is consistent. There are plenty of scenes that are creepy, scary and full of tension, and I thought this story would make a pretty good video game.

The ending for me wasn’t quite as satisfactory as I had hoped, but I think the book is the first of a series of three. Maybe this book is a sort of prologue to the next one. I’ll wait a while and if I’m still thinking about the events of the first book maybe I’ll come back to this series.

My next read is The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu. Reading short stories for a while might be a good change of pace!

Talk about a timely book – it seems like the world is full of misinformation recently and maybe that is why I was attracted to this title.

The author, an experimental social psychologist and professor of psychology at Wake Forest University, got into the field of bullshit analysis after being inspired by a short essay on the prevalence on bullshit in society and the damage it does. Here he has collected research and information on how to not only detect bullshit, but how to defend against it and even (if you have the courage) to call it out.

Beyond the review of the Scientific Method and the calls to trust in science you can find some great examples of all sorts of bullshit that you find in life today, and some great stories from the past to illustrate the danger of thinking without critical analysis. I especially enjoyed the modern examples, and the author can’t help but point out a few politicians (I’ll bet you can guess which ones) and celebrities as especially guilty of slinging bullshit.

The book is structured in a logical way, with plenty of footnotes and research to back up his arguments (as you would expect in a book on this topic). I read through it pretty quickly, and with the exception of the last section – a sort of call-to-arms to eradicate bullshit across the world (which sounded a little naive to me) – it was a decent book on thinking a little more about what you are hearing and how to best analyze it.

I think it will be difficult to keep his advice in mind over time, and that is directly related to his point that thinking critically is hard work, and one of the reasons that we see so much un-checked bullshit around. This will take some effort, but I’ll do my best to keep his points in mind in the future.

Next is Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer.

Oh wow – here’s a great book. I haven’t read much of Steinbeck’s work and I was pleasantly surprised to find this just so easy to read. Sometimes books that are touted for their “greatness” can be hard to get into, but maybe thanks to the familiar setting of a rural California valley it caught me right up in the story.

One of the pleasures of reading this book was absorbing the wide variety of themes and characters. They really bring to life the place and diversity of human beings that live there. Steinbeck doesn’t spend time explaining every single event that happens in each character’s life, but things are hinted at and set up in a very satisfying (and sometimes tragic) way.

The story is told from various points of view while moving through time, and sub-stories build on each other to contribute to an overall theme that is surprisingly brought into view near the middle of the book (almost like breaking the “fourth wall”). But besides this main theme, the portraits of people, what drives them, and what it means to be a good person – it is a great writer that can juggle all these into a cohesive whole. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time, and for me that is the surest sign of a very well-written book.

Next book is “The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit” by John V. Petrocelli. The second book I’ve read recently with “bullshit” in the title, but no special reason for selecting it other than I’ve been enjoying books on critical thinking recently.

Years ago I saw the animated movie and recently I read that the book version was very cleverly written so I picked up this book from the library.

Clever is the right word here – the story is complex, and with magic in the air it can be pretty tricky to figure out what exactly is going on. Magic doors opening into other cities (or worlds) allows for the plot to develop quickly and suddenly, and the relationships between the main characters are especially entertaining.

If I had to criticize this book at all I’d say that the ending winds up rather abruptly – with a Scooby-Do kind of exposition to explain what happened all along, but in the end this is a kid’s book, so a clear explanation is probably the best way to go. I understand there are two more books in the series, but I’m not sure whether I’m anxious to read them.

What I will do, however, is watch the animated movie again with a sharper eye on the characters and story. Next up is “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck.

Around ten years ago David Graeber wrote a short article for a magazine focusing on the phenomenon (and the implications) of what he called “bullshit jobs”. This book goes into more detail analyzing what these jobs are, why they exist, and what kind of financial and psychological damage they are doing.

Most of the book is based on the stories sent in to him after the initial article ran, and he has organized these stories (and subsequent interviews) into a threads that link together into a broader view of what it means to have one of these jobs. The stories are well-told and fun to read – one of the rules of having a bullshit job is that you don’t talk about your bullshit job, so getting this information straight from the sources is enlightening.

One possible weakness I saw with this book is that the author really makes some big assertions based on what (to me) seems like a small data set. The people who read his original article and then sent in stories of their own bullshit jobs probably don’t accurately represent all of society – and they may even have felt the need to exaggerate some points to make their story more illustrative.

Overall the book was informative to read, and the author’s thoughts on some industries that are especially prone to “bullshit” jobs are enlightening (for example, the financial services industry). The end of the book offers some ideas for moving beyond these jobs and suggests Universal Basic Income as an idea worth exploring to allow people to have more freedom in choosing what they want to do with their lives.

I enjoyed reading this book! Next I’m reading “Howl’s Moving Castle” by Diana Wynne Jones.

This was a short book that possibly was written with a younger audience in mind, but was perfectly entertaining for adults as well.

It is always great to settle into a Stephen King book – there is something comfortable for me about his writing style. I quickly started to empathize with the protagonist of this one, and the story was quickly paced with a satisfying payoff at the end.

One surprising thing for me was how many cultural references were included as the boy in this story grew up. Using these to provide some background helped make it clear that this story was happening in our world. I’m wondering if these references will still be as effective after 20 years or so. But maybe that’s not a big concern of Stephen King.

This was a quick read – I could read stuff like this all day every day and not complain. Hopefully there are more books like this in the pipeline!

After this book I tried to delve into Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow. It is a monster book – and I found that I just couldn’t get into the story after reading through about 150 pages out of the 760 pages in the book. I gave up on the book for now, but maybe I can take it to a deserted island and try again someday. Instead, the book I’m reading next is Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber.

We are always interested in trying new foods when we travel, and so in the interest of learning more about a country I’ve never visited, I checked out this cookbook from the library.

The book is full of recipes as you would expect, but it also gives recommendations for markets, restaurants and street food to try while in Israel. There is quite a bit of culture and contemporary context to go with the recipes, which makes for a book that is somewhere between a cookbook and a travel guide.

And of course, that makes me want to go visit Israel soon.

As for the recipes, they use many of the spices that we already keep around for our Indian and SE Asian dishes. It was nice to try out some recipes without having to go out and buy some unusual spice or ingredients. The dishes we’ve tried so far from this book are not subtle when it comes to flavor, and I think that fits our weekend style. Israel sits at the crossroads of many different cuisines in the Mediterranean and Middle East, so the recipes here really hit the spot for warm weather eating. Last week I made a batch of harissa from the recipe in the book and we’ve been using it (with a dollop of yogurt) as a dressing for our weeknight cabbage salads.

This weekend I’ll try a couple more recipes and see how they turn out, but so far I’m really impressed with this book. I can’t really find any points to criticize here. The politics of the area seem like it would make it difficult to write a book about “Israeli food”, seeing as it is a product of assimilation from other food cultures, but the writers deftly provide a glimpse into a vibrant and delicious place that I’d like to visit someday soon.

This was one of the few cookbooks I went ahead and bought after returning it to the library. I think I’ll be referring back to it often.

Next is a short novel by Stephen King, called “Later”.

After finishing this book I realized that this is the second book I’ve read by the author. The first one, Beartown, was one I had read a long time ago and to be honest it didn’t make a big impression on me. Anxious People was a book that did make an impression – I really liked it.

For this book I think the less I say about it here the better, but I will say that the book is extremely well-written with a plot that was clever enough to keep you guessing. I think a book like this would be a challenge to write: finding the ideal balance of whimsy, reality, heartbreak and love to satisfy both the characters and the reader. I wasn’t surprised to see there were many people the author thanked for their support in his writing at the end.

Excellent book – it seems like it would be hard to replicate the feat that the author pulled off here.

Next is Shuk, by Einat Admony and Janna Gur. Time to learn a little more about how they eat in Israel.

I’ve got a soft spot for books that describe people walking away from everything they know and starting fresh in another place. In this case, the author and her husband move from London to Denmark when he accepts a job at the LEGO headquarters in the countryside.

The book describes getting settled in a new country a little bit, but really is focused on figuring out what makes Danish people so happy. It is writing in style full of dry wit, and I ended up laughing out loud several times while reading, which is always a good sign. That said, I did feel like sometimes the writer took the joking a little too far – enough that occasionally I wasn’t sure if something really happened or if it was a sarcastic side note.

Examining her own happiness, the author compares her experiences in the UK and typical experiences in America with how things happen in Denmark. She uses a lot of statistics (maybe too many) to analyze happiness, However I’m not sure statistics are the best way to measure some as intangible as ‘happiness’. Still, it is interesting to see the differences between cultures illustrated in such a funny way.

I learned a lot about Danish society, and the book brought back a lot of memories of when I first moved to Japan. Like the author, I thought I’d only be around for a year and it ended up lasting much longer than that.

One interesting thing was that my copy of the book was an updated electronic edition from the library, and the author included an epilogue of sorts – explaining how things had changed in the 6-7 years since she wrote the original book. This epilogue included some big contemporary topics like the anti-immigration movements in Denmark and elsewhere, the Black Lives Matter movement and even the onset of COVID-19. I was especially impressed that she spent time talking about the incredible privilege she enjoyed while being white and blending into the homogeneous (white) culture of rural Denmark, and how much easier it was for them to fit in. These kinds of epilogues are rare in paper books, so it showed an advantage to ebooks that I hadn’t really considered before.

So it was a very funny and entertaining book – and I really enjoyed reading it during these days of non-travel. Next I’m reading Anxious People by Fredrick Backman.

This was a sci-fi book written about another world where just about every dispute is settled with fists and brute force – in a circle, mano a mano.

What I look for in a good science fiction book is deep world building, gritty characters, and some kind of subtle message running through it as a deep undercurrent. This book started with promise and described a very compelling world. Most of the beginning occurs on a mysterious island and inside deep caves that house an underclass of people who are struggling to get by. The culture of combat is deeply seated in this society, and this book gets right to it.

Unfortunately, things got worse from there. The narrative really hits you over the head with issues of inequality and honor, classism and work ethic. The characters are mostly black and white – either with a heart of gold or one-dimensionally evil. Unfortunately I managed to sniff out what the climax of the book would be while reading the first few chapters.

Most of the writing centers around martial arts, and the writer is obviously very well versed in this. I think people (especially young people) that are interested in mixed martial arts or similar sports would get more out of this book than I did.

What really threw me off was a sudden switch in the middle of the book to a sort of Harry Potter situation – just change Hogwarts to the Citadel and the sorting hat to the Trials. It didn’t seem original (one of the leaders of the Citadel was cribbed right out of Game of Thrones), and if there is one thing I hope to get out of science fiction is a new way of thinking about things.

So maybe my expectations were too high, but this book didn’t really do it for me. I don’t think I’ll bother moving on to the next book in the series.

Switching back to non-fiction, I’ve started to read The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell.

This was a refreshingly simple and well-designed cookbook. Written by a French woman who cooks in America these days, the book takes a seasonal approach to dishes. She introduces common fruits and vegetables available in each season, and then outlines both traditional French and her own recipes.

The recipes themselves are quite simple, and I think that aligns with my own thoughts on cooking – I want a dish based on tomatoes to taste like tomatoes – I’m not much for deconstructions and molecular gastronomy. Save that for the Michelin guide and let me play with the pure, delicious veggies.

I saved quite a few recipes from this book, including a chickpea flour based tart base infused with cumin, how to simply cook French green lentils, making pebronata, a curried leek tart, and the use of rolled barley in savory dishes.

I didn’t have much to criticize in this book – maybe a few more pictures of the dishes (or steps in the recipe)? This was a refreshing, pleasant read and it didn’t take itself too seriously – just what I needed!

Next I’ll read Combat Codes by Alexander Darwin. Nothing like a little science fiction bareknuckle brawling to shake things up!

Here’s my first really bad book in quite a long time! This book was recommended online as a funny look at someone who really hates their job. Going on only that brief snippet of information I checked this book out of the library, and unfortunately I was left disappointed.

I’m not sure if I really got the point of this novel. The main character is an over-educated self-centered whiny guy who seems to take no responsibility in his life. He spends more energy avoiding said responsibility and work than he would use by actually working. If this character is meant to symbolize someone or some generation it is beyond my skill to identify it. Other characters get written in a overly simple way and there is nobody likable (to me) in the whole book. I’m not sure if the story is supposed to be funny – there are lots of slapstick moments and timely coincidences but I felt like I was missing the funny parts. Especially I felt that the portions of the book written from ethnic minority points of view were written in a way that was meant to imitate their accents, and this came off as uncomfortable to read.

The writer is undoubtably clever and some of the references were well placed, but the whole effort felt like a poor reimagination of Don Quixote, or maybe a Jerry Lewis skit that goes on too long.

So this was definitely not my cup of tea, moving on! Next is The French Market Cookbook – a book about cooking vegetables which caught my eye.