I got about 25% of the way into Mr. Penumbra and just put it down. It was a bit too much cool-dude-brogrammer and Manic Pixie Tech Girl for me. Maybe things got better?

I did like the mystery itself, though. If I find an electronic copy at the library I might skim it, but I was listening to it on audiobook, and disliking the narrator of an audiobook is a death knell.

Yep, that's why I quit The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Also because I had no idea what the fuck was going on.

Really? I loved me some Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Really? I loved me some Yiddish Policemen's Union.

Me too.

Probably my favorite Chabon. I didn't listen to the audiobook, though.

I couldn't get into it either.

I liked Yiddish Policeman's Union, but certainly not as much as I liked Kavalier and Clay.

I am test-driving nonfiction for purchase for school. Someone recommended Brain On Fire and I am just OVER the "I got sick" memoirs. Not a genre I love even a little. I don't like memoirs in general, actually. Unless there is some greater significance (like Henrietta Lacks which is beyond just her story).

What I think we will buy so far:
Henrietta Lacks
Devil in the White City (not my choice even a little)
Driving Mr. Alpert
Candyfreak
A Few Seconds of Panic

Why not Devil in the White City, Kat? I haven't read it yet, but I've been wanting to. (That said, I have books about Jack the Ripper in the past, so.)

I'm reading The Dream Thieves, because it was in at the library, and I am in love with this series. But I'm also partway into The Road and Rose Under Fire.

Just read one I quite enjoyed: "The Speckled Monster"--about smallpox and London and Boston starting to innoculate, way back when. It was written to read quite easily, but there were a surprising number of endnotes (I figured she was making up 90% of it since there was a fair bit of dialogue and "he thought" and stuff, but apparently a lot of it was actually taken from letters those people wrote and/or diaries).

Amy, for students, Devil in the White City is entirely boggy in the parts about the building. They love the serial killer stuff but the rest is boring for them (and me).

I read a lot like an average high school kid in what entertains me personally. Like I know where they get hung up and where they get bored.

For example, we have In Cold Blood which is excellent, but there are chunks that are just too slow. Ditto To Kill a Mockingbird (which is, of course, fiction, but there is that whole middle part where I lose kids).

In some ways, the best nonfiction for my students are ones where the writer/researcher is also overtly but tangentially part of the story. So Stiff? Mary Roach is looking at this info because she's interested but also because she is contemplating her own mortality. Plus, gross. So they love it.

I have to get The Speckled Monster because that looks good.

For long form (as opposed to book length), I'm desperate to teach the Atlantic piece on fraternities, but it too is boggy and the opening talks about some frat boy trying to fire a bottle rocket out of his ass. So maybe not? But fascinating and funny. And the author's tone? So overt and snide.