Reviews and Comments

A book by someone who's pretty sure he's important, enough so that readers will follow his meandering observations in rapt anticipation.

Focused on suburbs and local chains — not a single general-interest shop in the Mission is listed — this is a guide for the Bouquets to Art crowd. Book Passage, Books Inc., Copperfield's and Pegasus all take up space that could have been used for more independent shops. (I say this as a frequent customer of Books Inc., who get nearly all of the business I would give to Amazon.) All I know of Bookshop West Portal is its politics, but it's enough to make me wish someone else had gotten the featured slot.

The book would be more accurately called "Smooth neighborhood," on the scourge of master-planned, homogeneous theme parks-within-a-city. The author might have eventually gone on to indict whole cities, but started by dragging a single area in Amsterdam and the Kings Cross redevelopment project in London. I've not been to Amsterdam, but the vision of a place with magically no vacant doorways and not a bit of diversity is not what I saw at Kings Cross, and that was before Covid, when it wasn't an epic struggle to keep shops open.

To my mind overstated and oversold; I bailed out early, so DNF and no review. It could get more compelling. I'm notorious for throwing back too early.

A good skim through some hundred travel destinations that are at risk of being less attractive in the future. Most are threatened by climate change, but some face more direct stupidity — war, neglect, bad planning. Each place is visited only briefly, but it is a good calibration for your own bucket list. You're unlikely to choose a new destination just because you see it here. But you might not realize that Stonehenge is at risk of being felled by rodents, or that Machu Picchu — already with twice the visitor load recommended by UNESCO — will be more crowded many times over after a new airport is completed as soon as next year.

I'm not a gorgeous actuarial lesbian, but I've got the stick-in-the-mud bit down. Reading the chapters written in Darcy's voice is like seeing my internal monologue put to paper. That rabbit hole she leaps into is one that I've peered into a lot.

Another book for which I'm absolutely not the target audience, but acts as a sunnier, happier alternate universe. Who wouldn't want more of those?

I read this some time ago, quietly gave it five stars, and slipped out the side door. I still am not in a position to explain my reasoning, but the hardback is nestled between I Kissed Shara Wheeler and One Last Stop.

The more I read, the less convinced I became in things I thought I believed. And the book is littered with "I explain it more fully on the website" sidebars whose links are broken. Printing web links in a paper book is a truly odd choice.

I don't often two-star a DNF, but when I do, I can't be bothered to elaborate.