On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good but maybe too short to properly put forth and support arguments. I’d be shocked if any independents or conservatives read this so it kind of negates its warnings. Liberals are, for the most part, well aware of the dire circumstances here and now.

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The Sibyl by Pär Lagerkvist

The Sibyl by Pär Lagerkvist
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am having a lot of trouble coming up with actual reasons why I liked this book so much. I think it's the character of the Sibyl which is so powerful and unique. The beginning outline of her story follows a realistic one, with a virgin in the village being chosen to be the sibyl for the temple and how all was accomplished in the temple. But it's really her feelings and religious devotion which make the book what it is. All her love mixed with rage jumped off the page and grabbed me. I really enjoyed the book.

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A Medicine for Melancholy by Ray Bradbury

A Medicine for Melancholy and Other Stories by Ray Bradbury
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some of these stories are so great. I read All Summer in a Day as a kid and it has haunted me ever since. But a lot of the stories in this collection are skippable.

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The Course of Love by Alain de Botton

The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a very strange book. It's a fictional case study of a couple. It feels like a very uncomfortable cross between nonfiction and fiction. The author's discussion of love in a married relationship is the nonfiction portion, but he uses no scientific data and instead relies on his fictional account of a rather standard marriage to communicate his ideas. I really wanted a rigorous nonfiction book on love, but I still think this book is excellent mostly because I agree with a lot of what it has to say about real love and generosity in marriage.

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A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lucia Berlin is amazing and almost all her stories in this collection are amazing, but oh boy, they get so painful after a while. I think I could have handled it better if either this were two smaller books, or if the misery were somehow broken up a bit.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sometimes you need a light dystopian chick lit novel. This is fast and easy, and the story has all the basic things, but nothing particularly special or exciting to it. Tally lives in a world where at 16, you get extensive plastic surgery to be pretty. The young "ugly" kids and the "pretties" live separately. Tally finds out little by little that this isn't as utopian as it first appears, and then no spoilers but [adventure happens], [more adventure], and then as Tally embarks on [the third adventure], the book ends. So there you are.

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Game Change by John Heilemann

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m 10 years late to this book but fascinating to see the evolution of campaigns and how much things have changed. The concerns about divisive, racist, or incorrect rhetoric seem quaint in this era of vitriol and lies. For goodness sake, John Edwards campaign failed because he had an affair and broke campaign finance laws. Now compare that to the outrageous nonsense of 2016.

Really interesting to see how various campaigns were functional and dysfunctional. Seems like Hillary Clinton made a lot of the same mistakes in 2016 that she made in 2008.

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Utopia by Thomas More

Utopia by Thomas More
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was an impressive attempt at imagining a perfect society considering this book was written in the early 1500's. I mostly liked its anti-consumerist bent. A lot of it is dated by the era of the author though.

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Seize the Day by Saul Bellow

Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book sort of reminds me of Death of a Salesman. It's easy to relate to Wilhelm even while judging him (and while judging myself by association). The sentences are wonderful and still very relevant to modern life. I also appreciate that the book is on the shorter side. Bellow packed a lot into a small space and nothing is belabored.

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The Puzzle Palace by James Bamford

The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization by James Bamford
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is sometimes surprising, often boring, and extremely quaint. The entire idea is how secretive the NSA is, and how few people even know that there is an NSA or what it has done. Oh, remember before Russia hacked our election in multiple different ways and NSA officials and ex-officials testified before Congress on television several times? Those were the good old days!

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The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, what a surprise. Even though the book follows the pattern of quest and adventure stories, it was full of surprises when it came to the development of the characters. The adventures themselves were so full of the gamut of human emotion- scary, funny, disgusting, sweet, and oftentimes exasperating. It was so good, I'm not even going to complain that it should have been edited down a bit because if the title of your book is The Neverending Story, you're allowed to drag it out as much as you please.

P.S. Full disclosure, I saw the movie on PBS when I was a kid, but I don't remember it that much and I fell asleep, so it really had no end for me until I read the book this week.

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Shelter by Jung Yun

Shelter by Jung Yun
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is much more literary than mystery, but I'd go ahead and call it a literary mystery. Fast-paced, interesting, and extremely thoughtful, I'd recommend it generally - especially in October.

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Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy

Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is not really a book of fiction, as there’s no plot to speak of except showing the protagonist around the future. It’s really just Bellamy’s well-intentioned hope for a future utopia. It’s actually a lot like the StarTrek vision without any technology whatsoever. Of course, unlike Bellamy, we have the benefit of understanding the failure of the centralized Russian economy. We also have the benefit of knowing about the internet in general and Amazon.com specifically. And while Bellamy’s ideas about feminism were a little off the mark, I really appreciated his solid attempt at equalizing women, particularly with his streamlined maternity leave and easy reentry to the workplace.

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VALIS by Philip K. Dick

VALIS by Philip K. Dick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The main characters in this book are Philip K. Dick in the first person and his alter-ego Horselover Far in the third person. At first, the play with this split perspective was the thing that interested me most. Then I was interested in his messy but informed religious banter. Then the narrative became more engrossed in Horselover Fat's mental illness... and finally... out of nowhere, the whole book became a science fiction book. Deeply weird.

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Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward

Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I feel like this book got worse as it went on. This would be a great book if someone took a firm editing-and-reorganizing hand. I feel like Woodward was treating me like I am Trump. He mentioned all the topics in not-so-short summary, in case I couldn't or wouldn't finish the book? And then he started repeating and repeating topics and even specific quotes, driving me to distraction. It was almost like the reality TV format of repeating clips that makes me not watch reality TV.

That said, here is what I found interesting about it. This is a very even-handed view of Trump. It was, dare I say, sympathetic towards him and the people around him. The people who speak most harshly about Trump in this account are Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly.

The most interesting parts for me were the in-depth discussions of:
1) the existential threats of both North Korea's nuclear capabilities,
2) the threat Russia's defense of the Baltics,
3) the neverending Afghanistan quagmire,
4) the not always unfavorable comparisons to President Obama,
5) private discussions of Senator Lindsay Graham and President Trump,
6) disagreement among Executive staff regarding free trade, and
7) discussions with Trump leading up to the tax cuts.

4 stars for substance, 3 stars for writing execution.

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Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It was entertaining, but there were too many characters and I wasn't very invested in the vast majority of them. I felt like the main reason I was able to follow so many of the characters was that I saw the movie first so I could picture the characters in the movie. Some of the characters were better and more developed in the book, like Nick's best friend Collin. But I thought Rachel Chu and Nick's mom were a little better developed in the movie.

Also, the ending in the book was pretty meh.

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The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad

The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The first half of the book was painfully boring for me. But the second part! Holy cow! So dark and angry!

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The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton Chekhov

The Lady with the Little Dog by Anton Chekhov
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There are many bits of truth in this story and lots of good sentences, but to my experience, this story seems to misunderstand real love.

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Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the most complete and up-to-date book on everything related to sleep. You know the thing we're supposed to spend 1/3 of our life doing? Everyone needs to read this. It's one of a few books I'd consider a necessary owner's manual to the human body. That said, a lot of it- but not all- was a repeat for me because I do a lot of science reading and sleep especially interests me.

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Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a wonderful story about first love. The characters are wonderful and perfectly imperfect. I enjoyed every minute of reading this book. In addition to the romance story, I appreciated the serious way the book dealt with the issue of poverty and abuse.

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