tag: Books

North Woods by Daniel Mason NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR A WASHINGTON POST TOP TEN BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the ... I enjoyed this book a lot. The episodes are interesting, the writing is superb and it reminds me of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas. It has a little sad, nostalgic undertone coming from the long window of time spanning the episodes in the book. People come into the scope of the house and then disappear again. The permanence of the location is in sharp contrast to the transient existence of the house inhabitants. Some episodes end so abruptly they leave you yearning for more (probably and cleverly intentional). ...

Deacon King Kong by James McBride ⭐ NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AND OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK ⭐ CHOSEN BY BARACK OBAMA AS A FAVOURITE READ ⭐ TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR, NEW YORK TIMES & WASHINGTON POST 'Brilliantly imagined, larger than life, a tragicomedic epic of intertwined lives.' JOYCE CAROL OATES 'Deeply felt, beautifully written ... The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride THE RUNAWAY NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK FROM ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE OF 2024 NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY NPR/FRESH AIR, WASHINGTON POST, THE NEW YORKER, AND TIME MAGAZINE ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2023 “A murder mystery locked ... James McBride completely hooked me with Deacon King Kong and he did it again with The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. His characters are so compelling, they stay with you long after you finish his books. Their stories feel like old family stories. His dialog is superb, and often very funny. And he rips out your heart with some devastatingly beautiful scenes in both books (Dodo and Monkey Pants in The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, Sportcoat and Hettie in Deacon King Kong). Easily one of my favorite writers. ...

Transcription by Kate Atkinson A dramatic story of WWII espionage, betrayal, and loyalty, by the #1 bestselling author of Life After Life In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British ... Kate Atkinson’s novel Transcription is the answer to the question of what happens if you take the wicked humor of Martin Amis, John Le Carre prose elegance and the emotional honesty of Iris Murdoch and blend them all together. ...

Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death by Nick Lane From the renowned biochemist and author of The Vital Question, an illuminating inquiry into the Krebs cycle and the origins of life. “Nick Lane’s exploration of the building blocks that underlie life’s big fundamental questions—the origin of life itself, aging, and disease—have shaped my thinking ... As Nick Lane tells it in his book “Transformer”, a biological cell is comparable to a big city: there are structures like buildings, there are pathways and flows, conveyer belts, machinery. One single cell undergoes one billion transformations a second. ...

Dough by Richard Bertinet Baking bread from dough involves the best kind of kitchen alchemy, for the possibilities to be conjured from the four ingredients of flour, water, yeast and salt are truly endless. Building on five easy recipes for basic doughs, Bertinet shows how even a beginner can achieve truly impressive ... Like many others I picked up bread making during the pandemic lockdown. It turned out to be a fun activity. I eventually landed on Richard Bertinet’s youtube video explaining dough handling. ...

Down to Earth, Politics in the New Climatic Regime by Bruno Latour The present ecological mutation has organized the whole political landscape for the last thirty years. This could explain the deadly cocktail of exploding inequalities, massive deregulation, and conversion of the dream of globalization into a nightmare for most people. What holds these three ... I understand how we got here. It’s the universal desire to live in Cockaigne Cockaigne, the land of milk and honey. . Some of us live in Cockaigne. We’re busy protecting it, building walls and borders to keep the ones not in it out. We do that because we know Cockaigne as it stands doesn’t scale to everybody. The process of creating it has left a lot of people out, has created a lot of damage and destroyed the planet, forcing those not in the protective bubble of Cockaigne to deal with the consequences. We’re also in denial about our ability to keep this protective bubble up and how much suffering building Cockaigne has caused. In his book “Down to Earth” Bruno Latour French philosopher Bruno Latour died in October, 2022. strongly urges us to reconsider this fantasy, to step out of Cockaigne and come back down to Earth. In 140 pages and without using philosophical jargon Latour explains how we got into this mess and he tries to help us find a way out. ...