Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Riveting! I have no personal interest in mountain climbing (though I like hiking- the flatter the better) and certainly, I have no interest in climbing Mount Everest, but this book kept me turning the pages as quickly as I could.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because it left me wanting a more literary or philosophical examination of life and death. My first thought was it's crazy to climb Mt. Everest. But my second thought was - well, none of us are making it off this planet alive. Maybe the issue with climbing Mt. Everest is more an issue of age and family situation. But there was no real exploration of any more meaningful exploration of the choice to scale the mountain though there was a fair bit of discussion about the duty the people on the mountain did or didn't owe to each other, though most of that had a somewhat indirect quality about it.

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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this novel. Hosseini did a good job of writing about some of the complications of friendship and family. I could relate to the experience of immigrants and refugees trying to adjust to a new country, culture, and language.

The setting of Afghanistan in two different times was also really interesting. I've read some of the history of the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan but I still think this book could have benefitted from explaining a bit more clearly what was going politically to understand the relationship to what was happening in the plot of the story.

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent memoir (in the form of a letter to the author's son). Strongly recommend every American read this as soon as possible. Coates writes prose as if it is poetry. He clearly and simply traces the relationship between American economics, slavery, the Civil War, the modern South, police brutality, city projects, and the uphill battle of those trying to move away from the history. He manages to pack a lot into a very short book. Between his beautiful writing and his economy of words, I wasn't able to put the book down until I was finished.

It's particularly interesting reading this book right now, when the current presidential election is mired in these very issues. The thing that's different now, is that the racist-sexist forces in our country have failed to hide their intentions this time. With their true intentions on display a majority of the "other" seem to have banded together: Women, black people, Hispanic people, GLBT, and others voting together en masse against the typical oppressors. As Gloria Steinem says racism and sexism are closely related and intertwined. It keeps the maximum number oppressed and also helps keep everyone divided. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that authoritarians want to keep as much power for themselves and away from as many others as possible, so everyone is "lesser." One thing that Coates stresses though is that even if a majority are moving away from racist-sexist attitudes, it takes only one act of state-sanctioned terrorism by the police to take away all security. And sadly there have been many more than one.

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Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This graphic nonfiction novel- my first graphic novel- is amazing. It was so entertaining to read that couldn't put it down until I was finished. It's incredibly moving, and I learned so much about Iran from the perspective of young Iranian girl from the Shah, to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, to the Iran-Iraq war. Part I of story covers her life from 1979-1984, from about when she was 9 to 14 years old.

I'm really annoyed at myself for not getting The Complete Persepolis because now I have to wait to check out Part II.

(Gate of all nations in the city of Persepolis:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis#/media/File:Persepolis_24.11.2009_11-12-14.jpg)

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The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am so surprised. I was really bored at the beginning and contemplated quitting, but then little by little I started liking the characters, and then I was invested in them. Then the plot suddenly got so much better.

The descriptions were great. The tents remind me Italo Calvino's cities only better.

There are just some small plot issues and a certain lack of seriousness about the book that makes me withhold the one star. But I would recommend reading it.

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Stiff by Mary Roach

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book made me feel all the feelings. That would be a great review for a fiction book. This is of course, nonfiction. I'm not sure I wanted to feel some of these things as they pertain to the extreme realness of death. Even though it was really interesting, I couldn't in good conscience recommend the book to others.

Also, now I really want to be classroom skeleton after death though that seems to be nearly impossible these days.

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Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this, it was cute. I liked the bookstore and library settings, and I would have given it 4 stars but the ending is a bit blah, and the characters outside the main character are not my favorite. (The roommates are more interesting than the best friends.)

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