Bryan Fox (Author of ...and then he's not)

Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it Transit Maps Of The World by Mark Ovenden	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
A delightfully transit nerdy coffee table book chronicling the mass transportation systems of virtually every city in the world that has one. Heavy on maps, light on explanations, this is much more of a visual book than a textual one, and really, its ...more
Sep 27, 2026 02:59PM · like · see review
Bryan Fox rated a book it was amazing The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I often say that the best nonfiction reads like riveting fiction. This short book, the tale of the (sub)titular "last true hermit", is as much of a page-turner as any mystery/true crime novel, and as accessible and emotive as any limited-run Netflix ...more
Sep 27, 2026 05:57AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Look, far be it from me to be capable of adding any worthwhile criticism of a 2500 year old text which has been continuously read and reflected upon since its writing. However, if you're looking for Eastern insights on how to be in the modern world, ...more
Sep 27, 2026 05:56AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Look, far be it from me to be capable of adding any worthwhile criticism of a 2500 year old text which has been continuously read and reflected upon since its writing. However, if you're looking for Eastern insights on how to be in the modern world, ...more
Sep 27, 2026 04:50AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox rated a book liked it Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jonathan Lethem is at the point in his career where he can write literally anything and get it published. Good for him, it's deserved (albeit minimally attritional). This book, however, goes nowhere. Most characters have no names, the book effectivel ...more
Sep 24, 2026 04:05AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Brooklyn Crime Novel by Jonathan Lethem <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock – The Definitive Band Biography of the 1970s Avant-Garde by Jonathan Gould	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Sep 16, 2026 07:25PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Burning Down the House by Jonathan Gould. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Burning Down the House by Jonathan Gould <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Hai, a young Vietnamese-American man (a boy, really), largely estranged from his family and with a prescription drug abuse problem, is contemplating suicide on a bridge when he is seen, and saved, by a lonely, elderly Lithuanian woman with dementia. ...more
Sep 09, 2026 07:30PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Bryan Fox and 756 other people liked Lisa of Troy's review of The School for Good Mothers: "Female dystopian that doesn’t hold up against the competition Frida Liu has a very bad parenting day resulting in The State sentencing her to a one-year school to become a better mother. What will the school be like and will Frida be reunited with her" Read more of this review »
Sep 06, 2026 12:45PM · see review
Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It's not that this is a poorly-written book. It's that the premise is so farcically implausible, even when viewed through the lens of the near-future dystopian surveillance state which we as a society are blindly and irrevocably rushing towards. But ...more
Sep 06, 2026 12:44PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it

Transit Maps Of The World
by Mark Ovenden

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

A delightfully transit nerdy coffee table book chronicling the mass transportation systems of virtually every city in the world that has one. Heavy on maps, light on explanations, this is much more of a visual book than a textual one, and really, its ...more

Bryan Fox rated a book it was amazing

The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit
by Michael Finkel (Goodreads Author)

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

I often say that the best nonfiction reads like riveting fiction. This short book, the tale of the (sub)titular "last true hermit", is as much of a page-turner as any mystery/true crime novel, and as accessible and emotive as any limited-run Netflix ...more

Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok

Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Look, far be it from me to be capable of adding any worthwhile criticism of a 2500 year old text which has been continuously read and reflected upon since its writing. However, if you're looking for Eastern insights on how to be in the modern world, ...more

Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok

Tao Te Ching
by Lao Tzu

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Look, far be it from me to be capable of adding any worthwhile criticism of a 2500 year old text which has been continuously read and reflected upon since its writing. However, if you're looking for Eastern insights on how to be in the modern world, ...more

Bryan Fox rated a book liked it

Brooklyn Crime Novel
by Jonathan Lethem

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1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Jonathan Lethem is at the point in his career where he can write literally anything and get it published. Good for him, it's deserved (albeit minimally attritional). This book, however, goes nowhere. Most characters have no names, the book effectivel ...more

Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it

Burning Down the House by Jonathan Gould

Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock – The Definitive Band Biography of the 1970s Avant-Garde
by Jonathan Gould

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Bryan Fox rated a book really liked it

The Emperor of Gladness
by Ocean Vuong

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Hai, a young Vietnamese-American man (a boy, really), largely estranged from his family and with a prescription drug abuse problem, is contemplating suicide on a bridge when he is seen, and saved, by a lonely, elderly Lithuanian woman with dementia. Hai, a young Vietnamese-American man (a boy, really), largely estranged from his family and with a prescription drug abuse problem, is contemplating suicide on a bridge when he is seen, and saved, by a lonely, elderly Lithuanian woman with dementia. She offers him shelter in exchange for taking care of her, as no one else does, and thus begins the unlikeliest of friendships between two misshapen pieces who find comfort and companionship in each other's company.

Vuong has already established himself as a gifted wordsmith and a skilled character sketch artist with an ability to wring maximum emotional impact out of his fiction (his debut novel was sufficient proof of that). He has a natural ease with crafting realistic, engaging dialogue between characters of wildly disparate backgrounds. In this novel, in addition to the main protagonist and the woman who takes him in, we are introduced to a charming, enjoyably three-dimensional cast of characters - members of both Hai's and Grazina's families (including an autistic Civil War aficionado cousin of Hai's and a distant, yet domineering, son of Grazina's), as well as the staff members at a Boston Market-adjacent fast food restaurant where he works part-time and becomes involved in the lives of his coworkers in ways that far transcend typical workplace interactions. Set against the backdrop of a small-town America in which most people are just struggling to survive, the novel paints a gritty, all-too-real American pastoral of the early 21st century.

This is a dense read that unabashedly goes for the heartstrings, yet all of the deviations are worthwhile, and all of the emotions feel genuine. The ending of the book felt a bit expected and didn't quite stick the landing, but to be fair, the writing that leads us to that point is so strong that it's still well worth taking the ride.

I suppose the book is technically classifiable as LGBTQ literature (Hai's sexuality is a subplot, but not the main narrative thread), but it feels reductive/unfair to slap the label on it - this is a far cry from "genre fiction". Perhaps it's a testament to Vuong's skill as a writer that he has crafted a wild, sprawling, intimate novel as a gay author with a gay main character where sexuality takes a back seat to a wide range of other emotions, plot lines, and events.

A worthy successor to "On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous". ...more

Bryan Fox and 756 other people liked Lisa of Troy's review of The School for Good Mothers:

The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

"Female dystopian that doesn’t hold up against the competition

Frida Liu has a very bad parenting day resulting in The State sentencing her to a one-year school to become a better mother. What will the school be like and will Frida be reunited with her" Read more of this review »

Bryan Fox rated a book it was ok

The School for Good Mothers
by Jessamine Chan (Goodreads Author)

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It's not that this is a poorly-written book. It's that the premise is so farcically implausible, even when viewed through the lens of the near-future dystopian surveillance state which we as a society are blindly and irrevocably rushing towards. But It's not that this is a poorly-written book. It's that the premise is so farcically implausible, even when viewed through the lens of the near-future dystopian surveillance state which we as a society are blindly and irrevocably rushing towards. But the titular school is a prison/rehab sentence for mothers (and fathers) who have, in some way, mistreated their children. They have to stay in this confinement and receive instruction on how to be better parents before a court judge ultimately decides if they can resume custody of (and life with) their child/children.

The problem is (well, the main one, at least), is that many mothers and the fathers are sentenced to a yearlong stint in the program for one-off infractions that are so small that, if we are to believe this program is being implemented on a societal level, literally every parent could be denied custody and sent away for this "retraining". Frida, our protagonist, just leaves her baby at home for a few hours one afternoon while she steps out to go to the store. Nothing happens to the child. The child's father (from who she has separated) does not press charges. But she is caught, and sentenced. We find out about other parents in the program who have committed "crimes" as insignificant as allowing their 8-year old to walk home from school one day , or showing up to an event drunk. It's all a bit ridiculous, considering that the novel does not even posit some sort of super-heightened Surveillance State - most of the "guilty" parents are turned in by a random neighbor or colleague, no questions asked (and no benefit gained).

Additionally, the instruction that the parents receive in their rehabilitation program and the tasks they are forced to do seem basically inhuman, as they are given "advice" which consists largely of maxims they must repeat that seem culled from a dystopian "Handmaid's Tale Meets 1984" world that is in no way the world that the book describes in any scene where it shows day-to-day life . Each "bad" parent is assigned a lifelike automata of a roughly commensurate age to the child they purportedly wronged. These dolls adapt, learn, and even bleed some sort of blue liquid which, if they are mistreated, clogs up their inner mechanisms and requires a thorough, and thoroughly unpleasant, cleaning by the parent. None of this is adequately thought out in the narrator's world build, as the parents are assigned a series of tasks which gradually go from the quotidian to something resembling more of life or death situations which none of them had placed their children into in the first place, and the performance of which would say nothing whatsoever about their suitability as parents.

While in the rehabilitation program, the parents are allowed infrequent, and frequently rescinded, opportunities to talk to their children via Facetime - and even if the parent on the outside is ok with allowing (or requesting) more contact, it is not allowed. And at the end of their time in the program, one court decision (unable to be appealed) determines whether or not the parent can resume custody of their child, or if they can never see or contact the child again .

I suppose all of this is supposed to be somewhat allegorical to the sad state of conservatism and the slow erosion of women's and reproductive rights in the country, but this is truly a mess of a book that needed an editor to put their foot down and ask some better questions long before it reached publication. ...more

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	...and then he's not: reflections on loss, mourning, and mortality it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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