Take a photo of a barcode or cover
aaronj21's Reviews (912)
The gripping apocalypse story you didn’t know you needed, American Rapture breathes fresh life into the largely overplayed “end of the world” novel.
Across America a terrifying new virus transforms people into their worst selves, slavering, feral infected who go mad with lust and tear apart anything in their path. By the time people realize just how dire the situation is, society has already broken down; institutions can't protect the people and a zealous denomination of evangelicals adds fuel to the flames of what they consider to be the end of days. As the world around her falls into chaos, Sophie, a devout catholic girl, goes on a perilous journey to find her twin brother amidst the fire and ruin of the rural Midwest. Along the way she meets a compelling cast of characters and barely manages to avoid death or infection at every turn.
While the action and world building are top notch, where this book really shines is in portraying Sophie’s inner struggle to unlearn the shame and restriction of her upbringing and finally think for herself for a change. Written like someone who struggled with their own religious upbringing, this aspect of the book was easily one of the best, in a book that was overall very high caliber.
Compulsively readable, this novel feels like watching an exciting, poignant movie and makes you wish it were the first in a series instead of a stand alone book.
Across America a terrifying new virus transforms people into their worst selves, slavering, feral infected who go mad with lust and tear apart anything in their path. By the time people realize just how dire the situation is, society has already broken down; institutions can't protect the people and a zealous denomination of evangelicals adds fuel to the flames of what they consider to be the end of days. As the world around her falls into chaos, Sophie, a devout catholic girl, goes on a perilous journey to find her twin brother amidst the fire and ruin of the rural Midwest. Along the way she meets a compelling cast of characters and barely manages to avoid death or infection at every turn.
While the action and world building are top notch, where this book really shines is in portraying Sophie’s inner struggle to unlearn the shame and restriction of her upbringing and finally think for herself for a change. Written like someone who struggled with their own religious upbringing, this aspect of the book was easily one of the best, in a book that was overall very high caliber.
Compulsively readable, this novel feels like watching an exciting, poignant movie and makes you wish it were the first in a series instead of a stand alone book.
Jason Stanley is the kind of writer who’s talent and erudition is undeniable, but boy do you wish his books weren’t so timely or increasingly relevant.
I read his book “How Fascism Works” back in 2018 and unfortunately have had little cause since then to think fascism won’t be a major factor in my life. Whereas his previous book was a bit broad and general for my taste, this title was quite the opposite, being incredibly specific and drawing on a number of current global examples. Unfortunately there is no dearth of examples, since fascism is having something of a moment right now, from Putin’s Russia, to Modi’s India, and of course the United States' own increasingly bold flirtation with authoritarianism.
While this global rise is threatening and overwhelming, the role education and history in particular plays in this struggle for nations can easily be overlooked, that’s where this book comes in. Stanley argues in convincing fashion that education is one of the most critical battlegrounds for any burgeoning fascist regime. The reason for this, the author shows throughout the pages of this book, is that things like critical thinking and a shared understanding of history and culture are anathema to the way fascist governments operate and control people, through manipulation, misinformation, and fear of the "Other”.
While there aren’t any easy answers here, the author does a good job of showing what is really at stake, highlighting the close bond between education and a functioning democracy. If nothing else, this book should serve as a wake up call, lest America become as authoritarian as Putin’s Russia. The fight for our classrooms today is just a prelude to the fight for our voting booths and indeed our country tomorrow.
I read his book “How Fascism Works” back in 2018 and unfortunately have had little cause since then to think fascism won’t be a major factor in my life. Whereas his previous book was a bit broad and general for my taste, this title was quite the opposite, being incredibly specific and drawing on a number of current global examples. Unfortunately there is no dearth of examples, since fascism is having something of a moment right now, from Putin’s Russia, to Modi’s India, and of course the United States' own increasingly bold flirtation with authoritarianism.
While this global rise is threatening and overwhelming, the role education and history in particular plays in this struggle for nations can easily be overlooked, that’s where this book comes in. Stanley argues in convincing fashion that education is one of the most critical battlegrounds for any burgeoning fascist regime. The reason for this, the author shows throughout the pages of this book, is that things like critical thinking and a shared understanding of history and culture are anathema to the way fascist governments operate and control people, through manipulation, misinformation, and fear of the "Other”.
While there aren’t any easy answers here, the author does a good job of showing what is really at stake, highlighting the close bond between education and a functioning democracy. If nothing else, this book should serve as a wake up call, lest America become as authoritarian as Putin’s Russia. The fight for our classrooms today is just a prelude to the fight for our voting booths and indeed our country tomorrow.
Re-read to scratch the Game of Thrones itch I had after reading A World of Ice and Fire.
.jpg)
Yes I re-read this entire book just so I could be up to date on my Dance of the Dragons lore in anticipation of House of the Dragon season two, stay in your lane.
A compelling protagonist can make up for a lot. It can make an otherwise tepid book alluring and can make an interesting book truly memorable.
Lessons in Chemistry fell somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum for me. The plot, while sometimes a little too tidy and Dickensian for my taste (the whole latter ¼ of the book, I’m looking at you), moves along at a steady clip and makes for an engaging ride. The characters, particularly Elizabeth Zott, were definite highlights and the odd, offbeat humor did a lot of heavy lifting.
Overall it was an interesting story, great for a weekend as it’s the kind of moreish book that invites you to finish it quickly.
Lessons in Chemistry fell somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum for me. The plot, while sometimes a little too tidy and Dickensian for my taste (the whole latter ¼ of the book, I’m looking at you), moves along at a steady clip and makes for an engaging ride. The characters, particularly Elizabeth Zott, were definite highlights and the odd, offbeat humor did a lot of heavy lifting.
Overall it was an interesting story, great for a weekend as it’s the kind of moreish book that invites you to finish it quickly.
Nuclear weapons are an unmitigated evil, their creation is one of mankind’s greatest sins and their continued existence and escalation is a glaring sign of insanity.
Nevertheless, they compel me. Since I first learned about nuclear power, weapons, and radiation in high school I’ve been oddly fascinated by all things atomic. Something about the fundamental oddity of it all, that natural or man-made elements can reach into living tissue and dissolve the very building blocks of life, can explode with the heat of stars, felt apocalyptic and inherently terrifying on an existential level. Since then I’ve learned a lot more about this subject; I’ve read non-fiction titles on Hiroshima, the Manhattan Project, and the Chernobyl disaster. It’s a sobering topic that I always seem to return to. Yet despite my familiarity with these subjects they still frighten me in a way nothing else really can.
This book is a detailed, exhaustively researched play by play of what a nuclear war might look like. In this scenario North Korea launches an ICMB at the Washington DC, setting into motion contingency operations for retaliation. While DC is reduced to rubble and our own nuclear weapons are launched, the president and other high up government officials are moved to increase their chances of survival while the civilian population is left to “self-rescue” a ghoulish euphemism that means in a nuclear exchange fire, police, and emergency services are not coming to help.
The contingency plans related here are real, the nuclear strength of all countries involved is as accurate as it can be, the attention to detail makes the whole book read like a disturbing documentary. Once nuclear weapons are detected en route to US soil, the president has about six minutes to decide how to respond. He can select from a pre made list of targets and can authorize a nuclear strike completely independent of anyone else. There is no oversight for this. The plans in place for scenarios like this must be made in absurdly short amounts of time, lest the US lose its ability to retaliate at all since nuclear launch sites are well known and are probably targets themselves. So by definition options like pausing to reflect, conferring with others, confirming intelligence, are all extremely limited here. It’s incredibly easy to escalate and almost impossible to deescalate. By design any nuclear attack basically invites all out nuclear war.
This book, perhaps more than any other I’ve read, highlights the utter insanity of nuclear weapons, an insanity not lost on the very people whose job it is to plan for this sort of thing. By showing beat by beat exactly what a nuclear war would look like, the author makes as compelling a case as any I’ve heard for the end of these weapons. There is an adage that there are no winners in a nuclear war and that might as well be the thesis statement for this book. Even if something we could technically label “victory” were achieved, the loss of human life would be almost incalculably high. It hardly matters which country got off the most rockets when the world is starving in a decades long nuclear winter.
Nevertheless, they compel me. Since I first learned about nuclear power, weapons, and radiation in high school I’ve been oddly fascinated by all things atomic. Something about the fundamental oddity of it all, that natural or man-made elements can reach into living tissue and dissolve the very building blocks of life, can explode with the heat of stars, felt apocalyptic and inherently terrifying on an existential level. Since then I’ve learned a lot more about this subject; I’ve read non-fiction titles on Hiroshima, the Manhattan Project, and the Chernobyl disaster. It’s a sobering topic that I always seem to return to. Yet despite my familiarity with these subjects they still frighten me in a way nothing else really can.
This book is a detailed, exhaustively researched play by play of what a nuclear war might look like. In this scenario North Korea launches an ICMB at the Washington DC, setting into motion contingency operations for retaliation. While DC is reduced to rubble and our own nuclear weapons are launched, the president and other high up government officials are moved to increase their chances of survival while the civilian population is left to “self-rescue” a ghoulish euphemism that means in a nuclear exchange fire, police, and emergency services are not coming to help.
The contingency plans related here are real, the nuclear strength of all countries involved is as accurate as it can be, the attention to detail makes the whole book read like a disturbing documentary. Once nuclear weapons are detected en route to US soil, the president has about six minutes to decide how to respond. He can select from a pre made list of targets and can authorize a nuclear strike completely independent of anyone else. There is no oversight for this. The plans in place for scenarios like this must be made in absurdly short amounts of time, lest the US lose its ability to retaliate at all since nuclear launch sites are well known and are probably targets themselves. So by definition options like pausing to reflect, conferring with others, confirming intelligence, are all extremely limited here. It’s incredibly easy to escalate and almost impossible to deescalate. By design any nuclear attack basically invites all out nuclear war.
This book, perhaps more than any other I’ve read, highlights the utter insanity of nuclear weapons, an insanity not lost on the very people whose job it is to plan for this sort of thing. By showing beat by beat exactly what a nuclear war would look like, the author makes as compelling a case as any I’ve heard for the end of these weapons. There is an adage that there are no winners in a nuclear war and that might as well be the thesis statement for this book. Even if something we could technically label “victory” were achieved, the loss of human life would be almost incalculably high. It hardly matters which country got off the most rockets when the world is starving in a decades long nuclear winter.
By turns devastatingly funny and profoundly upsetting, this novel maintains a dogged sense of optimism and buoyant belief in humanity, even while acknowledging the misery people are capable of inflicting on others more vulnerable than them. This the kind of book that NEEDS to be adapted to film or TV ASAP. It has such a sharp wit and cinematic quality to it.
Not quite as good as his best work (which is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, obviously, the play NOT the straight washed major motion picture, a film so misguided that not even Elizabeth Taylor’s stellar performance could save it from being an ultimately disagreeable adaptation) but weird and dramatic and claustrophobic enough to be enjoyable. While everything is there technically, the setting, the backstory, the characters, the dialogue, my god the dialogue! I couldn’t help but feeling it was a little too small of a story to be a full play, let alone a movie (which it was adapted into, with Elizabeth Taylor again). The real downside in my opinion was that there were only two real characters in the whole thing, the waspish Mrs. Venable and the wicked, dead Sebastian. Catherine Holly has the rudiments of a character but really doesn’t get the time to fully become one, and maybe that’s the point, controlled and managed as she is by her family and her nuns.
In the end I think this was middling work for Williams which still puts it beyond a lot of playwrights but isn’t indicative of his full potential as a dramatist.
In the end I think this was middling work for Williams which still puts it beyond a lot of playwrights but isn’t indicative of his full potential as a dramatist.
A fascinating read about the often overlooked importance of cooking in human development. Frankly it’s time for the “Man the Hunter” model of early hominid evolution to die a painful death, and after reading this book I am all in favor of the “Man the cook” model replacing it. The author persuasively shows how the advent of cooked food spurred the physiological and social changes necessary to make us full human.
An interesting volume for GOT nerds, this book’s breadth of subject and gorgeous illustrations really put it over the top and save it from being just another impractical coffee table book put out as a blatant cash grab (VERY much looking at you The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty). Not only are the illustrations far superior to other offerings, this book also adds additional context for the world of Westeros and Essos, not a TON of additional context, mind, but it is there. While it does lift passages from Fire and Blood wholesale, the atlas style overview of the world is impressive and informative. I would recommend this to anyone who wants even more GOT lore but has already read the main books and Fire and Blood. It also merits buying instead of borrowing because the illustrations are just that good.