Finished reading Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, featuring time-traveling fascists during the London Blitz of early WWII. This book felt like Declare by Tim Powers, one of my favorites, but I think this was better. Certainly seems like it’ll be at the top of my year-end list.

Finished reading Radiant Star by Ann Leckie, latest book in her somewhat loose Imperial Radch series. This was a banger from page one, although/and I kind of figured out what was going on about a third of the way into it. It was just what I wanted, is what I’m saying, and at this point I’ll pretty much read anything with her name on it.

Finished reading Trudeau & Doonesbury by Joshua Kendall, a biography of the fairly reclusive cartoonist. This was very interesting, especially as someone who read the comic fairly religiously in the ’80s and ’90s; the throughline of the book was Trudeau’s growth from callow prep school lad to thoughtful feminist and advocate for veterans.

One thing I meant to mention about The Every: It struck me how in some ways the book’s namesake shared a philosophy, at least superficially, with the Utopians of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota, but shallow or weaponized.

Finished reading Moon of the Crusted Snow by Waubgeshig Rice. This was a short post-apocalyptic novel, set in a First Nations reservation in northern Ontario, focused entirely on the community: The nature of the apocalypse is entirely irrelevant to the story and thus never discussed, and its effects to the south only barely so. The prose was simple and straightforward, which I think made the story more vivid and, sometimes, harrowing.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about how much I want to be microblogging, and have decided “less for now”, obviously. I hope you’re well.

Finished reading The Every by Dave Eggers. It’s a bit of a mess, a novel about a kind of near-future Google/Facebook hybrid, that attacks automation, social media, AI, and (the ideas of) David Brin’s The Transparent Society. With humor that does not consistently land. The first part of the book dragged, too. But by the end it had turned into a pretty good corporate espionage thriller. I would be the prime audience for a better-executed version of this book, but this wasn’t the one.

Some poor addict got my credit card details and tried to place some bets on a couple of the newfangled sports gambling sites yesterday.

Walked from Mercer Island, through Bellevue, to Evergreen Point, about ten miles.

Meghan and I went down past Olympia for Prairie Appreciation Day, a great day out.

Fired up the grill for the first time this year, for huli huli chicken.

Walked from Beacon Hill to Georgetown, for real this time.

The contractors finished on Tuesday; we’ve been slowly putting the laundry room and kitchen back together since then.

Walked down to the Center for Urban Horticulture, stopping in Lake City to check out a small record store and revisit a record player store.

Contractors arrived this morning to start a small remodeling project.