aaronj21's Reviews (912)

The central thrust of this non-fiction title is that, yes the asteroid impact that ended the reign of dinosaurs was catastrophic and the single worst day for life on earth (so far) but it also led to the world we inhabit today. With this in mind author Riley Black tells the story of the impact but then goes on to show how life rebounds afterwards with chapters titled “one year after impact”, one thousand years after impact” etc.

This was a great book and held my attention throughout. Sure the grisly details about the impact itself were riveting as they always are, but the recovery and outline of how new life forms became dominant on earth was nothing short of fascinating.

Like pretty much all other Agatha Christie novels I’ve read, I enjoyed this book and did not solve the mystery ahead of time. This book took its time setting up for the major crime and did an excellent job of making everyone seem like a viable suspect.

This book was a little basic and surface level for my tastes, although I fully understand that is a personal problem since this topic is one I tend to read a lot about and get very engrossed in. However, the thesis statement of this history, namely that the fall of Tenochtitlan can be best understood as a continuation of indigenous Mesoamerican warfare and politics that the Spanish only played a minor but crucial part in, elevates the book and permeates its narrative. This striking idea saves this volume from becoming just another run of the mill narrative of the fall of the Mexica and makes the book worthwhile.

Christmas and Other Horrors is a fantastic collection of yuletide scares from a talented range of authors that really captures what this time of year is all about, deep-seated terror and horrifying monsters. Even the few stories that were not my favorites were still interesting and I could easily see how others would like them, it was more of a personal taste issue on my part.

As always, Melville's dense, stuffy style, rather than the plot, is the highlight of this story. If you like that sort of thing, like I seem to, it's an enjoyable enough read, very different from modern writing and therefore refreshing.

In Moon of the Turning Leaves, author Waubgeshig Rice continues a riveting tale and proves his earlier success was no mere one hit wonder.

In this book, ten years after the events of the Moon of the Crusted Snow, a community of Anishinaabe have built a life for themselves, relying on the strong bonds of kinship and tradition, in a world plunged into chaos after all electric power gives out. But, the community knows their current settlement cannot be a permanent home, due to lack of the resources needed to feed a growing population; they know they’ll have to move on, and soon before the food runs out. The tribe decides to plan a migration to their ancestral homeland on the Great Lakes and in early Spring sends a scouting party out to make the trek first.
This book was a captivating read and while not entirely necessary, it definitely benefits from the reader having read the previous book. Rice writes in a beautiful, economic style, with a real emphasis on the natural world. I won’t give any spoilers here but suffice it so say that in addition to a well written novel, Rice paints an image of apocalypse and aftermath that feel both unique in modern fiction and grounded in our current reality.

If you like apocalyptic fiction or survival stories at all, do yourself a favor and pick up this series!

A book I had long heard excellent things about, The Book Thief did not disappoint. It's an utterly unique, captivating story written in an inimitably propulsive and nuanced style.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, like almost any major event in WWII, is almost too huge, terrible, and earth shaking, to really wrap your head around. You can read all about the how the atom bomb worked, how people and buildings were vaporized instantly, how even years after the effects of radiation lingered, without fully grasping the enormity of it.

Journalist John Hersey tries to overcome this by keeping his focus extremely tight, just following the lives of six survivors and telling the events and aftermath of the bombing from their perspectives. Hersey largely succeeds and his reporting has a gravity and a humanity to it that more impersonal books about the atomic bombings lack.

Disorderly Men (first off, what a title! evocative, ironic, and fitting since in the 60’s gay bars were euphemistically called “disorderly establishments” and gay men were routinely arrested for just about anything, under the nebulous charge of ‘gross indecency’ or ‘disorderly behavior’) was a delight to read and easily one of my favorite books of 2023.

The book has a deceptively simple style, following the lives of three gay men in various stages of the closet during and after the police raid a gay bar. Each chapter is told from one of their perspectives as they meet briefly on the night of the raid and then try to weather the fallout after. This format would be very easy to do poorly, but Cahill pulls it off nicely with each perspective feeling very distinct and offering something new to the narrative. These men have some important similarities but they’re also very different, with their respective lives seeming utterly alien to one another. The closeted Roger Morehouse, with his staid respectability, wife, and kids, could not seem more different from the young, free spirited Danny. Both offer insights into what being gay in a homophobic society does to someone but their experiences aren’t interchangeable.

The narrative itself is another strong suit, I found myself burning through this just to find out what happened to each of our three protagonists. Will Roger’s wife find out? Will Julian find out what happened to Gus? Will Danny lose the close ties he has to his Irish Catholic family? The author was able to achieve this by crafting his characters, and these three in particular, quite well, making them really seem like flesh and blood people, with all their flaws and baggage and relatability.
This book, for me, was technically perfect, I don’t think it could be improved by adding a single line or by excising one. This read as a thoughtful, layered portrayal of gay life as it was in the years before Stonewall. The victories, such as they are, are believable and in keeping with the historical period which only serves to make the book better. I can’t stand historical fiction that glosses over the rough patches in the history their claiming to present.

Overall this was a very clever, very moving book and I’m immensely grateful I happened to pick it up.