I'll take some coffee with my milk, please.

It has been SO SLOW at work lately, so I read two books the past few days.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr came highly recommended by my father. It just recently came out, so I could only get it from the library from their "7 day only" loan shelf because all the other copies were out. This novel is set during the lead up and the final days of WWII. It follows two young people, a blind girl living in Paris and a German orphan boy. Each "chapter" is only a few pages or less and vacillates between their narratives. The writing and descriptions in this book is are so lovely even when writing about the atrocities of war. I very much enjoyed this book - highly recommended for everyone. 

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan is a fun one I picked up on the recommendation of someone in my book club. I liked that this book had a vaguely magical aspect without anything magical happening. The narrator is a young man who had recently graduated from college and promptly lost his job in the recession. He becomes a clerk at a 24 hour book store in San Francisco. Eventually he notices that some of his customers are acting curiously and taking out books entirely written in code and he sets out to discover what is happening. This was a very fast and interesting book! 

My dad asked me to post some pictures of the IX Building location that I have been working at lately: 

Click to keep reading!

one week to go!

Hello all!
It's been a hectic two weeks, I worked almost 50 hours last week (thank you pregnant co-worker for the extra hours) and then got hit with a massive cold.

I have read a couple of great books while in bed the past few days:
The Circle by Dave Eggers (Keegan's literary crush) was really interesting, but I hated all the characters. The novel is about our society when social media takes over and how it affects our rights to privacy, opinion, etc. Very pop-psychology, a sort of end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it novel without the zombies. Not Egger's best work, but entertaining non the less.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman, another amazing book produced by my favorite author. I highly recommend this to everyone. The main character, Shadow, a man just released from prison, gets hired by Mr. Wednesday to be a glorified errand boy - driving him around, picking up and delivering packages, etc. Shadow comes to understand that everyone he is meeting and working for are gods (stay with me here) that were brought over by immigrants or explorers hundreds of years ago. It sounds kind of lame, but it so so interesting. They don't have magical powers, they're just ordinary men and women who used to have thousands of worshippers, trying to stay alive in a world of car-gods, and internet-gods. So fascinating. I read the 10th anniversary edition which is the extended manuscript but I am sure the regular edition is great too! Really read anything by Gaiman, he's a miracle.

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winters was recommended to me by my lovely mother. Each chapter is a different story but the story-line repeats itself in different settings - pirates, space explorers, a woman living in NYC. The stories examine our relationships with nature, with technology, and what defines us as humans. Similar to Cloud Atlas, which I have seen the movie version of but not read yet. I also recommend this book highly!

Isn't this picture amazing?! My friend shared it online, so I am not sure where it came from, but I love it so much.