The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a beautifully coming-of-age story about Cameron Post, a teenage girl who is struggling with the loss of her parents and her own sexuality in ultra-conservative Montana. Danforth's writing is beautiful - I felt fully immersed into Cameron's world. Knowing that the author also grew up in Miles City, this book comes across to me as deeply personal and very real. My favorite part of the book, beyond Danforth's stunning sentences, are the characters. Every single one is incredibly complicated and interesting. Even the ones we want to hate for their homophobia have their likable moments and redeemable qualities. As someone who grew up in a conservative area and has met so many people like those featured in the book, I really appreciated that nuance. Many reviews mention that they thought the book was too long, and I can see that, but I thoroughly enjoyed every part of the book. I think the extra length and detail was well spent in crafting such a detailed and immersive world. I honestly wish the book would've been even longer! While the ending was striking, profound, and will definitely stick with me, I couldn't help but wish the story had gone another few hundred pages, if only so I could know how things worked out for Cameron in the end. One of my favorite books I've read as of late! Another amazing little library find.

Coming into this book having read the Foundation trilogy, I already had a good idea of where Asimov's writing shines and where it struggles. Let's start with the good - Asimov has such amazing ideas. His Three Laws of Robotics were such a great addition to the genre, and this book (really a collection of short stories loosely tied together) puts them to the test. We as the reader get to explore so many different types of robots, follow their evolution through the recollections of one of the main characters, and try to understand how they work. It is incredible to me that so much that we consider typical of Sci-Fi can be attributed directly to this man. While I love Asimov's ideas, I think his writing his pretty awful. I'm sure some of this is due to the fact most of his books are short stories retrofitted together, but his characters are extremely flat and uninteresting. His female characters, if there are any, are definitely a product of his time - almost exclusively falling into the categories of young and beautiful, emotional and hysterical, unattractive and old, or cold and bitchy. His male characters, though granted a more flattering view, are still caricatures. We know almost nothing about them, and they never expand beyond their very limited role in the story. Still, I think if you go into his writing with the expectation that the characters are really just part of the setting Asimov uses to explore his unique ideas about robots, this book has a lot to offer.

Merging Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalism with a compelling narrative, Soul Full of Coal Dust is one of the best books I've read this year! I think books like this, sort of long form exposés, are one of my new favorite genres. It echoes all of the things I loved about Patrick Radden Keefe's Empire of Pain, which followed the Sackler family across decades of their history and highlighted the corruption that led to the Opioid crisis along the way. I love the incredible depth of information, and the perspective the reader gets from following a subject for years and years on end. I really can't understate it - I'm blown away by the sheer amount of research that goes into writing a book like Hamby's. Decades of history surrounding coal mining, the black lung benefits system, and U.S. labor reform in general from the 1960s all the way to the 2010s is covered in this book. I also watched the segments that ABC put out in conjunction with Hamby's news agency and they were so astounding. Hearing Paul Wheeler speak was so shocking. It was truly as if he thought he had done nothing wrong! Most interesting to me is that Hamby's original news articles detailing the struggles Appalachian coal miners were facing as well as the corruption in the Jackson & Kelly law firm and Johns Hopkins/Wheeler came out around 2013, but this book wasn't published until 2020. It was amazing to follow along with Hamby as he put together the pieces for his 2013 exposé, but even more fascinating to read what happened in the seven years following. Unfortunately, it's not uncommon for us to hear stories of good people suffering unduly. Appalachian coal miners definitely fall into that bucket. But it's not so often that we actually get to read about these people getting justice, about things getting better for them. There still is so much work to be done, but I think Soul Full of Coal Dust highlights the process of making progress. The reforms that miners advocacy groups won took literal decades, and even once instated, were often repealed, de-clawed, or supremely ignored by those in power. It was very insightful to read such detailed accounts of the activists involved and how they dealt with setbacks. It made me feel more optimistic about the future, and more aware of the amount of organizing and effort that is needed to make lasting change. Unfortunately, it seems that many Appalachian coal miners are still not getting their due. I read some recent articles, published since this book's release, and it seems that black lung remains on the rise. This is primarily due to the increased amount of silica dust that miners are exposed to as they must now mine through more rock to reach coal seams. It seems that many of the regulations put in place previously are specific to coal dust, and more needs to be done to protect workers against silica dust, which is more heavily implicated in black lung. This is definitely a story I will keep following.

I've been going through an existential crisis about my career lately and after bemoaning this to someone close to me, they lent me their copy of this book! It was a refreshing departure from what I typically read and definitely worthwhile for anyone who is feeling unfulfilled professionally. I will note that Crawford has a philosophy background, so the writing can come across as a bit dense for those of us who don't commonly read philosophical treatises. I definitely fall into that bucket, but I found the text to be navigable with sufficient re-reading and googling terms I didn't understand. Overall, I really appreciated Crawford's musings what "work' is and what it ought to be. I think he encapsulates very well a longing so many of us have for work that is challenging but unequivocal. When you're building or repairing something, it's obvious whether you did your job well. Either the object works now, or it doesn't. So much knowledge work - writing reports, preparing presentations, filling out spreadsheets - lacks that objectivity in completeness. Reading through this book helped me realize which aspects of my job I really enjoy (working with my hands, setting up experiments that either work or don't work) and which aspects of my job I struggle with (corporate structure, being so far removed from the people my work is meant to be helping), which was really helpful for this time in my life! This book is clearly a product of something that Crawford has been ruminating on for much of his life, and I think that is beautiful. As much as this book is insightful, it is deeply personal. We as the reader are privy to many of Crawford's life experiences that set him on the path from philosopher to motorcycle mechanic. I think an inevitable consequence of this is that the book can feel alienating to those of us with different backgrounds and life experiences. As a woman, I can say that often times it felt I wasn't really the person Crawford was writing for, which isn't an intrinsically bad thing. This book very much feels like a collection of all the advice and wisdom Crawford wished he could've given to a younger version of himself, who was wrestling with whether to pursue the trades or higher education. It feels as though he's speaking to young men who may be currently going through that same struggle. Again, I don't think this male-oriented perspective is a bad thing. It feels very natural given how personal the book is. I do think Crawford teeters at time towards sexism - the glorification of locker room talk in the trades and bemoaning of HR-enforced professional language was an odd take for example - but overall, I think this book still has a lot of wisdom to offer for all audiences. I really appreciate that the book allows the trades to have their moment to shine, which is definitely long over do!

If you're looking for a history of salt; neatly packaged, easy to follow for an uninitated reader, and full of fun facts about salt to share at dinner parties; this is not the book for you. Kurlansky's writing is dense and dry. The only real difference between this book and a book intended for historians to read is the somewhat lacking bibliography and lack of footnotes. There is no overarching narrative line to link diverse chapters covering everything salt from cultures all over the world, making the book feel choppy and difficult to keep up with. But despite its organizational flaws, you can't deny Kurlansky did his research. This book is overflowing with fascinating information, if you have the endurance to get through the book. When the book ends, you get the sense that Kurlansky simply had to limit the length of his book and decide to end it there. It certainly wasn't because he ran out of stuff to talk about. I learned so much by reading this book and it certainly is exactly what the title says: A World History. I loved bouncing around different cultures, different time periods, and learning about how salt was used. I especially loved the recipes that were included, they were so interesting to read about. While I did thoroughly enjoy the content of the book, I would've loved to read more about the biological importance of salt to life and understand chemically how the different types of salt were best suited for their individual purposes. I have a Biochemistry background though, so I acknowledge this information might not have been as much of a glaring omission to others. Still a chapter on the subject would've been really interesting!

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a book about so many things - video games, partnership, trauma, creativity, family - but for me, it was really a story about growing up. We follow Sam and Sadie, unlikely friends bonded by a shared love of video games, from childhood into adulthood and all the ways their relationship bends, twists, and grows as they age. There is a beautiful simplicity to their friendship in their younger years. They both love video games and their time together revolves around them. As children, they play video games for hours together in the hospital as Sam recuperates. As college students, video games rekindle their friendship and they decide to get in the business of making them together. Making the first game, Ichigo, together is arduous, but they work together almost effortlessly. As Sam and Sadie age though, things become more complicated. Years ticking by means that irreversible choices are made (like Sam becoming the face of their game company), words are said that cannot be taken back, and things that should be said to each other are kept to oneself. Major life events like deaths, surgeries, breakups, moves, new relationships all pile up too. These choices add up over the years and despite their clear love for each other and the work that they do together, Sam and Sadie's easy connection starts to become strained from the weight of all their years together. This can be difficult to watch as the reader. We want to see things work out between Sadie and Sam, for them to remain close and connected, but it becomes increasingly hard. While the book doesn't have the ending for Sadie and Sam I wished for them, it is an undeniably real one. I think once certain events happen, whether its trauma from childhood or a major loss in adulthood, destructive patterns can be locked in for life. Sadie and Sam are a perfect example of that. Still despite their pain, there is so much beauty in the book. The trio of Sadie, Sam, and Marx is a beautiful, dysfunctional mess. It was lovely to watch these characters grow up together even if they weren't always able to make the best choices for themselves. My only issue with the book, as many have already said, is Dov and Sadie's relationship. I'm particularly sensitive to this type of content and just always find it deeply uncomfortable to read. I can see the utility of their relationship in driving the plot forward and sparking Sadie's personal growth, but much of what was included was just too unsettling for me to read. I agree with other readers' in that Dov's atrocious behavior was far too justified by other characters in the book. However, I do acknowledge that the book took place in the 90s and 00s where Dov's actions probably wouldn't have been view as so reprehensible. I still think more of a middle ground could've been established. Dov is not really condemned at all by any of the characters, even Sadie's closest friends, which troubled me.

When I think of memoirs, I typically think of them as intimate re-tellings of an author's life. They may not follow the author's story from childhood all the way into adulthood and instead choose to focus on a particular important period in their life, but they typically offer a clear narrative structure that goes from beginning to end. Avashia's Another Appalachia distinguishes itself from this typical structure. The book is more of a collection of short essays about her life than it is a complete memoir that flows chronologically and coherently from her youth to the present. Still, Another Appalachia is a beautiful memoir. Avashia's writing is incredible. She is clearly someone who cherishes the people and things in her life and thinks deeply about them. Her writing has an ability to convey the emotion of an experience so completely and enable the reader to begin to experience those emotions alongside her, whether it was an experience we were familiar with or not. There were elements of her story I personally related to (outgrowing your conservative hometown, trying to reconcile receiving love from someone who expressly hates a key part of your identity, leaving the countryside and trying to settle in Boston where people can feel so different than where we were raised) but even the elements new to me struck me deeply. The image I remember most from the book is a young Avashia admiring the women in her extended network of Indolachians dance as they celebrated Navratri. The clarity and reverence with which she described each woman as she danced was so beautiful, it made me emotional reading it. I really enjoyed this book and truly loved each essay Avashia wrote. However, because I enjoyed them so thoroughly, I couldn't help but wish the blanks between them had been filled. I left the book yearning for the more traditional memoir format I was used to, where I was granted a more deep view into the author's story. In particular, I wanted to read more about Avashia's experience growing up queer in Appalachia. Most of Avashia's "coming out" is brushed aside as a series of first dates that went nowhere until suddenly in her early thirties she was able to let go of this idea of who her life partner should be (a southern, Indian man) and open herself up to her current partner (a white Jewish woman) Perhaps this information was just too personal to share, but I really wanted to know more about what happened in those in between years before she met her current partner and realized she could let go of what sounds like compulsory heterosexuality.

I've been joking that I read this as a part of studying for my Maine citizenship exam. I've become friends with a lot of Mainers since moving to New England and nearly all of them have mentioned being required to read this book in school growing up. After hearing about it so many times (and being lent a copy by my friend), I was curious enough to give it a shot myself. I'm an avid hiker myself who hopes to summit Katahdin myself in the coming years so the story naturally appealed to me. Just under 100 pages long, I can totally see how this book would make a great pick for kids who might be tackling their first few cover-to-cover chapter book reads! The story, told from Fendler's POV as his younger self, is easy-to-follow and very compelling. The details of his survival story are appropriately scary for a book intended for children 8-12. There's nothing too gruesome, but there's still an element of real direness to his story. We struggle along with Fendler as he deals with incessantly biting insects, sleeping on the ground with limited shelter, and having to walk miles barefoot day after day. I remember reading survival stories like this in elementary and middle school (Hatchet, The Call of the Wild) and being riveted by them. I think it's so cool that kids in Maine had an opportunity to read such a gripping story about a place that was local to them. I've heard that Fendler spent countless hours visiting schools and answering students' questions, which is really amazing too. I think it's great to kids to read about other, real-life kids going through difficult times and overcoming them. There's also a lot of lessons to be learned from Fendler's story about wilderness safety and survival, although I think he did a pretty amazing job for a 12-year-old. As for the book itself, my only critique is that I wish it had had a more detailed map that was drawn to scale! I kept flipping back to the map over and over. I think that the illustrations are really great, but I wish they were overlaid on an actual map. The distance that Fendler covers is truly incredible and I wish the map more clearly captured the enormity of his feat. I think that level of additional detail wouldn't be too inaccessible to young readers.

This book was given to me by a friend a few years back and has been sitting on my to-read shelf ever since! Although I feel like I'm several years behind the hype train with this book, I'm happy I finally read it. There was a lot about book I really enjoyed - namely, seeing nature through Kya's eyes. I loved reading about all the different creatures that inhabited the North Carolina marsh and taking the time to appreciate their beauty alongside Kya. This book made me long for hot, humid summers and lazy days lounging on the beach, watching the world go by. Owens writes beautifully about the natural world and has clearly developed a deep love and respect for it. Some readers might find the minutiae of her writing boring and repetitive, but I appreciated the detailed and poetic observations Owens offered. I also found Kya's coming-of-age story to be quite compelling. Coming-of-age stories always have universal elements of uncertainty and strife, but the wild and isolated environment in which Kya grew up made her story feel gripping in a very unique and heartbreaking way. Her experience of loneliness was especially striking. In reading more about the author, she mentioned the Where the Crawdads Sing was inspired by her experiences as a wildlife biologist living in some of the most remote parts of Africa for long periods of time. She wanted to write a book that encapsulated that feeling of isolation and capture how devastating and difficult to cope with it can be. I think Where the Crawdads Sing definitely achieves this. Where the novel starts to fall apart for me, though, is with the murder mystery / legal drama plotline. I'll admit I'm not a huge thriller / mystery fan to begin with, but I really did not enjoy this part of the book. I found it to make for a very jarring narrative. Whether with the abrupt jump cuts between Kya's adolescence to the Sheriff's bumbling investigation decades later or the chapters upon chapters of cross examinations in the courtroom that completely remove us from the marsh, where Owens' writing truly shines, I couldn't wait for that part of the book to over. I found it to be a very discordant inclusion to the novel. I was especially disturbed by it after learning about Owens' involvement with the alleged murder of a poacher in Tanzania. The parallels between the plot of the novel and Owens' real life are pretty spot-on and it makes me question why Owens included the murder mystery plot line at all.

A friend of mine, who I share of love of paddling and all things water with, lent me this book to read. It took me a while to get around to it, but I'm so glad I did. Memoirs are always one of my favorite genres to read. Loewen's memoir is incredibly intimate and personal. Written after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, "Up a Creek, with a Paddle" feels like Loewen's parting gift to his children, grandchildren, and all those who were moved by his work as a sociologist throughout his career. In its pages, Loewen is alive even though he's since passed. It seems like the best parts of him are entombed in this novel - his love of paddling, his well-researched insights parts of U.S. history we try to forget or stubbornly choose to misremember, and his wisdom, collected over nearly eight decades of life. I knew nothing about Loewen going into this novel other than that we shared a love of paddling, but after finishing the memoir, I feel saddened at his passing. His perspective on many of the challenges facing our country was so well-reasoned but also so hopeful. I wish I could read his thoughts on what's going on in the U.S. in 2025. I look forward to reading some of his other works, such as Sundown Towns and Lies My Teacher Told Me, to hopefully learn more from his writings. My only critique, as others have noted, is the abrupt shifting of focus from paddling stories to essays on antiracism or Reconstruction. I enjoyed both types of chapters, especially since they seem to encapsulate Loewen so well, but for the uninitiated reader who knew neither Loewen or his career as sociologist the juxtaposition can often seem quite harsh.