The Queue

The Golem and the Jinni was an interesting read betrayed by a lackluster climax & a too-convenient-by-half resolution. Your author's sense is that Helene Wecker, a debut novelist we must remember, was more interested in the everyday lives of her dual protagonists than in the contrived confrontation with their antagonist.

We now return to non-fiction with Jonah Goldberg's provocatively titled Liberal Fascism. Given the recent profoundly un-American remarks by Andrew Cuomo, the Governor of New York State—which were not in fact taken out of context as he & his aides lamely explained—Goldberg's title seems frighteningly prescient.

Recently
Mark Mazzetti, The Way of the Knife: The C.I.A., a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth
Christian Caryl, Strange Rebels: 1979 and the Birth of the 21st Century
Helene Wecker, The Golem and the Jinni

Currently
Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

Presently
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Swords of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Synthetic Men of Mars
Sir Ernest Shackleton, South: A Memoir of the Endurance Voyage
Edgar Rice Burroughs, Llana of Gathol
Edgar Rice Burroughs, John Carter of Mars
Richard Price, Clockers
Sir Richard Francis Burton, translator, "Sinbad the Sailor" from The Arabian Nights

Lately Neglected
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill
Edmund Burke, The Evils of Revolution
F. J. Sheed, Theology for Beginners

The Rebel Black Dot Anti-Valentine's Song of the Day
The Phenomenauts, "Cyborg" from For All Mankind (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary:

"I started with a perfect frame,
High-speed composite brain,
Made her smart, made her think I was funny.
Gave her independent style,
Super hot melty smile,
Made her kind, her disposition sunny.
Made her slender, curvy, and tall,
Made her not jealous at all,
Made her tough, but as cute as a bunny.

"But when I turned her on
She wasn't turned on by me,
I guess cyborgs can see who they want to see…

"Now I have a broken heart,
I guess I made her way too smart,
She realized, realized she's too good for me…"