gwcoffey's reviews
520 reviews

Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano

4.0

I grabbed this to listen to on a long drive with my wife. It’s a moving story, with a steady plot. And it does a beautiful job of exploring the interior lives of several characters. Each one feels distinct and authentic, and you can identify with each in a different way. It really is masterful work on the part of the author.

It also has a striking and beautiful cover.

Agency by William Gibson

3.0

Dare I say it? This book is a little boring. I suppose Gibson’s earned the right to just explore techno-future ideas without worrying too much about character and plot after giving us a lifetime of great stuff. As always, the tech is interesting and the language is fun. But overall not nearly as good as The Peripheral.

High: Everything You Want to Know about Drugs, Alcohol, and Addiction by Nic Sheff, David Sheff

3.0

I went looking for something to listen to after finishing a book and found this sitting in my Audible library. (It turns out my daughter’s girlfriend was on a drug-memoir kick and used my acount to listen to this free book.) I don’t have much to say about it. It’s a book aimed at teens and meant to give a frank explanation of the risks of drug use. The information seems sound, although the second half is a little like reading an encyclopedia.

The Samurai by Shūsaku Endō, Van C. Gessel

4.0

Shūsaku Endō’s masterpiece, Silence, is easily one of my favorite books of all time. As soon as I read it I wanted to read more, and finally got around to it. This book definitely didn’t disappoint. As you would expect it is beautifully and thoughtfully written. (And the audiobook reading by David Holt is also wonderful.)

I wish modern Christianity had more in common with the version in the hearts of Endō’s quiet and unassuming characters.

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

4.0

I’m not sure why I had never read this book. It was in the back of my mind for years as something I should read. I heard Stephenson in an interview discussing the 30th anniversary of its publication and decided it was time. I’m so glad I did.

If there’s one thing I love in a book, it is an authentic voice. Something the author is wholly committed to, and is not quite like anything else. If you’d like to know if this novel’s voice will appeal to you, just read the first chapter. It’s only a dozen pages, and it’s a whirlwind.

I really enjoyed the premise of this fictional universe. It was imaginative, slightly deranged, and steeped in history, linguistics, and computer programming—all things I love. If you want to pick on the book, it is definitely “tell-y”. You’ll find long chapters where the protagonist (who’s name, delightfully, is “Hiro Protagonist”) and an artificial intelligence discuss the plot to drive it forward. But this kind of thing doesn’t bother me at all. And the book more than makes up for it with imagination and fast pacing.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

4.0

This book is a little slow and the plot is thin, but it is some of Le Guin’s most beautiful and thoughtful prose. “The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.”

The worlds (plural!) she imagines are complex and interesting without feeling at all didactic. She is exploring ideas here, not preaching. Perhaps the best part is Shavek’s rallying speech, which is wonderful in the moment, and also feels very current.

It is our suffering that brings us together. It is not love. Love does not obey the mind, and turns to hate when forced. The bond that binds us is beyond choice. We are brothers. We are brothers in what we share. In pain, which each of us must suffer alone, in hunger, in poverty, in hope, we know our brotherhood. We know it, because we have had to learn it. We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.

I am here because you see in me the promise, the promise that we made two hundred years ago in this city—the promise kept. We have kept it, on Anarres. We have nothing but our freedom. We have nothing to give you but your own freedom. We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association. We have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity, no police, no soldiers, no wars. Nor do we have much else. We are sharers, not owners. We are not prosperous. None of us is rich. None of us is powerful. If it is Anarres you want, if it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with empty hands. You must come to it alone, and naked, as the child comes into the world, into his future, without any past, without any property, wholly dependent on other people for his life. You cannot take what you have not given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.

Amen.

The Possibility of Life: Science, Imagination, and Our Quest for Kinship in the Cosmos by Jaime Green

5.0

When I read this excerpt in The Atlantic I knew I had to read this book. It was wonderful. Part science, part philosophy, part love-letter to humanity. As an added bonus Green discusses several science fiction books I’ve never read and that went straight on my list. But what I liked best was that the author clearly loves this stuff, and it shows on every page.

The stars cannot be counted, but each one can be named.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful: A Memoir by Maggie Smith

5.0

I’ve been a fan of Maggie Smith’s poetry—like so many people—since I first discovered her when her poem Good Bones went “viral”. I love the straight forward imagery of her poetry and I especially love that she writes so beautifully about motherhood.

I also have a very special memory of taking my poet-child Isabel to Maggie’s reading at Arizona State University several years ago. Isabel saw in her an inspiring and positive role model. I only wish all my kids role models could be this pure.

So I was not surprised that I loved this book. Fair warning, it is sad. But also redemptive and self-actualizing. “My work was not the problem. My work was the solution. I kept us here with words.”. And it speaks eloquently and honestly about the sacrifices that are worth it:

I’ve loved them without having to try at all, because I’m their mother, and the love is not work. Parenting is work: the cooking of meals, the washing of clothes, the tending of wounds, the taming of cowlicks, the helping with homework, the driving to soccer, the packing of lunches, the finding of missing things (water bottle lids, baseballs, library books, mittens), the consoling to sleep. The love? It’s not work.

Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World by Nancy Marie Brown

4.0

This book looked right down my alley and I really enjoyed it. There’s a lot of speculation here (and lots I’m not educated enough on the subject to judge). But the idea of an Icelandic woman as carver of such an iconic piece of art is really exciting.

I think what I liked best about this book is that it was my first introduction to Icelandic history and literature. It strikes me that Iceland seems to be in this magical place in history: not so new like colonial American history that all the facts are laid bare, but not so old that the origins are entirely unknowable. I really love the teasing apart of history and legend. It’s almost like these legends are thiiiiis close to verifiable. I’ll definitely be reading some Icelandic Sagas soon.

How We Learn: Why Brains Learn Better Than Any Machine . . . for Now by Stanislas Dehaene

4.0

This book hit my sweet spot. It taught me many things I did not know, deepened my understanding of many things I sort-of-vaguely-knew, and refuted some things I thought I knew to be true. I think every teacher, parent, or soon-to-be-parent would find important and actionable information here.