Category: Goodreads Reviews

author: Guy Gavriel Kay
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/15
shelves: fantasy, fiction, favorites
review:
Awesome, as always. Kay remains pretty much my favorite fantasy author ever, or at least in the top 5. Fascinating story with lots of twists & turns, vivid setting (a fantasy China/Mongolia), and complex compelling characters. Plus: ghosts! assassins! warrior monks! palace intrigue! spooky stuff! Devoured the whole book in about a day, which is probably a little crazy; in my defense, it was a sick day. Sometimes his endings are painful, this one splits the difference with both happiness & melancholy.

C just finished it yesterday, and as he notes, it’s also great fuel for my still-developing Central Asia-based game world, up to and including the inside-cover map. 🙂

author: Diane Ravitch
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, sociology
review:
She closely reviews the literature around accountability testing and school choice, after describing how she came to be an advocate for those things. Curiously enough, she wrote the history curriculum for CA in the late 80s that I went to high school under. And the data doesn’t follow what she had hoped for, in fact in many cases it’s entirely counter-productive. If you’ve followed this stuff at all, then there’s nothing massively surprising, but lots of interesting food for thought. (A friend of mine is a high school English teacher in Texas; I’ve listened to a few rants.) A good reminder that there are no simple options for improving education, altho there are lots of simple obvious ones…that happen to be wrong.

What I find curious, personally, is that she was an advocate of these ideas at all. Her background is in looking at the simplistic education fads of the past, so choice and testing ought to have sounded warning bells. A testimony to the power of peer pressure, I suppose.

author: Diane Ravitch
name: Elaine
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/09/06
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, sociology
review:
She closely reviews the literature around accountability testing and school choice, after describing how she came to be an advocate for those things. Curiously enough, she wrote the history curriculum for CA in the late 80s that I went to high school under. And the data doesn’t follow what she had hoped for, in fact in many cases it’s entirely counter-productive. If you’ve followed this stuff at all, then there’s nothing massively surprising, but lots of interesting food for thought. (A friend of mine is a high school English teacher in Texas; I’ve listened to a few rants.) A good reminder that there are no simple options for improving education, altho there are lots of simple obvious ones…that happen to be wrong.

What I find curious, personally, is that she was an advocate of these ideas at all. Her background is in looking at the simplistic education fads of the past, so choice and testing ought to have sounded warning bells. A testimony to the power of peer pressure, I suppose.

author: Raj Patel
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/09/01
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: economics, environmentalism, history, politics, read-again, sociology, urban-studies
review:
It hit a raw nerve for me about where I am in life and society, and I’m still trying to figure out how to describe that experience. I’d like to read it again and maybe make some notes as I go. Left with a vague sense of wanting to do something, but not enough of a strong direction of what exactly that ought to be. (That may just be about me.) Recommended with that reservation.

author: Raj Patel
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2010/09/01
date added: 2010/09/13
shelves: economics, environmentalism, history, politics, read-again, sociology, urban-studies
review:
It hit a raw nerve for me about where I am in life and society, and I’m still trying to figure out how to describe that experience. I’d like to read it again and maybe make some notes as I go. Left with a vague sense of wanting to do something, but not enough of a strong direction of what exactly that ought to be. (That may just be about me.) Recommended with that reservation.

author: Gail Carriger
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/19
date added: 2010/08/20
shelves: fantasy, fiction, history
review:
A fun clever book, which reminds me quite a bit of the Amelia Peabody mysteries, which I LOVED when I was in high school. Only with supernatural critters & steampunk gear! A bit annoyed at the cliffhanger ending, but I suppose that’s just the way it works. Her POV handling seems to be getting more solid/consistent. It’s been 9 months since I read the first book, but I had few difficulties getting my bearings in this one…which is good since I imagine it’ll be at LEAST that long until I’ll be able to read the next one. (Not published until next month, not even on order at the library so far as I can tell.)

author: Gail Carriger
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/19
date added: 2010/08/20
shelves: fiction, fantasy, history
review:
A fun clever book, which reminds me quite a bit of the Amelia Peabody mysteries, which I LOVED when I was in high school. Only with supernatural critters & steampunk gear! A bit annoyed at the cliffhanger ending, but I suppose that’s just the way it works. Her POV handling seems to be getting more solid/consistent. It’s been 9 months since I read the first book, but I had few difficulties getting my bearings in this one…which is good since I imagine it’ll be at LEAST that long until I’ll be able to read the next one. (Not published until next month, not even on order at the library so far as I can tell.)

author: Tom Tucker
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/17
date added: 2010/08/18
shelves: history, non-fiction, science
review:
Not as satisfying as I wanted it to be, honestly. Interesting to realize that Franklin almost certainly did not do the kite thing, and of course the wacky parlor-game atmosphere of early electrical science is always fun to read about. I think I actually wanted more details about Franklin’s other hoaxes, for one thing.

Also, Priestly comes off very badly in this book, which is a strange contrast to the Steven Johnson book I read last summer. In that, he seemed flawed but interesting, whereas Tucker is brutal about both his looks and his personality: basically, a sycophantic weirdo.

It’s one of those books that contrasts with other books I’ve read in a way that makes me wonder about the biases of all the authors. History can be interesting that way.

author: Tom Tucker
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2010/08/17
date added: 2010/08/18
shelves: history, non-fiction, science
review:
Not as satisfying as I wanted it to be, honestly. Interesting to realize that Franklin almost certainly did not do the kite thing, and of course the wacky parlor-game atmosphere of early electrical science is always fun to read about. I think I actually wanted more details about Franklin’s other hoaxes, for one thing.

Also, Priestly comes off very badly in this book, which is a strange contrast to the Steven Johnson book I read last summer. In that, he seemed flawed but interesting, whereas Tucker is brutal about both his looks and his personality: basically, a sycophantic weirdo.

It’s one of those books that contrasts with other books I’ve read in a way that makes me wonder about the biases of all the authors. History can be interesting that way.

author: Jonathan L. Howard
name: Elaine
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2010/08/15
date added: 2010/08/18
shelves: fantasy, fiction, horror
review:
Weird and entertaining. (Weirdly entertaining?) Read mostly over the course of a day sitting out at the river!