mchester24's reviews
129 reviews

I was really excited when I saw the penguin classics “four novels of Sherlock Homes,” having never read and Sherlock story or really watched any popular media of the most frequently portrayed fictional character in history

Reading the forward ahead of the books had me a bit apprehensive about how I’d like the study in scarlet, given the scholar who wrote the forward described it as a somewhat weaker one in the canon. But if that’s the case it only makes me more excited to go down this pathway with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because I found the story and writing style so engaging, fun, and satisfying. 

With this being the first introduction of the Holmes and Watson characters, it felt like a great prelude to the series to come, and I think what I’m really learning is how much I enjoy the 19th century English writing that has at least a touch of gothic

The only part keeping me from five stars was the middle part being a flashback of the crime characters felt jolting and too long (as the forward warned!), but as soon as we found ourselves back in London I couldn’t put it down!

Definitely confident I’ll be going on many more adventures with Holmes and Watson. What a fun, overdue discovery!

I really enjoyed this story and as I sit here writing this after completing its giving me one of those book hangovers— I want more and I want details, but definitely the beauty comes from not having that. 

I saw another review highlighting that for such a weird premise you don’t get weird enough, but I think that’s what I really love. Bob the Blob gives us a surreal and unexplained aspect of the story, but the universe is just the real world. The author, the main character Vi, they walk us through so many raw, real human experiences is incredibly relatable prose: depression, rejection, self doubt, self hate, obsession, poisonous nostalgia, sub-zero self esteem, trying to fight back against all of that with family/acquaintances/life trying with mixed success. But those relatable experiences get externalized thanks to the surreal presence of Bob the Blob. 

The sense of identity, particular racial identity and those pressures and expectations, get touched upon as well by circumstance of Vi being half Taiwanese and most of her surroundings being white washed— and i wish I could have heard more deeply about that especially per the interesting contrast of Bob becoming white. 

I raced through this book as it was very readable and kept me eager to pick it up each time. Hoping to see more from this author in the future!

Had bought this book a year ago to finally dive into what the Gaiman hype was about, and was eager for this to be the first of many I added to my list. Well between then and now all the allegations came out against him which were disappointing to say the least— but I figured I already paid for it so I’m still going to read it!

That’s all to say I was preparing to do the gymnastics of separating art from artists to justify any addition works of his I was to read, but I found myself less gravitationally pulled in than I expected. 

Numerous times during reading I found myself asking ‘what in the world did I just read??’  Sometimes that was a compliment in the form of awe, sometimes..not. I definitely found myself leaning more towards the positive aspect of that as the last 20-30% played out, but the first majority had too many dragged out, confusing, and disjointed versions of it for me to find myself as consistently engrossed as I hoped. In the 10th anniversary preface Gaiman wrote for the version I have, he noted this text added back in some of the parts his editor had described as meandering in the original cuts. I think that’s a good word to describe the parts that challenged me— too meandering. Some of the fat could be readily trimmed that might have led me to rate this higher. 

But in the meantime, I’ll give it 3 stars and not feel like I’m missing out too much if I don’t dive into more of Gaiman’s work. 

Yuval has done it again, and I can’t help but label this book as awe inspiring and brilliant. This has solidly put him on the list of “I’m eager to read anything he puts out” after the home runs of his Sapien series. 

We are in unprecedented times, but as a studied historian he shows us the ways in which we aren’t flying completely blind and lessons of the past persevere. Just as with Sapiens, it’s astounding how seamlessly he weaves together complex and varied topics with a common thread, and the lessons I took away that astutely apply to anything you read in the headlines today — AI, geopolitics, dismantling of democracy, social media ills, advancing science and medicine, and so much more— make it so important to read now, in this moment of history. 

I cannot adequately summarize all those key lessons that have seeped into how I’m processing other media I read, but I sense I’ll return often to this paragraph from the epilogue when I need a reminder: 

“The good news is if we eschew complacency and despair, we are capable of creating balanced information networks that will keep their own power in check. Doing so is not a matter of inventing another miracle technology or landing upon some brilliant idea that has somehow escaped all previous generations. Rather, to create wiser networks, we must abandon both the naive and the populist views of information, put aside our fantasies of infallibility, and commit ourselves to the hard and rather mundane work of building institutions with strong self-correcting mechanisms.”

Keeping on with my kick of ‘catching up’ on classic books, authors, and styles I simply never got to until now, I had picked up a fun box set of essential HG Wells and happily started here. The challenge always of rating a collection of stories is how varied they can be, but this book served as a great introduction collection of Wells. 

What surprised me was how many of these were not sci-fi in the traditional sense but spanned genre: horror, fantasy, monster, war. They definitely all read of the same series in different ways given Wells’ distinct style and voice: matter of the fact, straightforward, and almost ‘reporting’ fantastical elements as though they are mundane and commonplace. 

The Time Machine was unsurprisingly the stand out and really fun to read the first real use of the idea of an inventor creating a Time Machine, as well as how Wells uses it to talk about themes that ring extremely true to this day in the study of class and societal hierarchy. Our current situation in that regard would probably make Wells grimace knowingly. 

The other stories were also great to dive into, with the standouts for me being Empire of the Ants, Lord of the Dynamos, Country of the Blind, Door in the Wall, and the Plattner Story. 

A fun and pretty quick read that dives into two incredibly important themes of the modern day: propping up and supporting disadvantaged communities in spaces they’ve not typically had a seat at the table for, and the need to protect and bolster natural environments and the wildlife who call them home. The most compelling aspect of how Graham told these personal stories was in highlighting just how intertwined they are: the way sharks are misunderstood commonly relating to minority communities being misunderstood; the need for biodiversity and diversity in perspectives; the challenges of advocating for the unheard voices in nature and in prestigious career pathways. These parallels were quite powerful. 

I also much appreciated the focus on what makes for a valued and successful career pathways, which includes taking chances, prioritizing self care, building connections, and working towards the common good. 

I’d definitely recommend this book to anyone looking to get involved in science, who is early on or still considering careers, and for anyone who doesn’t yet understand the need for breaking down barriers (even if they may “appear” invisible) to get new voices and POVs in every space. 

Very easy to agree with Toni Morrison’s cover quote of “this is required reading.” For a white American who likes to think of himself as socially conscious and racially aware (recognizing there’s obviously always way more work to be done in those areas), what really stuck out from this important book is the raw emotion of Coates. His ability to get the reader to empathize with both his loved experiences and those experience culturally and genetically passed to him from his ancestors over time (those experiences my ancestors were likely on the other side of) were guttural and powerful. 

The book flies by in his page turning prose but the impact of what he says slows you down because it commands that you stop and really consider the implications and take it all in. But the book is quick enough that, again, I must just echo Morrison: this is required reading— sadly more so today than even when first published. 

I could only audibly say out loud once I was done what a weird book”

I was drawn in my the premise on the back cover, which remains a really compelling story idea I want to see fully fleshed out. In the end, what the finished book felt like was some mix of experimental storytelling styles and poetry and short stories that didn’t fit into a cohesive narrative. The ending makes clear that was at least somewhat intended, and perhaps how it was translated exacerbated that, but I definitely didn’t crack open the book expecting that so it felt like a lot of whiplash. 

I persisted in reading because indeed some of the sections gave really interesting worms of ideas about the nature of time, memory, the past, and how different regions of cultures think about them all. But I just wish those could have been nearly woven into the narrative that was initially teased. 

This felt likely a really important read, all told. As someone already naturally passionate about the environment and working in the climate space, I may have gone in thinking some of the arguments made would be just repeating what I already feel— but Kimmerer really does bring the unique perspectives of the indigenous culture and way of life that compels you to think about and look at nature’s principles and her creations in new ways. It would be hubris to not pause and consider these ancient wisdoms, and many of those individual ideas are ones I’m thrilled to now sit with and incorporate into how I think about our relationship with plants, ecosystems, and Earth. Truly considering the gifts of nature and what the essence of that word- ‘gift’— is no doubt even more important now than when this book was written over a decade ago. 

Some portions of the book admittedly dragged, and those individual essays dropped me down from 5 stars, but others truly were 5+ stars through and through. It’s always a treat to read insights that make you reflect and change your way of thinking. So if urge anyone considering this book to give it a go— push through if any parts are tougher for you, because the rewards are truly worth it. 

 

With a very quiet voice, it's time I admit that I hadn't consumed ANY Tolkein media-- books or movies-- until now. As embarrassing as it is to admit, it means that I've had it all to look forward to eventually, right?

Well diving into the Hobbit was of course long overdue, and no doubt worth the wait. One of my favorite aspects of finally reading through some of the seminal classics of various genres is being able to see immediately the impact they have on other media I have enjoyed throughout my life (not to mention, being able to contextualize so many of the NYT crossword clues that always reference Middle Earth creatures!). The tropes, the style, and more all jump out and the influence Tolkein's Hobbit has had is undeniable. I was constantly filled with visions of how each chapter felt like episodes of a mini-series or levels of a fantasy video in a game that's no doubt not a coincidence. And that's what kept it fun, exciting, and page-turning. Doing some background reading after the fact that contextualized Tolkein's views of war and geopolitics in the pre-WWII era only made thinking about the themes and the characters even more rich.

Rest assured, reading through the LOTR trilogy at minimum, if not expanding my exposure to the rest of the Middle Earth saga, is on the near-term to do list, and I loved having the Hobbit be my first exposure to that.