book reviews and more
The main character, Drusilla Jaco (DJ), is a wizard and sentinel of New Orleans. As a sentinel her main job is to act as border patrol to the human/Beyond border, keeping most preternaturals in the Beyond and cleaning up the messes of those who get pass. Then Katrina hits, which damages the border and makes it easier for pretes to cross.
I was worried that this book on hygge (hoo-ga) by Meik Wiking would have me rushing out to buy things to make my home more cozy, tossing all my (newish) minimalist principles aside in the process. I actually found a lot of overlaps between hygge and minimalism, in the sense that the ultimate goal of both concepts is happiness.
I felt so-so about Norma by Sofi Oksanen. It involves a woman who has hair with supernatural properties - it grows abnormally fast, senses danger, seems to have a personality of its own, and more.
Chemistry is an interesting, short novel by Weike Wang following an unnamed PhD chemistry student for about year and half during her 'what am I going to do with my life' mid-twenties crisis. During the novel, the narrator comes to terms with her depression - without ever really admitting she's depressed.
This is a memoir by J.D. Vance who grew up poor in Ohio, with family originally from the Appalachia area of Tennessee. In short, he had a pretty shitty childhood involving a revolving door of step-fathers. He joined the marines after high school, then graduated from Ohio State, and went on to Yale Law School.
Jason Gurley writes this tragic story about family relationships breaking down with an unexpected paranormal twist.
I loved this booked! It’s a time travel novel where Beatrice, a neurologist, goes to modern day Siena. She ends up finding a journal of a painter who lived during the plague and reading it causes her to time travel into the past where she meets the painter and becomes a scribe at a convent.
Charles Montgomery wrote this cool non-fiction book on what makes a city a happy one. Or more really how can we design cities to make people happy.
This book is Jeannette Walls' insane memoir, describing the her crazy childhood with nomadic parents.
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