Simon Jimenez’s The Vanished Birds is one hell of a debut novel.
In my notes, I wrote that that “this is a weird book; not much of anything happens for the first two-thirds and then there is plot all over the place,” which pretty much does explain the pacing.
I loved this book so much. And while I tried to make it last, I read it incredibly quickly and then was very sad when there was no more book, even as I was sobbing like an actual baby at the end.
Ahem. Ryka Aoki’s Light from Uncommon Stars is pretty stellar.
Margaret Killjoy’s A Country of Ghosts is a work of beautifully crafted utopian fiction that reminded me of nothing so much as Ursula K. LeGuin’s The Dispossessed–except in a country called Hron where there is enough for everyone, as opposed to LeGuin’s moon Anarres, where there are precious few resources.
Highly recommended.
Cal Newport’s DEEP WORK is both interesting and deeply infuriating. He makes some excellent points, but also has some major blind spots.
Back in August I got an unexpected bonus at my day job (for being awesome) and it has been my practice to, if at all possible, spend bonus money on fun things. So I spent half of it on an awful lot of custom-dyed wool/silk blend fiber to spin into yarn for a sweater and then I thought about what to spend the rest of it on. And then Amazon announced the...
I write about books, culture, disability, and whatever else strikes my fancy. I have many opinions.
I am a two-time Hugo Award finalist, in 2017 for Best Fan Writer and in 2021 for my essay “George R.R. Martin Can Fuck Off Into the Sun, Or: The 2020 Hugo Awards Ceremony (Rageblog Edition)” in the Best Related Work category.
Please do not offer me medical advice. I have something like 10 doctors and it’s already pretty challenging to keep up with what they want me to do. I do not have the bandwidth to process any advice that doesn’t come from one of my doctors, no matter how well meant the advice may be. Thank you!
Here’s some wishlists in case you want to buy me something.
I try to keep them reasonably up to date.