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Remembered enjoying A Visit from the Goon Squad when it first came out, and always keen to get my hands on 'literary' treatments of technology and/or the future, but while the self-contained chapters, here, often worked well (as short stories?), the impact of the novel as a whole was limp and flat, muted by a lack of focus. Effectively-written characters and detailing, but ultimately just a heap of narrative (however engaging), with little light and shade, and a scattershot focus.

No idea what it is, but I loved it.

Engaging, fluently-written work of narrative sociology, based on in-depth interviews with 30+ affluent mothers in an aspirational urban neighbourhood in Houston, Texas. Kimbro seeks an answer to why, despite everything they've been through, a majority of the mothers interviewed decided to remain in this community, despite its clear vulnerabilities. Accessible to a more general readership, without sacrificing academic rigour, and a useful insight into the social 'stickiness' of place, and how natural disasters (and, by extension, climate change) are experienced along intersecting axes of wealth, class, and gender.

Robust historical study of the entrepreneurial 'projector' in early modern England, and the part this widely stigmatised figure played in taming the excesses of incipient, early modern capitalism. As a book-length academic history text, the depth of evidence and level of detail was greater than my requirements, but it's well-written, with the early and concluding chapters did a good job of sketching a particular historical trajectory. I particularly appreciated the work Yamamoto does in connecting his arguments to contemporary debates about corporate social responsibility, innovation, and extractivist or rentier capitalism.

Self-described 'fringy anthropology' of Soviet legacies and 'wasting' in 2010s Estonia strives to make an asset of its 'polyphony of vignettes', but ultimately fails to cohere. Good chapters on repair practices, a street market, and the social and symbolic half-life of a disused late Soviet stadium and leisure complex, but the book gets weaker as it progresses, and the frame of focus widens. Scrappily written, occasionally compelling, but insufficiently disciplined, falling short of my (admittedly high) expectations.

The first third or half of this novel is close to perfect, an expertly judged ratcheting of stakes and tension that hooks the reader and draws you in. Appreciated the sensory, embodied descriptions, rooted in a specific set of experiences, and a particular viewpoint. Beyond that halfway point, as the complexity increases, it gets a harder to keep on top of all the moving parts, interested parties, and newly-discovered information. Dramatic set pieces are compelling on their own terms, but feel detached from the bigger picture, with bursts of action and mystery-solving unfolding on seperate planes, only sometimes intersecting.

Some violence, unpleasant in parts, lingering after the book is closed and put away. The use of setting and worldbuilding is striking, effectively depicting a near-future fragmentation. And whatever my quibbles, VanderMeer sticks the landing.

Strange hingeing of 20th-century kitchen sink (well, coconut plantation) Indian family drama and post-national (satirical? allegorical?) science fiction. Both parts are memorable anad emotionally compelling, with strongly written characters—but the parallel narratives feel disconnected, disconcerting in their tonal difference; at least until the novel's closing sections.

It proved impossible, too, not to read the narrative against the light and shade of our own recent history; ghosts of Jobs' turtleneck and Musk's Neuralink experiments, factors external to the narrative, but which trouble Vara's efforts to sustain a suspension of disbelief. The plot and ending might have landed better had she not stuck so close to the biographies of our own pantheon of amoral tech titans; a clean cut-and-paste swapping in the tituar King Rao, whose (nationality and caste) difference isn't, it turns out, enough to make a difference.

Great book. The authors clearly care a great deal about the practice of teaching, or do a good job of advocating for critical generosity, collaboration, improvisation, and alliance in the classroom. At the same time, holding a relatively tight focus on the syllabus as a document and design for student work made the whole thing feel more manageable. I particularly valued the chapters on classtime, reading lists, and the sounds of learning.

Engaging contemporary update on a 19th-century scientific romance, with more in common with something by Verne or Wells than much of contemporary genre fiction. Extremely didactic, but strong characters, and a well-told story. Curious about how well it'll date, being so tightly coupled to current-day concerns around AI, environmentalism, etc.

Enjoyed this city-book by architect and author William Firebrace, which struck a good balance of first-hand observations and detail, speculation, and historical context. Interesting and highly readable, with some compelling one-liners and turns of phrase, would recommend.

A massive improvement (or, at least, more relevant to my interests) than Harreld's more general, survey-style Companion. Still somewhat dry, but enjoyed the chapters on the Hansa's 'small world' social network, strategies for handling difference, and the root of its decline in 'lock-in' and institutional path dependencies — which seem to have wider, transhistorical importance, and could be fruitfully applied to other, contemporary cases.

Long and uneven, and I'm not sure if the overarching academic handbook x multiverse frame works as well as the editors intended, but there are several chapters that stand out, justifying the rest of the edited volume on their merits alone. Besides, it's rare enough to see anyone grappling with the possible contours of the 22nd century that the volume deserves a reparatory reading; one sensitive to its utility, generative potential, and (to my mind, effective) use of the future anterior.

Took a lot from the chapters on post-asteroid global society, Latin American degrowthers, physical twins, and neo-Carthaginian core-periphery relations – and the editors' concluding reflections provide a lot of seeds and insights to take away and build upon.

(Disclaimer: It may help to have a working knowledge of the field of international relations.)