Reading
I am currently reading The Angel on the Roof by Russell Banks. This American Life recently included an old segment featuring Banks. I got the book from the library and they had to dig it out of the archives. That made me a bit sad. It’s slow reading for me, but I am enjoying the stories.

I somehow had missed the book Revolution in the Valley by Andy Hertfeld. Many of the stories, if not all, are available on his site, Folklore, but I am glad to have the stories in one collection to hold. And the pictures are bigger and that’s fun for me.

Watching
We’ve been watching Bad Sisters and that’s been a blast. How I can really, really like this family is something else. But I really do.

And because I am weak, and will watch anything sci-fi, I started watching The Ark. It’s buttocks. I watched the three available episodes (I know, I know, I can’t help myself).

Finally, raise a glass to Leiji Matsumoto who helped create Space Battleship Yamato, known in the U.S. as Star Blazers.


I missed this book when it came out but thanks to good ol eBay I now have it. Iā€™m so happy.


I recently finished Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky. It’s a short story that was recommended by Jason Snell in Episode 439. What a fun read about space travel and why the Prime Directive is so important. Thumbs up. Oh, it doesn’t have anything to do with Star Trek and the Prime Directive, it’s just what I thought about.šŸ“š


I finally read a James Baldwin book: If Beale Street Could Talk. I had heard of James Baldwin much of my adult life but I had never read any of his books. I took a picture of this passage:

People make you pay for the way you look, which is also the way you think you look, and what time writes in a human face is the record of that collision.

I am glad I read this book.


šŸ“š I finally read Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. I have no idea why I hadn’t read this before, but that’s fixed now.

Rating: šŸ‘


šŸ“š I finished two books while on vacation. The first one was Unlocked by John Scalzi. I have no idea why I read this before his other book Lock In but I don’t think it was really necessary to read them in order. I’ll get around to Lock In before too long. The book’s style reminded me of World War Z by Max Brooks. Iā€™m sure this style has a name, but I am not fancy enough to know it.

Anyway, I recommend Lock In (World War Z too).

The other book was Artemis by Andy Weir. I didn’t like it nearly as much as his first book, The Martian because it felt like everything had to be overly explained because the science is too far out of everyday knowledge. It just got in the way. I still recommend Artemis because Andy Weir’s love of space and science shines through and I like that.