bangersandmash - Currently reading

Finished reading: Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 📚 That was a romp. Powerful, political, visceral, yet tender in world only one or two mistakes away from the political and economic world I live in. Anti-carceral. As we all should be.

→ 10:28 PM, Oct 16

Finished reading: I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger 📚Leif Enger’s use of language — especially metaphor — is mesmerizing and humbling. I found myself jealous of his ability to describe the world in a language so rich and illustrative, yet still within the bounds of the character.

→ 8:17 AM, Oct 16

Currently reading: Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich 📚

Very promising start to this one. So far Erdrich is weaving a strong tale of characters which overlapping tensions and stakes. The cataclysm hinted at hasn’t fully revealed itself, but the minefield of family relations is lovingly given life with characters who all easily assert their own voice and read with an vibrancy that comes from an author spending time crafting them into distinct actors, nut just mere characters. Also. Love the hot dog scene.

→ 10:47 AM, Sep 28

Finished reading: The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn 📚

I loved the conceit of this novel. Constructing a story through fragmentary glimpses into life on an interstellar ship via snippets of info you’re to piece together form HR exit-interviews. But this was a novel of absence, for me. All anonymous. All gestures towards something and some things in which the author’s goal seems to be to leave all signifiers empty. It basked in the vagueness of gesture, of the knowledge that those in the book would understand, but aloofly leaving the reader a fistful of straws at which to grasp.

→ 10:13 AM, Sep 28

Currently reading: The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn 📚

→ 7:34 AM, Sep 27

Finished reading: Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner 📚

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ this was incredible. The characters, the world building, the way that Kushner weaves the history of Neanderthals and homo sapiens into a story about inherited, adopted, and chosen personal, regional, and political identities, values, and loyalties was magnificent. And the prose… wow. Does a book about an agent provocateur have any right to be so intricately, empathetically, and beautifully written? I think this one is going to stay with me for a while.

→ 11:52 AM, Sep 26

Finished reading: On Earth as It Is on Television by Emily Jane 📚

I tore through this book. Looked forward to the end of my day when I could get back to it. It was weird, quirky, charming, openly-laughing-in-front-of-other-people-funny. Yet the ending left me wanting. It felt rushed. Still, I highly recommend you’re looking for a book that has aliens, family politics, unexplained medical conditions, and highly opinionated cats.

→ 4:26 PM, Sep 18

Currently reading: Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro 📚

On the recommendation of a friend. The concept of AFs is really interesting. Ishiguro is really giving some complex ethical questions a lot of room to breathe. So far, so good

→ 4:49 PM, Aug 28

Currently reading: The Future by Naomi Alderman 📚

Really enjoying this end-of-the-world exploration of power, privilege, and technology. My brain is having trouble accepting just home powerful some of the technology is (\verging on deus ex machina at times), but overall this has been really enjoyable so far.

→ 12:17 PM, Aug 26

Finished reading: The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey 📚

I enjoyed this one so much that it became a mealtime topic of conversation with my wife. Eventually, she had to tell me to shut up about it because she probably wants to read the book now. I really enjoyed the way that this one peeled back the ethical issues of cloning, and the meaning of agency. Read the book. Then read the acknowledgements. This book was written in blood and suffering.

→ 6:34 PM, Aug 18

Finished reading: Redshirts by John Scalzi 📚

This lost me in the middle, but I persevered. Last chapter went some way to making amends. Won’t re-read, but wouldn’t mind if it ended up as a mini-series somewhere.

→ 6:23 PM, Aug 13

Currently reading: Redshirts by John Scalzi 📚

Coming back to Scalzi after a bit of a break. Loved the The Interdependency series and am hoping to bask in a bit of an irreverent and sarcastic take on the tropes that make speculative fiction so wonderful to read.

→ 1:05 PM, Aug 8

Finished reading: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel 📚

This book changes shape as it goes. I thought I’d known it, seen it before as I read through the opening chapters. But, as Zoey notes somewhere along the path, a humanity I didn’t expect took over the story and left me somewhere I didn’t expect to be standing, with an appreciation for a well-woven narrative, deftly executed. Loved it.

→ 6:38 PM, Aug 6

Currently reading: Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel 📚

Just started today. This is my “cottage book” for August 2024. Hoping for great things!

→ 3:14 PM, Aug 5