A Dying Fall   
by Elly Griffiths (2014)

read: 27 June 2025
rating: [+]

Another in this series of forensic mysteries, this one talks about the excavation of a possible King Arthur and some white supremacists in the northern part of the country. Ruth’s baby is toddling (and feels precocious for 18 months, but what do I know) and there was less “Big thriller part at the end” for which I was grateful and more druid stuff which I always enjoy. If you’d been thinking “I want to know more about Cathbad” this is your chance. If you like this series generally, this is a good book in the series.

The Accidental Network   
by Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard (2025)

read: 24 June 2025
rating: [+]

I was given this book to blurb. It’s written, with help, by the guy who built the first mass-produced cable modem and helped usher in the broadband era. It takes place in the 128 beltway near where I grew up and it was fun getting to remember the tech world of that era (one my dad was closely involved in). You see a lot of familiar faces and towns. Yassini-Fard is a gracious man, giving credit where it’s due, throughout this narrative. The retelling is uneven in parts and bounces around in a few places, but network nerds should still love it.

The Benevolent Society of Ill-Mannered Ladies   
by Alison Goodman (2023)

read: 23 June 2025
rating: [+]

A regency mystery with two unmarried sisters, fraternal twins, who try to help people in need by doing things which are entirely unsuitable for women in their era. Gus is a brazen problem solver whose height makes it easier to be a commanding presence. Julia is good at all the social graces and deep knowledge of peerage. They both have their limitations but they try to do things as a team. I enjoyed the setting and both of these characters and, once again, terrible cover and really good book.

Interstellar Megachef   
by Lavanya Lakshminarayan (2024)

read: 15 June 2025
rating: [+]

A scifi story about a woman who ran away to Primus from Earth in a future time where civilized people settled other planets and Earth remained as it is, barbarous and petty. Saraswati fled her terrible royalty family to make a go of it as a chef (which she was already doing on Earth - running a very well regarded restaurant). She meets Ko, a woman making VR sims. They do not hit it off at first, then they do. Great stuff about food and foodways and what it means to be from a place. Bad cover, good book.

Only This Beautiful Moment   
by Abdi Nazemian (2023)

read: 5 June 2025
rating: [+]

Oh my heart. A lovely, complex book about a gay US teen with Iranian parents. His mom died when he was young, his dad is closed off but ok, not supportive when he came out, but didn’t kick him out of the house either. A trip back to Iran to see his dying grandpa opens a LOT of doors of introspection as well as revelations. The story is told in three story lines (son, dad, grandpa) as they are each figuring out their own lives against an Iranian political backdrop of the times they are in. A lot of untold stories that finally see the light of day.

The Island of the Colorblind   
by Oliver Sacks (1997)

read: 5 June 2025
rating: [+]

Somehow there was an Oliver Sacks book that I missed. This one is about him going to a series of tropical islands to look at 1. a group of people who all have a similar achromatopsia, and 2. bunch of people who have a Parkinsonian-like disease of unknown etiology, and 3. cycads. This is an older book that he’s updated with a series of lengthy and interesting end notes. It’s more like three separate essays with a small thread between them. More questions than answers, but I liked being in the tropics with him for a bit.

The Unmaking of June Farrow   
by Adrienne Young (2023)

read: 2 June 2025
rating: [+]

This is the second book I’ve read this year with the same general theme: generations of women living in a rural farm setting having something vaguely magical about them which makes the locals distrust them, also the main character is a woman with an absent mom and a lot of questions. It’s a lot of similarity! This one is more of a time-loop type of story and so has some of the potentially confusing aspects of time loopery but I really liked watching how the story was gradually revealed.

Short-Circuited in Charlotte   
by Amy Patricia Meade (2017)

read: 2 June 2025
rating: [+]

This is the 2nd in a series of Vermont-based mysteries. I didn’t love the first one but I figured I’d see if they improved. This one was similarly just okay (and I had to ILL it from Florida!). There’s a maker fair type thing in Charlotte and then a murder happens, and then another. Stella, the textile consultant turned erstwhile investigator, tries to figure out what happened along with her forest ranger husband Nick. Totally OK book but not a great one.

Ruined by Design   
by Mike Monteiro (2025)

read: 25 May 2025
rating: [+]

Monteiro helps people become better, ethical designers who do good work and get paid. This is the “shitty pulp edition” which was FINE for my purposes. I appreciate Monteiro’s principled stance on things and how he spells it out with humor and just the right amount of rage. General thesis: designers should be more involved not just in the “how” of designing things but the “why” and should push back when the answer to “why” is something bullshitty and unethical. Ultimately he has hope for the future of design, even web design, and he explains why and maybe how.

The Third Rule of Time Travel   
by Philip Fracassi (2025)

read: 25 May 2025
rating: [+]

I will read any book about time travel. This one is good but also a little all over the place. There’s a lot of “Let me explain the SCIENCE to you” parts which were less interesting to me than the human drama, but that part was a bit trauma-filled. The basic conceit: you can only sort of time travel, consciousness only, and only for about 90 seconds, and only into the past. Or... are the supposedly immutable roles in this universe more malleable than that? One of those books where I had to Google the ending because I wasn’t totally sure what happened, a book that rewards close reading.

The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant   
by Drew Hayes (2014)

read: 22 May 2025
rating: [+]

A fun book suggested by a friend. If you like the title you will probably also like the book. These are a few sequential short stories with the same set of characters that take you through Fred’s first little while as a vampire, getting used to the whole thing, meeting people (and parahumans) and making friends. Then once he had a little band of folks, things start getting really interesting. It’s funny and does not take itself too seriously.

Stars in Their Eyes   
by Jessica Walton (2023)

read: 19 May 2025
rating: [+]

I don’t love how the cover shows the main Big Deal Event in this book but otherwise it was a delight. Maisie is a queer nerdy girl who had a leg amputation after a cancer diagnosis. She deals with some chronic pain and general crap at school from other kids. Ollie is a non-binary nerd who likes to draw and is volunteering (with their dad) at the comic con that Maisie goes to with her (also very nerdy) mom. A lot of people will feel seen in this very sweet story about what you can see on the cover.

The Library Mule of Cordoba   
by Wilfrid Lupano (2024)

read: 18 May 2025
rating: [+]

A graphic novel, translated from French, about the destruction of a library in Spain in the year 976 when “radical clergy” swept in during a power vacuum. Some books are secreted away by a ragtag group: one enslaved black woman, one enslaved eunuch, a random thief and an ornery mule. This book is about their travails and has both a cautionary warning about the destruction of books but also an essay about the actual political situation of that era at the end. The essay was good but I might have liked to have seen more of that information in the story that was being told. There’s some hopping around in time that made me not entirely clear sometimes which part of the story I was in. The illustrations are stunning.

We Solve Murders   
by Richard Osman (2024)

read: 17 May 2025
rating: [+]

If you liked the Thursday Murder Club books, you will probably like this. It’s a new set of characters but a similar theme--people who are not really in the murder-solving biz get thrust into a situation and have to rise to the occasion. Little bit more violence. It looks like it will definitely become its own series. There’s a wider age range of characters. but the same sort of humor. I enjoyed it and you have to love Osman who thanks booksellers and librarians FIRST in his acknowledgements section.

Kluge   
by Gary Marcus (2008)

read: 15 May 2025
rating: [+]

Marcus and I went to college together and were in the same program, so it’s fun to see some of the things we learned in college show up in this exploration of the foibles of the human brain and human cognition. Marcus uses sensible real world examples as well as citations from real science to explain some of the weird things our brain does and offers some ideas about why it might be that way. He wraps up with some suggestions for ways to think your way out of some common problems which seemed useful if a little overly-optimistic.