I have #mecfs so I have a lot of time for reading, mostly #fantasy and #SciFi but I'm happy to dip into nearly anything.
Ratings: 1 star: I didn't like it 2 stars: it was okay 3 stars: I liked it 4 stars: I really liked it 5 stars: it was brilliant
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On the run from narcos, mother & son join the desperate stream of humanity heading for the US. Terrifying, exhausting & exhilarating, with the unrelenting momentum of a freight train. Trails off towards end.
Reading time 4 days, 116 pages/day
When men have the wisdom to let go of striving for supremacy, and return to the earth.
Reading time 3 days, 70 pages/day
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As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with …
Celebrates the sacredness of country by bringing together the deep spirituality of indigenous wisdom & the glorious nerdiness of ecological science. Poignant & bittersweet.
Reading time 13 days, 30 pages/day
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Blimey, what a heart walloper! Abused boy finds family & comes to life when billeted out during WW2. Pulls no punches but so much love & support. Goes through hell; ridiculously resilient.
Reading time 4 days, 76 pages/day
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The First Four Years is an autobiographical novel by Laura Ingalls Wilder, published in 1971 …
Early marriage and a steep learning curve on stubborn husbands, capricious weather & farming as a price-taker. Much less idyllic than the prior books.
Reading time 1 days, 126 pages/day
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In 1921, two Swedes, Nils Pallin and Allan Bäckman, described their incredible challenges and tribulations …
Journals from an early expedition to Chile's sea-level glaciers. Lyrically evocative of the area's harsh beauty, relentless weather & incomparable remoteness. Hard to keep track of terrain without Google Earth to hand. Of niche interest to Patagonian tragics!
Reading time 2 days, 143 pages/day
BookReview #Books #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #Exploration #Chile #Patagonia #Glaciers
This remarkable book is about everything from echidnas to evolution, cosmology to cooking, sex and …
Yarning about the ways of Indigenous knowledge. Insightful, sometimes impenetrable, with a bit of bullshit. The barest exposure, but what next? How to incorporate this into our worldview?
Reading time 10 days, 25.6 pages/day
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The chimneys of industry rise over Adua and the world seethes with new opportunities. But …
The industrial revolution arrives, and it's ugly. Brutally cynical & vicious, yet somehow lighthearted.
Books #BookReview #Bookstodon #BookWyrm #fantasy
The traumatised underclass of NZ, desperately trying to escape the relentless undertow of drugs, crime & abuse. Intense & despairing, but with a spark of hope.
Reading time: 3 days
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"The magical adventure begun in The Bear and the Nightingale continues as brave Vasya, now …
Witch girl seeks freedom from mediaeval Rus strictures, but her naivety & heedlessness prove her undoing. Still, she saves the day! Less fairytale, more political than prequel. Still excellent.
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A different kind of nature writing, for a different kind of landscape.
I went and …
"Summertime" Danielle Celermajer. 4 stars. Meditations on the 2019/20 #bushfires. Captures well the colossal scale, and the interminable fear. Coins the useful term "omnicide" for the destruction that we are all responsible for, and which permeates everything.
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A #fantasy where mental health takes centre stage! Shallan's dissociative disorder is particularly well done. Solid fare as usual, with some interesting sciencing, though the cosmic machinations are overly obscure. Very inefficient at 1200 pages.
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Wiradjuri life in settler times. Valuable perspective but otherwise unremarkable & lacks momentum. Seamless use of language.
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Darrow is a Red, a member of the lowest caste in the color-coded society of …
Recycled ideas: hierarchical oppression, revolution, infiltration, proving ground. Reasonably done, but takes time to build up a good head of steam.
SciFi #SFF #Books #BookReview #Bookstodon #BookWyrm
A fast-paced, mind-expanding literary work about scientific discovery, ethics and the unsettled distinction between genius …
The creative madness of genius scientists. Evolves from fact through to terrifying fabulation, without straying from the essence. Strikingly original.
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