Hang On Tightly, Let Go Lightly

 A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines by Janna Levin - A fictional look at the lives of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing (with a guest starring role from Wittgenstein). It sticks fairly close to real history (with remarkable faithfulness to material from letters and recorded events), but obviously it's the psychology that's of interest. The book plays with some interesting ideas, but (not that I'm any great scholar of either of them) the picture presented doesn't feel accurate. But there is some artistic flair in the idea that Turing favored the idea that thought could be mechanized and Gödel revolted from that idea to the extent of starving himself to death -- to avoid following his programming with the force of will.

September House, by Carissa Orlando. A slight twist on the haunted house genre. A woman loves the house so much, she's willing to stay and put up with the ghosts. From the concept, I imagined it was going to take a light touch, but it was anything but. There is a brain-crawling simile between 'not upsetting the ghosts' and 'tiptoeing around the house so daddy doesn't hit me'. A lot of thrilling action in the last act, even if the book works a little hard to achieve the ending it wants. Despite that, still a winner.

Dust Tracks on a Road, by Zora Neale Hurston. Her 1942 autobiography, tracing her life from childhood to adulthood. I can't think that I've ever read any of her fiction, but the possibility has risen dramatically. She grew up in Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-black communities in the US. And wound up studying anthropology under Franz Boas at Columbia. Trained in ethnography, she studied the folklore and songs of people in the South and Caribbean, and I think that soaking in story-telling makes her a storyteller in her own autobiography. A great ear for dialogue and dialect, even if some of the latter may be hard to decipher 100 years on. Lots of great observations of culture, both 'black' and 'white', in the early 20th. The one sour note (particularly to a modern ear) is her general take on 'the race problem' in the US. Though interesting to read, particularly from that time period, it reminds me of some black figures today who are mega-successful and thus dismissive of the struggles minorities face. By all accounts, Hurston was smart and talented, but she didn't quite do it 'all on her own'. One of the early events in her life is being helped by two white ladies from the North who came to visit a black school and found her to be the best reader. They later sent books and clothes to her personally, setting her on a path that led to Howard, Barnard and beyond. Other white patrons were also part of her story. Not to take anything away from her accomplishments, but just that she had many opportunities others didn't.

Three Problems for Solar Pons, by August Derleth. One of the slim 1950s volumes from Arkham House (or their mystery imprint Mycroft & Moran) when the publishing house wasn't doing so well. Pastiches of Sherlock Holmes stories aren't my thing, but I do like the little crossover with Fu Manchu.