I like the idea of the book more than I liked the book itself. Attempts at humor fall flat, personal anecdotes add nothing, and despite about 45% of this book being Acknowledgements and Notes that I didn't read, it still felt a little long.

The first third-or-so was worth reading for the brief history of grammar education and punctuation usage, and so for that, 1.75 stars.

The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

4.5

The Art of Public Prayer (2nd Edition): Not for Clergy Only by Lawrence A. Hoffman

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informative reflective fast-paced

3.25

There's a part late in the book where Larry talks about the spaces in which people congregate. He writes (emphasis mine):

An award-winning television program set in Victorian England was called Upstairs, Downstairs, a spatial metaphor for the class structure of the era being portrayed. The servants lived upstairs; those they served lived downstairs. The butler, however, was allowed to roam freely downstairs, because he was a bridge figure: a servant, to be sure, but in charge of all the other servants and a trusted confidant of the master and his family.

Since he, nor his editors, correctly established that servants live downstairs, not upstairs - information that simply has to almost nearly be common knowledge! - how can I trust him about anything else he wrote?

I can't, but the book was otherwise informative (if at all factual), I guess...

For that reason, 3.25 stars.

Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius

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challenging inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.5

Looking back at a couple excerpts I saved, it appears that I had two big takeaways:

1. Most things in life haven't been going as people have hoped for for thousands of years. Marc writes:

...be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.

2. Marc must've really liked eating or, at the very least, he found a pleasant tease in observing bread, writing:

We ought to observe also that even the things which follow after the things which are produced according to nature contain something pleasing and attractive. For instance, when bread is baked some parts are split at the surface, and these parts which thus open, and have a certain fashion contrary to the purpose of the baker's art, are beautiful in a manner, and in a peculiar way excite a desire for eating.

...and for these meditations, 4.5 stars.

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

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hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

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adventurous challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

When I finished reading this a few years ago, I wrote a little poem about it:

Political intrigue in space!
Interplanetary deceptions taking place!
A tale of friendships on the brink of becoming something more!
The possibility of empirical annexations causing civil unrest in the face of a potential intergalactic war!

Anyway, this book was terrific from beginning to end.

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ericj's reviews 17 reviews

ericj's reviews
17 reviews