Book 54: Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Boy I loved this book. It's a collection of speculative short stories, all of which manage to be the most interesting kind of sci-fi for me: they are deeply, deeply invested in exploring what it means to be human, and how we function, and how that would extend into multiple different settings and realities. The prose is so easy to read and fall into; it feels deceptively simple. And even his stories that are the clearest metaphors (Exhalation, for one) are so well done that you don't feel like you got hit across the face with it. They're simply another opportunity to figure out how we live. I took this out from the library but I may need to buy a hard copy. A wonderful read.

Grade: A