it's me, I'm the creator and admin of BookWyrm. Buy me a book
try me at @tripofmice@friend.camp for non-reading content and @bookwyrm@tech.lgbt for technical stuff
This link opens in a pop-up window
Into the rarefied atmosphere of the Hotel du Lac timidly walks Edith Hope, romantic novelist …
Beautifully written but confined (if not uncritically) within in a Cathy comic's grueling tedium of 1980s bourgeoisie gender norms. I think the ending made it work, however
Out of the American Neon Desert of Roller Dromes, chili parlors, The Grand Ole Opry, …
Camping trip read
Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes …
I got this from the library out of curiosity -- it was such a thing ten years ago, that even though I never read it I felt like I knew everything in it by osmosis. I was reminded of it because I am approaching my first year anniversary of living in my new place and I thought it might be fun to follow this book as a bit. But ultimately it's seeped so thoroughly into the mainstream consciousness that commentating on it didn't seem that fun.
There is however one thing which no one told me: at one point she genuinely claims that completing her method will often cause people to have diarrhea.
Sorry to my coworkers who no longer get to experience daily updates about medieval debt collection
In Ashtown, a rough-and-tumble desert community, the Emperor rules with poisoned claws and an iron …
this just isn't doing it for me
In Ashtown, a rough-and-tumble desert community, the Emperor rules with poisoned claws and an iron …
I re-read The Space Between Worlds to refresh my memory when I saw that this was out, and I was nervous to see what this would be, since that story felt.. concluded. But seeing that it's following different characters is a relief! I'm curious to see where it goes.
"God spoke to me, he says he wants me to tell you about all the times I was right and you were wrong"
this is a wild read and it's sort of comforting that a lot of her contemporaries, even in her account, seem to also be going "Margery, what?"
Margery Kempe would have killed it on Tumblr
Candy Quackenbush, a sixteen-year-old girl, is bored with her life and is desperate for something …
As a kid I found this so engaging but on re-read it felt flat and aimlessly zany
Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.
Following the events in …
I'm out of Murderbot?? mods???
"Martha Wells's Hugo, Nebula, Alex, and Locus Award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling …
Murderbot Diaries really is the Sanctuary Moon of our time
When the Guardian of the West Passage died in her bed, the women of Grey …
This book is so visual and imaginative, and thrives when walking you through the surreal, psychedelic, illuminated manuscript of a world. But while it was always interesting, I found it hard to stay engaged with the story at times, particularly in the middle. The ending compelled me, and I wish I'd had more of that connection to the plot and characters through the rest of the book.
every recipe using self-rising flour and salted butter is tiring me out
This work is an autobiography told in the third person, and includes coverage of his …
Zinsser writes his autobiography in the third person, playing both the somewhat disdainful biographer of "R.S." and R.S. himself. The conceit is characteristically weird, unnecessary, and extremely well done and funny, but I think it also is a distancing device for a man who doesn't really want to share anything personal about himself. Which makes for a frustrating autobiography!
In the rare moments when he does talk concretely about his life, the book is extremely fun (his account of his abortive attempt at a private medical practice, for example, is laugh-out-loud funny). But he spends most of the book and in long discursive discussions of the issues of his day, which unfortunately tend to end up either boring (unless you are very interested in his views on the state of medical pedagogy in 1940), or euphemistically "of their time." While the book is not surprisingly racist, sexist, or eugenicist for …
Zinsser writes his autobiography in the third person, playing both the somewhat disdainful biographer of "R.S." and R.S. himself. The conceit is characteristically weird, unnecessary, and extremely well done and funny, but I think it also is a distancing device for a man who doesn't really want to share anything personal about himself. Which makes for a frustrating autobiography!
In the rare moments when he does talk concretely about his life, the book is extremely fun (his account of his abortive attempt at a private medical practice, for example, is laugh-out-loud funny). But he spends most of the book and in long discursive discussions of the issues of his day, which unfortunately tend to end up either boring (unless you are very interested in his views on the state of medical pedagogy in 1940), or euphemistically "of their time." While the book is not surprisingly racist, sexist, or eugenicist for the era, and I do think Zinsser has some amount of critical thinking on these fronts, it is still ultimately racist, sexist, and eugenicist.
So, instead of the boring bits and the yikes bits, let us remember the part where he pretends to have rabies, bites a classmate, and is only stopped when someone dumps a tank of sea urchins on him. Or skip this one and just read Rats, Lice, and History.