Seth > Recent Status Updates

Psychologist and linguist Steven Pinker has written a style guide for the 21st century. It's not meant to be a comprehensive enumeration of style rules or so's-and-don'ts À la Strunk and White. Instead, he tackles the question of style from the vantage point of how writing works in the brain for both author and reader.

So far a great history of women in comic books.

The concepts in this book are pretty awesome. Sadly, the technologies and services discussed in the book are woefully outdated, even three years after publication. I'd love to see a second edition.

Featuring a teenage nun assassin in medieval Brittany, this book is written for younger readers--YA, as it's so awkwardly called. I thought I'd enjoy this book more. An ancient God of death masquerading as a Christian Saint is the center of a convent that conducts politically-motivated assassinations through all the usual means. Otherwise though there's really just not enough "fantasy" in this book for me.

I have some philosophical qualms with the book's underlying themes so far, but I'll reserve judgement until the story has run its course. The story itself, luckily, is really good, with lots of mystery and twists and good characterization. One of the characters is pretty obnoxious though, accentuated by the audiobook narrator's petulant valley girl voice she gives her.

A refreshing break form the run-of-the-mill vampires and werewolves of urban fantasy, Indexing's city streets are instead overrun with fairy tales.

So far, an insightful measured academic incursion into the idea of whiteness through history. So far we're up to the Enlightenment era, and if nothing else the book is driving home the fact that race is a fluid construct.

So far, James Agee's writing is eloquent and his humility is humbling.

This book brings the funny. Almost made me laugh out loud in public.

Just when I was tiring of the scientific minutiae, we cut to Earth, where NASA discovers through satellite imagery that our castaway is still alive. Dramatic tension ratcheted up; momentum maintained!

Heavy on the science, but written in a casual, conversational style. Think Castaway on Mars.

Insights into the tortured souls of some creatives from a psychiatric perspective.

This book is making me cautiously optimistic about my decision to pursue a career in academia. I don't know what the state of higher education will be in five or six ywar's when I earn my doctorate, but I know that adults young and old will still need to learn to read carefully, write well, and think critically.

Starting on this before I go to bed. Important to start thinking about the career path I'm getting myself into.

Being surprised and delighted by a book outside your normal genre stomping grounds is like being wooed and courted by an ardent lover. At first you're not interested, but you just can't seem to keep spawning excuses for spurning her advances. This book is kind of like that so far.

More solid writing and characterization.

We're in the thick of World War I now. It's difficult to tell where the cards will fall.

Not really my genre, but I like the characters. Kind of like a crime-fiction version of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire books. Lots of local color and insight into southern culture.

I'm still vastly enjoying this book, even though it's becoming more "inside baseball"

This book isn't just for space geeks, though space junkies will find much here to enjoy. Hadfield takes pains to boil down his career as an astronaut into lessons for succeeding in any career, or life in general.

The plot twists leading up to the end are a bit contrived, but still satisfying.

This book has more layers of metaphor, meaning, and interpretation than Mama Poggioli's lasagna.

This book has more layers of metaphor, meaning, and interpretation than Mama Poggioli's lasagna

The plot is still chugging along. This book offers a little more variety than its predecessor.

Picks up right where the last book left off. All the cards in the deck have been shuffled, and it's interesting to watch how they fall.

Just when I think I have a handle on this book, everything changes.