Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt

#1075
Title: Off-Topic: The Story of an Internet Revolt
Author: G. R. Reader
Year: 2013
Publisher: Author via Lulu
Pages: 211
Available: 

http://www.lulu.com/shop/gr-reader/off-topic-the-story-of-an-internet-revolt/ebook/product-21280970.html

 

"It’s looking to me that Goodreads is swatting very specific users, and backing it up with confusing, badly considered “policy changes” that aren’t so much changes as after-the-fact justifications" (77).

Extremely interesting and illuminating. This is a very useful book for both historical and philosophical purposes. 

Culture Smart! India: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture

#1074
Title: Culture Smart! India: The Essential Guide to Customs and Culture
Author: Becky Stephen
Publisher: Kuperard
Year: 2010
168 pages

Another generally useful pocket guide. As they all are in this series, it's a bit light on the customs and a bit heavy on the kind of history I could find in Wikipedia. Good for an initial orientation, but requires additional resources to fill it out effectively. 

Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo

#1073
Title: Stranger in the Forest: On Foot across Borneo
Author: Eric Hansen
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1988
286 pages

An enjoyable adventure, for no deeper purpose than the author's desire. I enjoyed the narrative and description, as well as very pleasing evocations of the people and jungle. As with Rory Stewart's The Places in Between, I sometimes wondered why the author needlessly, to my mind, endangered himself, but this is a trope in masculine adventure memoirs.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)

#1072
Title: The Miracle at Speedy Motors (No. 1 Ladies Detection Agency, #9)
Author: Alexander McCall Smith
Publisher: Pantheon
Year: 2008
240 pages

More plot and more psychology than previous volumes. This one feels like it moves the characters along, and the resolution of the dilemmas, crises, and cases is better than adequate.

Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)

#1071
Title: Codex Seraphinianus (2nd ed.)
Author: Luigi Serafini
Publisher: Rizzilli
Year: 1981/2013
396 pages

An extremely delicious illustrated encyclopedia of a not-quite-existent world. It is bettered by both its deeply amusing illustrations and its pages of unreadable but very official-looking text. All manner of persons, places, and things have their sections. Think Edward Gorey meets Shaun Tan meets Diderot meets De rerum natura. We may speculate much, but confirm little, about the world by the organization of illustrations and intriguing but ultimately unfathomable diagrams within the text. If we know the mind of G-d through the structure of the Law, perhaps we could know the mind of something through the structure of whatever this Codex may be.

The Martian

#1070
Title: The Martian
Author: Andy Weir
Publisher: Crown
Year: 2011/2014
384 pages

Though there's little emotional or psychological depth, Weir's novel (to be physically published next month) is enjoyable for hard SF fans. If you enjoy playing "What if I were snowed in and the power went out?" or "Could I get from DC to LA with only the contents of my car and my wits about me?", you'll probably enjoy this novel of "Can I survive being abandoned for dead on Mars?"

I'm not able to evaluate most of the science. I do note, however, that the initial windstorm that begins the novel is at speeds that are not well-attested on Mars.

[Ender's Game ("Author's Definitive Edition")]

#1069
Title: [Ender's Game ("Author's Definitive Edition")]
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor
Year: 1985/1991
350 pages

I've read it before, and doubtless I'll read it again. This time I read it because a friend wanted to read and discuss it. My observations this time around:

• The foreshadowing is reasonably strong if you know what's coming, both in the book and later in the series.
• The giant (and how it appears later in the book and series) is still wonderful.
• I'm convinced that young Card was sexually abused by a male peer, perhaps a relative, and that this accounts for the repeated appearance of this threat or slightly homoerotic violent trope in a great many of his works, and perhaps that this explains his vituperative stance on LGBT rights. It's only a speculation, but do watch for this undercurrent in his oeuvre.