by Edith Holden

I just couldn’t get into the drawings of birds and the poems about nature and the naturalist observations. I would have liked more glimpses into what life was like for a lady in England in 1906. The most interesting parts were the explanations of the names of each of the months, which she got out of the encyclopedia; and the side-leaf that described the author’s brief life (she dies at 49 by falling into the Thames).

by J. R. R. Tolkien

I believe this is my second re-read (three reads total). It can be hard going, but just let it wash over you. Tolkien’s theology, it feels like an otherworldly retelling of the old testament. Occasionally a beautiful tale will jump out of the mirk, like that of Beren and Luthien.

Digression:

Tolkien’s old-school Catholicism is evident, and not necessarily unappealing. I see it this way. Modern thinking in our culture is extremely Freudian. We like to think we’re well beyond Freud, but he’s evident here every day. Every movie and book hero has a backstory “explaining” why he is the way he is. It’s all about his childhood. It made him evil, or good.

Characters in Tolkienland, they’re just evil. Or good. Or a little of both. It seems to me that every creature, lowly middle-earthlings or hallowed Ainur, have the capacity for evil. And sometimes someone just tips over the edge. In other words, it’s in all of us, and it’s just a random spin of the wheel whether you are going to get tipped over at any given moment, briefly, or for a lifetime.

Amen and thanks be to god and also with you.

by V. E. Schwab

It was a good story. I just wish it could have been told more succinctly. There were just way, way too many scenes of Addie going about her day and surprise surprise! suddenly! why, it’s a visit from Luc. AGAIN. And they engage in the exact same non-scintillating banter, AGAIN.

by Gabrielle Zevin

I’ll try to alternate my positive and negative comments, because I don’t want to give the impression that either should necessarily be given more weight, because as of yet I’m not sure myself how I would weigh them…

But first and foremost: it’s a novel about a STEM field. Always a YAY. Not only that, but it’s in large part about a WOMAN in STEM. A woman programmer, no less. Hallelujah!

Next: it was too long. It didn’t help that I read it on Kindle where you don’t get a physical sense of how much more you have to read. I kept feeling, “SURELY it ends here, right?” And it never did. There were so many spots where she could have ended it well.

Great characters. Semi-SPOILER in this paragraph. Marx was such an absolute doll. Too much so? Perhaps he should have been given a rough edge or two. But some people really are dolls. The way his life ended was very moving.

OTOH, Sadie. Sadie was such an absolute (expletive) to Sam! After they moved to California and she decided for some reason he wasn’t really her friend? Where did this even come from? It was awful, her always giving him this crap, “Oh you just want to take credit,” “Oh you just don’t think I can do it do you,” when he so obviously, OBVIOUSLY wasn’t like that. And finally her, “Just leave me alone” ultimatum – even when he started playing a public game with her? When she finds out it’s him, “OH I told you to leave me alone!” I mean Jeez, he’s just playing a game with you. She was just a plain and total (expletive).

Sam was the main character and he felt just a little incoherent at times. Awkward, yet a master showman at conferences? But then, some people really are incoherent. I’ll take this kind of strange complexity over one-dimensional characters any day.

I didn’t really like the pregnancy and baby plot development, because I never do; but at least they didn’t make the kid a main character with a bratty personality that I was supposed to find adorable. But peeve: When these obviously brilliant STEM-focused women in novels, women who obviously have the kinds of brains that are attuned to details and planning, discover, Wow! They’re suddenly pregnant! How did THAT happen? Oh well! It was the same in the abominable LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY. You just accept this plot development, that the woman let herself get pregnant, and what’s annoying is the story DOESN’T EVEN GO INTO which method of birth control she was using failed and how this actually happened. They just treat it like, ha ha of course these things happen! I’m not saying they don’t happen, I’m a walking-around accident myself, but I am saying that intelligent grown-ups like these characters are painted to be take STEPS to make sure as much as possible that they don’t happen, and the novel should at least in passing talk about what steps failed and how they screwed up, and they don’t even mention it. We know this baby wasn’t planned because she and Marx consider abortion; so tell me how the plans went awry.

I guess my final comment is: I can’t see Magic Eye pictures either. I was a little annoyed that at the end, Sam finally saw a Magic Eye picture just by virtue of Sadie on the phone with him saying “My 4-year-old can see them so I’m going to stay on the phone with you until you do!” Yeah, it doesn’t work that way. Some of us cannot see them. I read in the end notes that the author didn’t used to be able to see them either, but now she can. I guess someone got on the phone with her and berated her into seeing them too, because vision works that way.

I want to end as I began, by reiterating that I really do love books about women in STEM. Thank you!

by Coleman Hughes

I wish this book had come out before my book club did HOW TO BE AN ANTI-RACIST. I knew ANTI-RACIST didn’t sit well with me, I still think that color-blindness should be the goal. The argument for anti-racism seems to be: We tried color-blindness, it doesn’t work, look at all the problems we still have! But you’re ALWAYS going to have problems. You don’t give up working towards the goal, if the goal is worthy, and what could be more worthy than living up to our nation’s promise and treating all of our fellow human beings equally!

It’s like complaining that even with umbrellas, even with raincoats, even with very good weather forecasts, people still sometimes get wet… so you argue to do away with umbrellas and raincoats.

by Tom Hagler, edited by Tony Visconti

A few sentences or more about every celebrity Bowie ever crossed paths with. A bit silly but highly addictive.

If I may quote a reviewer on Library Thing named Michael Rimmer: “Initially, it feels shallow and disposable, but it starts to cohere the more you read, like looking close-up at a mosaic and gradually stepping back to resolve a portrait made of individual tiles.”

1962, two virgins on their wedding night in a hotel on the coast of England. Flashes back and forth between their disastrous first night, and their respective childhoods and history together. Be prepared for a depressing ending. Compelling; I, er, finished quickly.

by Maggie O’Farrell

I hated this book. Such one-dimensional characters (and way too many characters, too). Shakespeare’s abusive father John is all bad. Agnes’ stepmother Joan is all bad; no drop of affection whatsoever for two children she raised from babies. Shakespeare’s mother Mary is a dolt; I never thought less of the two main characters, with whom we’re supposed to feel sympathy, than when they literally laughed at Mary behind her back for being upset that her son was moving to London.

A couple of the characters see Agnes not as a mysterious woodsprite but as an imbecile. I thought it was an interesting perspective and chose to see her this way through the remainder of the book, which helped me get through it.

And hate it I did! I wanted them all to get the plague.

by Thomas Hardy

He should have remained obscure. No, seriously, as a story, it was pretty horrid. a young man’s hopes and dreams are stymied one by one. As a statement on matrimony and contemporary mores, I get it.

“And so… the two swore that at every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the preceding few weeks. What was remarkable as the undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at what they swore.”

In various ways, the story aimed to show the ludicrousness of this entire situation.

by Cass R. Sunstein

Not what I thought it would be…. It seemed mostly about nudges. He’s covered nudges elsewhere.