In an undefined future world, humans have lost the ability to see all parts of the color spectrum. Color vision is inherited; some folks can see red; some yellow; some blue, etc. A caste system has been created where those who can see color are arrayed above the Greys, who can see no colors. There are also dangerous beasts and human-eating plants ( Read more... )

This was SUCH a good book! It follows a company of Marines in Vietnam, led by Waino Mellas, the main protagonist. Mellas begins the story as a new lieutenant, fresh out of training, dropped into the war. I had a hard time getting through the first chapter, with its welter of names and lingo that you'd never keep straight. However, towards the end ( Read more... )

The story of Elinor and Marianne seems rather incongruous with the rest of Austen's work. There is a lot of description of the countryside, perhaps in parallel to Marianne's tumultuous nature, and the Dashwoods are always going on walks up into the hills, down through the valley, over fields, along lanes, always walking. I've read this a couple ( Read more... )

Started in Spring 2012; finished in Spring 2013. I set this aside for most of a year before picking it up again. It's a very good history of the changing landscape of Boston; it's just rather large and ponderous, and the final chapters are tacked on as the author updated it every 10 years or so. He likes City Hall! Appalling.

I read this book 10 years ago when I was in the Peace Corps. I remember being completely obsessed with it. It took me about three days to read, and I would go to work and could barely contain myself until I could get home and keep reading. I remember it being super gripping but not the greatest writing. It actually seems like a pretty good book, ( Read more... )

I first came to like Michael Chabon with his underappreciated novel Wonder Boys, and the other novels of his that I've read, even the celebrated Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, didn't make as much of an impression. I enjoyed this novel, set in an alternate reality where the state of Israel has basically been established on an island in ( Read more... )

I've never read a book quite like this. The protagonist is an novelist and ex-Hollywood screenwriter escaping a recent tragedy by returning to her fondly remembered town in Vermont. Shades of Lovecraft (thought I haven't read his stuff) and a sense of horror permeates the novel, but it's never really realized and it takes a long time to find out ( Read more... )

This was for my feminist sci-fi and fantasy book club. This is possibly the best urban fantasy I've read, not that that's saying a whole lot, but I enjoyed it. Alysha Gale is a member of a family of magic workers, who seem to use mostly charms which they draw on people and objects; a woman-centered sort of magic although there's some question as to ( Read more... )

I have a rather morbid fascination with the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) Church. It blows my mind that there can be people with such vastly different views on life in the same country as me, not to mention the way everyone but especially women and girls are treated in the sect is horrible. This is the memoir of Elissa Wall, who grew up ( Read more... )

Twelve-year-old Jason is in the middle rung of popularity at his school, but his standing can go up or down at a moment's notice. He's a stammerer, a fact he goes to great lengths to hide, and his parents are not exactly happy with each other. His older sister is hard on him, as siblings can be, and he has odd experiences that seem almost on the ( Read more... )