Here Be Bitmojis

I joined a closed Facebook community called “A Group Where We Pretend to be Boomers.” As you’d expect, members are baby boomers who make fun of themselves by posting as if they don’t understand the first thing about computers, email, the internet, and social media. To me, that’s more of a “greatest generation” thing, but I do know boomers my age who fit the stereotype well. But hey, isn’t Facebook mostly a boomer thing anyway? Aren’t all the youngsters on Snapfilter or whatever?

Tuesday Bag o’ Normalcy

If I had a rant in me this morning, I’d lay into NPR for its slavish commitment to normalizing Trump, arguably not the worst unelected occupant of the White House (George W. Bush still has that distinction IMO), but certainly the most abnormal.

Paul’s Book Reviews: Historical Fiction, Science Fiction, Young Adult

“The future was coming nearer, one relentless goose step after the next. Juliet could still remember when Hitler had seemed like a harmless clown. No one was amused now. (“The clowns are the dangerous ones,” Perry said.)” —Kate Atkinson, Transcription Transcription by Kate Atkinson I first read about this novel on the literary website The […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: My Top Reads for 2018

This is going to be a short list. Looking back over the books I read in 2018, only three stand out—and by “stand out” I mean books I’d happily read again. Two are new, published this year or in late 2017; one is from 1998 but new to me. Two are mainstream fiction with historical […]

Paul’s Book Reviews: Thrillers, Nonfiction, Science Fiction

“If democracy came to China they would end up electing idiots, as in America.” —Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon Red Moon by Kim Stanley Robinson My thoughts on “Red Moon” are similar to those I expressed in my review of KSR’s previous SF novel of ideas, “New York 2140.” I loved the first half of […]