This novel represents the latest installment of Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. It follows the adventures of Moist von Lipwig who, having conquered the postal and banking systems of Ankh Morpork, is now tasked by the Patrician Lord Vetinari with seeing to the implementation of a railroad. Following in his father’s footsteps, Daniel Simnel, the man “wi’ t’ flat cap and sliding rule” who “ has the learning of the sine and cosine”, has built the Iron Girder, the Discworld’s first functional steam locomotive. Daniel […]
A sort-of Scientific Mind Meets 103,000 Magic Books
This is the story of Touma Kamijou who believes that he the worst luck possible. He lives in a world in which a sizable chunk of Tokyo is taken up by “Academy City” a place where people gifted with special psychic abilities come to train their powers. Touma himself is ranked a a Level Zero, meaning the official tests reveal that he has no special ability whatsoever. Except that he actually does posses an ability called “Imagine Breaker” which cancels out any other special ability […]
Hip-Hop Grawlix with a Side of Family and Food
Fresh Off the Boat is a memoir from Eddie Huang, the owner of the popular NYC restaurant Baohaus. The book is divided into 2 sections. The first takes up eleven chapters and covers Eddie’s childhood and school memories, and the second section spends the last six chapters from mid-college to the opening of Bauhaus. The book begins when Eddie is about seven years old and introduces a variety of family members as a group. Family plays a large part of the book, as does the […]
An Architect and a Serial Killer During a Fair
This book is a work of creative non fiction that re-tells the overlapping stories of the architects of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and the serial killer Dr Henry Holmes. The book opens with one of the last surviving architects, Daniel Burnham, reflecting on his life and his friends as he travels on the ship Olympic towards Europe April 14, 1912 (the significance of the date becomes obvious later on). The rest of the story is told as a flashback, beginning with Chicago’s bid to […]