Personal Education
Recent Reading - 2024
Click the occasional spoiler buttons only if you wish to see plot-revealing material.
Note:
Declining eyesight has made extended fiction reading less than enjoyable. Additions to these book notes have become less likely, though perhaps still possible.
2025-05-26
City of Lies
520 pages
Hawke, SamSam Hawke
Murder by poison is at the core of this fantasy novel. Highborn Jovan and his friend, Tain, who is the heir to the Chancellorship of Silasta return home and are immediately stung by the poisoning of their respective uncles. Jovan, like his uncle, is a 'proofer'. The poisoning means the uncle and Jovan are responsible to prevent such poisonings from happening and supplying antidotes. Their inability to identify the new poison means the Chancellorship passes too soon to young Tain, just in time for an uprising of the farm workers from all the estates surrounding the city.
Recommended
2025-05-07
Battle Mountain
263 pages
Box, C.J.C.J. Box
The Governor's son-in-law is missing, so Joe is called in to find out if he's just out of cell phone range or something more. Nate Romanowski has been out of touch as well.
Highly Recommended
2025-04-26
Terminal Shock
685 pages
Stephenson, NeilNeil Stephenson
What do you do if you have a country at or even below sea level and you have lots of money? Do you sit idly by while a warming climate inexorably inundates your land, or do you develop and deploy a geoengineering solution? Then what happens if other countries disagree with your solution?
Stephenson's story rides on the shoulders of several characters, and he takes care to explore their lives and motivations. That approach is one reason the book is as long as it is. I loved learning the details about them.
(Note that this book was started long before its finish date; I read it intermittently, and it overlapped my reading of Now or Never.)
Highly Recommended
2025-04-20
Now or Never
312 pages
Evanovich, JanetJanet Evanovich
Stephanie Plum, bounty hunter, recovers from a firebombed apartment while getting engaged twice and having routine issues with her job and a high credit card balance. What else would you expect?
Highly Recommended
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The count is for my personal convenience. It's not a competition.
How it was done.
This year's authors in alphabetical order with duplicates removed.
It may not be very useful to anyone, but was good for ongoing JavaScript practice.
How it was done (in part)