User Profile

Stuart J. Whitmore

crenel@books.theunseen.city

Joined 3 years ago

Reader whenever I can make time, self-published writer whenever I can muster the energy.

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Stuart J. Whitmore's books

Currently Reading

Carol James Marshall: Barflies: A Bartender's Memoir (EBook, 2019)

Grab a drink and pull up a stool, because this isn't your average sob story …

An easy and entertaining read

This was not really what I expected, but I found it entertaining anyway. It's a collection of vignettes from the author's time as a bartender, each one essentially a standalone tale that could easily fit into a limited amount of reading time. They generally seemed too brief to be as meaningful to the reader as I'm sure they are to the author.

Cory Doctorow, Rebecca Giblin: Chokepoint Capitalism (Hardcover, 2022, Beacon Press)

A call to action for the creative class and labor movement to rally against the …

I bought the e-book edition yesterday, and I'm looking forward to start reading it once I'm done with the other books I'm reading!

C. Gockel: Archangel Down (Paperback, 2016, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform) No rating

It didn't take me long to realize this is a book I will probably enjoy, just judging from the writer's style. In chapter 2 now, still agree with that original assessment.

Elizabeth Moon: Sheepfarmer's Daughter (The Deed of Paksenarrion, Book 1) (Paperback, 2000, Baen)

Solid military fantasy

I really enjoyed this, and I'd recommend it to any fantasy reader who plays D&D and has a military background. It's been quite some time since a book really captivated me and kept me reading even "past my bedtime," as it were. This one did, and I expect I'll eventually set aside time to read the rest of this series. Not a small cast of characters nor a trivially built world, and I think I'd have done better at keeping track of things when I was younger or at least had fewer distractions and demands on my time.

Ned Brown: Geology of the San Juan Islands (Paperback, 2014, Chuckanut Editions)

Nestled in the heart of the Salish Sea lie the picturesque San Juan Islands, an …

Packed with fascinating information

This book is fascinating, and not just for those who live or vacation in the San Juan Islands of Washington State. The focus is that area, of course, but the geology of this small area is built from many sources far and wide. Therefore, out of necessity, the book must cover global geology as it allowed these parts to accumulate into this area.

This book straddles two different and not entirely compatible audiences. On one hand, it tries to provide comprehensive and detailed coverage of what is known (and what is not yet understood) about the highly complex geology of the San Juan Islands; on the other hand, it tries to present this interesting information in a way that is accessible to casual readers. I think it manages to do both fairly well, although the density of information will serve those with a solid background in geology more than …