By Any Other Nerd

Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur My rating: 5 of 5 stars Kaur's collection is such a visceral, emotional piston-punching, heavy-yet-uplifting experience that on several occasions her economy of word and juxtaposition may cause one to set (or fling) the book down. The ease with which she lays out the truth in our complicated existences and relationships (with others and ourselves) in longer passages or a mere six words is so amazing to read. I've always had trouble with traditional poetry taught in courses but Kaur's writing illustrates just how stunning poetry can be to stop one in their tracks. This collection is broken into four themes that provide a narrative arc of sorts moving from the traumatic entry into sex to the overpowering experience of love to devastating effects of love destroyed to the birth of self-love. Many of the poems have a simple and suggestive sketch with them either serving as an exclamation to the poem's thrust or hinting at something mo...

The Walking Dead, Vol. 32: Rest In Peace by Robert Kirkman My rating: 4 of 5 stars I knew this one had been coming and I knew a significant piece of the ending because, well, internet. But I picked up the first trade of The Walking Dead just as it was released and began reading this series. Some 16 or so years later, the trip through all 32 trades has been entirely worth it. It's funny how spoiler-heavy society is now with the internet. I didn't have to worry that Lori's fate being spoiled way back in the day, but Rick's fate, well. And yet, knowing it, didn't diminish it. After all, Kirkman never hesitated to do with his characters (in all his works) what the story demanded. In sitting down and reading what is the last volume in this series, it wasn't as they say, bittersweet. It was rather exactly what it needed to be. I don't know that I'd consider it the best end of a comic series, but it doesn't come anywhere close to the wor...

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill My rating: 3 of 5 stars The future is robots and humanity is all but gone. Robots eventually grew sufficient intelligence and realized that humans would inevitably be their downfall. In the aftermath, of humanity's devastation though, robots too have become subject to rivalries and factions. Two unified AI entities have been dueling for years now, attempting to scoop up the remaining individual robots, while those surviving individual robots fight amongst each other for remaining robot parts as their bodies continue to decay. It's a fascinating set up for a story and we walk through this world with Brittle, a robot scavenger who finds robots in their final days and offers to help, only to shut them off and sell their parts. But now, her parts are showing decay and that's only amplified when a nemesis of hers ambushes her and does further harm. She manages to escape but that's really just the start of the adventure. Br...

The Book of Beautiful Questions: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead by Warren Berger My rating: 4 of 5 stars Berger's new book follows in the same vein as his previous (A More Beautiful Question) by providing readers with a series of exercises and justifications around the different ways to get to more meaningful questions. Berger's core point is that questions are the life-blood of new ideas, human connections, and understanding. The more we can get into the habit of asking good questions, the more-rewarding experience we can find with our loved ones, family, friends, work, and yes, even total strangers. But asking good questions is a tricky thing and not one, we're prone to do. For many of us, our knack for asking intriguing questions was drained out of us as a child and so Berger recommends a variety of practices and activities to help redevelop those skills. In that regard, he provides readers with both sets o...

Estimated Reading Time: 3.5  minutes For folks not in the know, June Is Audiobooks Month ( #JIAM ).  In past years for June, I've done a series on capturing the full experience of listening to audiobooks and also a series on my love of listening to literature .  This year, my focus will be on distinct aspects of listening to audiobooks that folks may or may not have experienced.   In the last 25 years, I’ve listened to thousands of audiobooks and reviewed over a thousand.  I think and talk a lot about audiobooks as any friends and loved ones would readily admit.  During this time, I realized that there is an entire range of experiences around audiobooks that lack proper terminology and therefore, I have taken the time to provide them herein.  I am not a linguist, a philologist, or even a grammar nerd; so take all definitions with a grain of salt.  But please enjoy this guide to audiobook terms that you never knew you needed. ...