Spyder Web (Tom Grace)

This story of industrial espionage on a grand scale is full of thrills and adventure, and I was interested enough in what would happen next to keep reading, but I have to say it didn't really grab me. A lovely freelance reporter who digs up secrets for the right price discovers something called the Spyder, an experimental device that can lurk on someone's network, locate any information on any computer connected to the network, and send that information out to its handler without detection. She finds an interested buyer, a sinister Chinese agent, and this begins a contest that involves former KGB agents, daring SEALs, computer hackers, and high-speed explosions on land and water. The characters never really came alive for  me, but it was fun anyway.

Quiet (Susan Cain)

As an introvert myself, I really appreciated this powerful, evocative, and well-researched treatise on the value of introverts. Cain does not try to make a case that introverts are better than extraverts, but that their way of interacting with the world is just as valuable overall and may be more effective in some situations (and less effective in others). Irony of the day: as my more extraverted husband was outside chatting with some of his friends, I was inside reading the last few chapters of this book, happy to be on my own and interacting with the world of ideas and grateful for an author explaining why this was OK.

Bowl of Heaven (Gregory Benford and Larry Niven)

Benford and Niven together have upped the ante on Ringworld. A ship carrying passengers in frozen sleep on the long, long voyage to colonize another planet come across a gigantic hemispheric structure traveling on almost the same path, and stop for a visit. They encounter aliens of several varieties and mind-blowing technologies as they struggle to survive and to understand their situation. When I started this book I didn't know it wouldn't be finished in one volume; to find out how things resolve, I will need to read at least one more book. The sense of wonder is strong in this one, but the characterization doesn't live up to the rest of it. Still, worth the read, and I'll read the next book when it's available.

Teaching for Critical Thinking (Stephen Brookfield)

Parts of this book were very helpful and insightful. I will get a lot of use out of his analysis of the different disciplines of critical thinking (it is no surprise to me that I find the scientific, hypothesis-testing view most congenial). I also found some of his suggested exercises for critical thinking very interesting, and may adopt some of them in my future courses.

Up at the Villa (W. Somerset Maugham)

This short novel is a quick read, and has an old-fashioned air (especially in its rather stilted dialogue) which is not unexpected in a novel written in 1940. The events, though, and rather sharply modern. A young widow is living in Italy as she considers the marriage proposal of a man 24 years older, one who has been devoted to her since she was a child, and who has great prospects in his career for the British government. The problem is that, while she has enormous respect for him, she doesn't love him. The night he proposes, as she is thinking it over, she offers a ride to a down-on-his-luck stranger, and the consequences unravel the respectable, comfortable life she saw before her. I was quite taken up in the events of the story, though I have to say that the ending was no surprise. This is a good, if slight, example of the writing nearly a century ago.

Sunshine (Robin McKinley)

I swallowed this book whole - it's been a while since I got buried in a book and ignored other duties. This is a vampire story with many of the usual tropes - a young woman caught up with a MUCH older vampire, who turns out to be not such a bad guy after all and protects her from other vampires (no spoiler there, it begins in the first 40 pages), all kinds of sexual tension, and plenty of horror, blood, and magic. On the other hand, the world of this novel is enough different from other books to be interesting, and the narrator's voice is full of intelligence, determination, and a delightful sense of humor. I loved her, and the people in her life. Lots of fun and well-written.

Dead Aim (Thomas Perry)

Mallon is a retired builder who has lots of money but no real life - he spends his days walking aimlessly along the Santa Barbara shore. One day he sees a young woman walk into the ocean, and he pulls her out and tries to convince her not to take her own life. A few days later he finds out he failed, and becomes obsessed with finding out who she was and why she believed she had to die. His search takes him to an exclusive self-defense school in the mountains, and from there he finds himself fighting for his life. The action is gripping, and the author made it almost plausible that the mild-mannered protagonist could succeed over a cadre of highly-trained killers. I enjoyed it.