{"hangover-square":{"title":"Hangover Square","date":"2021-05-25T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"I was gifted this book by my mother, so I feel terrible for what I am about to say about it. It was gifted with the best of intentions: someone or other famous reported that it mad","slug":"hangover-square"},"wow-no-thank-you":{"title":"wow, no thank you","date":"2020-09-01T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"Samantha Irby came onto my radar in 2019 after a reading slump from that time I was burned out by my job in a VC startup. _We are never meeting in real life_, her previous set of e","slug":"wow-no-thank-you"},"project-hail-mary":{"title":"Project Hail Mary","date":"2021-06-03T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"When you read a Dan Brown book you leave it ready to put on your tin foil har. Andy Weir books make you feel ready to don a lab coat. He writes books that are clearly well research","slug":"project-hail-mary"},"hamnet":{"title":"Hamnet","date":"2020-10-18T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"_Hamnet_ follows Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare, and her family - her brothers, children, in-laws - as well as several of the greater village populous. The book makes very ","slug":"hamnet"},"kings-of-the-wyld":{"title":"Kings of the Wyld","date":"2020-12-13T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"_Kings of the Wyld_ is a fantasy book which feels like three or four middle (or-upper middle) aged dudes getting drunk, playing Dungeons & Dragons, while classic Rock and Roll play","slug":"kings-of-the-wyld"},"on-connection":{"title":"On Connection","date":"2020-11-14T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"Kae Tempest is a London-based artist who works with words. I first discovered their work in 2016, with the release of _Let Them Eat Chaos_ - a conceptual spoken word album which im","slug":"on-connection"},"queenie":{"title":"Queenie","date":"2020-09-26T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"_Queenie_ is an excellent debut by Carty-William. The novel's titular narrator pins you to the page - she has a strong and unique voice, yet also unreliable and unlikable at times.","slug":"queenie"},"the-phoenix-project":{"title":"The Phoenix Project","date":"2020-12-02T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"*The Phoenix Project* (TPP) is a a fiction book for nerds (said the nerd, on his blog). It's a parable for people who design, build, or deploy software. I want this article to jus","slug":"the-phoenix-project"},"an-absolutely-remarkable-thing":{"title":"An Absolutely Remarkable Thing","date":"2020-11-08T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (AART; because I'm not paid by the word here) is a wonderful Sci-Fi(-ish) adventure by Hank Green, one of the content creators in the first wave of t","slug":"an-absolutely-remarkable-thing"},"utopia-avenue":{"title":"Utopia Avenue","date":"2021-02-09T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"_Utopia Avenue_ is David Mitchell's latest piece of fiction in the meta-novel he is writing. Which is to say this book is set in the same mild-fantasy universe as several of his ot","slug":"utopia-avenue"},"after":{"title":"After","date":"2021-05-05T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"**Declaration of interest** I am a spiritual person. I didn\u2019t come into this book desperately seeking answers, or in need of comfort or certainty. You\u2019re never going to get that fr","slug":"after"},"magician":{"title":"Magician","date":"2021-03-15T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"The first in Feist's *Riftwar Saga*, Magician has the air of a pulp fantasy novel. First published, abridged, in 1982 and unabridged a decade later, this book oozes nerds in the '","slug":"magician"},"the-silence-of-the-girls":{"title":"The Silence of the Girls","date":"2021-01-24T00:00:00","book_review":true,"preview":"PatBarker'stakeontheclassicstoryoftheBattleofTroyistoldfromtheperspectiveofBriseis,thenobletakens