Category: books
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books galore
“Spook Street” is the fourth novel in the ‘Slow Horses’ series of spy thrillers by Mick Herron. The story circles around David Cartwright, a top-tier spook of the Cold War era, as he slides into senility at about the same time that an unknown agency decides to take him out of the picture. I like Read.
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books books books
It took me a while, but I finally finished reading “Lord Jim” by Joseph Conrad. And when I say “it took me a while,” I mean it took me years. As in, decades. I’m pretty sure I tried to read it for the first time forty years ago after I read “Heart of Darkness.” Probably Read.
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first lines
It’s a thing on social media right now for creators to quote the first lines from their favorite books. Trouble with this trend, it seems to me, is they’re all reading the first lines from the books that will obviously get them clicks, so almost every listcicle includes the first line from a Harry Potter Read.
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vocab
From “The Joys of Yiddish” by Leo Rosten: To help you distinguish kvitch from kvetch from krechtz (a salubrious set of niceties) I offer these observations: You can kvitch sedately, charmingly, out of happiness; to kvetch is always negative, bilious, complaining; and to krechtz is to utter grating noises of physical discomfort or spiritual woe. Read.
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year’s best
I’ve been collecting editions of “The Year’s Best Science Fiction” for I don’t know how long. Wait, yes I do. I’ve been collecting them since I was a teenager, but those copies are long gone. I started collecting the editions on my bedroom bookshelf ever since I noticed them for sale at the local Half Read.
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Network Effect
I have been enjoying the hell out of The Murderbot Diaries for only about four months. I read the first novella, “All Systems Red,” in a weekend in February and liked it so much I snapped up all three of the rest of the series of novellas – “Artificial Condition,” “Rogue Protocol,” and “Exit Strategy” Read.
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life doesn’t have to be convincing
Neil Gaiman interviews N.K. Jemisin, 5/2/2020 Gaiman: Back in 2014, I was in Jordan in a Syrian refugee camp – I was talking to the refugees about what made them flee their homes, what made them flee their cities. In order to get to those camps, they had to cross a desert where there would Read.
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The Last Emperox
It’s coming. Release date April 14. Which means I’ll be re-reading the first two books this week before my copy of the pre-ordered final volume comes in the mail. Assuming we still have mail. I will be so fucking furious if mail is one of the government agencies this administration gets rid of. Read.
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Marjorie Morningstar
I’m having trouble finishing “Marjorie Morningstar.” I found a copy of it in a second-hand store shortly after the author, Herman Wouk, died last summer. So many people said their favorite book by Wouk was “Marjorie Morningstar,” so I looked for it in the book stores I haunted to see if I could snag a Read.
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middle age
There are few real joys to middle age. The only perk I can see is that, with luck, you’ll acquire a guest room. “If you prefer a shower or a tub, I can put you upstairs in the second guest room.” I hear these words coming from my puppet-lined mouth and shiver with middle-aged satisfaction. Read.
This Is Drivel 