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brucy

@[email protected]

Data guy into weird music.
Overuser of "awesome".
Really good at making charts for money.
‏
אני מדבר עברית, ‏אבל לא טוב
Dad, biker, city lover, somewhere in MA - it's complicated, veggie eater, dog owner.

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brucy , to bookstodon
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I've never seen/noticed this before but I'm saving cash at the library.
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brucy , to bookstodon
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Doing a pinned thread of my reading for 2024. Goal is 40 books, which is for sure low, but I also believe in playing games on "easy" mode. Audiobooks count, sorry.
Feel free to mute this if not your ball of wax.

Book stuff, but in app form.
Goodreads :
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/20783138
Story Graph : https://app.thestorygraph.com/profile/brucy
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brucy OP ,
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Book 1/40
The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté.
Self help and psychology. 5*

I start a lot of self help books but they are all usually a blog post stretched to 225 pages (If Books Could Kill gave me that). This one really hit home with research and genuine compassion. Deals with trauma of all kinds and in different spaces without giving easy answers. I genuinely got a lot from this to help me. Of course YRMV.

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Book 2/40
The City-State of Boston by Mark Peterson
History, city biography. 4.25*

I love a good city biography (different from a history as it treats the city as its own entity) and this one was super interesting. Learned a bunch, occluding that New England almost broke away from the US in 1814, but were stopped by the surprise victory at the Battle of New Orleans. As good as Montefiore's book on Jerusalem.
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brucy OP ,
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Book 3/40
The Secret Life of Groceries by Benjamin Lorr (audio, RBTA)
Work, capitalism, food. 4*

My Dad worked in grocery all his adult life, so this had particular appeal. Learned a bunch about trucking scams and pay, berries, Trader Joe (the person), Trader Joe's (the Aldi company), the Whole Foods Bowery seafood counter, and enough about shrimp and slavery for a while. It is almost too much, as any of these could be its own book.

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brucy OP ,
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Book 4/40
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Fiction, War On Vietnam, 5*

A great story about a communist spy during the War On Vietnam and immediately after. Compelling tale of war, how we see people, how we see ourselves, and the divisions inside us. The writing style is amazing and I bomb-ran through the last 50 pages. Looking forward to the series.

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brucy OP ,
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Book 5 & 6
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
Scifi, classic, libertarian 3.75*

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Africa, colonization, classic 5*

Two books that could be put under a colonization banner. Both about groups trying to be free.
Heinlein's libertarianism and casual 50s racism is really off-putting. Try to meet books where they are but yikes.
TFA I wish I read earlier, great book. Moving on to the second book.
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Book 7
Noor by Nnedi Okafor
Scifi, afrofutrism, Nigeria 3*

I really don't know what this book was supposed to be. I didn't get into the story and maybe just not for me.

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18+ brucy OP ,
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Book 8/40
No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe (African Trilogy 2)
Nigeria, coming of age, 4*

Interesting story of a young man coming of age in a Nigeria between traditional and new ages and how he gets caught between them.

18+ brucy OP ,
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Book 9 - Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu
Hard scifi, Chinese, TV show 4.5*

Weird and scifi. This is great stuff. Book is having a moment with the Netflix show so I won't bother to recap but it is really great. The political points are on the surface but well done. Looking forward to the next in the series.
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Book 10 - A Long Strange Trip by Dennis McNally
Music biography, Grateful Dead 3.5* (rounding up to 4)

It's fine, I guess. The early years through about 1978 are well covered, and then McNally pretty well breezes through to the end. I would call it "focusing on the positive", but I don't feel like I got a well rounded story. But it is also the official bio of a large corporation.
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Books 11-13, Annihilation, Authority, Acceptance
Scifi, weird America, horror 4.5

I had read Annihilation before but this was my first time through the trilogy. I really enjoyed it, three books with unique perspectives and writing styles telling one story. There's enough space to let your mind wander around, which I loved. One of those series I know I'll go back to to find little pieces and connections I missed.

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18+ brucy OP ,
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OK, so I skipped some. I'm just going to put the ones I really like or have a thought on in here.

Scifi, Chinese, Hard SciFi

Anyway, flipping loved this book. Changed directions on me a few times, a really different type of ending, and thought it flowed great. I particularly like scifi that does not hold your hand - for example, A Thing happens, but we're only going to go into the aftermath, not what it was. It's trusting readers, I guess.

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18+ brucy OP ,
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Philosophy, Animal Politics, Intelligence

This book was simply amazing. I felt like as it went along bringing up people and subjects (Stafford Beer/Cybernetics, Systems, Human Decentrification) that I will need a notebook for a re-reading. A lot of thoughts that I have had about how our species fits into the larger world were articulated for me. Written in 2020, but has AI arguments that we are just seeing now. Great stuff.

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kimlockhartga , to bookstodon
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@bookstodon Is anyone hiding out and reading today? I've started the graphic novel version of The Stand, 'cause nothing says Baby Jesus like an out of control world. 😁 What are you reading, if anything, and did anyone give you books? Did they give you the kind of books you wanted?

My librarian told me that the best week to troll donations is the week after Christmas, when everyone donates gifted books they didn't want.

brucy ,
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@kimlockhartga @bookstodon Sat at the Esplanade with Jo Nesbo for a bit.

kimlockhartga , to bookstodon
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@bookstodon Just out of curiosity, how close are you to your reading goal for the year? I need to read 12 more books to meet the goal I set for myself. 📚📚📚📚

Not everyone works the same way, of course. We've discussed before that reading goals are counterproductive for many. Having a goal really helps me, but it doesn't work for everyone. Just like reading for pleasure and reading to write a review are very different processes.

brucy ,
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@ronsboy67 @kimlockhartga @bookstodon @thestorygraph

I am genuinely asking - How does one read that many books in a year? Short books or 12 hour reading sessions?
Amazed by these numbers.

brucy , to bookstodon
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PSA: If you love your library (who doesn't??) and want a cool tool, check out Library Extension:
https://www.libraryextension.com/
You add it to Chrome, etc and when you look for a book on Amazon, it will let you know if it is at your local library or Overdrive.

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