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Review: Sirena
Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli My rating: 5 of 5 stars Another book that was on my To-Read list since 2014. I *think* I heard about it on Boing-Boing, but I wasn’t making good use of my GR shelves that way back then to keep track of such things. Wherever I heard about it, I…
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Review: Dead Man’s Deal (The Asylum Tales, #2)
Dead Man’s Deal by Jocelynn Drake My rating: 4 of 5 stars Wow, Ms. jocelynn Drake did something pretty rare among the trilogies I’ve been reading for the past half decade – she made a second book in the trilogy that doesn’t end on a cliffhanger. My memories of books I read when I was…
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Review: Aces High (Wild Cards, #2)
Aces High by George R.R. Martin My rating: 4 of 5 stars As usual for an anthology, I’m going to post my thoughts on each story, but before I get to that, my thoughts on the book as a whole. It was a big change from the previous book and that might be good, bad,…
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Review: His Majesty’s Dragon (Temeraire, #1)
His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik My rating: 4 of 5 stars I added this book to my Goodreads To Read list in 2014. The reasons for doing so are lost to time and slightly baffling. I don’t believe I had any previous experience with Ms. Naomi Novik. I’m not a big fantasy person (I’m…
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Review: Persepolis Rising (The Expanse, #7)
Persepolis Rising by James S.A. Corey My rating: 4 of 5 stars Holy Time-Skip, Batman! As is clear from the first chapter (and maybe the synopsis? I never read those once I know I’m going to read a book because they tend to spoil a bit or mess with my expectations) we’ve jumped 30 years…
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Review: Bread Illustrated: A Step-By-Step Guide to Achieving Bakery-Quality Results at Home
Bread Illustrated: A Step-By-Step Guide to Achieving Bakery-Quality Results at Home by America’s Test Kitchen My rating: 4 of 5 stars Even though I started this book nearly a year ago, I haven’t made any of the recipes yet. This is mostly because I didn’t get a stand mixer until late last year. That said,…
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Review: Project Fire: Cutting-Edge Techniques and Sizzling Recipes from the Caveman Porterhouse to Salt Slab Brownie S’Mores
Project Fire: Cutting-Edge Techniques and Sizzling Recipes from the Caveman Porterhouse to Salt Slab Brownie S’Mores by Steven Raichlen My rating: 4 of 5 stars Last summer I made the grilled breakfast quesadillas and just that item is worth the cost of this book. Also, grilled bacon turned out to be pretty awesome and way…
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Review: Strange Dogs (The Expanse, #6.5)
Strange Dogs by James S.A. Corey My rating: 4 of 5 stars This review will contain spoilers for The Expanse book series, but not this book. When we last left the universe of The Expanse, the good guys appeared to have won, except for the ship the rebels had sent into one of the gates.…
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Review: Skipped Parts (GroVont Trilogy, #1)
Skipped Parts by Tim Sandlin My rating: 4 of 5 stars Supposedly (according to the cover on the version I selected on Goodreads) this was made into a movie. I found this so incredulous that I looked it up on IMDB. Apparently it was made in 2000 and is rated R so MAYBE there’s hope…
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Review: Riley Parra Season One
Riley Parra Season One by Geonn Cannon My rating: 3 of 5 stars It seems every year I’ve been reading a book about a detective working in our world, if our world was an urban fantasy. The last two I’ve read Dead Witch Walking and Neon Noir: A Delilah Street Paranormal Investigator Anthology were in…
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Review: Python 3 Object-Oriented Programming: Build robust and maintainable software with object-oriented design patterns in Python 3.8, 3rd Edition
Python 3 Object-Oriented Programming: Build robust and maintainable software with object-oriented design patterns in Python 3.8, 3rd Edition by Dusty Phillips My rating: 4 of 5 stars I’ve rarely done object-oriented programming in Pytnon and haven’t done any serious OOP since undergrad, nearly 20 years ago (and in Java). i found this book to be…
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Review: What is Obscenity?: The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and her Pussy
What is Obscenity?: The Story of a Good For Nothing Artist and her Pussy by Rokudenashiko My rating: 4 of 5 stars I first heard about Ms. Rokudenashiko on the Daily Show years ago. A couple years ago I remembered her story and added the book to my wishlist. In 2018 I got it for…
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The Kobo Clara HD
Almost exactly 9 years ago I got a Nook after rethinking my prejudices against ebooks. Four years ago, I started using Calibre to manage my ebooks. Back then I had 324 ebooks. Now I’ve got 1396. A big difference from 9 years ago is that I don’t use the dedicated ereader as much as I…
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Review: The PDX Broadsides – “Relatable Content”
This year I have sponsored a lot of Kickstarter creative work, including lots of music. One that I was very excited to support was The PDX Broadsides’ latest album, Relatable Content. They started off as a pirate shanty band and have evolved into a nerd filk band whose songs range from silly to profound. I…
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Podcasts I’m Listening to in 2019
I’ve both added and dropped some podcasts since last time around. Where I’m listing the same podcast as last year I may use the same description as in the past with slight (or no) variation. Public Radio Radiolab – Heard about them because sometimes their stories are used on This American Life. Radiolab is a…