Book: Mickey7
Mickey7 By Edward Ashton (304, sci-fi, 2022) Waking up in the same body isn’t always a guarantee in the distant future. Well, sort of. In Edward Ashton’s latest novel, the titular protagonist, Mickey7, is an Expendable, or someone used as a renewable resource when colonizing new planets. Unfortunately, this means Mickey is likely to die from completing his colony’s various dirty deeds and maintenance duties, all of which are certainly...
Book: Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers
Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers By Sara Ackerman (391 pages, fiction, 2018) It’s 1944, wartime, on the big Island of Hawaii, in the little town of Honoka’a. It’s three years after Pearl Harbor and one year since Violet Iverson’s husband Herman disappeared. Violet’s ten-year-old daughter Ella is troubled. She’s been picking at her freckles, making scabs, and wetting her pants. Violet thinks that Ella knows something about Herman’s...
Book: The Paris Library
The Paris Library By Janet Skeslien Charles (353 pages, fiction, 2021) On a February day in 1939 in Paris, young Frenchwoman Odile Souchet goes for an interview at the American Library in Paris. She has memorized the Dewey Decimal System, and reviews it on her way. She ends up being late for the interview because she stops to read a book. “Reading is dangerous,” says Miss Reeder, the Directress. She understands. Odile is awarded the...
The Anthropocene Reviewed
The Anthropocene Reviewed By John Green (290 pages, nonfiction/essay, 2021) Right from the outset, I’d like to make two points regarding this beautiful collection of essays by John Green. First: consider giving this book a try, even if you’re not usually a fan of nonfiction. I know that some people are averse to nonfiction because it feels more like learning than entertainment – but I think you may be pleasantly surprised by this...
Book of the Week: Interior Chinatown
Interior Chinatown By Charles Yu (270, fiction, 2020) This was the 2020 National Book Award winner for fiction, and with good reason. I’ll preface this review by saying that I think this book is brilliant –but that it’s also extremely stylized and may not be for everyone. Interior Chinatown is a work of metafiction, meaning that it is structured self-consciously, in a way that calls attention to its constructed-ness. In other words,...
