A novella by Scalzi which is short and goofy and a good time. If you liked Kaiju Preservation, you’ll probably like this story of a woman who does constitutent services on a future Earth where the district she is living in is minority-human so there are a LOT of different things to take into account when you’re helping various people of various species help solve their civic problems. Humorous and a quick read, not a lot happens but there’s a satofying and amusing story arc and a good solid ending.

Harrow keeps getting better. This is a story about a legend and the person writing the story about the legend while also becoming part of the story. It’s got time loops and female knights and some academic drama and a mean old queen (and a misunderstood horse) and a lot of ruminations on the nature of freedom and of love. How do you tell the story of a people? How do you perfect that story, if it wasn’t quite right? Hard to talk about without spoilers. Treat yourself.

This is a collection of “poems you’ve probably heard of” set to illustrations by someone you probably haven’t heard of. I went in thinking this would be something different and was a bit underwhelmed, but my partner was flipping through it and felt it made poetry he’d otherwise maybe not be clicking with suddenly make sense or become more accessible. Poems are split up into seasonal sections, illustrations are good, not all the same. A few stand-outs.

Taking place in the mid-late 1800s, this story about a female bookbinder and the web of intrigue she gets mixed up in was up my street but not exactly right for me. There’s a bit of a mystery at the center of it but it’s really not a mystery book. There’s some fancy descriptions of book stuff which I always love, but maybe not enough of it. It seemed to be trying to be too many things at once, so while I enjoyed reading it, it also didn’t stick with me too much.

I usually have a bright line “no Nazis” in the books I read but a friend really enjoyed this and suggested it. It’s the story of a POW camp in a castle in what became East Germany. The people running the camp played by the Geneva Convention. The people in the camp tried to escape ALL the time, and often succeeded. The war is in the background and the Nazis don’t show up until the very end. I did not know this bit of WWII history and it was a good read. The last bit of it, besides having an extensive bibliography was a longish “what happened to them?” section which is the sort of thing I always like.

Book two of this goofy LitRPG series. I enjoyed it a lot, maybe not quite as much as the first one because there was a lot more “WTF is going on?” in the first one. This book introduces quests and some other kind of important dungeon beings. The cat gets a pet and there’s a big fight against evil clowns and knife-wielding lemurs. You’ll know if you’ll like this book or not by how you feel about the previous sentence. I enjoyed it.

A woman’s young husband dies and he leaves her a gift of one hand-picked book per month from the local independent bookstore. This is an engaging and basic romance novel which has at its core the idea that books can change lives. It goes pretty much exactly where you think it’s going to go. It’s nice, it’s bookish, the characters are likable and I did not at all mind being in this world for a while, even though romances are not usually my thing.

As someone who has had a bear at her bird feeder, I read this book with interest. The author is an outdoorsy type who talks about the various kinds of animals you might see if you live near their habitats and what, if anything, you can and should do about them. The animals she discusses range from bears to alligators to foxes to skunks to wild turkeys. It’s sensible advice which acknowledges the complexity of these situations.

I put off reading this because the cover is so dumb. I’m glad I persevered. It’s a “What if an RPG was in novel form and was funny?” book with Carl who survives a weird apocalypse only to wind up in a dungeon RPG along with his ex-girlfriend’s cat who gets some buffs so that she can talk. There’s a complex ruleset and a lot of funny bits while there’s also a lot of boss battles complete with weird monsters and a lot of gore. Part of a longer series, will read more.

A fun book about what we know about the human body based on science. It talks about the body section by section. The book is filled with trivia including a lot of mentions of people who are not well-known by folks (including some scientists whose research was co-opted by others who took all the glory). I knew some things, I learned some things, and I thought “Oh I think that’s changed” about a few things (book is from 2017). Readable and fun.

A very moody seaside novella about a young man making his living in the hardscrabble world of shanking, scraping shrimp from the low waters with his horse and cart, coming home to the simple cottage where he lives with his mom, getting up and doing it all over again. One day a man appears who wants to put him in a movie, waving money and just the whole concept of “something else.” Just the idea of something else changes him. This book was slow and evocative and a nice place to be in.

This is a great short novel about some North Korean spies, a South Korean who runs a restaurant in Oxford, and an American spy of Korean descent who is also part of this whole thing. It bounces around a bit in the timeline, but overall tells a story of what it means to be Korean, or to consider Korea “home” (or not) and what it means to have family (or not). Very self-contained and event-filled without being thriller-y. I liked getting to know these characters and what made their lives complex as well as interesting.

Emma is a French graphic novelist who wrote this book in 2017, later translated into English. She is admittedly late to feminist topics and her author bio says that her comics, which run in the Guardian, “have a history of going viral.” I think this would be a better graphic novel for someone newer to feminism and activism than I am. She covers topics like female sexuality, household domestic labor divisions and racist police. All good topics, decently illustrated but some of them felt a bit obvious while some were more sophisticated looks into feminist topics. Overall a bit uneven and more like essays made into pictures most of the time.

Unfortunately, this book had nothing to do with the programming language 😆 This was the second in the Harbinder Kaur series and it was good. Sort of had the same issues as the last one, a lot of characters, a few which are nicely built out and a lot of others with generic names who are almost NPCs. A lot of nice views of Scotland. Kaur makes progress with her more-traditional family. As a nighttime book that I wasn’t expecting too much from, it was pretty good.

I had read Takei’s earlier memoir about being sent to an internment camp with his family. This one details his personal and professional journey, only coming out as a gay man in his sixties, when he had already been in a committed relationship for two decades. It’s well-told, poignant and sweet (and a little rage-inducing), showing the fear he had about someone discovering his secret, but also the ways he found to live his life and become the gay icon he is today.

From the author who brought us Book of Doors, a story about a group of people sworn to keep a small set of magical objects away from the general public lest they become dangerous. But there are secrets even within the society and messy magical conflicts result. There’s a lot of “This book would be fifteen pages long if people would only tell each other the trusth” but it’s engaging nonetheless. Taking place in, among other places, London, Alabama, and Hong Kong, this is a well-done story about being careful about what you wish for.

A sort of fun look at what sorts of things were considered rude or just beyond the pale and what other things were just not as big a deal back then as they are now. Goodman goes into topics like sex, drugs (well, alcohol) and fighting and looks at old documents, primarily court records and wills but also a few books published at the time, and talks about what “behaving badly” at that time, really looked like. A lot of differentials between the genders which is not that surprising. I learned stuff.

A different series by Elly Griffiths who I have liked. This is the Harbinder Kaur series. Kaur is a mid-thirties British Indian gay woman who lives with her parents. She is also a great detective. This book, the first, is about a spooky horror story and goings on at the high school which used to be the home of the horror writer. There are a few murders. A lot of different narrative perspectives which I enjoyed more than I expected to.

I got halfway through this book and noped out of it because I was just not interested in where it was going. A spacefaring teenager in a future where kids grow up fast is in search of her father who may have gone missing when the planet he was on just... vanished? She’s canny and lonely and interacts with, among other things, a planet all full of people who commune with the divine via an herb they smoke. A LOT of made-up slang made the reading a bit too slow going for me

This is a graphic memoir about a woman who deals with a new school and a family tragedy and where and how she finds support, including with her running team at school. She is Puerto Rican (but also white and does not speak Spanish) living in New York. The book’s timeframe is just post-9/11, so a while ago but also not so long ago. Like the cover, the book has a great graphic style. Unlike many other memoirs, the author works through some complex emotions in a constructive and supported way so it’s not one long trauma processing exercise.

Antrobus is a biracial poet who grew up working class in the UK with partial deafness. His memoir talks about his life before and after getting diagnosed, getting hearing aids, finding his voice, getting therapy, having a child, using BSE and BSL, and other milestones. The narrative jumps around a lot, ultimately more like a series of vignettes than one single narrative. The end part of his life has the least information of all. He moves to the US, has a kid, is maybe separated from his child’s parent. I particularly liked learning more about D/deaf poetry and would have happily read a lot more about that part of this book.

This is the final book in this series. No love to an author who writes two series and culminates each one with a book with “Last” in the title (i.e. I took the wrong one home from the library at first). This wraps up sort of like you think it will. A little pat and a little zipzip for a 15-series book, but overall for people who like murder mysteries and especially a female protagonist and complex humans, it was a great read. The mystery itself is almost secondary because you know how these things go and you’re just waiting to see what resolution Griffiths chooses for the arcs of her characters.

This was the Vermont Reads book for 2025. Many of the Vermont Reads books have been pretty heavy. Someone assured me this was not like that, even though it deals with catastrophic climate change (as in: there is no more Florida) topics. I thought this was a good book but it was also pretty grim. So many of the characters die or go missing. The main theme is that we need to start living in and preparing for the future world, not the past one we are already missing, but also managing the grief around that. Masterful but upsetting.

I have a big porch Someone gave this to me. I thought “Oh neat, like my porch” but this is very specifically a book about SOUTHERN porches which means it has a certain vibe to it that is at once familiar (Faulkner, Lee, Wolfe, Morrison) but not what I was looking for. It’s a nice commonplace book with lit excerpts about porches (Southern porches) alongside some nice photography of various kinds of porches. There’s also an intro by Reynolds Price who I had not heard of.

Ben Passmore is a Black anarchist and graphic novelist. This book uses the framing of his mostly-absent dad coming back around and trying to school the slightly-politically apathetic Passmore about the history of Black resistance in the US, and Black armed resistance in particular. No punches pulled. The cops are drawn as pigs, a lot of it takes place in and around the carceral state, all the protagonists are complicated. I knew some of this, not all of it.

From the new shelf at my library, written by the CEO of a non-profit company which supports moving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities into supported living situations outside of institutions. Obviously he’s got an angle. This book explains both what his company does (and how) but also why it’s the RIGHT thing to do. Fewer stories from actual clients than I’d like, but still good overall.

This is the penultimate book in this series and the plot points are coming in fast and furious. There’s not really even that much archaeology in this one. Covid is really center stage and just ramping up. Ruth gets a new neighbor and finds out some interesting facts about her. Then there’s a weird connection between a string of deaths that doesn’t even get explained that much. I liked it because I’m mostly here for the people but a bit thin on plot.

Illustrated by Rafael Rosado, this is a sweet YA graphic novel about Ignacio, a kid whose parents immigrated from Colombia, trying to navigate being in high school (and Spanish class) with young women who he suddenly has an interest in, and also his jerk older brother. He connects with the spirit of his Colombian grandfather, who mostly helps him with some of this. This book touches on so many useful concepts (various Latinx identities, DACA, a little bit of US politics) and has a good heart at its core.

No idea where I found this one. It’s a fun book about a disaffected young woman, Alex, stuck with her shitty family looking for a job, any job. And she finds one... working for a genie in a retail kiosk at the mall. He’s selling wishes which, of course, gets complicated really fast. She sort of wishes to go away to college and have a less shitty family. He doesn’t know much about the human world, and she’s got big dreams about leaving this all behind. Better than it seemed like it would be, and much funnier.

It’s hard when you don’t like someone’s deeply personal memoir, but I didn’t. The front cover of this book made it seem like it was about snacks and... er... joy. The back cover makes it more clear that it’s about the author’s lifelong struggle with some sort of disordered eating, an unhelpful bad relationship with a foodie who is always pressuring her to be different from how she is, and a confusing relationship with both her parents and her body. A lot of it was told in a roundabout non-linear style so I wasn’t even sure what was going on a lot of the time. It starts off talking about her doing some form of burlesque which seems like it might be fun, but that’s not revisited until the last few pages of the book. The author thanks her therapists among other people in the acknowledgments at the end, but it’s not really clear how she’s gotten to the place where she is and therapy isn’t mentioned at all in the course of the book (despite me the reader thinking "This person should try therapy").

I knew this book wasn’t going to be great. But I got a used Apple Watch (my partner has one, he likes it, was I just reflexively disliking it?) and I wanted to learn about it without watching a video or reading AI slop websites. It’s an older watch, I figured an older book would be okay. I learned HTML from a Dummies guide, how bad could it be? Well, THEY MISSPELLED THE WORD WATCH, for one. The book had tons of typos, the kind spellchecker should fix. A lot of the text felt copied straight from Apple’s marketing materials, talking about what features would be coming soon. A lot of awful “jokes.” I learned about maybe four features and otherwise feel dumber for having read it.

A short novel about Mara, a youngish woman who doesn’t quite fit in with her family or life in general. After drifting about, she lands a job on the night shift of a reality TV show about people who buy houses and then find out they are haunted. Her cousin is the “talent” on this show but he barely gives her the time of day. You’d think it would be tough to find enough people for a haunted house reality show, but the crew gives extra haunting nudges along the way. Mara’s a bit of a loner and still figuring things out and the show gives her life a temporary focus.

A short fun graphic novel about Vern who is having a tough time coping with the earth being a mess. He’s burned out and moves back home. His mom and grandma nudge him into a job at Quasar which... does what exactly? Stuff happens on an interdimensional level and Vern has a front-row seat. This is one of those graphic novels which really feels like it was a lot of fun to draw: quirky, trippy, and colorful, with a good sense of humor and a good heart at the center of it.

A graphic novel about a shipwreck and the drama trying to figure out who was legally entitled to the treasure. It involves diplomats, lawyers, treasure hunters and US, Peruvian and Spanish jurisdiction. Based on a true story (which I did not read up on until afterwards) it’s an interesting and well-told and easy to follow story even though it was clearly a pretty convoluted situation at the time.

An exceptional book about wildlife, specifically tiger, conservation in Siberia and also to a lesser degree in China. Slaght, who also wrote a compelling book about fish owls in the same region, talks about US/Russian cooperation for the Siberian Tiger Project from the early 90s until now. A lot changes, a lot stays the same. Color photos of amazing animals and a lot of nerdy science. You really get to know the place; an excellent geopolitical conservation tale.

Another one of the forensic anthropologist mysteries where we again are working towards a thrilling conclusion of the series. This one had a convoluted mystery, a lot of rando characters with similar-sounding names and not a lot of history stuff which is usually my favorite part. And then there’s the overarching plot arc which continued in a good way. A nice familiar read but not one of my faves of the series.

I’ve liked Barry’s other books and I liked this one in a different way. It’s a straight up long-haul forever-war sort of story about a crew of four flawed people on a four-year tour of deep space with a mission to kill a seemingly endless supply of one type of alien creatures. Oh and their ship is run by an AI so sophisticated that the humans are really only there for PR purposes, and maybe to help the AI company sell more AI. Written in 2020 but still feels fresh. That said, there’s a lot going on in the past maybe 5% of the book which made me feel differently about the first 95%.

A graphic novel memoir about the author’s journey to the US starting as a Vietnamese refugee coming to Thailand on a boat under awful conditions & slowly getting to the US and eventually becoming the graphic novelist and cartoonist that he is today. It’s told in chapters each of which has a different food (some Vietnamese and some very much not) as a framing device. It’s really interesting getting to see the refugee experience through the eyes of a child. A well told story.

Another one in this series with a slightly confusing cast of whodunit characters, a bike race, and some local lore at the center of it. This particular book took a big jump in a few plot points, mainly in good ways but some in less-plausible-feeling ways. Feels a bit like the author is trying to readjust some story arcs to wrap it all up which it does a few books from now. I enjoyed getting to see the same folks again, but not my fave of the mysteries.

I have not read the original book that this is an adaptation of. However, this is a glorious book in and of itself, discussing not just the author’s knowledge of trees and forest ecosystems, but his path through finding a way to find meaningful work studying and promoting these things. The adaptation is masterful, the drawing, lettering, and coloring all add to the final product, itself printed on sustainably forested paper.