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Writer of the newsletter bookbear express, on psychology, relationships, non-attachment and taste; based in San Francisco.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  The purpose of novels is to bear witness to the inexplicability of human life, not to solve it.

  Their words

  But novels are about bearing witness to something we fundamentally cannot solve, which is to say the inexplicability and incomprehensibility of human life.

  notes on the brothers karamazovavabear.xyz

Professor of international affairs at Johns Hopkins SAIS and co-author, with Abraham Newman, of Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.

• Our readingkorrents.com

  John Dee functioned as an imperial propagandist, not merely a wizard figure

  Their words

  John Dee, who appeared in Flint and Mirror as well as several other Crowley novels, was not just a wizard but an imperial propagandist.

  John Crowley has diedprogrammablemutter.com

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Resenting the Hero

  Their words

  Comparing this to The Fifth Season, it is striking how different two fantasy novels about worlds over-supplied with natural disasters, and the people with the psychic gifts to stop those disasters with their minds, can be in tone and execution. This is immensely fluffier, but it has no pretensions to be anything except candy, and succeeds as such.

  bactra.org

Statistician at Carnegie Mellon; writes on complex systems, machine learning and inference, and has kept a books-read notebook since 2000 that is now thousands of entries long.

• Mixed onrcmnd.app

  Eisenhorn

  Their words

  It's pretty decently adequate, as mind candy. There are places where Abnett shows flashes of real talent. (To avoid spoilers, I'll just say: The first alien planet; the opening scenes with the cranky biologist.) There are other aspects of the novels which are pretty unsatisfying.

  bactra.org

Writer and academic, author of The Cult of Smart and How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement; writes a daily newsletter on politics, education and culture.

• Likedrcmnd.app

  Dangerous Blues

  Their words

  Policoff has written three novels, including 2022's Dangerous Blues, a book I really enjoyed and reviewed positively here.

  freddiedeboer.substack.com

Long-time Debian developer and free-software maintainer (remctl, INN, pam-krb5) who has published book reviews on his personal site since the 1990s.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  I Shall Wear Midnight

  Their words

  I Shall Wear Midnight was the best of the remaining Pratchett novels. It's the penultimate Tiffany Aching book and, in my opinion, the best. All of the elements of the previous books come together in snarky competence porn that was a delight to read.

  eyrie.org

China economy researcher based in Beijing who writes on his personal blog about Chinese political economy, history, books and music.

• Lovedrcmnd.app

  Red Harvest

  Their words

  I re-read all of Hammett's novels this year, and this, his first, held up the best.

  andrewbatson.com

Novelist and critic, author of The Body Scout and Metallic Realms; writes the newsletter Counter Craft on fiction craft and the publishing industry.

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  Pedro Páramo

  Their words

  Some excellent short novels that fit this include Juan Rulfo's haunted and brilliant Pedro Páramo

  countercraft.substack.com