I rarely bother to read books that are rated less than 3 stars on Goodreads. That community generally has decent taste. Sophie Hannah’s latest (or second to latest, I’m not sure) has a 2.76 rating. But I love Sophie Hannah! Most of her books are great, and the ones that aren’t great are at least pretty good. So I ignored the rating and grabbed a copy of The Orphan Choir at the library. I’m sorry, Goodreads — I should have listened. This book was so, so bad. “It […]
The OTHER Chuck Norris
Deborah Blum decide not to be a chemist when she accidentally set her hair on fire with a Bunsen burner in college. But her fascination with learning about chemistry continued, so she put it to good use by writing The Poisoner’s Handbook, which describes — chapter by chapter — various murders and accidental deaths that occurred from specific poisons during the 1920s/30s in New York City. It’s gross, gory, and FASCINATING. And it stars bad-ass medical examiner Charles Norris and his sidekick, toxicologist Alexander Gettler. Get […]
The stranger & the pool
Apparently this book like, just came out. I borrowed it from my library after the Overdrive app recommended it. Hurt People is Cote Smith’s debut as a novelist, and I’m excited/terrified to see what he comes up with next. “(E)veryone ended up either directly in prison, as the prisoner or the guard, or became tied to a prison in a hazy way, some way no one talked about our could put a finger on, which made it even worse.” Set in 1988 in Leavenworth, Kansas (yeah, with all […]
“The CDO was, in effect, a credit laundering service for the residents of Lower Middle Class America. For Wall Street it was a machine that turned lead into gold.”
I took my time with this one, reading it slowly and carefully for over a week, trying to understand all of the really complex concepts outlined by Lewis. At least, complex to me — I dropped economics in junior college because it was going to ruin my otherwise perfect GPA. By a lot. I’m not sure that I understood everything (okay, I know I didn’t), but I did grasp enough to absolutely freaking terrify me. “What are the odds that rich people will make smart decisions about money […]