Tag: books
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Comparing Howard Sachar and Rashid Khalidi’s Accounts of Ariel Sharon’s 2000 Visit to the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif
From Howard Sachar’s A History of Israel: “Ariel Sharon Takes a Walk Its vortex was Jerusalem, traditionally the most explosive ingredient in the Palestinian-Israeli impasse; and its catalyst was Ariel Sharon, the perennial loose cannon of Israeli politics. A year earlier, following Netanyahu’s electoral defeat, the Likud party had overwhelmingly selected Sharon as its new…
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Year in Review 2020
Oy, this was a long year… I had originally planned to read only female authors this year to see if I could go a year without reading men, but I ended up reading 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson on my Dad’s recommendation and Chthon by Piers Anthony on unfinished business and spurred by…
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Yes, You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet
Rating: 5/5, amazing I started following Mia Violet on Twitter (@OhMiaGod) once I started being more active on Twitter a year or two ago and she consistently posts good stuff, mostly on trans topics but also on mental health and other subjects. This book is a memoir of Mia’s life from her childhood in a…
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Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
“Madame Bovary”… recalls “bovine”, doesn’t it? That’s what I thought when I heard the head of the Literature department at UCSC, Vlad Godzich, giving a lecture on it. The connotation is not an accident – the theme of romance mixing with, and being overcome by reality is the main theme of the novel. This is the…
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The Librarian by Larry Beinhart
Larry Beinhart’s “The Librarian” would make the perfect passive aggressive Christmas gift for conservative family. It’s a political thriller, made with a heaping cup of Bush satire and GOP-bashing. The book’s protagonist is a Jewish librarian named David Goldberg, who works at a college library in D.C. After his colleague, a stereotypical shrinking-violet librarian asks…
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The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! by Harry Harrison
I picked this copy of The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You! at Logos on a trip back to Santa Cruz. They have a lot of really sweet vintage scifi and if you ‘re passing through the area, you should stop by. It’s right on Pacific Street and it was one of my favorite haunts when I was in college.…
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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
I’m a little late to the party on this one, as it came out in 2005 and was fairly popular when I first heard about it in 2009. By that time I was a senior in high school and not really interested in YA fiction as much, so I ignored the hype, but… a book group…
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Libriomancer by Jim C. Hines
A librarian who can reach into books like portals and pull out magical weapons. A dryad accidentally summoned from a book, who falls love with the first person she sees. A pet spider who erupts into flame when supernatural creatures are nearby. Sound interesting?