Category: 4 Star Books
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The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut
I don’t know how to describe this book other than to say that it’s very, uh… Vonnegut-y. If you’ve read Slaughterhouse 5 or Cat’s Cradle or ”Harrison Bergeron”, you’re familiar with Kurt Vonnegut’s unique combination of satire, pacifism, and accidental time travel. The Sirens of Titan, one of his earliest novels, features the seeds of…
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All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
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Rating: ☆☆☆☆✮ January 2016 I’ve been following Charlie Jane Anders’ career for a couple of years now, and so I was super excited when I heard that she released a science fiction/fantasy novel. She was a writer and editor at i09, a science, science fiction, and pop culture news blog. Charlie Jane Anders is also the host…
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The Conquest of Happiness
Published: 1930 Pages: 192 Rating: ☆☆☆☆✮ Bertrand Russell’s The Conquest of Happiness has immediately become my #1 favorite self-help book (not that there are a lot of contenders so far, but…). For anybody struggling with depression or an existential crisis, this is literally the best source of inspiration and practical advice. Most people try to defer the conversation…
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Oreo by Fran Ross
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Book Title: Oreo Author: Fran Ross Year Published: Originally 1974, reprinted in 2015 Publisher: New Directions Pagecount: 240 Rating: 4/5 It’s witty, dirty, socially smart and a little bit visionary, but no one’s heard of it. At least until now… Oreo didn’t get a lot of attention when it was first published in 1974 by…
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Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
Book Title: Go Set a Watchman Author: Harper Lee Year Published: 2015 (written in the 1950s) Publisher: HarperCollins Rating: 4/5 Go Set a Watchman is Harper Lee’s recently published first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. Tonja Carter, Lee’s lawyer, found the manuscript in a safe-deposit box in Lee’s hometown. Since Harper Lee is now…
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A Brother’s Price by Wen Spencer
Wen Spencer’s A Brother’s Price is the story of a boy named Jerin who falls in love with a girl named Ren. It’s set in a vaguely Victorian/Wild-West/Steampunk alternate history where the ratio of boys to girls is 10:1 (because of some hand-wavey genetic quirk, more girls are born than boys). It’s an interesting world…
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Tomboy by Liz Prince
Reviewer’s Note: I sometimes read modern books. This one was published in 2014! Tomboy is a graphic novel memoir by Liz Prince. In it, she talks about her experiences growing up as a girl who doesn’t fit the standards for behavior and appearance that society expects girls to meet. She writes about hating to wear…
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Atlas Shrugged – Review, Summary, and Quotations Guide
So, a little over two months ago, I started reading Atlas Shrugged. It’s a book my Dad has been suggesting I read for almost ten years, and since I’m currently unemployed and don’t have any more college reading to do, I figured I’d buckle down and git ‘er done. What I found is that Atlas…
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The Martian by Andy Weir
The Martian by Andy Weir is one of those rare cases of indie success that’s turned into mainstream success. Weir wrote the book for fans of his personal website, and thought his book would appeal mostly to hardcore science nerds. When a reader suggested he put it up as an ebook on Amazon, it climbed…
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The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
H.G. Wells is my favorite author, but when I tried to read this in high school I had to put it down after a few chapters. The first bit of it is extremely slow and if you’re not reading it closely it comes off as very racist. I must have been really tired the first…