The Book Look

If you've ever been curious about reading the original source material for Sherlock, it's very approachable and the stories are a fun and quick read. You really should give it a try.

The Final Problem was originally intended to be the last Sherlock story, and I'm pleased that it's not. It's an awkward, disjointed travelogue that ends in a dramatic flourish that's intended as a twist but you can see it coming a mile away. I'm not surprised that it's barely mentioned in later stories.

My therapist recommended I read this, and it's been incredibly insightful. I had never heard of codependency before and this was a really good explanation of what it is and how to combat it. This is the kind of book you read a couple paragraphs of and then stare into space. It also has some workbook sections, so you should have a notebook handy! This is definitely a resource I'm keeping on my shelf.

This book is so much fun! It's a combination of botany, traditional herbal medicine, and folklore summarized in a way that you can adapt to your choice of role-playing game. It's an easy read with tons of helpful information, instructions, and resources for those wanting to make their own herbal medicines, harvest native edible plants, cast spells, or just have a rich background for their character. They even have plant generation tables if you want to make up fictional plants for your game! I purchases this gorgeous book from a Kickstarter and will also be getting the hardcover of the Geologist's Primer they've begun work on.

One of my favourite Sherlock Holmes stories. It spans the British colonies and their history, and is full of mysterious strangers and lost treasure. It feels a bit like a time capsule of pop culture for the period the novel is set. With it becoming a series, Conan Doyle can begin to flesh out the characters and we really get to know Holmes and Watson. This is one of those rare moments where the sequel is better than the original.

I had such high hopes for this book, but they didn't pan out. While some of the short stories in this collection are amazing, the majority were bland and stereotypical for the apocalypse genre. Sometimes the world ended, sometimes it didn't, sometimes it was in danger but then it turned out okay. This collection felt all over the place and didn't hold true to its premise. Also, one of the short stories ends on a cliff-hanger with a link to the author's website so you can read more, which feels like bad form. All in all, it's not a book worth reading for the few gems it contains.

I thought this was an interesting, culturally important read, but found myself struggling with it. I don't entirely agree with Washington's philosophy, although I do believe that it's brought about great good in the world. I think that ultimately my issue is that he places more faith in the goodness of white people than I do, and that current history shows that his hopes weren't borne out. There's something depressing in reading of his optimism and hope for a brighter future while knowing we've failed to achieve his dream. However, Washington was an impressive and important man in his time and remains highly influential in the modern day. I think Up From Slavery is an important book to read to understand modern American politics.

It's rare to find such an amazingly eloquent biography of such a dramatic life. The author faced a new, more severe struggle just as the previous one was overcome, again and again, for most of their life. Her strength and dedication are amazing, and I hope that once she gained her freedom she finally found the peaceful homestead she had been fighting for. I tend not to enjoy biographies but this one reads like a soap opera. I absolutely loved it and tore though it quickly on vacation. I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good biography or some insight into the lives of enslaved women in America.

After reading several first-hand accounts of slavery, I think Frederick Douglass's autobiography is one of the best examples of the variety of horrible forms slavery could take, and the challenges escaped slaves faced. However, I also find this novel lost in the crowd amongst other more dramatic biographies like 12 Years a Slave. Although it's not my favourite out of the autobiographies I've read, the book is very good and an enjoyable read. It wouldn't be my first recommendation, but I'm happy to have it included on my bookshelf.

While I think this has value as a historical document, and gives character and context to a time period, it doesn't make for a very interesting book. William Still recorded the stories and kept the letters of escaping slaves who made their way through Philadelphia, and those documents were eventually published as this novel. He did his best to introduce each individual and give a brief overview of their life, but I found myself wanting a deeper dive into each person. The quality of the writing was also incredibly variable, being a collection of letters from a wide variety of people. If you want to read a first-hand account of slavery and escape from this time period, I think there are several other biographies that would be more useful to the average person. I'd recommend 12 Years a Slave and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl instead.

After reading this book in my high school English class, and absolutely loving it, I rediscovered it this year. It was incredibly interesting to read a book that I only dimly remembered but knew I had enjoyed. Reading it now, I picked up on some deeper themes that I had missed, and enjoyed the ending less. At first glance this is post-apocalyptic science fiction based around the theme of religious intolerance, but I think it ultimately is about the evils of believing ourselves superior to other people. Events in the book are shrugged off by the main characters and forgotten, because they happened to someone "lower" than them and I feel like the moral of the book could be interpreted as that being okay. The casual destruction at the end of the novel is presented as a necessary evil to reach a better, more advanced world. That theme doesn't sit well with me, but I appreciate when a book makes me feel uncomfortable. Although I didn't enjoy it as simply as I did before, this was a great read and I'm happy to have rediscovered this story. My English teacher had some good taste.

Was finishing a survival horror while being trapped in my house during a snow storm a good idea? No. Did I have fun? Yes. This is the first Max Brooks novel I've ever read and as someone who's not into horror, I found the book hard to put down once the crisis truly began. Unfortunately, it was hard to pick up before then, and I think setting up the location and characters dragged on a bit longer than it should have. With some of the fat trimmed off the first portion of the book, I think you'd absolutely have a five star novel. Framing the book as a recovered journal mixed with snippets of interviews and journal articles was a clever way to tell the story.

This book is, without a doubt, fun. It's a progression fantasy set in a rich, high magic setting that I can't wait to explore more of. The book was originally published, and is still being published, as a web serial, but it was exciting to have a physical copy to read. I wasn't sure how I would feel about the denying-your-destiny premise, but it quickly becomes clear that there's much more going on than the characters originally knew. I'm excited to see where Alex's journey takes him and his friends. It's also nice to see a new take on the magic academy that doesn't seem like a tired old rehashing of Harry Potter, even if it does give me Undergrad flashbacks. My one complaint is where the novel ends. It doesn't feel like a typical conclusion, although it does wrap up certain plot threads while picking up new ones. However, I expected it would be difficult to place the ending because of the web serial format, and I think J.M Clarke did a decent job with it.

I bought this book in a collection of first-hand slave accounts for sale during Black History month, and I'm so happy I've read it. Twelve Years a Slave is an honest window into the life of a slave in Louisiana, their culture, and what they suffered through. Solomon Northup was determined to show both the good and the bad, while making it clear that even the "good" was still inhumane. He countered the common justifications of slavery at the time and his story was an important force for the abolitionist movement. No history textbook can compare to reading an account like this.

I absolutely adored this book and it's message that we can be both kind and fierce. This is a standalone collection of Amanda Lovelace's poetry written around the concept that Persephone is both the goddess of spring and the queen of the dead. The pages alternate between the tenderness of spring and the darkness of the underworld, and emphasize that women can be both. Lovelace balances between those two tones beautifully and this is my favourite of her novels. If you want to read some gorgeous feminist poetry I strongly recommend this book.

This is the final book in the Women Are Some Kind of Magic trilogy, and focuses heavily on healing from sexual violence. Amanda Lovelace is holding space to mourn and to rediscover, and the poetry in this novel has a much quieter tone than the fury of The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One. I didn't dislike this book, but it didn't grab me the way her other poetry has. I think that may be because I don't like the Mermaid metaphor, and not buying into that makes the entire book weaker. I'm going to keep the book around because I want the complete trilogy, but I'm not sure if I'd read it again.

This book is the power fantasy for my teenage self that I didn't know I needed. It's got robots and aliens and epic fight scenes and burning down the patriarchy! And it's queer! And the main character is disabled! It's like a breath of fresh air for the genre if that breath of fresh air was an explosion. I absolutely devoured this book and can't wait for the sequel. It has some bumps from being the author's first book, but the concept and characters are so exciting that it's easy to look past. There are some moments that made me cringe, but hey, the main characters are dramatic teenagers. If you're a fan of Pacific Rim, the Handmaid's Tale, and mecha anime, this is the book for you!