This is one of the most interesting riffs on Superman and Batman I’ve ever read (though, of course, their serial numbers are carefully filed off). It’s a fascinating exploration of race, prejudice, technology, and police excess. I can’t remember if I’ve read this any time except the first, but it’s one I need to read again and again.

This is one novella in Doctorow’s “Radicalized” collection, so I guess I could wait until I read all four and review them together, but I’d rather do four separate reviews.

This story is so, so good. It’s an excellent anti-DRM screed and a compelling example of the social harms that can be done by technology to marginalized groups.

Reading this back in 2019 is what got me (back) into Doctorow’s fiction, because it’s a perfect example of what he does best. I love this story, and I assign an excerpt from it to my students in one class every time I teach it.

There’s a certain flavor of bizarre that makes for great fiction, and this comic is that. It’s a story about gender transition and transphobia, a critique of tech bros and libertarian business types, and… a science fiction story featuring a Cthulhuesque cult? There’s a bit more gore than I normally tolerate in comics, and the art style isn’t what I’d identify as my go-to preference, but everything fits together in a surreal but profound way.

If I understand correctly, this book was recommended in the curriculum for Community of Christ Reunion camps this year; at least, I listened to it because it was recommended for the Reunion that I attended last weekend. I actually finished it on Monday, but it’s been a busy week, and so it’s taken me a while to write this review.

While I am an aspirational environmentalist, I’m not very in tune with nature, so I wasn’t sure how I’d like the book. That said, I really appreciated the author’s respectful challenging of dominant scientific paradigms, something that is professionally important to me. Her critique of consumerist greed also stood out to me. I got a lot from this book, and I think I’ll be blogging more about it in the future.

I heard this book reviewed on The Incomparable, and it sounded up my alley despite mixed reviews on the podcast, so I gave it a try!

This feels like a Cory Doctorow book in all the right ways: It has super weird ideas in it, and it’s sometimes more about worldbuilding and a pretty clear “moral of the story” than specific plot beats or characterization. The morals of the story are good ones, though, and having a viewpoint character who’s a sentient train is right up my alley.

J’ai parfois du mal à suivre ce texte, même en relecture, mais j’en apprends beaucoup et je suis sûr que j’y reviendrai encore dans les années à venir.

Neff is one of the most influential figures in the recent history of Community of Christ. On my second read of this biography, I’m less comfortable with some of the imperial and colonial aspects of RLDS expansion in the late 1960s, but for all Neff’s complicity in those attitudes, he also worked hard to shed his own (and his church’s) ethnocentrism and exclusivity, and I appreciate that. I’ve joked about this before, but it’s wild that he was a contemporary of Ezra Taft Benson.

I didn’t listen to the finale all in one chunk, so I didn’t appreciate it as much as I could have, but the excellent use of callbacks and flashbacks in that episode was enough to bump up my rating. I think this is also the first series I hadn’t heard before, so it was nice to hear some new content.

I really enjoy metahumor, and Finnemore’s talent for it is on full display in this series—even to the extent of calling himself out on overreliance on it. Doesn’t bother me, though!

I’ve been tempering my praise of this series through this relisten, but the time travel sketch in the finale is excellent, and there are other top notch examples of Finnemore’s humor scattered throughout.

What’s more, the recordings of this series on the Internet Archive are actual recordings and have bits of continuity announcer on either end of the episodes. I just love that, for reasons I can’t fully articulate, and I wish all the series were like that.

An excellent history. I’ve read enough Mormon history that I don’t know if there was anything new for me in here, but Park does an excellent job of capturing 200 years in a constrained space and in accessible language, too. I highly recommend this to folks who want to learn more about Mormonism.

It’s been about a decade since I was introduced to this show, and I’m very glad to finally have experienced the whole thing. The last season was fun, the finale was a nice wrap-up, and I really do think the whole thing is a masterpiece.

This series feels like Finnemore kicking things up a notch. There are some interesting new character arcs in play, and it’s fun to see Finnemore playing with the fact that one of his actors is now taking on the role of Sherlock Holmes. He’s also clearly having fun subverting some audience expectations with stories and characters.

I hadn’t heard this series before, and it was fun to come back to it! I’m really excited for Series 4 and the finale episodes.

My journey through Cabin Pressure continues! I can’t remember how much of this series I’ve previously listened to—definitely not the Christmas special, but probably the rest of it. At any rate, it continues to have exceptional writing and lovely acting. Radio is underrated, and John Finnemore is perhaps the best example of that.

It’s been ages since I’ve listened to this, though I’ve listened to some of John Finnemore’s other work in the meantime. It’s such an excellent show: brilliantly written, well acted, and a real joy to listen to.

I’m confident I haven’t listened to all four series, though I can’t remember which bits I’ve missed. Looking forward to finding out!

I first picked this up through an Audible deal several years ago, with the idea that it would help with the move from Michigan to Kentucky (I can’t remember if I wasn’t yet anti-Audible or if it was just a good deal that I couldn’t pass up with the whole family living off my grad school fellowship). Anyway, the U-Haul didn’t have an aux jack or Bluetooth, so my brother-in-law and I cranked my phone as loud as it would go and tried to make out the jokes over the highway noise. Wasn’t an ideal listen, and I wasn’t super impressed. Not even sure we finished it.

I feel like I say this whenever I talk about Doctorow, but I love that his fiction reads like an op-ed. While waiting for this book to come out, I’ve been slowly reading his co-authored book Chokepoint Capitalism, and I feel like The Bezzle is all his (and Rebecca’s) critiques about large and greedy companies wrapped up in a fun, action-driven narrative.

Here’s the thing about me: I’m an academic, and I respect facts, reason, and citations. However, when those are the basis of an argument, I sometimes also struggle with feeling like I need to be better read and know all the angles before I can get on board with the argument. A narrative, on the other hand, sucks me in and convinces me. I ended this book feeling angry about prisons, DRM, and unscrupulous corporations and their executives—I’m on board with the argument. That the story was exciting and fun to follow was only a plus.

I enjoyed Nolan’s movie so much that I thought I ought to eventually read the book—yet, I couldn’t imagine that it could live up to the film adaptation (especially after hearing the audiobook narrator’s awful attempts at any language other than English).

Yet, this ended up being amazing—perhaps better than the movie. Funnily enough, I felt that the best parts weren’t about the man himself. Rather, his life provides fascinating insight into the existential horrors of nuclear weapons, the authoritarian impulses of McCarthy-era conservatism, and lots more besides. Lots to think about in this book!

I bought this book with a gift card and to thumb my nose at an obnoxious visiting authority at a Latter-day Saint stake conference from over four years ago. This guy spent the Saturday evening session of the conference complaining about young adults who supported gay marriage and parents who pushed back against school discipline instead of giving their kids a whuppin’ (his words, not mine) and then still had the gall to talk about how great Mormonism is because it doesn’t believe in a fire and brimstone angry God.

I first read this book a few years ago, making my way through Ruff’s books after enjoying Lovecraft Country. I might like this one just as much—it’s bizarre to the point of absurdity but in a way that gets you to think. This reread was inspired by picking up a copy of my own from the clearance section of my favorite independent bookstore, and I’m really glad I own it.

I owe Pete Enns a lot. Reading his books in the years before I hit a faith crisis helped that experience go a lot more smoothly, as did continuing to read his stuff and listen to his podcasts during the process of faith transition.

Around the time this book was coming out, though, I needed a break. I felt like I knew most of his stuff, his media efforts felt like they were getting bigger and more corporate, and as much as I owed him, I wasn’t feeling it anymore. I even wondered what I could possibly get from another book and avoided this one for a while.

I had to refresh myself on the last few volumes before tackling this latest one, and there are still lots of details I can’t remember. This series is gory, crude, and profane in ways that ought to turn me away from it, but it’s just so compelling. Great art, powerful characters, and good story. Maybe I should actually subscribe to issues as they come out? I’ve never read comics in a monthly format before, but I don’t know if I want to wait as long as I had to for this next TPB.

I’ve been meaning to read (play?) this for months, ever since we bought it for kiddo after she recovered from being sick. Today, she’s sick again, so we went through it together.

This continues to be a great series by Shiga! I might like the first one more, but only slightly. The Beyond is surprisingly thinky for a kid’s book, has interesting puzzles, and there’s a hidden ending that I know exists but need to figure out. I hope Shiga has plans for more of these.

We got really into this show during the height of the pandemic and then left it alone for a while. This was a great season to come back to and provided a lot of laughs. Probably won’t come back to the show for a while (we have a few other series we’re behind on now), but this was exactly what I needed.

Over the weekend, I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol with kiddo for the third year in a row. That makes three years that I’ve been meaning to read the source material, so I went to LibriVox and found a free audiobook.

It was an excellent read! It’s aged, and not always well, but the message is just as biting, and I appreciate the Muppet adaptation all the more. Dickens has clever writing, which I appreciated, and it was nice to read the original after seeing so many adaptations.