Copies in Seconds by David Owen

First sentence:

"We ourselves are copies."

Description:

"The first plain-paper office copier--which was introduced in 1960 and has been called the most successful product ever marketed in America--is unusual among major high-technology inventions in that its central process was conceived by a single person. David Owen's fascinating narrative tells the story of the machine nobody thought was needed but now we can't live without.

Chester Carlson grew up in unspeakable poverty, worked his way through junior college and the California Institute of Technology, and made his discovery in solitude in the depths of the Great Depression. He offered his big idea to two dozen major corporations -- among them IBM, RCA, and General Electric -- all of which turned him down. So persistent was this failure of capitalist vision that by the time the Xerox 914 was manufactured by an obscure photographic-supply company in Rochester, New York, Carlson's original patent had expired. Xerography was so unusual and nonintuitive that it conceivably could have been overlooked entirely. Scientists who visited the drafty warehouses where the first machines were built sometimes doubted that Carlson's invention was even theoretically feasible.

Drawing on interviews, Xerox company archives, and the private papers of the Carlson family, David Owen has woven together a fascinating and instructive story about persistence, courage, and technological innovation -- a story that has never before been fully told." - from the inside flap

My thoughts:

I found this to be a fascinating read about the ways new ideas take hold in not only someone's mind but in our lives. Carlson's determination and drive plus the hard work from others, particularly the Haloid company executives and employees, brought this untested idea into life. I especially liked the part concerning the makeshift building of the first Xerox 914 copiers and how they expected the average use to be about two thousand copies per month and were surprised that it was at least four times that amount. Owen also clearly describes the history of writing, the printing press, and other forms of duplication.

Date read: 6/12/2026
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: 4*/5

ISBN-10: 0743251172
ISBN-13: 9780743251174
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Year: 2004
# of pages: 306
Binding: Hardcover
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The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride

 First sentence:

"There was an old Jew who lived at the site of the old synagogue up on Chicken Hill in the town of Pottstown, Pa., and when Pennsylvania State Troopers found the skeleton at the bottom of an old well of Hayes Street, the old Jew's house was the first place they went to."

Description:

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new housing development, the last thing they expected to uncover was a human skeleton. Who the skeleton was and how it got buried there were just two of the long-held secrets that had been kept for decades by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side, sharing ambitions and sorrows.

Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served he neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated he town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents--roused by Chona's kindness and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin--banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town's establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community--heaven and earth--that ultimately sustains us." -- from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a very good book about community, compassion, strife and courage in facing adversity. I liked the characters - well most of them except for Doc and Gus Plizska. I especially liked Moshe and Chona and their relationship with Nate and Addie. I also liked how people worked together to help Dodo.

Date read: 4/26/2026
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4*/5

ISBN-10: 0593422945
ISBN-13: 9780593422946
Imprint: Riverhead Books
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Year: 2023
# of pages: 381
Binding: Hardcover
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The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

First sentence:

"At the height of the long wet summer of the Seventy-Seventh Year of Sendovani, the Thiefmaker of Camorr paid a sudden and unannounced visit to the Eyeless Priest at the Temple of Perelandro, desperately hoping to sell him the Lamora boy."

Description:

"An orphan's life is harsh—and often short—in the island city of Camorr, built on the ruins of a mysterious alien race. But born with a quick wit and a gift for thieving, Locke Lamora has dodged both death and slavery, only to fall into the hands of an eyeless priest known as Chains—a man who is neither blind nor a priest. A con artist of extraordinary talent, Chains passes his skills on to his carefully selected "family" of orphans—a group known as the Gentlemen Bastards. Under his tutelage, Locke grows to lead the Bastards, delightedly pulling off one outrageous confidence game after another. Soon he is infamous as the Thorn of Camorr, and no wealthy noble is safe from his sting. Passing themselves off as petty thieves, the brilliant Locke and his tightly knit band of light-fingered brothers have fooled even the criminal underworld's most feared ruler, Capa Barsavi. But there is someone in the shadows more powerful—and more ambitious—than Locke has yet imagined. Known as the Gray King, he is slowly killing Capa Barsavi's most trusted men—and using Locke as a pawn in his plot to take control of Camorr's underworld. With a bloody coup under way threatening to destroy everyone and everything that holds meaning in his mercenary life, Locke vows to beat the Gray King at his own brutal game—or die trying."

My thoughts:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book about Locke Lamora and his friends in the city of Camorr. Their con games become more elaborate and dangerous as the mysterious Grey King becomes more powerful. I look forward to reading the next book in the Gentleman Bastards series, Red Seas Under Red Skies.


Date read: 9/9/2025
Series: Gentleman Bastards, #1
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4*/5

ISBN-10: 055358894X
ISBN-13: 9780553588941
Imprint: Bantam Spectra
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2007
# of pages: 719
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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Deadspawn by Brian Lumley

First sentence:

"'Harry,' Darcy Clarke's voice of twitchy on the phone, but he was trying hard to contain it. 'There's a problem we could use some help with. Your kind of help.'"

Description:

"There's a maniacal murderer on the loose, brutally slaughtering young women with a ferocity that rivals that of the vampires Harry Keogh has spent his life combatting. The Necroscope's been asked to solve the crimes. . .asked by the dead spirits of the madman's victims.

Harry cannot turn down a request from the dead. . .even if it costs him his soul. In the climactic battle with the vampires, mankind prevailed and purged the vampires from earth -- thanks fo Harry, his team of psychically-gifted spies, and Faethor Ferenczy, long-dead 'father' of the world's vampires, who betrayed his own kind.

But Harry's alliance with Faethor has a terrible cost -- Harry's very humanity is under attack from the vampire evil coiled in his mind!" -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

It was a long time since I had read this series, so I was glad to read an extensive recap at the beginning of this book. I enjoyed this book about Keough and how he's changing and I look forward to reading the next book in the series, Blood Brothers.

Date read: 6/26/2025
Genre: Horror
Series: Necroscope, #5
Rating: 4*/5

ISBN-10: 0812508351
ISBN-13: 9780812508352
Imprint: Tor Book
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.
Year: 1991
# of pages: 602
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The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman

First sentence:

"Ethan died of a burst appendix."

Description:

"Jason is having a bad day. The kind of day when you just don't feel like yourself. Only, for Jason, it's not just a feeling. He really isn't himself. Not anymore.

Who is he? That's the problem. Jason isn't sure. And it's not just him. Everyone in town is acting weird. His friends. His parents. Everyone. Billington is usually such a normal town. As Jason is about to discover, nothing will ever be normal again." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

I liked this book about teenagers who discover that their town isn't as ordinary as they thought and neither are they nor their parents. While it seemed to be a bit rushed at the end, it was still a fascinating and enjoyable read.

Date read: 5/1/2025
Genre: SF
Rating: 4*/5

ISBN-10: 1442422815
ISBN-13: 9781442422810
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Year: 1997
# of pages: 230
Binding: Trade Paperback
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Revisions of by Goodloe Byron

First sentence:

"The following passage he read aloud."

Description:

"Nathan First is a childlike biography, making barely enough from his writing to survive. His only source of contact with the outside world is his sister, whose recent marriage has left Nathan to his own devices. 

Moved by a paltry obituary that he reads in the paper, Nathan sets out to compose his masterpiece; a biography of an ordinary man. But this will be no ordinary book, as Nathan becomes increasingly ambitious, the project blossoms into a study of dark matter, and appears to contain the abandoned history of the world." -- from the back cover

My thoughts:

This is an interesting book about a man whose self-consciousness gets in the way of his work and relationships. I liked how Nathan wanted to write a biography, but not how he interacted with others.

Date read: 4/13/2025
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4*/5

Publisher: Brown Paper Publishing
Year: 2009
# of pages: 238
Binding: Trade Paperback
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The Gravedigger's Daughter by Joyce Carol Oates

 First sentence:

"'In animal life the weak are quickly disposed of'"

Description:

"In 1936, the Schwarts, an immigrant family desperate to escape Nazi Germany, settle in a small town in upstate New York, where the father, a former high school teacher, is demeaned by the only job he can get: gravedigger and cemetery caretaker. After local prejudice and the family's own emotional frailty result in unspeakable tragedy, the gravedigger's daughter, Rebecca, begins her astonishing pilgrimage into America, an odyssey of erotic risk and imaginative daring, ingenious self-invention, and, in the end, a bittersweet--but very 'American'--triumph. 'You are born her, they will not hurt you'--so the grave digger has predicted for his daughter, which will turn out to be true.

In The Gravedigger's Daughter, Oates has created a masterpiece of domestic yet mythic realism, at once emotionally engaging and intellectually provocative: an intimately observed testimony to the resilience of the individual to set beside such predecessors as The Falls, Blonde, and We Were the Mulvaneys." - from the inside flap

My thoughts:

This is a book that will probably stay with me for a long time. I admired Rebecca and the way she found strength and purpose in her life. Despite, or maybe, because of her early years, she made sure she was always there for her son, and, most importantly, knew when to drop back as he found his own way in the world. 

Date read: 4/4/2025
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5*/5

ISBN-10: 0061236829
ISBN-13: 9780061236822
Imprint: Ecco
Publisher: HarperCollins
Year: 2013
# of pages: 582
Binding: Hardcover
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