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What I read: February 2021

 

"Daisy Jones and the Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid. audio book. Recommended by someone in Toronto Life magazine. The weird thing is that it has nothing to do with Drake. 

The audio book was probably a mistake, I found it too slow. 

LHC #110: "Babel: around the world in 20 languages" by Gaston Doren. This book was totally my jam. 

LHC #111: "The City of Brass" by S.A. Chakraborty. Recommended in so many places, including by Ali A. Olomi, who tweets about Islamic astrology and Jinns and stuff. He'd probably also mentioned that book about the Arabian Nights that I read last month, which in turn mentioned a story about The City of Brass. So. Marie Brennan said in her capsule review of book 2 (this is book 1 of a trilogy) that it lacks a sense of humor. I'm not so sure. I found the first 10% a little tiresome, but when all the characters lie to each other so much, it got tremendously fun. 

LHC # 112: "The path between the Seas: The creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914" by David G. Macollough. Research for Vinterlys. Having read something by him before (1776?) I knew this would be no trouble to read. What I didn't realize is it was published in 1978, which was a pretty charged moment for the Panama Canal, especially for Americans. So there was a bit of a position taken here. It assumed I had any knowledge of geography of the region, and I spent a lot of time googling. Also, my knowledge of American history is pathetic. I had to google McKinley Buffalo! Oops.  

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  LHC #240: "Vita Nostra" by  Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko. Translated by Julia Meitov Hersey. All I knew going in was dark academia. This was a neat thing to read after A Deadly Education last month. The students can leave this school at summer and winter break, but maybe they shouldn't. Also, interesting education method, providing Sasha with a CD player and punishing her if she leaves it in the mode where it plays all the tracks in sequence.  "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman. When I finished Ragnarok by AS Byatt (last month? January?) I was thinking it might have made more sense if I had any knowledge of the subject matter. The boy had left this lying around, and it was not a tough read.  LHC #241: "Science on a mission: How Military funding shaped what we do and don't know about the ocean" by Naomi Oreskes.  I deferred this once because it was so long. History of science is challenging for me to read, because of the need to get a grasp on dispr