I went home to New Orleans last week! It was great — then I found out why the tickets were on sale.

While visiting fam, I got to do a lot of reading. Most of it wasn’t memorable, and actually was completely full of fail, but I’m gonna use this to talk about one of the key points of awesome female characters.

The first thing I read were the three books in Barry Hughart’s Master Li series — Bridge of Birds, Story of the Stone, and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. They’re … READ MORE

Posted in Books, Epic, Fantasy, Kids, Mysteries
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A follow-up to For the Love of Letters, Samara O’Shea’s Note to Self: On Keeping a Journal and Other Dangerous Pursuits describes her experiences as a chronic journaler, and argues passionately for the usefulness of journaling in one’s journey towards self-discovery. In both, she argues for a brief return to solitude, the very thing William Deresiewicz argues we’ve lost in “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education.” Unlike Deresiewicz, her thesis about the loss of this personal quietness isn’t linked to classist and sort of racist … READ MORE

Posted in Books, Non-fiction
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Under the pseudonym Kate Brennan, a real woman tells her true story of being stalked for thirteen years. In His Sights starts just before Kate meets her stalker, continued through the story of their relationship - a romance that lasted a couple of years, and ends today - at which point we know from the first chapter she is still being stalked.

Her stalker is unusually tenacious. He’s wealthy, so he can afford to hound her as long as he wants by paying others to take all the risks and do … READ MORE

Posted in Non-fiction, Thrillers
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This isn’t a full review, mostly because I JUST finished this as an audiobook, and am still overwhelmed by the sheer level of awesomeness contained within.

PLOT! Okay, basically some peace-lovin’ hippies from San Francisco decide to take some monkeys from a mysterious “Mountain of Peace” nebulously near Kathmundu to SF and other major cities across the world. The monkeys are a SYMBOL, get it, because them leaving the Mountain of Peace brings peace to the rest of world… EXCEPT BY PEACE WE MEAN DEATH! So SF then the rest of … READ MORE

Posted in Books, Classics, Sci-Fi
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I LOVE China Mieville. I want to make that clear. The end of Perdido Street Station ALWAYS makes me cry. Plus, he’s a smarty-pants who’s also written a book on Marxism and international law. All this gave me VERY high hopes for Un Lun Dun, Mieville’s foray into young adult fiction. Plus, I wanted find some decent young adult books after seeing the downer that is Harper Collin’s recommended summer reading list.

:dramatic pause:

I totally succeeded. This is such a keeper. Basically, it’s about Deeba Resham and Zanna Moon, two BFFs … READ MORE

Posted in Books, Epic, Fantasy, Kids
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