2024
43 booksThe Last Policeman
by Robert Winters
The Silverberg Business
by Robert Freeman Wexler
The Stranger
by Albert Camus
Permutation City
by Greg Egan
Travels in the Americas
by Albert Camus
A Desolation Called Peace
by Arkady Martine
A Memory Called Empire
by Arkady Martine
A Triumph of Genius
by Ronald K. Fierstein
I had no idea the extent of Edwin Land’s and Polaroid’s rate of invention, particularly through WWII, which are set out in the first third of the book. Polarising light filters, heat-seeking missiles, instant photography, an appreciable contribution to the U2 spy plane. Then the fast pace of the first third gives way to an extremely thorough recount of the anti-trust case. This part is interesting, maybe a bit too detailed, although I appreciate the effort that’s gone in to distilling a years-long patent dispute into a single book.
Assassin's Quest
by Robin Hobb
Royal Assassin
by Robin Hobb
Assassin's Apprentice
by Robin Hobb
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery
Charming, and at least a more plausible attempt at having ‘genius’ characters than Conquest (see below). Maybe a bit similar in that sense, but the gap between the author and the characters’ interest in their subject matter (if any) was smaller and so less obvious.
Conquest
by Nina Allan
This suffered from the same issues as Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, which is that a the ‘genius’ characters just feel like thin stereotypes, and the authors can’t actually represent characters like that with any more depth. Allan has picked out obsessions for the Frank-Bach, Shane Carruth, etc.-but it feels like she doesn’t have any familiarity with these things, so how can the characters? Anyway it was fine, lots of people seem to like it.
His Master's Voice
by Stanislaw Lem
A Gentleman in Moscow
by Amor Towles
The Mind's I
by Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett
A Perfect Vacuum
by Stanislaw Lem
Echopraxia
by Peter Watts
Blindsight
by Peter Watts
A Fraction of the Whole
by Steve Toltz
Extremely Australia-coded. It was good but it also felt like a book that you’d be given to study in high school. I’m not sure that’s a compliment or not. Weirdly nostalgic for a time and for a Sydney that I didn’t really grow up in.
Contact
by Carl Sagan
A History of the Bible
by John Barton
Abaddon's Gate
by James S.A. Corey
I had a really strong sense of deja vu reading parts of this, but a strong unfamiliarity with other parts. Not sure what that means, or how helpful a review that it. It’s good though, even the parts I’d read before.
Caliban's War
by James S.A. Corey
Leviathan Wakes
by James S.A. Corey
Good, but I think the series doesn’t get rolling properly until the sequels. I’ve seen it described as a ‘space opera’, but I’m not sure it qualifies with only two main characters.
Genesis
by Robert Hazen
The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
Blindness
by Jose Saramago
Innocents Abroad
by Mark Twain
The Lies of Locke Lamora
by Scott Lynch
Imagine if Oceans 11 was set in fantasy Venice. Really fun read—I’ve heard the sequels aren’t as good, though, so I’ve stopped here for now.
Pawn of Prophecy
by David Eddings
Valuable Humans in Transit
by qntm
Absolution Gap
by Alastair Reynolds
The Art of Memory
by Frances Yates
The Urth of the New Sun
by Gene Wolfe
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
by Robin Sloane
The Trading Game
by Gary Stevenson
Entertaining read about a young trader’s introduction to the world of investment banking. Fun, but clearly fiction or hugely sensationalised and not the serious autobiography claimed by the author.
Redemption Ark
by Alastair Reynolds
Energy: A Human History
by Vaclav Smil
A deep dive into how energy has shaped human progress and human societies, from pre-history to the modern day. It feels like Smil builds a strong argument for continuing to increase our energy generation capacity, but never actually makes this point. This book (2017) is an expanded edition of a previous book Energy in World History (1994), which might be worth also reading to see if he continued the thread there, then removed it from the update…
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August
by Claire North
For some reason I associate this book with sci-fi, but it’s more like light magical realism, groundhog day if the cycle was an entire lifetime and not as funny. It’s a nice read, although the second half—which I felt was tense—might drag a bit.
All the Names
by Jose Saramago
I’m a sucker for shaggy dog lists—for example, the page-long exploration of gravestones presented to Jose in the cemetery when he visits. Great book, probably not as good as The Gospel According to Jesus Christ. Somehow Jose (the narrator) comes across as both ignorant and canny, relatable and pretentious; Jose (the character) is pathetic but very likeable. As you’d expect with Saramago, the prose is so good you don’t even notice the lack of punctuation.
Sea People
by Christina Thompson
Originally recommended in this review. Really a book about the philosophy and the history of science, exploring Western understanding of how basically a single group of people—the Polynesians—settled the huge area between Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island. Thorough and constantly interesting, peeling back the layers as we work through the chronology from European discovery of Polynesia to the present day. Particularly interesting are the parts about ‘two ways of thinking’, where Europeans struggled to rectify assumptions in their way of thinking with those of the Polynesians.
Book of the New Sun
by Gene Wolfe
I honestly can’t believe I was never introduced to Wolfe earlier—I think if I’d read this as a teen I’d be completely obsessed. I can see why the endless discussion about this book has continued online basically since it was released.
2023
38 booksWhy Read the Classics
by Italo Calvino
A collection of essays about “the classics” and about key Western authors. Key quote: “A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this background noise is something we cannot do without.”
Skunk Works
by Ben Rich
Rose/House
by Arkady Martine
Little novella about a house and the consciousness that inhabits it. It was fine; not as engaging as her other two novels.
The Character of Physical Law
by Richard Feynman
The Adventure of English
by Melvyn Bragg
The Return of the King
by J.R.R. Tolkien
I read the whole trilogy in one go, as if a huge single tome. I can’t believe I hadn’t read these before, absolute cornerstones of the fantasy genre. I did feel like you could tell that Tolkein was coming from The Hobbit through the start of The Fellowship of the Ring, and the tone of the series got darker from there.
The Two Towers
by J.R.R. Tolkien
See the review of The Return of the King above.
The Fellowship of the Ring
by J.R.R. Tolkien
See the review of The Return of the King above.
Only Forward
by Michael Marshall Smith
The Emigrants
by W.G. Sebald
The Rings of Saturn
by W.G. Sebald
Seven Surrenders
by Ava Palmer
The Internationalists
by Oona Hathaway & Scott Shapiro
Really interesting book—the past really was a different country. An exploration of the Kellogg-Briand pact, signed in 1928, which aimed to outlaw war. Obviously, WWII started less than 10 years later, but the authors argue (successfully, I think) that the pact impacted countries’ behaviour during the war––particularly the USA––and especially affected the aftermath.
This is How You Lose the Time War
by Amal El-Mohtar
Quick, easy read. It was fairly light-on, and maybe could have been even shorter––novella? short story, even?––but was still enjoyable.
Too Like the Lightning
by Ava Palmer
Let My People Go Surfing
by Yvon Chouinard
Travels in Hyperreality
by Umberto Eco
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
by José Saramago
The title spells out the premise: A story about a much more human Jesus than is represented in the gospels, an unwilling accomplice who tries––and fails––to thwart God’s plan. Great, compelling prose. Honestly just a pleasure to read, and it makes me want to read more Saramago (and learn Spanish so I can read it in the original language, along with Borges). I read the translation by by Giovanni Pontiero and Margaret Jull Costa, part of The Collected Novels of José Saramago.
1177 BC
by Eric Cline
Assassin's Fate
by Robin Hobb
As with the other series, I read the The Fitz and the Fool Trilogy as one book. A fitting end to the entire sixteen-book saga. I’ll definitely work my way through the whole thing again, but not soon––I need to process this ending first.
Fool's Quest
by Robin Hobb
See the review for Assassin’s Fate above.
Fool's Assassin
by Robin Hobb
See the review for Assassin’s Fate above.
Blood of Dragons
by Robin Hobb
I read the combined version of the Rain Wild Chronicles, so Dragon Keeper, Dragon Haven, City of Dragons, and this one just felt like one huge book. Still great, maybe stretched a bit more thin than other trilogies in the series. Serves its purpose in properly tying all of the threads together.
City of Dragons
by Robin Hobb
See the review for Blood of Dragons above.
Dragon Haven
by Robin Hobb
See the review for Blood of Dragons above.
Dragon Keeper
by Robin Hobb
See the review for Blood of Dragons above.