Book Picks

My Favorite Books From 2022

Good morning and Happy New Year to all! We spent a wonderful New Years Eve yesterday and last night by doing a lot of nothing. After another epic Christmas visit to Colombia, the four of us were happy to lounge around with full abandon for scheduled activities, binge watching Wednesday and eating Chinese food. Wednesday is...

The Creatures in ‘Bird Box’ Are Dumb, But it Works

I finally picked up Bird Box, long after the 2018 hype over the Netflix movie adaptation, and the trending cultural references and hilarious memes about blindfolds. I thought it was an entertaining read with a fast-paced, linear storyline that's airtight. There's very little meandering or monologuing. Josh Malerman is not making a cultural statement with...

Twenty-Thousand Leagues is not What You Think

I had Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea sitting on my bookshelf and decided to read it. The story isn't what I thought it would be, plus it moves too slowly for contemporary readers. Same with the Disney movie staring Kirk Douglas. But, the book changed the Science Fiction genre when it was published in 1870...

You’ll Love How This Book Explains the Internet

I came away after reading this book with an 'aha' feeling about the intenet. I learned about this book a while ago on NPR and it came to mind recently when I wanted to find a book about the internet. Or rather, the physical internet. This morning I went running and finished, Tubes: A Journey...

The Blade Runner Novel Has an Odd Title

The Blade Runner movie is based on a novel with the odd title, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? This novel started the franchise with the original 1982 movie staring Harrison Ford, and more recently, Blade Runner 2049, produced in 2017 staring Ryan Gosling. The original novel is something of a distant cousin to both...

A Sampler of War Novels for Service Members

This is a short list of war novel picks for service members. They don't all feature Americans, or American service members for that matter. But a little empathy goes a long way, and sometimes we're not the best ones to tell our story. I'm switching gears from science fiction to read and review a war...