Hi! Welcome to my bookshelf! This is my current collection of books, the covers are accurate to which one I own!
Newest → Oldest
I'm a big ol sucker for this kinda thing so biases be warned. I kinda loved this book. The first half? INCREDIBLE. On the edge of my seat. Saying out loud "oh my god." The second half? Admittedly did lose me a bit, but was still good enough to speed read through. I have never felt so stressed anticipating something I knew was coming in a book before. Just really great. There is a play by play, hour by hour, till it happens. It just builds and builds and when it's here... boy it comes out of no where. And when it hits it HITS. He doesn't hold back. It just spitballs. These people are dumb, ignorant, and grossly underprepared for survival. It's really horrific and annoying to read, I loved it. Up to about Chapter 7? every section ended with an even bigger mic drop moment. What a great time. I will say that while totally lacking by todays standards this had at least something to say about race and the south for 1959. (I would hope so). It doesn't do it in a way I think is very compelling or honest but I suppose it's something? (There's a black family vital to the survival of literally everyone, friendships formed and racial boundaries broken... sure. Moments are very clearly intended to bring up the tensions of segregation and the very obvious idea how none of that shit matters or makes any fucking sense especially at the end of the world. But even so, I thought that it continued to keep them in a weird stereotype, and still placed them below the white people in the story. Like the perspective of someone not fully understanding what makes racism... racism. I don't have the brain cap on rn to explain this better... ugh imagine I typed something genius ok thanks). I would say the later half of this book lost me when survival and hardship sortaaa took the back seat. Things start to just magically falling out of the sky and everything seems to work out (which doesn't tonally match the first part so I'm wondering if there was some executive publisher fuckery). It is all VERY 1950s. Down to marriages, housewives, and god bless the USA. Eye roll. I will give that a pass, the first half is really spectacular. If you ignore it and squint, into perhaps unindented messaging, there iss a lot here. The part that follows the banker during the first day, CHEFS KISS!! This book was one of the first to ever depict nuclear war and the aftermath of it. For that I have it to thank. (There is a part in this that involves a band of highwaymen and it took every fiber of my being not to imagine it was gonna turn into Mad Max). ((It was dangerously close to doing so and then they added any other coat of 1959. UGH!!!)). Tbh it was kinda therapeutic to read about Florida getting destroyed... considering the news. Ron De Santis would have been obliterated!!!! Basically Utopia!!!
Anywho- Alas, Babylon follows the Florida river town of Fort Repose before and after nuclear warfare. I would read it if you like military business, nuclear destruction descriptions and chronologies of survival. Be warned of extremely dated depictions of gender, race, death and all that jazz. (PS. The cover of this that I have is soooo frickin sick).
7/1/2025
After the brain food that was my last read I needed something unserious and possibly deeply stupid. This book marked all those boxes. I am probably the only person on the earth to have read this, and that is totally understandable. All around really dumb, it is exactly what I expected and it did nothing more than poorly tell a very outrageous story. An evil scientist who calls himself Satan has created a planet full of evil robotic creatures. His son, Vlad M. Paler (dead serious) is a vampire robot who takes the reign of thing once Satan is killed. Vlad wants everyone to be a real vampire, so he creates a vampire virus and gets to work. There is a jabberwocky, a homunculus named Hampton and a bunch of other weird creatures who serve him in this mission. Our main guy, normal lad 5000, Oliver Dolan is on a mission to stop all of this- or is he? Literally nothing happens, it is rather sexist (1981 babyyyy) and terrible jokes are made on every other page. It was easy to read if anything. I also have a first edition copy of this terrible book, laugh out loud.
6/22/2025
Where do I even begin with The Left Hand of Darkness? This is one of those books you absolutely need to experience for yourself. I am gobsmacked at how skilled a writer Ursula is. She made me feel like an alien!!!!!!! That is the best way to put it into words. An all around total alienation of being, it was phenomenal. I loved how this story builds. I loved the scale of everything. I loved how detailed and warm everything felt while also filling me with utter despair and chilling my insides. (seriously I need a hug) It made me feel essentially all stages of grief (IT IS GENIUS!!!!!!!). Light, darkness and shadows layered so wonderfully with culture, mythology, and metaphors I think she had to have been a little insane to come up with it all. There is so much here, I feel like I just skimmed the surface. I love love love how this breaks down gender and builds it into something completely unique (ESP for 1969). A planet full of androgynous beings who only determine gender during a monthly hormone cycle for reproduction. And our main character is an extremely misogynistic man (which is never truly acknowledged flat out) from another planet. We read an account of his mission to bring the planet (Winter) into an established greater union of other planets. What could happen? Whose to say? Life, death and everything in between. Phenomenal. You should read it. I should read it again. 6/17/2025
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Bookshelf 2
Bookshelf 3
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