2025.Book45 - Empire of Ivory (Novik)

 Back on the basement bike, so I picked this up again. Very good as usual. Interested to see where the next story goes, cliffhanger-wise.

2025.Book44 - In God We Trust (Shepherd)

 Memoir of an American small town boy. Has a tall tales vibe. Casual slurs don't age well but that was the time.

2025.Book43 - The Shadow of What Was Lost (Islington)

 Door stopper epic fantasy. So much plot. Too much of everything but enjoyable page to page

2025.Book42 - The Incandescent (Tesh)

School novel about teachers. Social-class-aware. A lot of telling, not enough showing. Plot gives a great opportunity to explore self-delusion that author didn't take.

2025.Book41 - Katabasis (Kuang)

Enjoyable and good characters.

2025.Book40 - The Game (Dryden)

 Very good. Somewhat melancholy, not triumphant. Insightful.

2025.Book39 - The Shattering Peace (Scalzi)

 Very good. Entertaining, enjoyable characters.

2025.Book38 - Housekeeping (Robinson)

 Excellent. The plot happens so fast you can miss it, but the book's about reactions and observations.

2025.Book37 - Stormy Weather (Hiaasen)

 Fairly entertaining: a bit "one thing after another"

2025.Book36 - The Liminal Zone (Ito)

 First one of his I've read. It's OK, not much of a graphic novel person I guess.

2025.Book35 - Gender Queer (Kobabe)

 Pretty interesting memoir. Dysmorphia plus some cultural involvement. 

2025.Book34 - The Overnight Kidnapper (Camilleri)

 Pretty good. Standard Montalbano.

2025.Book33 - The Sword of Shannara (Brooks)

 Re-read forty years later. Not very good, a lot like LotR. And now there are a lot of books like this. Maybe more interesting at the time. (Golden age of sci-fi is 13)

2025.Book32 - The Plot (Korelitz)

 Horror but you don't know it. For a writer-focused book, some infelicities of language. Just OK.

2025.Book31 - Inventing the Renaissance (Palmer)

 Very interesting. Sometimes bogs down in dates. 

• spiritual organization recapitulating political organization. 
• Virtue Politics

2025.Book30 - The Tiger and The Wolf (Tchaikovsky)

 Pretty good, too long and samey. Metaphors for mental illness?

2025.Book29 - The Prodigal God (Keller)

 Pretty weak. Trying to cram his theology into Jesus' story. 

 Couple of howlers: "no one had ever taught anything like this before" (except the prophets), and bringing in Cain & Abel to move responsibility from the father to the elder brother (explaining God's inaction).  

2025.Book28 - The President (Simenon)

 Pretty good; a little plot, not too much

2025.Book27 - Hotel Splendide (Bemelmans)

 Pretty boring. Slightly interesting story at the end

2025.Book26 - The Will of the Many (Islington)

 Excellent epic fantasy. Good characters, tons of plot, interesting world