Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds 
Greg Milner

I decided to pick this up again for a chapter. It's going to take me forever to read this book because I read non-fiction more slowly. This one is even slower going because there are a lot of acronyms and technical terms. I was not at all surprised to learn that GPS was finally taken up by the military because it improved their firepower advantage.

I finished Majesty: American Royals II by Katharine McGee. It ended pretty much as I expected it to. I would not be surprised if this series ended up as a movie series.

For work, I'm reading A Fool's Errand: Creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump by Lonnie G. Bunch III. The subtitle says it all. As a fellow information professional, it's fascinating to learn how Dr. Bunch got a museum (without a building!) off the ground.

Before you go... I decided to share a new version of this post next week. Kid Reads will highlight the books my kiddo and I are reading together. It will post bi-weekly.


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Majesty: American Royals II
Katharine McGee

This is the second book in the American Royals series. The overall premise is - what if George Washington became king instead of president. Now, we’re following his modern day ancestors. It’s a soapy YA delight. Our lead is Queen of America and has to deal with all the usual YA romance tropes. I find it interesting that the author seems to have etch-a-sketched the romance pairings from the first novel. I don't yet know if that is permanent or simply a dramatic choice to get things moving.

I paused my reading of Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds by Greg Milner because I was not in the mood for non-fiction. I have a feeling I will be reading this a chapter at a time between other books.

For work, I wrapped up reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. This should be essential reading for everyone. The mix of history and memoir helps highlight the points Kendi wants to make. 

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Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds

Pinpoint: How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds
Greg Milner

I picked this one up because nothing else looked good at home. (I really should make library requests faster.) I'm only a handful of pages in, but the story of GPS is already interesting. I had no idea that it was a completely free, U.S. government-run system. While I'm not really in the mood to read non-fiction right now, this is an okay stop gap until the book I requested from the library comes in.

Earlier this week, I finished reading The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour. It's the most recent graphic novel from the McElroys. As with the others, it was entertaining with great art.

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I'm just pages away from finishing Midnight in Chernobyl. I should have finished last night, but I fell asleep in seconds. I've only get the notes to get through. This was a great book. I love narrative non-fiction and, while this one was heavy on the hard sciences, it was easy to follow and read like a thriller.

For work right now, I'm making my way through two different books. The first is Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers by Peter Hernon and Ellen Altman. One of my work areas is customer service. This book is helping me figure out a few ways to assess how we're doing. It's probably way to long for what it is, but that happens a lot with academic texts. I'm also reading How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi. This one is most for me, but also will help me with our antiracism LibGuide. It's a lot to take in, but I like the mix of lessons and memoir.

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I'm still making my way through Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham. I got bogged down in the early chapters discussing exactly how nuclear power generation works and how the design of the RBMK reactor was a recipe for disaster. It was all good stuff, just very detailed. They were the kind of details I had to read several times because my brain has been mush at the end of the day. Now, it seems like we're moving more into the narrative of what happened. It's all very tense - even for something that happened three decades ago. 

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Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World's Greatest Nuclear Disaster
Adam Higginbotham

I started reading this one at 2:00AM last night. Kiddo had a middle of the night accident and I was finding it difficult to get back to sleep. I thought a dense non-fiction might help me nod off. This is not a dense non-fiction. It reads like a thriller. It's not dull or boring in the least. In fact, you can see exactly why the producers of the miniseries Chernobyl used this as one of their main resources. Higginbotham opens with a look at the entire Soviet system and how it contributed to the disaster. Utterly fascinating! I can't wait to keep reading this one.

Since I last posted, I also started and finished Wonton Terror by Vivien Chien. The murderer was not who I thought it would be. But the actual murderer made far more sense. I'm now debating if I want to binge read the rest of this series in a few months, or pace the books to savor the series.

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Ledge
Stacey McEwan

I am super excited to read this book every night. It's your basic YA fantasy novel but I'm loving it. McEwan's story blends a lot of Sarah J. Maas, some Suzanne Collins, and a bit of Game of Thrones. The lead character is a feisty young woman who could be TSTL if she didn't have the skills to back it up. Sadly, I spoiled the ending by reading the promo for the next book in the series, but I am still excited to see how the author gets there.

Earlier this week, I polished off Murder Lo Mein by Vivien Chien. Happy to report that it looks like the author will avoid the trope of a romantically indecisive heroine. I love this series so much that the next book is already available for me to pick up at the library.

Murder Lo Mein
Vivien Chien

I started the third book in the Noodle Shop mystery series a few nights ago. In many ways, this feels like something I could write. That makes it seem approachable. I'm only a few pages into this, but it's like catching up on a conversation with a friend you haven't seen in awhile - easy and fun. I do get glimmers that this is following into the cozy mystery trope of the lead not being able to pick a "special someone" to focus on. I do find that aggravating after a few books.

Also, I have been on a reading tear this year. I read Cradles of the Reich by Jennifer Coburn in less than a week. (Never good shake the Nazi ick factor on that one.) I read Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur in two nights. A friend and I went to her live show and I want to read everything she's written. This was her first book of poetry and it's a powerful call of womanhood.

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Eleven Hours
Pamela Erens

I started reading this book last night. If it weren't for the fact that I had to get up this morning, I think I would have finished this in one sitting. The narrative is gripping and the structure between view points flows so seamlessly it's hard to break away. I feel like there is only one way this book can end. I hope I'm emotionally prepared for it.
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I polished off The Towering Sky by Katharine McGee. It was a rather predictable way to wrap up the series. One character's story ended up feeling like it didn't need to be in there at all. She played a role in one scene that, frankly, was not all that pivotal.

I also powered my way through two other books. Well Matched by Jen DeLuca and How to Raise a Reader by Pamela Paul and Maria Russo. Well Matched is the third entry in a romance series based around a renaissance faire. They are always delightful reads with rompy stories and characters. How to Raise a Reader is exactly what it sounds like; a book devoted to tips and titles that will help you turn your kid into a booklover.

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