I was overseas last week and did a lot of reading without any posting, hence the flurry now that I’ve returned to my usual internet connection. Of the books I powered through, Euphoria was definitely the winner, but that’s a little bit like being the smartest horse. Euphoria is the story of three anthropologists–Nel, Fen, and Bankston–in the 1930s, working with tribes along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. It is loosely based on the story of real-life anthropologist Margaret Mead. Mead was a cultural anthropologist, […]
Good, but not as good as the author thinks it is
If you’re looking for heist drama, Ocean’s 11-style genre fiction, I’d recommend The Rogues of the Republic over this first entry in The Gentlemen Bastards series. The Lies of Locke Lamora was an enjoyable read, but not the masterpiece the author clearly thinks he wrote. Mostly it just made me want to reread the aforementioned Rogues. One thing I am a sucker for is worlds that toss you in and don’t immediately (or ever) answer all your questions. Camorr is one such world with the ghosts of a previous […]
Has he ever met a person?
I kind of get why the movie fell flat–the source material wasn’t much to pull from. There’s an intriguing concept here. Imagine all digital connection (social media, searches, communication, commerce, streaming) was conducted through a single entity, here called The Circle. It started as an idea to dissuade trolls (forcing everyone to use their real, verified identity online) and has quickly evolved into a for-profit company that has a near monopoly on the internet. With your real identity, you can access everything you need to […]
Hard pass
Reader beware of “popular” library books that don’t have a hold list: the good-to-trash ratio is not in your favor. The Queen of the Night fell solidly in the latter category and to add insult to injury, it was looooong. But I was overseas and struggling to download books so I hunkered down and powered through. Ugh. This book is a first-person perspective of a woman adrift mostly in Paris in the 1860s and 1870s. She’s orphaned in America, crosses the Atlantic with the circus with […]