Tag Archives: fiction
The Fifth Season
The Fifth Season takes place on a geologically unstable world where there’s a catastrophic “fifth season” of eruptions and earthquakes every few hundred years. It tells the story of one woman’s quest to find her abducted daughter during an especially destructive season. Rich, vivid and highly inventive. Continue reading
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines
A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines is a novel about the parallel lives of two of the 20th Century’s greatest mathematicians, Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing. Through fictionalized accounts, it explores the power of genius, the price it sometimes exacts and the limitations of our ability to discover the truth. Continue reading
Nonfiction November 2023 Week 3: Book Pairings
Liz @ Adventures in reading, running and working from home is hosting Week 3 of Nonfiction November. The topic is book pairings: “This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. Maybe it’s a historical novel and the … Continue reading
Babel: An Arcane History
Once or twice a year I take a break from nonfiction and read a novel. This time it was R. F. Kuang’s Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. Quite a mouthful. I’ll … Continue reading
Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village
If you’ve ever read or watched any of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories, or seen the Midsomer Murders TV series, or even some of the episodes of Inspectors Morse or Lewis, then you’ll know that picturesque English villages are actually … Continue reading
Bewilderment
In Richard Powers’ latest novel, Bewilderment, astrobiologist Theo Byrne is a single father struggling to raise his nine-year-old son Robin. Robin himself struggles with emotional turmoil for which there’s no clear diagnosis. “So far the votes are two Asperger’s, one probable … Continue reading
The Last White Man
One morning in an unnamed city in an unnamed country, a white man named Anders wakes up to discover that his skin has turned dark brown. His facial features have changed too. He doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror. … Continue reading
The Ministry for the Future
It’s the year 2024. After most nations fail to meet their commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement, delegates to the annual Conference of the Parties (COP) create a “subsidiary body” to defend and protect future generations of citizens and all … Continue reading
Greenwood
I was on vacation last week and took one of my periodic side trips into fiction. Greenwood, by Canadian writer Michael Christie, is a novel about family and trees and the relationship between them. It spans four generations of the … Continue reading
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