jarrahpenguin's reviews
1299 reviews

The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality by Amanda Montell

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informative medium-paced

3.0

This book would be a good introductory read for someone who didn’t have any previous familiarity with the idea of cognitive biases. Each chapter in Montell’s book looks at a different cognitive bias like the sunk cost fallacy or confirmation bias, and connects it to modern social phenomena and the author’s personal experience.  

I found it a bit basic and disjointed I was expecting at least a wrap-up chapter covering why people should care and offering some key takeaways on how to move forward in the “age” the title speaks to. Montell describes the problem but doesn’t offer much in the way of solutions or broader significance. 
Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us by Rachel Aviv

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emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

So good. Rachel Aviv shares a series of in-depth profiles of diverse individuals’ experiences of mental illness, drawing on interviews and their own diaries and other writings. 

Her profiles are compelling, empathetic and very well-told. She also weaves in her own experiences and shows in an elegant, accessible way how individual experiences of mental illness are shaped by social, cultural, familial and individual narratives. 

Lots of content notes but I never felt like Aviv was exploiting the darker moments. They were just facts, presented with empathy. 
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Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

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adventurous emotional reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

This small, odd, beautiful book is a new favourite. It’s poetic and poignant. I found myself sobbing at the end because of how the worldview hit home. The way the author chose what to put in and leave out is masterful. Read it even if you think you don’t like sci fi.
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The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous reflective medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

A beautiful ending to the Earthsea series that draws in characters from Tales of Earthsea and those from the earliest books. It’s a contemplation of death and mortality that’s fitting, if a bit somber. There’s a lot of characters to balance and I wanted some more depth on some of them, particularly Seserakh. 
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Hench is an entertaining, darkly funny novel that explores good and evil, vengeance and identity. The action scenes are great and the story is compelling. The ending felt more
bleak
than I had expected but I understand there’s a series planned so it makes sense as a jumping off point for the next book.
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Blankets by Craig Thompson

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dark hopeful reflective medium-paced

4.5

Blankets is a classic now and one I’d never got around to reading, but I’m glad I finally did. The semi-autobiographical story explores family, faith, abuse, growing up, being an outsider and experiencing young love. The narration and dialogue style is straightforward but the story writing gives it interesting flow back and forth between Craig’s childhood and teenage years. The art is beautiful and easy to follow and every once in a while he brings in a different style to effectively make a panel or page stand out. 
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The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel

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inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

The Secret to Superhuman Strength is a hefty, quirky book that’s a bit of a departure for Bechdel in theme and structure. It’s ostensibly about exercise and the body/mind dichotomy but it’s really an exploration of mortality and meaning. The structure is only loosely chronological, with scenes interspersed of Bechdel’s contemplating connections to Kerouac, Margaret Fuller, Buddhist teachings and more. I really liked the colour work by Holly Rae Taylor and the funny details that Bechdel inserts in several panels. Overall it wasn’t my favourite but I did appreciate the ending. 
Thunderstruck by Erik Larson

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adventurous dark informative slow-paced

3.75

Erik Larson tries to recapture lightning in a bottle by weaving together the story of Marconi’s invention of wireless telegraphy and the murder of Cora Crippen by her husband. Unfortunately he gets a bit bogged down in Marconi’s biography and random minutiae and it drags a bit when you really just want to learn more about the murder. Things do pick up and the last part is a page-turner.
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The Call of Cthulhu and Dagon: A Graphic Novel by H.P. Lovecraft

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot

3.75

Full points for the art, which draws on vintage comic book styles but adds refined detail and great colour. I didn’t mind how Shephard rejigged the narrative of “The Call of  Cthulhu” to make it more chronological and tied together but didn’t love the new ending, which provides un-Lovecraftian reassurance. I also always feel weird when there’s no mention of Lovecraft’s racism in the foreword or attempt to grapple meaningfully with it in the text. 
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Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

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adventurous dark hopeful medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Absolutely incredible series of short stories and novellas exploring the beginning, middle gaps and edges of the Earthsea story. Through it all are themes of power and moral choices. “If power is responsibility, for whom are you responsible?” poses Le Guin in the afterword.

The first story,  “The Finder” is a beautiful, gutting tale of the founding of the bond between two people who are enslaved for their magic abilities and how this leads to the founding of the school on Roke. There’s a haunting part where Otter is hopeless and believes there is a darkness in people that society cannot overcome. Again, Le Guin writes as if she saw our future.

 “Dragonfly” is an interesting transition to book 6 that introduces fascinating new characters in a way that feels like it speaks to a new period in Earthsea history. 

My least favourite was “Darkrose and Diamond” but I appreciated the style and the theme of having to choose between music and magic. 

And the afterword, well Le Guin writes about the threat of people spreading and buying into misinformation online, years before it got to where it is today.

As the virtual world of electronic communication becomes the world many of us inhabit all the time, in turning to imaginative literature we may not be seeking mere reassurance nor be impelled by mere nostalgia. To enter with heart and mind into the world of the imagination may be to head deliberately and directly toward, or back toward, engagement with the real world. In one of T. S. Eliot’s poems a bird sings, “Mankind cannot bear very much reality.” I’ve always thought that bird was mistaken, or was talking only about some people. I find it amazing how much of the real world most of us can endure. Not only endure, but need, desire, crave. Reality is life. Where we suffocate is in the half-life of unreality, untruth, imitation, fakery, the almost-true that is not true. To be human is to live both within and beyond the narrow band of what-happens-now, in the vast regions of the past and the possible, the known and the imagined: our real world, our true Now.
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