LHC #209: "Pre-industrial societies: anatomy of the pre-modern world" by Patricia Crone. Hard copy. Really good, I liked the voice, sometimes a list of things would end in "or whatever" which I always feel like I'd get in trouble for.
LHC #210: "The hummingbird's daughter" by Luis Alberto Urrea. No clue why it was on the list. If I knew anything about 1880 Mexico it might have been an easier read, or if I knew any Spanish. Still, I got the idea and it was very good. Somewhere inside my head I had decided this was in translation. Probably racist of me.
"What Strange Paradise" by Omar el Akkad. Office book club, hard copy. I would never have picked this on my own, but it was outstanding. Loved the ending. Though I think Vanna is supposed to be 15 and she seemed kind of 10?
LHC #211: "A Declaration of the rights of Magicians" by HG Parry. Much funner. I was reading along and thinking how unrealistic it was that William Pitt was Prime Minister of Britain when he was like 25, and Wilberforce was so young and he was an MP, and then I googled, and oh. My bad. Truly I have wasted my life. My favorite part of his wikipedia article: "In practical terms it appears that Pitt was essentially asexual throughout his life, perhaps one example of how his rapid development as a politician stunted his growth as a man."
Anyway. Sometimes I found myself wondering how a character knew something, for example, Danton about Robespierre's mother. It didn't have a satisfying ending, but it was good nevertheless.
LHC #212: Afsaneh: short stories by Iranian Women. A surprising amount of snow. The translation seemed uninspired. I wonder if the stories were chosen to portray the lives of Iranian women in as horrible a light as possible, or if it's really like that.