This was an incredibly thought-provoking book that I would recommend to anyone interested in racial or social justice.
I really enjoyed this YA dystopian science fiction novel about a future where rising sea levels have completely changed the coastlines of the U.S., and children are employed in salvage work until they're too big to get into the small places on grounded ships in the gulf regions.
I was looking for Fiona Hill's biography of Vladimir Putin, but someone beat me to it: although the catalog said it was on the shelf, there was a gap where it was supposed to be. I decided to take a look at this book, which consists of interviews of Putin by several Russian journalists. While it was interesting and I learned a lot about Putin's early life, it's a clearly self-serving collection of anecdotes that mainly serves to paint a rosy picture of him and his political intentions. This came out in his first year as president, but you can see some of the same themes playing out in current events.
This is a very thought-provoking book by the author of
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, which I read a year or so ago. Author Harari is a history professor at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but his writings explore issues much broader than history. This book is organized into five parts that include 21 chapters addressing important themes such as work, equality, terrorism, war, secularism, and much more. It's extremely well-written, making it a quick read even though it covers such weighty topics.
I bought this autobiography back when it came out in 2004, but neglected it until I saw that Kiedis' band-mate Flea has published his own memoir. I dug this out and I couldn't put it down. It's unfortunate that I waited so long to read this; now I'm eager to see whether Kiedis will write about the next chapter in his life given that so much has happened in the last 15 years. Much of this book is sad, as he recounts his many bouts with addiction from the early '80's to the year 2000, but I loved reading about the inspiration for many of his songs, many of which I loved but had no idea what inspired them. For example, a verse in "Give it Away" was about River Phoenix and his death; "Tearjerker" was about Kurt Cobain's suicide.
