Thursday, July 29, 2021

Wee little reviews

Time again for some mini-reviews! Let's dive right in, shall we?

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado-Perez
Read October 2019
This was real good. Assuming you want to get mad hearing about systemic gender-bias built into everyday things. I added this to my TBR after listening to the author talk about her work on a podcast and excellent choice. Thinking about it, I might re-read this one soon.

Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear by Kim Brooks
Read October 2019
I don't remember this one. I had to go look up the cover on Goodreads to see if it looks familiar. It does, but I was originally thinking about a different parenting book. Which isn't a great endorsement. I skimmed the summary and it's sort of coming back to me. Woman leaves her child in the car for a few min while she runs into a store, someone calls the cops on her and she has to deal with the consequences for years (her child was ok, btw. Those aren't the consequences she dealt with). She talks about how parenting has changed and people are more fearful and it's of course important to make sure kids are safe and cared for but are we as a society going overboard. Interesting topic and one that apparently just did not stick in my memory. So make of that what you will.

Damn Fine Story: Mastering the Art of a Powerful Narrative by Chuck Wendig
Read October 2019
Writing advice story that isn't judgey. Not quite Stephen King's On Writing but if you're looking for another book about writing, this is a good choice. He uses Die Hard as an example of a good narrative and it's something I think of whenever it's on (which is more than I would have otherwise thought).

Food: A Love Story by Jim Gaffigan
Read November 2019
Hey, more Gaffigan! It's very much like the Dad Is Fat in that it's fine. It's mostly like this standup. I believe the food stuff has even more of his stand up material than the other book, which isn't surprising if you know his routines and how much of them are about food. It was fine. Something I wouldn't mind listening to again though I probably wouldn't be able to recall much more of it even if I read it more recently.

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling)
Read November 2019
The second Cormoran Strike detective novel. This one is stranger than the first one and spoiler, gets way grosser. I don't believe i guessed the solution before the end so good on that, I suppose. I liked the Cormoran books but this was prob my least favorite out of the collection. 

Almost done with 2019! So close, I can feel it. Then I'll just be a year and a half behind.

Monday, July 19, 2021

Hot Days, Cool Reviews

I dunno about how the weather is in your part of the world but given the news, my guess would be not ideal. We've been in the 90s (30s for celsius folks) for what feels like forever with lots of thunderstorms that luckily in our immediate area have not caused flooding issues. It has been interesting to see how these rainstorms have done nothing to cool things off. I took a walk in the later afternoon yesterday after a big thunderstorm thinking this would be the time it's cool enough. But the sun came out and laughed at our assumptions. That'll teach me to try to go out in nature.

Now I'm staying cool in the house, with some Blue's Clues on the in background as the lil monster crawls all over and figure I'll take this opportunity to try to get through a couple mini-reviews. Let's see how far I make it.

Confessions of a Domestic Failure by Bunmi Laditan
Read September 2019
Story of a stay-at-home mom with a young child who can't really cook or keep the house clean and is really trying to just hold it all together. But she wants to do better so she enters for a chance to win life-coaching from someone who knows what she's doing (I pictured a judgey Joanna Gaines type) with a group of other women and things don't quite go as planned, there are shenanigans, etc. A fun, light read

The Honest Toddler: A Child's Guide to Parenting by Bunmi Laditan
Read October 2019
What if a toddler wrote a parenting advice column? it would mostly be a collection of responses explaining why toddlers should be allowed to eat all the candy they want, why nap time is nonsense, why you should keep the juice flowing and other such pieces of wisdom. As the description of the book says "What makes toddlers so fascinating is their unique blend of cute and demonic behavior. A toddler will take your hand and say "I love you," then slap you in the face." Something I have experience with. Funny if it's something you're dealing with because it's nice to know that it's not just your kid.

Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
Read October 2019
Apparently I went through a parenting (or parenting-adjacent) book phase. Anyway, this book. It's basically comedian Gaffigan talking about becoming a dad. And then doing it again. And then a few more times. (He's got 5 kids in a 2 bedroom apartment.) It's basically a book of his stand-up which isn't a bad thing. I'm a fan of his standup and have watched his specials more times than I can count. Nothing super special here but if you like his stand up, it's entertaining.

My own toddler is yelling for "Juice right NOW! Juice please! Juuuuuuuuuuice" so I'm going to go take care of this. 

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Micro-review Time

It's the end of a long weekend, so why don't I write a couple super teeny, mico-reviews before we have to go back to our regularly scheduled work and such.

I'm still making my way through the backlog so this is going back to fall 2019. Crazy right? I did write a semi-for-real review of Bringing Up Bebe recently but that is certainly the exception and not the rule when it comes to me reviewing things. Even though while reading I still think "Oh man, I'll have to make sure to talk about X when I write about this". It's too bad that time almost never comes. Sigh.

Where the Crawdad's Sing by Delia Owens
Read September 2019
Read this for bookclub, and I probably wouldn't have picked it up otherwise. But hey, bookclub is for reading outside what I would normally read so it's all working out. Good story if slow much of the time and the mystery format is interesting. 

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Read September 2019
On the one hand, it's Poirot and those are aways a measure of fun. On the other hand, I barely remember this one. Which hardly makes a difference and I absolutely recommend this.

Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First Century Parenting by Drew Magary
Read September 2019
I have read very few actual parenting books but man do I enjoy books about parenting that aren't like, advice books. I suppose they're more parenting commiseration books? Because parenting is wonderful and stressful and a lot of work and very strange and I love hearing stories about why there is a household rule that you must wear pants while brushing your teeth. Or the "What's up, fuckface?!?" story that is making me laugh thinking about. 

I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
Read September 2019
Excellent true crime about a truly heinous terror. It's so sad to think about what more the book could have been had it not been for McNamara's sudden death, but what was completed is great. And while police say that nothing in the book had anything to do with the guy finally being captured, I'm going to go ahead and ignore that.