aka @kingrat@sfba.social. I'm following a lot of bookwyrm accounts, since that seems to be the only way to get reviews from larger servers to this small server. I make a lot of Bookwyrm lists. I will like & boost a lot of reviews that come across my feed. I will follow most bookwyrm accounts back if they review & comment. Social reading should be social.
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63% complete! Phil in SF has read 19 of 30 books.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn …
"Lola", Jonathan Santlofer
A stalker starts obsessing about Lola, a woman who bumped into him on PATH, follows her, paints her, spies on her. obsessively. Told from his point of view. It's noir. he doesn't get redeemed.
best story so far.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn …
"New Day Newark", S.J. Rozan
86 year old Miss Crawford wants to help the new mayor clean up the city, and there are two drug dealers on her block. Who are no match for her.
"Newark Black: 1940-1954", C.K. Williams
Poem about the black things in Newark, and a bit about the Black people in Newark.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn …
"Soul Anatomy", Lou Manfredo
a rookie cop, the son of a US Attorney, shoots and kills a Black squatter. He tells his union attorney the story, and he's pretty messed up about it, but not in a way I'd expect.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn …
"Live For Today" by S.A. Solomon.
An addict gets a job as a morgue technician, where she works primarily with the bodies of dead junkies.
Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies, launched in 2004 with Brooklyn …
Been a while since I read an anthology.
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. …
Content warning revelation of Linus Baker's character arc may reveal the gist of the plot
Linus Baker evaluates orphanages that house magical children. For some reason, the department he works for is extremely rigid and controlling for their workers (they issue demerits to workers??!). But he's given the assignment to investigate one orphanage by Extremely Upper Management. For reasons I never quite understood, this orphanage is different. Extremely Upper Management pays special attention to them, and nearby residents fear the magical children extra vehemently.
Despite a premise that doesn't quite hold together, a delightful story emerges during Linus Baker's 4 week visit to the orhpanage. The children are kooky! The headmaster, Arthur Parnassus, and Linus Baker develop a friendship. Linus gets to learn that maintaining a distance and objectivity limits him, and he gets to break out of a decades long deference to authority and fear of connection.
If you listen to the audiobook as I did, Daniel Henning does a wonderful job of voicing a multitude of characters that gets to the essence of each of the children and adults. I often find it hard to follow audiobooks with lots of characters, but Henning's narration does such a great job of making each of them distinct and memorable that I had no problems.
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether …
Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow of the royal court by …
Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow …
What did I go as? His poniard?
— Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) (76%)
new vocabulary: poniard * a small, slim dagger
Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow …
"I must ask," he said, and the venom in his voice was hungry with hatred. "Are you his catamite, that he lets you suck strength from him? Is that why he is so possessive of you?"
— Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) (61%)
new vocabulary: catamite
a boy kept for homosexual practices
Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow …
I noticed two strange horses in one of the paddocks, and one lady's palfrey had been stabled.
— Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) (42%)
new vocabulary: palfrey
a docile horse used for ordinary riding, especially by women.
Linus Baker is a by-the-book case worker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. He's tasked with determining whether …
On a generation ship bound for a distant star, one engineer-in-training must discover the secrets …
Ravinder "Ravi" Mcleod is training to be an officer on a generation ship going from Earth to Tau Ceti. While not strictly speaking a heredity based society, officers tend to be children of officers & crew tend to be children of crew. The ship (one of three in a fleet) is coming up on Braking Day, the point in the trip where the ship flips around, then fires its engines to begin decelerating. A.k.a., Braking Day from the title.
There's lots of plain drama just from keeping a ship in good shape and heading toward its destination. There's lots of drama because of the hierarchical society that dominates the ship. And there's lot of drama because Ravi starts seeing visions of a girl whose only words Ravi can understand are "help us".
This is a very young adult themed book, though I don't know if it was officially marketed as …
Ravinder "Ravi" Mcleod is training to be an officer on a generation ship going from Earth to Tau Ceti. While not strictly speaking a heredity based society, officers tend to be children of officers & crew tend to be children of crew. The ship (one of three in a fleet) is coming up on Braking Day, the point in the trip where the ship flips around, then fires its engines to begin decelerating. A.k.a., Braking Day from the title.
There's lots of plain drama just from keeping a ship in good shape and heading toward its destination. There's lots of drama because of the hierarchical society that dominates the ship. And there's lot of drama because Ravi starts seeing visions of a girl whose only words Ravi can understand are "help us".
This is a very young adult themed book, though I don't know if it was officially marketed as such. All the spotlight characters are coming of age. Pretty much anything an adult does is either off screen, or an authority figure in opposition to Ravi and his friends. As such, don't expect much in the way of adult motivations.
On a generation ship bound for a distant star, one engineer-in-training must discover the secrets at the heart of the …
Young Fitz is the bastard son of the noble Prince Chivalry, raised in the shadow …
If I close my eyes, I can smell those glorious days. Oakum and tar and fresh wood shavings from the dry docks where the shipwrights wielded their drawknives and mallets.
— Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (The Farseer Trilogy, #1) (7%)
new vocabulary: oakum
loose fiber obtained by untwisting old rope, used especially in caulking wooden ships
