Beautifully written sci-fi-ish novel about artificial intelligence, told in six separate storylines that don't quite hang together and vary in interest level. Thought-provoking and a quick read.
sethdmichaels.bsky.social
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August 2026
A generally engaging multi-character-viewpoint story about Russian immigrants in New York and their relationships to each other, with a special focus on the technology that mediates those relationships. Well-drawn if not especially compelling; it's more of a slice-of-life than an arc, but it's a good solid read about convincing characters.
A really tough and important book that you can read in a few sittings. Luiselli, a writer from Mexico, worked as a translator for kids facing immigration courts, and she structures this book around the interview questionnaire. It's very high-stakes and upsetting, a look at just a few of the tens of thousands of stories of children and teens making the long journey from Central America. It's an indictment that doesn't offer many answers, and it's important to point out that it takes place during the Obama era, not the Trump era. Luiselli lays out the case, simply, that the system by which we rush these kids through the process of deciding whether they stay or go is deeply inhumane. Everyone should read it because it really cuts away all of the abstraction and puts in front of you what this issue is really about.
Hmmm. Enjoyable, but ultimately kind of slight; beautifully written but too in love with its own language; too queasy-making about race and touched through with whatever the Africa version of "Orientalism" would be. Recommended with reservations - I haven't read much Updike but have to assume this is regarded as a lesser work.
Clever, breezy, thoroughly enjoyable comic novel about the interlocking misadventures of an undercover marketing agent. A pleasant surprise - I bought the book to support the writer of a blog I like but it was a great read on its own merits.
Not a lot I didn't know already, but nicely done - efficiently walks through the major points while still having room for a little analysis of what did and didn't work.
remarkable - and it’s trite to say that the mark of great literature is that it always tells you something about the time you’re living in no matter when it’s from, but…reading about a culture where masculinity is the central value and it’s defined by whiny, belligerent men, fixated on pride, recognition, deference and control of women’s bodies, who don’t give a moment’s thought to whether these things are worth imposing suffering on others to secure? It hits, folks
Feels weird to give a classic of the Western canon a star rating, but it’s my first time with it and I think the translation and commentary Ciardi offers is very good.<br/><br/>An inspiration to petty people everywhere: you can create something enduring, resonant, widely beloved and taken seriously for centuries and still have it basically be a burn book to settle a bunch of esoteric political and personal scores. <br/><br/>It’s not going to be a surprise that so much of Western culture is downstream of this, from religious imagery to fantasy literature to heavy metal lyrics, but it’s interesting as always to be able to see the well-worn references and images in their original context. And if there’s anything I want to explore in more detail I certainly don’t need to wonder if there’s an explanatory essay I could read. There’s seven centuries’ worth! <br/><br/>Glad I read this, and it’s more engaging and less chore-y than I expected.
Well-done, and nicely balanced on the line between literary-MFA-ish and soapy, but doesn't quite land as hard as it wants to. It's told from the perspective of two unhappy people in a wealthy Connecticut town - a lonely second wife and her college-age stepson. The writing is skillful and there's a lot of plot to stay engaged with but it seems a little self-focused and small-scale, and it's definitely a bummer.
not the best writing but a good quick intro to the history and principles/practices of aikido.
A story-suite more than a novel - extremely vividly drawn, emotionally rich as Smith’s books always are, doesn’t quite all fall together as intended. As usual, her focus is on the lived experience of racial, cultural and class divides among a diverse cast of Londoners. Not as gripping as White Teeth or Swing Time but if you liked those you’ll appreciate this one.
Really delightful book by a theoretical particle physicist about some of the latest developments in science, especially the Large Hadron Collider in Europe - but sine it's a couple of years old there have been some developments since then. Especially useful as a window into how scientists think about problems. If I had any reservations it's that some of it is really well above my head ore super-technical and I had to skim it - there are certain things about particle physics I'm just never going to really understand with my limited scientific/mathematical background although Randall is very game to try and explain genuinely weird stuff like super-symmetry and very small extra dimensions.
Very nicely written, and Crosley is charming and a great observer, though these essays don't quite close the deal for themselves - you might be left asking "so what?" A quick and pleasant read.
Enjoyable, but a little bit like an overly-enthusiastic college paper. Left me with TMBG songs in my head for days after.
A fascinating book to read for the first time, because it has an enormous pop-cultural footprint that is in many ways independent of and different from the book itself. Basically all of horror and science fiction is downstream of <i>Frankenstein</i>; the book has an interesting structure with embedded narratives and flows quickly despite the elaborate, heightened language of its era. It's composed of a couple of different horror-movie nightmare scenarios. The first, affecting the doctor, is the classic "you've done something terribly wrong and it's putting you and people you love in danger"; the second, narrated by the erudite creature himself, is "you're thrust into a world where everyone seems to hate and fear you and you're not sure why." The first-person narrative style foregrounds the subjective emotional experience, the suspense and grief and self-loathing, rather than the plot, which is actually pretty simple. Although it's about big questions and themes, takes place over a big geographical scale, and is considered a monumental work, it's very intimate, with very few named characters. It's also much more horror-y and not very science-y; absent is the focus on the "how" you usually get in subsequent sci-fi (I was surprised, for instance, that there's no *process* described, and no lightning-and-dials-and-switches "it's alive!" scene). It remains a rewarding read two centuries after it was written.
Very striking - journalism that reads like a novel. A few years in the lives of families living at the edge of subsistence in a slum in Mumbai, right behind the airport and luxury hotels that symbolize a rising global upper class. Boo, the author, mostly removes herself from the story and narrates from the perspectives of her protagonists as they deal with poverty, corruption, religious conflict and their efforts to carve out a space for themselves. Beautifully done.
My feelings about Morrissey are conflicted, for a lot of reasons, and I wasn't surprised to find this book kind of insufferable. Very little about the process of making music, tons and tons of petty passive-aggressive score-settling that I think is supposed to be "delicious" but is actually kind of sad. Also, there are no chapter breaks; it's like a seven-hour monologue. Still, somehow glad I read it.