Hunter’s Heart Ridge   
by Sarah Stewart Taylor (2025)

read: 5 November 2025
rating: [+]

This book didn’t cohere quite as nicely as the one which preceded it. It was a very complex story about men who go to a hunting lodge, one of their party gets killed. There’s a “we’re all stuck here” snowstorm. Another member gets killed. The power goes out. That sort of thing, with a side story involving people who I knew and liked from the last book but which barely overlapped with this plot. I felt like the author has created a new series with two people who are at the center of it, but really only one was prominent in this book. I also felt like the author had a definite sense of the place she wanted the story to take place in more than she had a plot which would unfold. I like mysteries which take place in VT but this one was just okay.

Blades of Furry   
by Emily Erdos (2025)

read: 5 November 2025
rating: [+]

I will read most graphic novels which come in to my library, most of which are YA. Which is how I wound up reading this queer, furry, paranormal ice skating story. It was really well done. The story moves along, you don’t need to know/care about skating. The characters are believable, the tension isn’t overdone. My only complaint was that I somehow overlooked at this was just “volume one” and I read 500 pages of it just to have it be “to be continued...” [Deya Muniz is a co-author on this book]

Six Centuries of Type and Printing   
by Glenn Fleishman (2025)

read: 2 November 2025
rating: [+]

I am interested in the history of printing and this short and beautifully made short book was a nice little introduction to the various machines which transfer ink to paper to enable us to read it. It got a little in the weeds for me occasionally (complex descriptions of how a printing system worked which were hard for me to visualize) and there’s a LOT of vocabulary. Overall, glad I read it and Glenn was definitely the guy to write this.

The Heist of Hollow London   
by Eddie Robson (2025)

read: 26 October 2025
rating: [+]

I really enjoyed Robson’s other book that I read and looked forward to this one. It’s a complicated future where some people are nats (natural) and others are made (i.e. cloned) and the people who are made can be bought and sold like property. Arlo and his friend Drienne go from being brand ambassadors which is a cool but also sort of vapid job, to being purchased to participate in a heist which winds up being not at all what it seems. A lot of little side stories give this novel some good depth.

Enshittification   
by Cory Doctorow (2025)

read: 21 October 2025
rating: [+]

If you’ve read Cory’s stuff here or elsewhere, you will know the skeleton of this book. This is a full treatment, including all the ancillary parts that go into how it happened and a big chunk of stuff at the end about what could possibly be done. I’m not quite the target audience for this book because I may know the topic too well, but it was good to have a refresher and learn more neologisms like enshitternet &c. Accessible to more than just the usual suspects with a lot of useful detail and a decent dollop of humor.

Automatic Noodle   
by Annalee Newitz (2025)

read: 21 October 2025
rating: [+]

This book is great just like everyone says. A group of sentient robots of various forms and previous purposes come into awareness in a shut down restaurant in the middle of San Francisco (itself inside of a seceded California) during a torrential downpour. They do not have many rights, but they do have a few ideas and some plucky can-do attitudes. We get to learn more about each of them and their different personalities, and watch them manage starting their own business in a culture that has a small but strong anti-robot bias.

The Impossible Fortune   
by Richard Osman (2025)

read: 17 October 2025
rating: [+]

Fans of the Thursday Murder Club will likely enjoy this one. It’s got all our favorites (& a few new ones) who are all doing their things as they try to figure out why someone was trying to kill Joyce’s son-in-law’s best man. That guy disappears, his colleague gets killed, there’s a lot of bitcoin in play and a few side quests and some tasty baked goods. It sounds like there’s a lot going on but it mostly makes sense together. Osman always thanks librarians in the acknowledgments; I will read these books as long as they are published.

Wash Day Diaries   
by Jamila Rowser (2022)

read: 16 October 2025
rating: [+]

Four young Black women, all friends, all living slightly different lives, care for each other and their hair in this series of vignettes about life in the Bronx. There’s a lot going on and each woman has a different backstory and set of issues they are grappling with. It’s lovely to see this collection of day-in-the-life that acknowledges that friendships can both be complicated but also deeply nurturing. [Robyn Smith was the artist]

Homebody   
by Theo Parish (2024)

read: 13 October 2025
rating: [+]

This is a nice, simple non-fiction graphic novel by trans non-binary graphic novelist Theo Parish talking about their lifelong journey towards figuring out how to be at home in their body. It’s matter of fact, very well-illustrated, talks mainly about who was supportive (and not who wasn’t) and drills down a little into some topics like deadnaming and gender identity vs. sexual preference. Ultimately it’s a story of achievement and acceptance.

The Age of Video Games   
by Jean Zeid (2024)

read: 8 October 2025
rating: [+]

This graphic novel about the history of video games should have been right up my alley. But it was too meta for me--the illustrator and writer are also characters in the book--and, for a history, it jumped around all over the place. I knew a lot of the raw facts from other books. I read through the first few chapters and was just not interested in keeping up with it.

Shroud   
by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2025)

read: 7 October 2025
rating: [+]

Tchaikovsky writes a lot of books and I like most of them. This one is a bit of a first contact story which has a LOT of discussion (both show and tell) of alien intelligence and a dystopian future in which people have left earth and only exist in corporate-run resource-exploitation schemes mowing down whatever is in their path. Some Lovecraftian sense of “What is OUT THERE?” It’s got a lot of spookiness to it and also left me with a lot of questions since it ended somewhat abruptly. Ripe for a sequel.

A Short Bright Flash   
by Theresa Levitt (2013)

read: 29 September 2025
rating: [+]

A history of the Fresnel lens and lighthouses generally. Picked this up when I was idly browsing library shelves and it was much more interesting than I expected. French engineers! Civil War lighthouse attacks! World War II German lighthouse occupiers! Did you know that many Fresnel lenses floated in vats of mercury and this is believed to be why lighthouse keepers have a reputation for being drunk and/or crazy? Read this book, learn more.

Dreadful   
by Caitlin Rozakis (2024)

read: 27 September 2025
rating: [+]

What if you woke up in a ruined laboratory which was sort of on fire and you had no idea who you were? This is about a Dark Wizard who got his memories stolen after he captured a princess but before he could do whatever dastardly thing he had planned for her. But now he... doesn’t feel dastardly? There’s a longer surrounding story about other Dark Wizards and the townspeople and a few goblins who act a little bit as comic relief. This book isn’t laugh-a-minute funny but it is a humorous look at this situation and I liked it.

Love You A Latke   
by Amanda Elliot (2024)

read: 19 September 2025
rating: [+]

I knew this one was a romance going into it. I liked the general themes of small town Vermont (though much of it takes place in New York City) trying to do something new for December and settling on a Hanukkah Festival run by the woman who operates the town’s coffee shop. She has a frequent customer who she finds annoying but who helps her see the best in things. Various members of the town help in their own unique ways. Schmaltzy, funny, sweet and predictable, it was nonetheless fun to be surrounded by Jewish/Vermont themes for a bit.

Netherford Hall   
by Natania Barron (2024)

read: 16 September 2025
rating: [+]

I do not know how some books wind up on my TBR list. This was a Regency supernatural quasi-romance (maybe entirely romance, I am not familiar with the genre) which, if it sounds appealing, seems to be a good example of that genre. Not really my thing since there’s a bit too much of that fantasy “Whose magic will outmagic the other?” conflict, but that is a me problem. The characters, nearly all women, are interesting and have depth and there’s so much lovely description, especially of outfits. A lot of knowing glances and accidental hand-brushing, that sort of thing.