booklog

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1. Chlorine - Jade Song - the ending was obvious. Of course she's going to sew her legs together. She has a mightier-than-thou attitude which fits the story. The ending is ambiguous; honestly, a part of me wonders if Ren killed herself and Cathy is trying to understand the story leading up to her decision. The book ends with Ren swimming off, her legs sewn together, and reads as if she wrote the thing while living out life as a mermaid. Her transformation is hard to understand; we see her descent after it's happened, so we don't see the way her brain twists itself into this extreme act of self-mutilation. There's something missing from the narrative. Okay story, interesting character---probably repulsive to men, as she's really hating on men here---, character-driven story.
   
   I liked the book. Goodreads reviews seem to miss a few points. The narrator is an edgy teenager---look at what she does to herself!---and her writing reflects this. Could anybody who couldn't write in the style of Ebony Darkness (etc.) write this book? Yes, her self-aggrandizement, "humans suck wow i'm so much better," edginess is part of the book. The prose couldn't be anything else.
   
   Some people are focusing on the queer aspects of the book. If you're here for a sapphic romance, fuck off. The narrator is attracted to her friend. This isn't a romance, though; an acknowledgement of her desires.
   
   Gray Aether's review hits the problem on the head:

   The problem is, the rising actions do not rise to the level of the climax. Ren goes through some unfortunate life events. Her dad leaves to go work back in China. Her swimming coach is a jerk. She doesn’t have many close friends. Her periods are rough. She has headaches all the time because she didn’t listen to her doctor when she got a concussion. (...) I just don’t buy that Ren’s life is bad enough to cause her to start praying to fictional mermaids, eating storybook pages, and chopping open her legs and sewing them together.

   Minor disagreement with this review---birth control pills don't always solve period problems. If she sought treatment, she might've been put on pills; maybe they would have helped, maybe they wouldn't, maybe her problem would have been worse. She accepts her painful periods as a fact, which isn't uncommon amongst people with painful periods. Symbolic note---if she were on birth control pills, she'd be taking those pills on a daily basis. Her mother would have been constantly reminded of her daughter taking pills. Part of me wonders if Jade Song even knows birth control pills are sometimes used to alleviate painful periods. Her description of Ren's menstrual pain reads like someone who has long been resigned to the pain.
   
   That obgyn appointment read like too many obgyn appointments I've read about online. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes the obgyn leaves you in a ridiculous amount of pain. Issues / pain in IUD insertion are common.
   
   Racism in her disqualification---put it in context. The narrator knows the issue was her form, but she leaps for other excuses. She can't be the problem; she needs it to be anybody's fault but hers. Look at her pursuit of perfection. The author even frames this as Ren reaching for excuses. The author never asks us to see this as racism.
   
   I love how Jim was just an athletic coach who occasionally made innapropriate comments about her body. He's obsessed with his star athlete, but he never crosses boundaries. Too many authors would let this give way to pedophilia, but Song doesn't. Jim is able to make comments about Ren's body without making sexual advances (or asking for anything innapropriate from her). I think Ren's limited perspective & narcissism prevent Jim from being a key part of the narrative. She can't have a father-daughter relationship with him; honestly, that'd ruin the narrative. This needed to be confined to her trying to please her swim coach. Maybe her desire for his attention was stronger in the past, but now she's a mermaid and can't let him have played a key role in her life. She needs to be better than the human scum.
   
   

   There’s also the fact that 99% of men in this book are portrayed as bad. Ren’s third-grade teacher doesn’t believe she can read words out of an adult fantasy book.

   hahaha, women who are teachers said the same to me :^
   
   Remember: this book is written from the perspective of a mermaid. This is her character. She has to hate on men---they can't be mermaids, not in the way a woman can, so they are scum. Look at the way mermaids treat men in literature. Luring men to their doom. Don't get me wrong: if I were lurking the author's social media profiles, I wouldn't be surprised to see her hating on men. But here, it is an extension of her character. She's reframing her past from the perspective of her mermaid self; this colors her writing. She is an unreliable narrator. Devil, I love her.
   
   Taking 7 hours to insert a tampon is dramatic. They probably took breaks hahaha. Plenty of people take hours to get a hang of inserting a menstrual cup, though. (Anecdotal evidence only.) Also...eh. I'd take dick before tampons.
   
   

   How was I supposed to differentiate between the pain due to the concussion and the pain due to the agony of everyday human life?"

   chronic pain girlie <3 but really.
2. Theogony - Hesiod trans. Richard Lattimore - trying to comprehend the geneology of Greek gods is giving me a headache. People keep having children with each other (sometimes with their parent), and sometimes they give birth without being impregnated. This is like Christmas Eve mass (X, son of Y, son of Z, father of A, B, son of...) on stereoids. Also, moderately disturbing. Aphrodite is born from a limb Kronos cut off from Ouranos. Ouranos is Gaia's child, and he is the father of many of her children. He has tried to prevent some of the children from exiting her body. Several of these children hate their father. Nyx seems to spawn offspring; there's no father, just her. I am three-hundred lines in and have a headache. Early immortals seem to be personifications of concepts; their children have developed characters / personalities.
3. A Touch of Jen - Beth Morgan - another one I'm abandoning at 6%. These characters seem superficial, and their relationship is superficial. This is the point. The point does not appeal to me. I thought it would. How disappointing.
4. Cult Classic - Sloane Crosley - abandoned at 6%. I'd say I never gave the book a chance, and I'd say the book didn't give me a reason to give it a chance. The narrative was meandering. This is a glimpse into the lives of people we aren't given a reason to care about.
5. Greek Lyrics - Richmond Lattimore - a small selection of poetry from a variety of Ancient Greek poets. He provides a brief introduction to each poet---where they lived, what they were known for, what else they did with their life, how much we do or do not know about them---and samples of their poetry. It's a gateway to Ancient Greek poetry, something for people who think "huh i'd like to read the ancient greeks" but don't know where to start. Poets I'd like to read more of: Archilochus, Semonides (satire my beloved), Theognis, Sappho.
6. Power Psycho-Cybernetics for Youth - Maxwell Maltz - self-help book. While published in 1971, his descriptions of what youth struggled with then pertain to what youth struggle with now. International affairs have changed (he mentions how the youth worry about Vietnam), but young people's concerns about current affairs still exist. Summarizing his arguments:
   • We have a "big self" and "little self." The "little self" is the self-victimizing, resentful self. The "big self" is the self who is working on fulfilling its potential. To build up the "big self:" spend your energy on what is useful. Discard negative emotions. Focus on building good relationships; relationships provide security and a chance for self-expression. Be friends with yourself. Value emotional growth; think about ethics. Create opportunities for a better life. (Here, he mentions young people being anti-war.)
   • Be a professional human being.
     • Following cultural / social customs is useful. Understand when to accept and reject them. If you're rejecting customs, do so to enhance your quality of life without detracting from other people's lives. (Better yet, improve their lives.)
     • A fundamental part of life is being able to be friends with others.
     • To contribute to society and our own lives, we need to be able to understand ourselves and others.
     • "your happiness cannot exist by itself but only when you then extend it to other people."
     • Take responsibility.
     • Your only competition is yourself.
   • Young people are working on their present life while laying the foundations for their future.
   • Value clear, constructive thinking. Repeating his seven principles:
     1. Don't delay.
     2. Don't be a doubting Thomas.
     3. Don't evade the present.
     4. Don't let an error make you feel inadequate.
     5. Don't daydream.
     6. Don't look for detours.
     7. Don't surrender to boredom.
     The "do"s that follow: set a goal every day. Try to reach it. If you fail, "get a good night's sleep and set a goal for tomorrow."
   • (More notes on the importance of accepting and understanding oneself.)
   • The "big-self mechanism":
     1. Belief in yourself.
     2. Intensification of courage under stress.
     3. Growth through understanding.
     4. Search for goals.
     5. Empathy and compassion.
     6. Living for today.
     7. Focus on your potential.
   • The "little-self mechanism":
     1. Living in frustration.
     2. Inferiority.
     3. Termites of aggressiveness.
     4. Tumors of uncertainty.
     5. Lonely in feeling.
     6. Essence of emptiness.
     7. Storms of resentment.
     8. Evasion of reality.
     9. Living in yesterday.
     10. Futility and weightlessness.
   • Evolution > revolution.
   As far as self-help goes, he makes good points. He isn't here to beat around the bush. How many therapists does it take to change a lightbulb---one, but the lightbulb has to want to change. He's put some things into words. He can claim success stories. His approach is constructive and can be accurately applied to a variety of people. In other words, it ain't bullshit.
7. Old School - Tobias Wolff - a novel that reads like a memoir. He captures what it's like to be a schoolboy who loves literature. Within the first few pages, he explains why talking about what you read is important:

   Without pandering to your presumed desire to identify with the hero of a story, they made you feel that what mattered to the writer had consequence for you, too.
   
   Say you’ve just read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning.” Like the son in the story, you’ve sensed the faults in your father’s character. Thinking about them makes you uncomfortable; left alone, you’d probably close the book and move on to other thoughts. But instead you are taken in hand by a tall, brooding man with a distinguished limp who involves you and a roomful of other boys in the consideration of what it means to be a son. The loyalty that is your duty and your worth and your problem. The goodness of loyalty and its difficulties and snares, how loyalty might also become betrayal—of the self and the world outside the circle of blood.

   A beautiful book. The reader has a glimpse of who the character was when they were a schoolboy; you see his friends, his relationships, the mask he wears to fit in at an elite-like school. He blends in with his peers to a point where the reader could be convinced he's one of them; he, too, is some rich boy at a private school. He isn't. He begins to unveil the mask he wears. When he writes the story, he shows his true colors twofold. He has a habit of adapting other people's stories as his own; his plagiarism is a blatant demonstration of this. One of his teachers is a plagiarist in a way. These characters are average and imperfect. Loved it.
8. One's Company - Ashley Hutson - damn. This book features an unreliable narrator. What actually happened? The ending has me thinking most of the story didn't happen the way she said it did.
   
   Back up. The narrator, Bonnie, worked in a grocery store that was robbed. The robbery is initially introduced as a joke---she says some kid implied he had a gun, the cashier knew he didn't, cashier handed over a few twenties. 'The most exciting thing to have happened in the town.' Then the narrative is retold a few times: there was a gun. The store's owners were shot. The narrator was raped. This latter version is repeated throughout the book by different characters. She was impacted by the event, so maybe the lighthearted version was a story she told herself.
   
   After the robbery, Bonnie watched the TV show called 'Three's Company.' She becomes obsessed with this TV show, collecting memorabilia, obtaining multiple copies of the DVDs, obtaining multiple DVD players to make sure she can always watch it. When she wins the lottery, she decides to re-enact the show. She builds a replica of the apartment complex (and buildings featured in the show) in a remote location, and dedicates herself to reliving the TV show. She puts on different characters for extended periods of time, losing herself in them. These characters are part of her. These characters are her.
   
   How do I describe the book from here. She meets another character, Rita. I'm not sure Rita is real. Rita seems like an idealistic figment of imagination---a woman who wants to forget her own past, a woman willing to lose herself in the charade of another character from Three's Company. But what's this between Rita and Krystal, a former friend of Bonnie's? They're worried about her. They're concerned; she's losing herself and needs help. This roleplay isn't healthy. Bonnie spends years as these characters---no shit it ain't healthy.
   
   I'm not sure if the best way to talk about this book is to summarize the events or to discuss what I think about the events. Who was real, what was real, what was just a story she told herself? Rita appears when the dog disappears; is there a connection?
   
   Near the end of the book, Bonnie burns down the set. She tries to let herself burn to death, but Krystal rescues her. Bonnie lives the rest (?) of her life in a psychiatric institution. While she's banned from watching Three's Company, a contractor who worked on her replica brings her a small device she can use to secretively watch Three's Company. The book ends with her rewatching episodes.
   
   I wonder if her winning the lottery and building a replica was a daydream. Prior to the lottery, she lived in a trailer; her bedroom was a shrine to Three's Company, and she slept on a couch outside her room. Could she have further lost herself in her daydreams and then attempted suicide (as both her parents did)? This would explain how Krystal knew where she was.
   
   I highly recommend this book to anybody who struggles with maladaptive daydreaming. While it offers no solutions, it is a warning: losing yourself in your daydreams will not help you. This book captures the bliss of daydreaming and the way maladaptive daydreaming eradicates one's sense of self.
   
   Also recommend this book to reality shifters (and subliminal users?). The world you think you want is not what you think it is.
   
   I need a book like this with a productive ending. Merlin, can I empathize with Bonnie's struggles. When she burned down her replica, all I could think was that the writer understood me. I think about — and how I wanted to live in the world. I think about the fanfic I wrote; how there was nobody else in the fandom. If there were other people in that fandom, they would have ruined it. It was my sanctuary, my world; others' interpretations, feelings, thoughts, and existence would be an intrusion that ruined the sanctity of my daydreams. That time is long gone, but sometimes I drift into wanting it anyways. I want —'s harsh comfort; I want — and —'s antics; I want the chaos and the explanations and the not-quite-HEA. Even now, I want to reread —; what a constant theme. Wanting to lose myself in reliving some fictional world. We're running from reality, Bonnie and I, refusing to find good ways to cope and creating more problems in our pursuit for comfort and stability.
   
   Devil, what a book.
9. You Gotta Eat - Margaret Eby - suggests a myriad of easy ways to feed yourself when cooking feels impossible. These are easy foods that won't create many dishes. If there's a shortcut to use (ex. starting with a can of soup, using the microwave), she takes it. She has different recipes based on the roll of a die---roll for the base, starch, cheese, etc. I like the idea. I'd like to make a zine based on this book---easy ways to feed myself based on my tastes.
10. A Very Nice Girl - Imogen Crimp - the narrator, Anna, is training to be an opera singer. She begins a sexual relationship with an older man. She's self-centered and, well, she's a theatre kid. Her opera career is beginning to take off. She sabotages herself and runs away from her problems. While I was rooting for her to get better, her trajectory disappointed me. Just get speech therapy, work on the voice, and slip back into the conservatory. Everything turns out fine. HEA. She, as a person, doesn't change. Her character never addresses how she got to her low point or her flaws. Her changes are superficial.
    
    Book contained ironic comments on feminism. That was funny.
11. Ring the Hill - Tom Cox - I've been reading his Substack. I enjoy his whimsical style of writing. He pays attention to the details of his environment. He'll go on tangents about something else he's thinking about. This style works well for his essays. When translated to a novel, though, there's nothing to compel the reader to keep reading. This is like a collection of fragments that blur together---the only thing tying these fragments together is a narrator who began to grate on my nerves. What point is he making. Is this going anywhere. No. So I abandoned it, not even a third of the way through. I'll stick to his essays.
12. William - Mason Coile - I wanted to be interested in this book. Something about it felt cliche---an overconfident person being the first to die, the yet-to-be-explained thing between William's wife and a couple she's friends with. That weird relationship was still unexplained at 54%...writing was subpar, wasn't enough to make up for how slow the plot is. Whatever the fuck this was. I abandoned it a week ago and have forgotten too much to create a good review.
13. Sophists, Socratics, and Cynics - HD Rankin - discusses who the Sophists were and how they argued. Goes over an assortment of Sophists, Socratics, and Cynics. The book serves as an introduction to the ways in which different schools of thought put together arguments.
14. The Naturalist Society - Carrie Vaughn - the plot subverted my expectations. My expectations were idealistic—how awesome would it be if this female main character got to go on an expedition to Antartica?!—. The book is set in the late 1800s, and the plot reflects that. The woman is sent to an asylum. People are treated poorly. A mixed-race character needs to prove his merit to be able to get into spaces other people wouldn't need to be able to prove themselves to get into.
    
    Representation of minorities in fiction is a hot topic. How do we represent people? How do we include these details in the book? The book features a gay relationship which turns into a poly relationship. The way the bisexual character enters his relationship with the woman annoys me; it's as if thinking about what his current partner would think doesn't cross his mind. He's cheating on his partner and barely recognizes this as such. This is a brief issue; it's resolved with a happy ending. The representation of different sexualities is casual. It's a part of the characters' lives, but it doesn't define them.
    
    There were contrasts in what characters valued. A woman writes an article for a lady's magazine, encouraging women to create gardens and experience nature. A man derides this; it's a waste of her talents. Yet this—providing women an entry into birding—is important to her. I think the book highlighted differences between men and women, but treated these differences neutrally. The narrator, a woman, describes why certain spaces feel masculine (ex. the naturalist society) or feminine (ex. someone's home).
    
    A mediocre book. I wouldn't recommend it, but I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading it.
15. The Book of George - Kate Greathead -
    V—this is you.
16. Ninth House - Leigh Bardugo - if a book full of exposition is your cup of tea, you may like this. I abandoned it at 23%. Where is a plot? Some girl was murdered, but this is buried in thousands of words of background information. Most of what I've read is context for the world. Magic becomes mundane. Everything is explained.
    
    Alex, the main character, is less a character and more so a device. She can see ghosts (AKA Grays). Others need to swallow an elixir to see the ghosts. This makes her special. Yet she does nothing. There are glimpses of her character and her past, yet they feel like throwaway details which don't tell us about her character. She's grateful to be a part of things; part of her is a poor person in a rich man's world. Basic necessities seem more valuable when you know what it's like to live without them. This doesn't result in a character I can root for. She doesn't want things—dare I call her content—so I can't want things for her.
17. An Academy for Liars - Alexis Henderson - setting: magic college. Most students are in their mid-twenties (or older). The book fits the dark academia subgenre to a T; it ain't unlike The Scholomance. There's grey morality, characters questioning the ethics of their actions, and characters making complicated decisions.
    
    The characters act like teenagers. They make dumb choices which make them seem younger than they really are. Lennon, the main character, ignores her mentor and makes rash, overconfident decisions. She's introduced as a volatile character who acts according to her emotional whims. She doesn't evolve from here. She jumps from man to man without thinking much of the men she leaves behind.
    
    The relationships between the characters lack glue. Secondary and tertiary characters take the spotlight at random. Some random-ass background character is, temporarily, a best friend. They're all good friends, yet how these friendships formed is unrevealed. The main romantic relationship was undeveloped. Why does she love him? From where did this attraction come? What changed?
    
    The worldbuilding is full of holes. After graduating, what do people at the academy do with their powers?
    
    Other questions: Dante's dark past is revealed and never elaborated on. Why was his name redacted? Why are records of him hidden? What's with the moths?
    
    Tldr: this book annoyed me.
18. youthjuice - EK Sathue - I was expecting something like Natural Beauty, by Ling Ling Huang. This is another dark wellness book. The narrator is brought into the fold and goes along with it. The book felt disorganized. I'm not sure why the story from her past, about Mona, needed to be half of the book. It took up space without adding anything significant. Including that story made this book feel like two novellas that were smashed together to create a full story. The narrator is a passive observer---she could be any of us. I liked that about her. The end was quick and tidy; most wrongdoings absolved, a new start.
19. The Scholar and the Last Faerie Door - H. G. Parry - now THAT'S a book. Most of the story occurs within a magical college. Four people meet each other and research fairy magic, which has been prohibited since a semi-recent incident. Never make deals with the fae; they'll find a way to make it go awry. Still, these four meet and think and try to find an answer to their fae-related problems. Of course, they are young and they make idiotic choices. The rest of the story takes place eight years later, where the consequences of their idiocy are realized. The book is slow (like research). The narrator has a peculiar voice---if I didn't know better, I'd describe her as passive. Certainly fits a smart-loner-learner archetype. The quartet have interesting relationships with each other. They aren't naive; each of them have their motivations (however cloaked they may be). Would rec this one to people who liked The Scholomance trilogy, or enjoy dark academia + fantasy settings.
20. Resisting Happiness - Matthew Kelly - while the author keeps talking about God, the reader doesn't need to believe in the Christian God to benefit from the text. Replace "prayers & conversations with God" with "meditating on an issue." He's talking about Christianity, but one can articulate the same points in a secular manner. This is a normal self-help book where he reframes personal problems as resisting solutions. You resist getting out of bed, going to church, writing, making good choices—and at what cost? (Audience: yourself!)
21. Counting the Cost - Jill Duggar - not a celebrity tell-all, not written to shock the masses, not written to expose secrets. This is a memoir about growing up as part of a filming family, evolving spiritual beliefs, and having a complicated relationship with one's parents. A quote (directed at her father):

    “And I know we aren’t always going to agree on everything. But we won’t want to ask for counsel if we feel like we aren’t going to be heard. And you are only going to attack us and insist that your view is the way we should see things too. We wouldn’t ask you to agree, but only to listen."

22. City of Girls - Elisabeth Gilbert - the author took the time to talk to people to do research for her novel, and it shows. This book focuses on the summer of 1940. At that time, the narrator is a 19-20 y/o who makes costumes for her aunt's theatre. Don't imagine anything high brow; they create cheap, formulaic shows which give the working class something to laugh at after a long day. That's until a British actor, a friend of her aunt's, comes seeking refuge from war. They end up putting together a good show. Of course, there's drama along the way. The narrator spends her evenings looking for trouble with her friend. They attract men like there's no tomorrow. They make dumb decisions, and they make bad choices. The narrator fucks up and goes running back home to her parents. The rest of the story is a summary of her life; there's a war going on, and she's not living the sexy, glamorous lifestyle she had that summer. Her character starts to develop. She learns from her mistakes. She knows when to accept other people's better ideas. She's still vain, but less so. She's still the same person, but she's matured. (I love that kick from Olive. As much as I would have loved Vivian to have been mature enough to not run away from Frank, I think hearing Olive's life advice made the immaturity worth it). Then again, the book is a letter to someone about what the narrator was to a particular woman's father...and that father, named Frank, isn't a key part of the story until the last quarter(?) of the book.
    
    I loved her friendship with Frank. They respect and support each other. She goes on walks with him whenever he asks. Frank is a WWII veteran who survived the bombing of the ship he was stationed on. The war leaves him with symptoms of PTSD. These symptoms manifest through his restlessness, which is why he's always walking around (or driving).
    
    This book is long. I was worn down and ready for it to end. But it's the story of someone's life, and everybody's life has some boring bits. The author doesn't delve deeply into these boring bits; she sticks to the highlights. Overall: solid book.
23. Tarot Through the Witch's Year - Karen Krebser- if you ignore the political subtext, which is too strong to be subtext, you're left with a useful collection of tarot spreads.
    
    Examples of politics:
    • "During the last few years, with the pandemic and political upheavel, with all kinds of patriarchal and colonialist horrors making themselves not only known but obvious in our society, it might be a particularly grueling challenge to find balance (pg158)."
    • References to privilege.
    • "Consider, for example, how some white Americans get defensive when told we need to acknowledge our inherent racism (51)."---when she says this, what is she referring to? The statement is devoid of context. Does the US have a history built on racism, yes. Does this mean white people are inherently racist, no.
    • References to what people with privilege owe to others.
    There is an odd phrase that stood out: "Where are we letting other people get away with murder because we don't want to stand up and tell them to start carrying their fair share? (pg141)"
    
    I've been reading this book as I use it (so: full moons, dark moons), so I haven't read the entire book yet. The references to far-left (identity) politics are expected from a book published by Microcosm. They aren't annoying enough for me to stop using the book. I understand where she's coming from. I do think that how people use tarot varies from person to person, so I expected the book to reflect her beliefs.
24. Maybe in Another Life - Taylor Jenkins Reid - a directionless woman ends up in LA. At a party, she meets a former boyfriend of hers. She could go home with him, or she could go home with her friends. The book alternates between these two timelines. There are some similarities—I'd go so far as to say the endings are the same—and there are major differences. When she goes home with the former boyfriend, she has some sense of purpose. She starts working on having a direction and getting her life together. The biggest upheaval is discovering she is pregnant with her former partner's child. When she goes home with the friends, she is hit by a car and injures her legs. She also loses the child she didn't know she was pregnant with. Both timelines have her dealing with romantic relationships and finding stability.
    
    The characters discuss fate and alternate timelines. In both timelines, they conclude that what happens is what is destined to happen. When it comes to marriage, there is a right person (aka a soulmate). They also discuss how each of the possible outcomes of a situation exist in a timeline; they're merely living in a timeline with one set of outcomes.
    
    I came here from a blogpost on books for when you're feeling lost in life. Because of this, the book disappointed me. I was hoping for something more concrete than "que sera, sera." I want answers, damnit, not characters who have life happen to them and move onward. The book doesn't have much substance. It answers what if, primarily in regards to romance, and moves on. Aaarrrgghh. Simple book. Annoying book. Moving on...
25. None of This is True - Lisa Jewel - a thriller. Nothing notable. I think reviewing the book's imperfections is a waste of time. Sure, it felt cliche, and I'm not sure the twists were twists. It was a mediocre novel which knew it was mediocre. What more can I say?
26. Upside Down Tarot - Joan Bunning - contains a brief introduction to reading the energies of tarot cards; primarily a reference guide to tarot card reversals. According to her, a reversed card does not represent the opposite meaning of a card; rather, it represents how strong the card's energy is. If the card is upright, its energy is strong; if the card is reversed, its energy is weak. A weak energy can either represent something that is about to happen or has happened. Can also represent the absence of an energy.
27. Lesser Ruins - Mark Haber - Marcel, the narrator's son, rambles about house music and indirectly captures the author's writing style:

    “ Months ago he left his longest message yet, the message solely concerned with the ideal length of a house song, how the length of a house song was the first requirement of a serious house track and a serious house track could be no less than five minutes, he asserted, because a serious house track lasting less than five minutes was impossible to take seriously, he said, since it didn’t take itself or the tropes and traditions of house music seriously and no self-respecting dance song is less than five minutes, he said, it’s impossible, because it’s the repetition that creates a good dance song and what can be repeated in the span of three to four minutes? Nothing, he answered, not a fucking thing, he continued, because the perfect length, the ideal length, the sweet spot of a good house track must be between seven and eleven minutes, and a track less than five minutes I won’t bother listening to because a dance track less than five minutes refuses to take itself seriously, at least in observing the custom of a traditional house song, because house music, he went on, is the practice and celebration of repetition, finding a hook, a melody, a powerful piano chord and riding one, or all three, until bliss is attained”

    The author continuously treads old territory until he finds something new. He'll fixate on that until it's become old territory, and he'll re-tread until he breaks the monotony with something new. He did a great job of holding out on new information; when you're about to abandon the book, you're given something new. Truly well-done.
    
    I'll admit: around 80%, I was ready for the book to be done. The author was barrelling towards a climax, but what could that climax be? The book has no direct plot. There's nowhere to go. The ending reveals that, despite the narrator's repetitive digressions, despite the complex emotions surrounding his wife's death, the book is ultimately about grief and the ways people deal with grief.
    
    The academic satire is good too. 10/10, excellent distraction. (I think that going through the satirical aspects of the book misses the point of the book---sure, he's rambling about how his students are waiting for their thoughts to be interrupted, and doesn't recognize how his own thoughts are being interrupted, but that's blatantly obvious).
28. A City Inside - Tillie Walden - short and packed to the brim with emotion. The author conveys the emotional complexities of growing up, relationships, and being oneself in few words. Like an illustrated poem. Abstract. Her art is beautiful, dreamlike, and fits her prose.
29. Conspiracy, Chemistry, Combustion 101 - WriterCasperB - a college AU of The Magnus Archives. The amount of work the author put into this fic is impressive---it's easy to miss the folder of short stories. Kudos to that alone. The author effectively reuses bits of The Magnus Archives---different avatars show up at appropriate times and serve purposes that mirror their purpose in The Magnus Archives. They also captured characters' voices well. Most people's attempts to capture The Distortion fall flat, but this author hits the nail on the head. Gotta love how Georgie tries to blackmail Jon into finding friends, and then he accidentally makes friends. Oooh, the author also portrayed Martin's descent into The Lonely very well. The plot is nothing stellar, but it reads like the author has potential to write good fiction. They've nailed the characters. There were stakes. I devoured it.
30. The Book of Bill - Alex Hirsch - Gravity Falls? In 2024? Something is afoot...the book is a whole lotta nothing. It's air. It's a distraction. It knows this. Take a step back: this provides grounds for Bill's return. Aaaaarrrggghhh...please be something. The website is interesting. Thank Reddit for digging through it. Apparently we're missing something from the book...c'mon. The anticipation is killing me. But: I will leave this riddle to the people who have the time and energy to invest in this. Idk, would be funny if reading the book with a black light did show us anything. *pulls out pdf* anywho...
    
    Typed "lies", got "lie until you aren't lying anymore." Bill's backstory seems to be a recurring thread. How did he become this villain, and who was he before this? Is this chaos party what he wants, this thing between dimensions, this...idk.
31. Practice - Rosalind Brown - the plot: student is trying to write an essay on Shakespeare's sonnets. Takes place over the course of a day, offers insight into what she thinks about and the things happening in her life. She reads as a confused 20-something. Stream of consciousness. Every little detail is portrayed---I liked how the author chose to include the narrator using the bathroom. It broke up the book like how someone's actual life would be broken up. The narrator's daydreams are also part of the book. TLDR: simple book that does what it meant to do.
32. The Briar Club - Kate Quinn - if I didn't know it was written by Kate Quinn, I would have enjoyed it more. There are things I expect from a Kate Quinn novel, and this novel was lacking in most aspects. The stakes are low, there isn't much tying the book together---no ticking clock. These are character studies that are loosely tied together. On their own, they could have made good novels; combined, they're incoherent. I'm disappointed.
33. Life is Everywhere - Lucy Ives - abandoned. Infodumping at the start, again? I think this is supposed to be a view of what the narrator's reading, and then she jumps into infodumping about the narrator's colleagues. Too much exposition. I don't care to find out where the story is. Her prose is grating on my nerves; almost florid, trying to be fancy...? There's a poetry to it that ain't working.
34. Entering Hekate's Cave - Cyndi Brannen - self-help through the lens of witchcraft (particularly working with Hekate). The author draws on the experiences of her and her students. Most of the rituals are opportunities for self-reflection. I thought it was a solid book.
35. Impossible Views of the World - Lucy Ives - abandoned after 70pg (out of 287). It's not bad, it's just not compelling either. There's too much infodumping. I understand the author is trying to set up the world, but she's not doing a very good job of it. The narrator is interesting---she's a bit stagnant, but self-aware and frustrated, almost verging on middle-age crisis?. There's a lot of potential here.
36. A Couplet of Fools - Joyheart - a bit of a romcom. There's bog-standard miscommunication, jumping to conclusions, yada yada interpersonal issues. But: it's cute and funny and lighthearted.
37. Resolved - mothmanbelievesinyou - a lovely mix of humor and light-hearted angst. The stakes are low, but the stakes are there. The author's passion for debate comes through. I love all of the antics the crew gets up to; that debate between them at the end was <3. Love me some characters who are passionate about their interests.
38. Year of the Witch - Temperance Alden - this is an introduction to intuitive witchcraft. The author focuses on cycles, gives an overview of the wheel of the year, and talks about how she's adapted it to suit her practice. She's given me a few ideas—notably, using sigils when trying to change habits. I wouldn't say I have a concrete spiritual practice, but sigils are the one thing I consistently fall back on. That approach works for me.
39. Ultra-Processed People - Chris van Tulleken - na - falls somewhere between "interesting" and "annoying." The information may have too many anecdotes alongside it. The books feels unfocused; perhaps poorly written.
40. Yes, Chef - Marcus Samuelsson - n - forgettable. Reads like a list of accomplishments. All struggles are diminished. Lacking in detail. Surface-level boredom.
41. Unbearable Lightness - Portia de Rossi - n - memoir about anorexia. Nicely written. All anorexics are the same, more or less. If I said more, I'd be telling on myself and missing the point. So I won't.
42. The Dorito Effect - Mark Schatzker - nt - spoke about flavor dilution and nutritional dilution. Apparently, chickens used to have flavor. But flavor and nutrition—of produce and animals—has been lost in favor of higher yield, appearance, and shorter growth times. Really interesting book. One negative---strong focus on the Mediteranean diet is misguided.
43. Relish - Lucy Knisley - ng - cute memoir where the author reflects about cooking, food, and growing up. Pleasant read.
44. The Salt Fix - James DiNicolantonio - n - very easy to read. There's a bit of information that is continuously repeated, but this is because the arguments against salt were stupid to begin with. Includes a history of recommendations about salt & sugar intake. Balances the history of the case against salt with information about low-salt and high-salt diets. Overall okay book. One quibble—the appendix on salt content in particular foods cites webMD, Fox News, and other seemingly-random first-result-on-Google websites. Seriously?! You can (and, for most of the book, he does) do better than citing listicles.
45. CORDYCEPS - Benedict_SC - f - engaging read about antimemetics. The repetition (due to memory loss) isn't overdone. I enjoyed the gradual explanation of the world and why things were the way they were. Not particularly good, mind you, but not particularly bad either.
46. Breaking Up With Sugar - Molly Carmel - nd - has the tone of a self-help salesperson. Very annoying. Could be useful to someone; to me, though, what I read was useless (was hoping for info, not "I know you already know sugar iz bad").
47. The Saucier's Apprentice - Bob Spitz - np - he sounds like a showy salesman. What he's trying to sell me on is his story. He's trying to turn himself into this grand guy. Very fake, full of himself, and annoying beyond belief.
48. Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain - nt - fuckin' loved it. He captures the organized chaos of a kitchen. The pursuit of his craft is encapsulated in this book. He's honest, too—fucked around, made mistakes, moved on. Learned, maybe? This is autobiographical, sort of an extended resume. He portrays some interesting characters (ex. Adam no-last-name, now that's A Guy), and has clearly been around and learned a few things. The last section contrasted his kitchen with other kitchens; the foul-mouthed chaos is not representative of all kitchens. Very nice read.
49. Fast Like a Girl - Dr Mindy Pelz - n(t?) - a discussion of female hormones & fasting. Essentially, the average differences between men and women mean men and women need to have different approaches to fasting (to be successful). She breaks cycles down into four phases and notes when fasting is appropriate (and for what durations) and what kinds of foods one should be eating ("ketobiotic" vs "hormone feasting"). Her approach mirrors my experience with fasting, so I'd like to lean into her approach and see how well it works for me.
    
    I know this will sound dumb, but I was annoyed by her regular references to her Youtube channel and success stories. I get that her area of study is niche, and she has a plethora of n=1 evidence gathered. I just wish her evidence were more formal. Further research is needed, I guess (reminded of Sally Norton's work, in terms of "there's too much n=1 and not enough research has been done; could be onto something, but also start to sound like they're shilling their approach like a guy trying to sell ya something").
50. Egg - Lizzie Stark - nd - very tired of the sociocultural analysis of eggs. I just wanted a history of cooking with eggs.
51. My Alcoholic Escape from Reality - Nagata Kabi - ngda - she's doing the same style of story over and over again. Same kind of beats.
52. This Book Will Save Your Life - A. M. Homes - fd - lackluster character study of a man who breaks his routines and makes odd choices. I lost track of the plot and abandoned the book. The main character isn't very compelling.
53. But You Have Friends - Emilia Mackenzie - ng - insubstantial reflections. Personal, yet fails to reach the reader.
54. The Bear's Words of Wisdom - Owsley "The Bear" Stanley - n - He does say that "Salt is a chemical poison and should not be used," and goes on to claim meat has enough salt in it (?) and he has not had salt in 40yr. I find this dubious, since (gestures vaguely at other internet-forum people) anybody else who follows a low-carb diet seems to have learned how necessary salt is. Overall, though, browsing some 60y/o's posts about low-carb was interesting.
55. The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker - nv - he has a nice sense of humor, which rounds out a relatively informative book. He points out how extreme the blank slate stance is, then shows why it's incorrect. The section on children was interesting and may have proved his point most effectively. The section on gender had a lot of (succinct) overlap with The Essential Difference.
56. Lemon, Love, and Olive Oil - Mina Stone - nc - the three recipes I made from it (see cooking, 202406) were disappointing recipes which I would not make again. I do not understand how these recipes were so bland, but they were.
57. Gluttony - Francine Prose - nd - I hoped this would be similar to Sloth, by Wendy Wasserstein, since they're in the same series (a set of books on the seven deadly sins). It's not. This is reminiscent of Adam Phillips' writing; what I read focused on gluttony (or absence of) in the Bible.
58. Of Walks and Walking Tours - Arnold Haultain - nd - his anecdotes about walking are dry; he has nothing new to say.
59. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut - f - first chapter is an infodump, which turned me off.
60. Bad Science - Ben Goldacre - n - it was nice; can't remember why I dropped it. (I'm cleaning out old books right now; things I've abandoned and forgotten to note why).
61. Letters to Milena - Franz Kafka trans. Philip Boehm - n - nigh unreadable. Gives in to florid prose, overrun sentences, a bit of nonsense (just for good measure).
62. Sloth - Wendy Wasserstein - n - hilarious. Written like an (anti-)self-help book. "Here are all the reasons why being lazy is beneficial!" and so on. I'd recommend it to someone who enjoys satire and wants a laugh.
63. My Wandering Warrior Existence - Nagata Kabi - ng - hey, her art has improved! More details, and slightly distinct from standard manga style. The plot is lackluster; seems to have been created for the sake of creating something, instead of because she had something to say.
64. Our Nervous Friends - Robert S. Carroll - n - each chapter seems to describe a particular person with a set of troubles (symptoms a la anxiety & depression) and how they were solved. The writing is dry. Descriptive, clinical?, but dry.
65. Hints for Lovers - Arnold Haultain - n - a collection of aphorisms about women, men, and love. His perspective is balanced; he acknowledges the differences he perceives between men and women, but does not shit on or favor either group. His prose is pleasant. Third person, descriptive, talking about people's character. Many of his statements are disagreeable (see journal 0602), even if they do have some degree of accuracy. (see: BoJack Horseman clip about wanting a sex-mommy with work-life boundaries. Damn men (for not being woman)).
66. The Varmint - Owen Johnson - fdap - florid prose. Not adept at setting the scene. Lacking in necessary descriptions. Nnnnnnnnext!
67. From Hell - Alan Moore & Eddie Campbell - fgd - I like the art. It's scratchy; black lines create the textures. The setting (England, late 1800s) is nice; I like the griminess, and the formality of daily-wear. The plot bores me. It's a mystery, with elements of horror, yet this is not enough to compel me to keep reading. My sense of obligation compels me more than the book does. How odd! The natural choice is to abandon the book. I don't want to keep reading.
68. The Northern Caves - nostalgebraist - f(?) - had multiple elements which I enjoyed: the obsession of forum-posters in deciphering a novel. Reading this was not unlike reading posts to the House of Leaves forums. Several kinds of posters who you'd find on a typical forum appear here: that one person with All The Theories, the guy everyone hates but can't ban, the onlookers, the person who must argue, the onlooker who gets pulled in to something...yes, the author captured forum culture. The author also captured the sensible eccentricism of the author whose works are being analyzed. That author, Leonard Salby, has something which he is trying to do with his works; his novels encapsulate his peculiar worldview.
    
    The chapters are good. When taken as part of a whole, though, they become mediocre, if not bad. The plot seems aimless, incoherent---what was the author (nostalgebraist) trying to accomplish? The suicides mark the end of a sensible plot. Dare I say, they show a lack of continuity. Salbianism seems to exist alongside the real world; how could it kill people? I think an unresolved transformation of our core characters would have been more sensible. It is that connection to le real world which killed the story. (Same goes for the "hey let's make this gay"---that was out of nowhere, and irrelevant to the plot). This connection led to a rushed ending. Overall, not a bad use of time. The chapters are coated in a thin veneer of horror (horror may be too strong, perhaps only creepiness).
69. The High Desert - James Spooner - ngd - included many punk music recommendations. The art was a little bothersome---perspective / placement needed improvement. There were many panels where the background and foreground were confused, that is, something that was in the background is drawn as if it's in the foreground. I'm not describing this well.
70. In A Country of Mothers - A. M. Homes - f? - initially, the plot seemed obvious: therapist gave birth & kid was immediately put up for adoption, patient was adopted at birth, (more details) so the therapist could be the patient's mother. However, the last half or third of the book is strange. The patient develops an illness, which the therapist uses to become more involved in her patient's life. The therapist is revealed to be an unreliable narrator. The patient recognizes the destructive nature of her relationship with her therapist---to summarize something she says at one point, she wants the therapist out of her life but also wants the therapist to stay in her life. The author does a decent job at portraying how complicated people can be. I think the book could've been more coherent. The illness and her life at UCLA are quickly dropped, and the plot devolves into some muddled thing. I wouldn't dissuade someone from reading this book. Just---confused. The ending was unsatisfying.
71. How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - Arnold Bennett - nt - short and to-the-point. Could be useful to someone. To me, it was a reiteration of things I already knew, but could use some reminders of. Or: how should you spend your time? You say you have no time---what about those little pockets of time in the day, those ten minute gaps? and so on.
72. Heat - Bill Buford - nv - a journalist, looking to write an article, starts working in a kitchen. Eventually, he travels to Italy to learn pasta, then to learn to butcher. His time in the kitchen is interspersed with anecdotes about the chef of the kitchen he's working in (Mario Batali---talk about a colorful character!), culinary history, technique, and the food he's made. This book is detailed. I think I read it too quickly---it's something that should be savoured over a week or two, not binged in three or four days.
73. My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness - Nagata Kabi - ng - better than I expected. Short, but personal. The narrator deals with her problems, and develops as a person. She isn't perfect, and she isn't entirely better, but she does continue to get better.
74. The Guest Lecture - Martin Riker - fd - has potential, would've completed it if I had time to knowingly waste. Vaguely typical of some liberal academic, arguing about why we need to know the life of someone to assess their ideas, mix in a bit of modern politics. In a decade, I don't think this will be readable without context of this time period. There are many allusions to Trump's presidency. Could push myself to say more, or better comprehend, but why bother. I don't care about this book. I don't need to care about a book to be interested in it, but I'd rather read books that I want to keep reading instead of dragging myself through something that disinterests me. What's this, what's that, who cares. I'm losing a plot. The prose is not bad, but not good enough for me to read for the prose. The start of it reminded me of A Shining, by Jon Fosse, but---here's a redeeming point for one non-reader---this book has somewhere to go.
75. The Cipher - Kathe Koja - fa - writes obsession _almost_ well. Sideways of good. She has a style; do I just not like it, or is it not good? Or is it good, and I don't like it because I can't appreciate nice things? What bothers me: written as if she wants to write stream-of-consciousness but isn't certain that she can. Plot seems straightforward. Recalling her other book, Skin---the plot won't go anywhere. These two will devolve into their obsession, weakly, and that will be that. I will be left disappointed and unsatisfied. I'd suspect her short stories are better; read one in one horror lit mag, and it worked, because it was short and to the point.
76. The Philosophy of Plato - G. C. Field - n - did clarify a few aspects of Plato's philosophy. Plato's odd to read; I get that he has his own views, but how he argues is the most prominent aspect of his dialogues.
77. Enchiridion - nd - maybe I'm tired of Stoic life philosophy. "The Twilight of the Idols" came to mind, instead...controlling desires, I don't feel like letting my thoughts crystalize. Don't care.
78. Carnet de Voyage - Craig Thompson - ngd - someone's travel diary, whose words were uninteresting. However, I like his art, so it was nice to flip through. He mentions using brush pens, which probably contribute to his style. His shading is done via line density. Only using black on white makes his artwork bold. Somewhat fluid, somewhat angular.
79. Ink in Water - Lacy Davis and Jim Kettner - ng - art style was detailed; even the backgrounds were fully illustrated. Kettner's art is fluid, with smooth edges, yet has bold contrast. He uses every shade of gray to create art that was pleasing to my eye. Lacy's body changes throughout the book. One can see her fall into anorexia, and her recovery from it. Onto the plot. While the cover mentions body positivity, the author focuses on how she reframed her relationship with food and exercise. Crossfit seemed to mark a major turning point in her recovery process; she needed to eat more, and she had a reason to eat more. This isn't as good as Lighter Than My Shadow, by Katie Green, but it was a worthwhile read.
80. Loneliness - Clark E. Moustakas - nd - I was not interested in the anecdotes about loneliness. However, the chapter titled "Concepts of Loneliness" made a new (to me) point. Unfortunately, the book is too tainted by personal experience. The subsection on existential loneliness digressed into a tangent on hospitalized children feeling lonely.
81. Laches - Plato trans. Benjamin Jowett - n - here, his discussion of what we mean when we say a particular thing (in this case, the virtue of courage) is not petty. This is because there is a point: how can the souls of men be improved? In other words, understanding personal development. He does not establish what courage is, nor quite establish the how of personal development. That being said, it was a nice read. He gradually deconstructs the arguments being made, wishing to find concrete but universal terms to accurately represent what people mean when they say a particular thing.
82. The Essential Difference - Simon Baron-Cohen - n - discusses inherent differences in brains (scales: systematizing, empathizing), and how these differences tend to show up in males and females (males _tend to_ be better at systematizing, while females _tend to_ be better at empathizing). Also discusses autism as a possible example of the extreme male brain, and hypothesizes about the existence of the extreme female brain. He also examines this from a biological and evolutionary perspective. I did not know that there was a difference between genetic sex, gonodal sex, and genital sex (nor did I know there was more than genetic sex), so that was also interesting to read about. Overall, pretty decent read, very accessible to laypeople.
    
    There were a few questionaires in the appendices. I scored an 8 on the 'Empathy Quotient', and a 58 on the 'Systemizing Quotient' (both scored out of 80). Yeesh :| I did try to do the 'reading the mind in the eyes' test, but it felt like too much guesswork. Yes, I'm aware that 'guessing' is part of the point. I also found myself carefully examining each picture to try and deduce the proper emotion.
83. Charmides - Plato trans. Benjamin Jowett - npai - abandoned this twenty-three-page work after twelve pages. His most annoying---and dare I say fallacious?---dialogue so far. Plato's Socrates is caught up in petty squabbling. He seeks to prove another character wrong, and to get this other character to accept his conclusions. According to the introduction, this work investigates 'sophrosyne,' a word which is similar to accepting the bounds of human nature, restraining impulses, maintaining inner harmony, and not being arrogant. The translator seems to have translated this as temperance. Unfortunately, temperance is difficult to define. I'm left to think that people can work on being temperate, and may act temperate in different situations; however, can one's character be temperate? I think it may only be an ideal, and not a state of being.
84. Phaedo - Plato trans. Hugh Tredennick - ndi - too much discussion of the soul, and reliance on God, for me to take his arguments seriously. Abandoned partway through.
85. The Moral Equivalent of War and Other Essays - William James ed. John K. Roth - ni - this guy is an American, which may provide context for his claims.
    The Social Value of the College Bred - arguments: technical schools provide a man with a trade, which only allows him to judge the skill of people who perform the same trade. (Liberal arts) colleges provide people with a varied education, which allows them to judge the character of other men. The liberal arts college provides people with a wide skillset, while the technical college provides people with a narrow skillset. My response---why does primary and secondary education (the precursors to a college education!) not provide one with this wide skillset? I'm skimming the rest of the essay. I think arguments about democracy, and the ability to judge others' character, are missing the point. Do we need to be taught to judge others' character? Do we need to be taught to think for ourselves? We tend to do these things as children---think of the three year old who already keeps questioning authority, albiet poorly. Do adults need to be reminded to do this? Has the skill been lost---perhaps during primary/secondary education? Nowadays, liberal arts institutions, and liberal arts classes at many institutions (I can only speak for American colleges, of the three I've attended) tend to be homogenous places. One is taught---beaten, really---into accepting new ideas. 'Free thinking' has nothing to do with thinking. Then, teach students to judge others' character based on their acceptance of these new ideas. Now, people may/do benefit from learning more about the world, but why wait until college to do so? Should we not spend primary/secondary school expanding our pre-existing skills (ability to judge the world), instead of bashing ourselves into believing one thing or another? My arguments, and his, are not good arguments. His other essays/works may have more value; I am not, at this time, interested in verifying this.
86. Crito - Plato trans. Hugh Tredennick - nt - a conversation between Socrates and Crito, concerning Socrates' impending death. Crito offers Socrates a way out. Plato begins by bringing up Crito's arguments; he has Socrates examine an abstract question (his principles, which opinions do we value, accepting judgements of authority), and then applies these abstract questions to Socrates' case (is Socrates above the law?). I appreciated Plato's 'Socrates' pointing out how Socrates has clearly accepted the gov't he is ruled by, thus, he is not above the law. Going against his principles would render his life's work meaningless. Crito was easier to read, and understand, than Socrates' Defense.
87. Socrates' Defense (Apology) - Plato trans. Hugh Tredennick - n - when he was discussing the "wisest man," I thought it satire, until he reached his point. This personification of Socrates established his righteousness by pointing out inconsistencies & contradictions in others' logic. Sort of: if x, then y, but y is false, therefore x is false. It is a bit dry and repetitive, despite its short length.
88. The Twilight of the Idols - Friedrich Nietzsche trans. Anthony M. Ludovici - na
    Maxims and Missiles - a collection of aphorisms. I dislike aphorisms. They may be short and to the point, but the reader is left to decipher the reasons why the speaker says what he says, and what he is saying. They're far too open to interpretation; easily twisted into saying one thing or another. Some of what he says can be food for thought, but the value comes from being forced to think; this is relatively independent of the text. Feels more fellatory than useful (to others).
    
    The Problem of Socrates -

    It is a piece of self-deception on the part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that they can extricate themselves from degeneration by merely waging war upon it.

    I'm not sure that I know enough about Nietzsche to understand his criticisms of Socrates. It seems like he's railing against Socrates' obsession with reason, sees this as a degeneration; claiming this degeneration has something to do with denying man's instincts? I am confused.
    
    "Reason" in Philosophy - after claiming that philosophers, by divorcing ideas from their history, mummify concepts:

    These idolaters of concepts merely kill and stuff things when they worship,—they threaten the life of everything they adore.

    ...dude sounds like an edgelord. (later) has he moved on to claiming that philosophers reject the senses, and the possibility of change? Ffs. This essay feels like a pointless tirade. Or I don't get him.

    One. The reasons upon which the apparent nature of “this” world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other kind of reality defies demonstration.

    Either he's finally saying something clearly, or he's saying something that I can misinterpret into something I already believe.
    
    Morality as the Enemy of Nature - (I'll admit, before diving into this, that I find Nietzsche annoying. He seems to dance around the points he wants to make, obfuscate his points, and spends more time claiming he is right than proving he is right). Well, I'll give him credit for having an actionable point. I am very used to a denial, or taming, of nature---trapped in vaguely moralistic lists of what I should and should not do. He rejects these shoulds; they are an enemy of our nature. He doesn't seem to claim that we should just do whatever; rather, we should understand our urges, and choose whether or not to act on them (instead of trying to deny them altogether). This is new to me. This is also the first worthwhile essay in the book.
    
    The Four Great Errors - skimmed. Essay focused on how people may falsely attribute an effect to a particular cause.
    
    The "Improvers" of Mankind - claims that there is no such thing as a moral fact. I'm abandoning here. "Skirmishes in a War with the Age" appears to be a set of his judgements of others; barely an improvement on "Maxims and Missiles."
    
    "Things I Owe to the Ancients" - (liked title, so wanted to read, then dropped. Nietszche is a bit self-obsessed? ).

    My taste, which is perhaps the reverse of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say Yea, it would prefer to say Nay, and better still nothing whatever.

89. The End of Alice - A. M. Homes - f(?) - the writing was nice, at times. Bordered on being unnecessarily repetitive. The author captured something. I'm left confused, dissatisfied, not unlike the narrator. Something about his misperceptions of the person he was writing to. I'm so tired. Her---was she named and I forgot her name? The college student whom he was writing to---sexual escapades were dissatisfying to her, and began to border on unnecessary (with Matt's father, was that part of the story, or a bit of the author's imagination?). Was this an unreliable narrator? I don't get it. There were too many threads to keep an eye on---the bits of the narrator's mother, and present (with the people in prison), the narrator's past (as pertaining to Alice, and that other girl he mentioned, the one he raped), and the girl he was writing to, and the letters. Seemed scattered. Was it bad, or okay and missed its full potential? There was too much going on, that was for sure. Could've refined it. Needs improvement.
90. Wisdom of the West - Bertrand Russell - ntd - not what I was looking for. Would recommend to someone who wants to learn about the history of philosophy. There is a lot of good information in here, I think. He's arguing that philosophy originated from the Greeks. Right now, I'm looking for something that will help me get a better idea of which philosophers I want to read more about; this ain't it. As I write this, I'm realizing that ethics and philosophies of life are what I'm looking for.
    
    also: too many pictures! Feels informal. Writing is nice, though, very to-the-point.
91. On Getting Better - Adam Phillips - nd - while what I read reminded me of a few things I think about, I didn't get much use out of it. I was left to skim the start of several essays, none of which caught my eye. Too much Freud.
92. A Woman in the Polar Night - Christiane Ritter trans. Jane Degras - nd
93. Disorientation - Elaine Hsieh Chou - f - would've been better if she trimmed ~10-20%. She starts to lose her point. Satire of academia, liberal arts, and progressive ideologies. Reminded me of Bunny, by Mona Awad, which had the same sort of 'assimilate with the enemy, exit (pursued by bear).' Academia eating itself alive.
94. Y/N - Esther Yi - f - I get what she's going for, and it ain't my cuppa. I know fans and fandoms too well to enjoy this.
95. Vladimir - Julia May Jones - fp - annoying. Too straightforward. Have some subtlety, and give me something to look forward too, mmk?
96. A Guide to Philosophy in Six Hours and Fifteen Minutes - Witold Gombrowicz trans. Benjamin Ivy - np - by reading parts of this, I have cemented my belief that phenomenology and metaphysics are of no use to me. It gave me a vague exposure to Kant and Schopenhauer. Mentioning Heidegger and Sartre in the same passage seems wrong; what I've read of Heidegger consisted of worthless wordplay, while Sartre had shit to say about values and the choices we make. The book consists of bullet points and short passages---reads like a set of semi-detailed lecture notes, starting points for someone to elaborate on, than a book meant for publication.
97. Drifts - Kate Zambreno - fp - novel is aptly named. Seems like the author collected all of the fragments she'd written, reflections on her life?, and published them. Utterly pointless.
98. Alison - Lizzy Stewart - fg (t?) - I thought that this was a memoir. The narrator, Alison, reflects on the life she's lived. She married a man at 18, and spent a few melancholy years with him. At 20, she left him for an affair with Patrick, a 40-something year-old artist. He brings her into the art world, acting as both a teacher and lover. She is vaguely dissatisfied with the relationship. She doesn't know what she wants. As she grows older, she realizes that he wants an impossibility, and the person who she has evolved into is not compatible with his vision. She is meandering and directionless and makes her way, somehow---this is what bothered me. I wanted to see her clearly go somewhere, and not somehow, coincidentally, get somewhere. Then again, maybe that has something to do with life experience. One can't always say "I'm gonna do thing and develop x, y, z traits"---just go along, and they'll come with time, as a result of your experiences. Maybe the answer is to seek out experiences that could give you the opportunity to become what you want to be. Does she? She ends up an artist by accident, and Patrick guides her to be consumed by art.
99. The Loser - Thomas Bernhard trans. Jack Dawson - f - I've abandoned it, but I'd like to try more of his books. The prose is stream-of-consciousness. It's slightly repetitive (as one's thoughts are), and it isn't overwhelming. He has a nice balance of (several page?) long sentences and short sentences. I could immerse myself in what he was saying without feeling overwhelmed, or lost. His prose, despite being translated, is why I'd like to give him another shot. The plot---or lack thereof---is why I dropped the book. This book is a meditation on failure, people who are better than (you), and misanthropy. The unnamed-narrator reflects on his friends, one of whom died of a stroke, and the other whom killed himself shortly after. What brought these people together? Why did they stay together? Who were they, to themself and each other?---these are the questions the narrator ruminates on. These ruminations were pointless, that is, they went nowhere and said nothing significant. I don't see this changing. Not quite my cuppa.
100. 52 Ways to Walk - Annabel Streets - n - significantly more gimmick-y than her later books. The book is clearly a predecessor to Windswept, as she quotes many of the woman she discussed in that book. She still cites studies. The 'reason' for this book started with her hearing that the average American walked 1.3 miles a week; this shows. She doesn't discuss much of her life. Each chapter reads like an internet article. Here's a thing, here's some studies supporting it, and move on. (Damn, by writing this, I talked myself into dropping it. Time to look for her other works).
101. Reinhardt's Garden - Mark Haber - f - remarks, at ~29%: I need this to go somewhere. Where can it go?---perhaps the narrator, becomes disillusioned with Jacov, or Jacov is disillusioned by his own obsession with melancholy. The narrator has claimed to be dying, though I've already forgotten why. The stream of consciousness has not worn me down; it is okay. It could be better. Jacov's obsession with melancholy seems disconnected from the real world. So what if dust can represent, or be related to, melancholy? Is this, like Saint Sebastian's Abyss, meant to be satirical? A man, Jacov, who has dedicated his life, or at least twenty years of it, to understanding melancholy; he is followed by another man who is enamoured by Jckov's passion for melancholy. I need this to not be a nothingburger.
     
     Come ~35%, he has only continued to get on my nerves. Jacov's remarks on translation say something about his character. What, and how this relates to the book, I cannot see. We have another man who elevates himself above all others. We have a man who elevates this man---fuels his obsessions, and his narcissism? The themes of obsession / passion and being better than other people appeared in Saint Sebastian's Abyss (SSA). SSA did a better job at executing these themes. There was a plot, there was a point (multiple points), and these points were made. There was a clock, too. Here, the point---if there is one---has been obfuscated, and there is no clock (no sense of pacing, no urgency). The characters are searching for someone, yet this search has not been mentioned since page one. I am frustrated. I am annoyed. The author has another book that's scheduled to be released in October. SSA was an improvement on his previous work; perhaps, third time's the charm?
102. On Wanting to Change - Adam Phillips - n - intro notes change as a fact which one wants to exert control over. Second essay, titled "Surprise Changes," contained most of the interesting bits. How conversion relates to the self---conversion as resolving self-conflict, conversion as revising what one has (and not building something entirely new), dependency on an exterior force to provide the conversion. Fourth essay, titled "Believe it or Not," had interesting parts on Socrates and his way of life; be like him by not being him, -ish.

     As always, then, to put it schematically, when it comes to conversion there are four questions: what is to be converted, who or what is going to do the converting, how is the converting to be done, and what is the intended (or presumed) result?

103. Saint Sebastian's Abyss - Mark Haber - f? - good Merlin. This was what I wanted from the book; I'm writing after finishing, wondering if my thoughts need a moment to coalesce. There are three characters, each with equally strong personalities. These characters each have obsessions. The book is a character study, and a study on the relationship between the narrator and his (former) friend. The two characters bonded over an obsession with a particular painting, and their interest in art criticism. The narrator made an innocuous comment (at an art panel); this comment destroyed their friendship. A decade (or more?) later, the narrator goes to visit his friend, who is on his deathbed. They reconcile, in one sense. The book's ending is open to interpretation. I don't understand the initials. I don't understand what it was that caused the narrator to lose interest in the painting. I understand this in an abstract sense---I do know what it's like to obsess over a piece of media, and (to one day) look on it without the sense of wonder I once held.
     
     Also. The author could benefit from learning how to use commas. His run-on sentences obfuscate his points. He's attempting to write impassioned diatribes. This is lost. The book is tedious. I didn't get the humor that others seem to have found.
104. The Longcut - Emily Hall - fp - take the vagueness and prose from Jon Fosse's A Shining. Now make the narrator into a photographer who is thinking about her art. It is incredibly repetitive and dull. The first 20% of the book did not make a point; I skipped ahead, reading sections ~60%, ~80%, and ~90%. These sections were similarly lacking. I hoped that the narrator's thoughts would go somewhere useful (to her). Instead, I saw her reject borders and boundaries (and a bit of meaning, while she was at it). I hoped I would see her realize the errors of her approaches to her questions; she did not. She fixates on the wrong details. She's obsessed with categories, yet they serve no purpose. She's an artist, yet she can't even find, “the answer to the question of what [her] work was." Ffs, even middle-school me could tell you why I wrote, who my audience was, and what I was trying to accomplish. I don't understand how someone can create art without knowing why. This book had potential, but failed to do anything worthwhile.
105. Penance - Eliza Clarke - fp - utter let-down (when compared to her debut, Boy Parts). This dragged. And dragged. And dragged. It is written in the style of true-crime nonfiction, albiet fictional. The narrator provides an egregious amount of background information (on the characters, their parents, the places they've been); whether or not this served a purpose, I will not see. The interviews captured how annoying teenage girls can be. Supposedly, this book was full of unreliable narrators, yet how dry everything is (even as I started to skip around) has turned me away from finding out how unreliable these people are. What a waste.
106. Heavens to Betsy - Charles Earle Funk - n - medium-quality, did what research he could (and acknowledged the book's shortcomings), prose was to-the-point and occasionally humorous.
107. The Infinite Wait (and other stories) - Julia Wertz - ng - a collection of three short stories (graphic memoir novellas?). Contained her trademark sense of humor. Not outstanding, but still enjoyable.
108. For When Everything is Burning - Scott Eilers - n - I do not want to say that I got something out of this. I do not want to say that it helped me reframe an unsolvable problem into a solvable one. kalsdfj/
109. A Preparation for Death - Greg Baxter - nt - lovely. He is straightforward, honest, and resigned to himself.
110. Nicomachean Ethics - Aristotle trans. - np~ - annoying. For one, the existence of a "soul" cannot be proven or disproven. Any arguments about it are worthless. Any arguments that follow from some definition of what the soul "dictates" are similarly worthless; they are built on false premises. Indeed, the primary reason why he has annoyed me into abandoning his work is because he continuously begins from false premises. He introduces his premise, then twists words into supporting his premise, then uses the premise to bring about a (false) conclusion.
     
     He also comes across as ignorant of human behavior. I understand wanting to think the best of everybody. However, one cannot assume that one's actions are representative of his/her character. One can behave in a "virtuous" manner, yet one may do so to deceive others. Is this person still a good person? Is this indicative of virtue?---I think not. Actions are key, but they are not the entire story (so to say). Another note: he speaks of "happiness" as an action; it is an emotion. (This may be related to the translation itself.)
     
     In the first section---which I read a month ago, so forgive my upcoming errors. He was writing about direction, focus, and why choosing a direction is better than not doing so. There is only so much we can learn in life; it's better to do one thing well, and intentionally, than to do many things poorly. Depth over breadth. He then argues that politics encompasses all areas of knowledge (the arts and the sciences), thus, it is the most good . . ? This is irrelevant and detrimental to his argument.
111. The Tell-Tale Brain - V. S. Ramachandran - n - I'm not sure where he's going with this. What he has to say (so far) has been speculation based on case studies. The populations are too small. Sure, the look into fixing issues related to phantom limbs was interesting, but what's the point?---skipped ahead, and then he's spending too much time talking about mirror neurons. Old territory.
112. The Customer is Always Wrong - Mimi Pond - fg - nice art, fine writing, but not my cuppa tea. The plot was lacking. The characters, while colorful, weren't people I could be invested in. Wow, these people are doing drugs. Wow, someone was murdered. The color palette was nice, and I love how her art has personality. I can't put a finger on it---the edges are soft, and there's detail, and the people don't look copy-pasted between panels.
113. The Doors of Perception - Aldous Huxley - np - fulfilled its purpose. Offered nothing of value (to me). Wow, drugs sure do mess with one's perception of the world!
114. Feeling & Knowing - Antonio Damasio - n~ - The author has not explicitly said anything. He isn't citing sources, or specific details; merely providing us with a vague idea of what consciousness might be. Poorly written. I've abandoned it without second thought.
115. It's Lonely at the Centre of the Earth - Zoe Thorogood - ngp - It's not quite bad, but it's not quite good where it could be. Her art is lacking in detail. So is her life. 182pg PDF, and of what? Someone who is lonely (but has friends) and is/was suicidal and wanted to convince herself that things could change. This is vomit. It has no point. "Future of comics" my ass.
116. The Man Who Wasn't There - Anil Ananthaswamy - nt - the author uses various disorders to investigate what the "self" is. He looks at disorders where one's sense of self is disrupted. For example, individuals with body identity integrity disorder feel a profound sense that a particular part of their body does not belong to them. This may arise from a disconnect between the brain's map of the body and the body itself---for example, one's leg literally does not feel like it is a part of them. The section on ecstatic seizures was also of interest. While I have not had a seizure, I have experienced a sensation similar to what these patients described. I did not know that other people had felt this. The sensation, in question, is this extreme sense of awareness of oneself and their surroundings in an incredibly positive manner. It is harmony between oneself and the world around them. Everything makes sense. This is a near-mystical moment of pure bliss.
117. Subnormality - fgv - I've been reading this for the past two months. The first, say, fifty comics are rough. The illustrator is finding his feet, and figuring out what he wants to express. Then. Then. The recurring characters begin to emerge, and the author's views on life become prominent, and everything is just lovely. I love Ethel, and the pink-haired woman, and the Sphynx. These three are what make the comic so fucking good. I enjoyed getting to see each of the characters evolve. They started from one place, and they improved, and they became close(r) to each other. Taking the time to read each comic was worth it. There's more to say, for sure, but for now... <3
118. Bad Girl in the Box - Tim Curran - f - low quality. The author tried to make up for the deficits; it's a trashy novel and he thinks plating it in gold might hide the filth. It can't. There are too many characters. Bria and her family are the most important part of the story, yet they're hidden amongst countless other families. The sections about the Dark Castle added nothing. Shame. The book had a strong start, yet I abandoned it partway through.
119. Pure, White, and Deadly - John Yudkin - n - easy to read. The book does feel a bit scattered—he goes over what human ancestors may have even, the history of sugar, how sugar is made/processed, sugar's lack of nutritional value, and a variety of health issues with are closely related to diet. It's not particularly dense. While I could go so far as to say that the book is lacking in data, he does acknowledge this shortcoming. Mixing facts with opinions (as he does) seems complacent; again, he acknowledges this and (appropriately) defends his reasons for doing so. I'm not certain that a 41-person study which supports the opinions one already has would be the best source of data. Shortcomings, indeed.
120. Unmasked - Andy Ngo - nt - when I'd read The MAGA Diaries, I'd wondered if someone could write a similar expose of the Democrats. This does a dang good job of doing so. But Nobody, it's about Antifa! Yes, well, Antifa are left-wing extremists. And damn, do the author's accounts of his experiences with Antifa shed a damning light. "Unorganized peaceful protestors" my ass. "The violent ones have nothing to do with this." This is an organized paramilitary group! Antifa is decentralized, but that doesn't mean it has no organization whatsoever. His accounts make some events seem obvious, in hindsight. How could (we) have been led to believe that these black-bloc masses were a coincidence? That all of this was just happenstance? Anywho. Nice, factual, non-emotional reporting. All written by someone with a lot of personal experience with being targeted by Antifa.
121. Meditations - Marcus Aurelius trans.? - n - while not particularly dense, the constant topic-switching does make it difficult to read. It does not feel like it was written for an audience who was not the author. The constant search for an obtainable tranquility is interesting. I also liked how he began by discussing what he had learned from the people around him.
122. The River of Consciousness - Oliver Sacks - n - I was interested in "Speed" and "The Creative Self," and skimmed "Mishearings," "Freud as Neurologist," and "Scotoma." "Speed" had some nice sections about our perception of time; I particularly enjoyed his discussion of temporal disorders (ex. Parkinson's) where there is a genuine difference in how people experience time.
123. The Elements of Style - William Strunk Jr. & E. B. White - n - concise. Can see why it has received acclaim.
124. How to Write a Sentence - Stanley Fish - n - his focus on overly-complex sentences began to annoy me. Yes, one can focus on the role words play in each sentence. Showing off is merely an irritating way to obfuscate meaning.
125. The Letters of Sylvia Plath (vol. 2) - Sylvia Plath ed. Peter Steinberg & Karen Kukil - n - not remotely interesting. Skimmed many. Most were recounting minor events to her mother.
126. Starship Troopers - Robert Heinlein - f - the first half focused on military training, with a handful of classroom discussions. I enjoyed that part. However, once training is over, it's time for war. The author recounts the war in the most dry manner possible.
127. A Guide to the Good Life - William B. Irving - nv - very accessible introduction to Stoicism. He touches on its history while reminding readers that it is still relevant to today. He discusses both what the philosophy is and how to practice it. Nice read.
128. Suicide Club - Rachel Heng - f - I dislike utopia-with-hidden-problems settings. The whole utopia/dystopia genre ain't my cuppa. This is no exception. Abandoned after fifty pages.
129. Dept. of Speculation - Jenny Offil - f~ - I could be courteous and say that this book was trying to be philosophical and failed. This is a series of anecdotes---technically a set of letters a wife wrote to her husband---without much substance to them. It's a mirage: there is something vaguely there, not remotely crystalized. The prose wasn't offputting (I like the reflective tone), but the lack of substance convinced me to not finish the book.
130. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas trans. unknown - f - this is an abridged edition from Signet Classic. As it is a 500+ page tome, I did not realize it was abridged until I saw a piece of fine print informing me it is such. I enjoyed the first quarter of the novel, and abandoned it after two-thirds of the novel. I liked reading about his friendship with Faria. I liked reading about his time at the Chateau d'If, and I enjoyed reading about his escape. Once the scene where Caderousse explains what happened in Dantès' absence had passed, though, the book dissolved into a vast array of characters and family conflict which I had no interest in reading about. Dantès' revenge is intricate, and I don't care for it. I do like his capacity for hard work and envy his charisma. Interesting character.
131. The Unit - Adam Gamal & Kelly Kennedy - n - easy read about a military guy who works in a secret unit. I wanted him to discuss the selection process in more detail. This book was composed of many tidbits of his past and the work he's done. It's more about being a hardworking immigrant than being involved in the military; I suspect the military aspects were vague because of the nature of his work. Part of me raises an eye—if his work is so secret, why is there a book on it?—but I had fun reading it anyways.
132. Deep Work - Cal Newport - n - I cannot stand self-help books. This book was not an exception. Skimming over a few summaries gave me the idea that I wouldn't learn anything new from it.
133. Goodbye, Eri - Tatsuki Fujimoto - fgp - utter shitshow of a plot. Incoherent, pointless, cliche. Tries to be clever; fails. The one redeeming point is how some frames resemble a shaky camera. This is redemption because it shows one thing the author was trying to do—how can one represent a moving picture in manga?
     
     I wish I had someone to film.
134. Demian - Herman Hesse trans. Michael Roloff & Michael Lebeck - ft - I did not like the book very much. The author implicitly puts forth spiritual explanations for human behavior (particularly near the end) and puts too much stock in fate. That being said, it contains some ideas which made me think. While I dislike the idea of destiny, the idea of aligning one's actions with oneself—just call it authenticity, you dolt!—is something that has been on my mind. There are the things we want, and there are the things we do. I still believe that one's actions say more about them than their thoughts. He touches on this, but takes it a step too far—I'm reminded of the ideas of "universal oneness." I also find myself increasingly certain that humanity is earned, and not a mere consequence of inhabiting a human body.
     
     Another point: he seems to write about uniting opposites. Not about finding a midpoint between two opposing concepts; instead, embodying two opposing concepts. This seems wrong.
     
     pg59—Demian's "will" has nothing to do with the pastor's behavior. The pastor is aware that something is out of place; I'd suspect that he doesn't care to identify what's wrong, or he doesn't see reason to tell Demian to return to his original seat. How could Demian's will be what's stopping the pastor from commenting on his change of seat?
     
     One can have desires which they are subconsciously acting on, and then realize what their desires are. I don't think one's subconscious will being aligned with another's subconscious will is what causes one's desire to be realized. Actually, my previous sentence sounds wrong. The way Demian attributes other people's behaviors to his will seems wrong (to me). But I, like the pastor, cannot yet put my finger on "why."
     
     I do not understand why Sinclair started drinking. One page he's having wine and opening up to a peer; the next page, he's muttering about having laid his life to waste and enacting self-destructive bar crawls. Aaaaand then he sees a beautiful woman (whom he never speaks to) and cleans up his act.
135. The Faraway Nearby - Rebecca Solnit - n - her prose is fine. The themes which have emerged—dealing with an elderly mother, grief—are not of interest to me.
136. Dopamine Nation - Anna Lembke - n - very meh. I'm not certain that I learned anything new from it (though I did get a glimpse at the neuroscience behind some things I've been thinking about. Indulgence is a key topic). It could be useful for people who aren't aware of what addiction can look like. It could also be useful for people who aren't aware of how pain/pleasure work (in our bodies).

     “About a year into my new obsession with romance, I found myself up at 2:00 a.m. on a weeknight reading Fifty Shades of Grey. I rationalized it was a modern-day telling of Pride and Prejudice—right up until I got to the page on “butt plugs” and had a flash of insight that reading about sadomasochistic sex toys in the wee hours of the morning was not how I wanted to be spending my time.”

     The 'flash of insight' is the important part of this quote. Seriously. Realizing that the thing you're doing is not how you want to be spending your time can help you quit.
137. Men of Mathematics: The Lives and Achievements of the Great Mathematicians from Zeno to Poincare - E. T. Bell - n - remarkable. It is both "well-written" and "dry." Each twenty-page chapter is a brief account of the life and work of a particular mathematician. These are Wikipedia pages with personality.
138. Windswept: Walking the Paths of Trailblazing Women - Annabel Abbs - n - a second book by hers which is part memoir, part history. It's a meditation on the lives of a few women who took month-long walks to find themselves. She recreated a few of their walks, and reflects on her life. I genuinely enjoyed her ability to mix history, science, and her life together to tell a coherent set of stories. (Yes, there is science explaining why we feel better in nature. Phytoncides, and the increased oxygen in forrested areas, are part of it). She's left me contemplating a month-long walk.
139. Blood - Jen Gunter - n - I picked this up in hopes that the chapter on endometriosis would be of use. The chapter was both useless and misleading. Oral contraceptives has not been proven to be effective treatment for endometriosis. She loosely acknowledges this, but points out that such pills have reduced pain; as pain is a common symptom of endometriosis, people should not discount medication which reduces it. My experiences with oral contraceptives have been tainted with side effects that made my life worse. The pills weren't even kind enough to reduce my pain; even if they had, the side effects would negated any benefit. I am still inclined to agree with those who say oral contraceptives mask endometriosis. Her only valid counterpoint is that oral contraceptives can slow (but not halt) progression of the disease.
     
     I have a second grievance with her list of treatments. While Depo-Provera is effective at treating pain, it comes with a black-box warning. One can only use it for two years because it increases the risk of osteoporosis. Like any other medical treatment, it has a list of short term side-effects. Bleed, by Tracey Lindeman, did cover the issues with using Depo-Provera, oral contraceptives, and IUDs to 'treat' endometriosis.
     
     Third grievance: we do not need to rewrite medical terminology to 'dismantle the patriarchy.' Calling a vagina some other word---due to the word's roots---would confuse people and be little more than ineffectual moral grandstanding. What is so patriarchal about sticking a penis inside a vagina? It's a time-honored tradition. (I've even heard that people enjoy it).
140. The Man Who Loved Only Numbers - Paul Hoffman - n - parts of this are a biography of Paul Erdős, who made significant contributions to number theory, graph theory, discrete math, and another unsurpassable hodgepodge of topics. Erdős frequently collaborated with others---one might describe him as a travelling mathematician---so this turns into a 'who's who' of 20th-century mathematics (with many nods on mathematicians before then). The biography meandered. I'd be reading about a math problem, then I'd be reading about the history of Hungary (where Erdős was from), then I'd be reading about Erdős' collaborations with another person. I do not like number theory, and generally despise discrete math, so found myself bored by large sections of the book. Erdős' eccentricity was what made this book readable. He is an utterly fascinating guy who seemed to live in a world tangential to ours; be it the workings of his brain (juggling multiple math conversations at once), the language he uses (ex. the Supreme Fascist, or SF, for (a) God; referring to children as 'epsilons'), or how much he struggled with the material world. He might as well have been doing math all-day every-day until the moment he died. (Hardy claimed that maths was a young man's game; Erdős easily disproved this).
141. Do Humankind's Best Days Lie Ahead? - Steven Pinker & Matt Ridley; Alain de Bottom & Malcolm Gladwell - n - a transcription of a debate concerning the titular question. The "cons" seemed to keep missing the points the "pros" were making, all while claiming that the "pros" were dodging the question. The "pros"—Pinker & Ridley arguing that humankind's best days do lie ahead—focused on global trends. They pulled out their facts and science and statistics to show that life, on average, is improving. Neither of them genuinely rejected the existence of individual problems. Sure, one could still be bludgeoned to death while walking home. One cannot account for every facet of human behavior. Bad actors cannot be eradicated. The "cons"—Gladwell and de Bottom—seemed to use the possibility of bad actors as reason to think humankind's best days do not lie ahead. This argument misses the point. The worst can always happen, and the "pros" did not deny this. The "cons" seemed to think the "pros" were arguing for a perfect future. This is a bad-faith interpretation of their argument.
142. Come In - Robert Frost; selection & commentary by Louis Untermeyer - ft - his poems are plain. Some have a clear meter, while others feel conversational; perhaps there is a meter to those which I do not pick up on. I don't like his poetry---what I read bored me; too mundane, nothing grabbed my attention---but I can see why his poetry has lasted. He's able to draw (a reader's) attention to a detail and tell a story about nothing much. He doesn't get wrapped up in uncommon words, turns of phrases, or complicated anything. Very straightforward.
     
     Untermeyer's commentary made this poetry collection significantly more bearable than the average collection. He begins with a brief biography of Robert Frost before he introduces his poems. Each poem comes with a short introduction which provides some context, an explanation, or draw's attention to what the poem is about. I'd rec it to someone who liked poetry and mundane life.
143. A Mathematician's Apology - G. H. Hardy - n - C. P. Snow's forward provides some context on Hardy; they knew one another. Hardy focuses on a few questions: what makes mathematics worthwhile? What makes a proof beautiful? When is math significant? What impact can math have? He also touches on ambition, and the immortality which math offers. He touches on the creativity of math, all while coming back to ideas which ring true to me, notably: what good is (something) if it has no impact on others? Math which exists in a void is useless, but developing math leads to more developments; perhaps something which seemed to exist in a void led to the development of math which does not.
144. In an Absent Dream - Seanan McGuire - f - a standalone novel from another series. The comparisons on the back cover read true; I was reminded of wardrobes and rabbit holes. Pleasant read that draws on the tradition of children wandering into worlds they shouldn't be in. There are a lot of time-skips, but they're suitable; the details of a past year matter less than each aftermath.
     
     bonus points: the narrator was reading Trixie Belden! That was one of my favorite mystery series (when I was a kid).
145. Sleepless - Annabel Abbs-Streets - n - I wanted an easy, bullshit read. A book subtitled "unleashing the subversive power of the night self" seemed promising. The author reflects on her experiences with insomnia; her bout followed the death of two family members (and a puppy). I was pleasantly surprised by the book. While I wasn't fond of her distinction between the day and night selves, I see how this is a useful framing device. Bonus points for detailed descriptions. She moves between what she's read about sleep and her own life. Her reading about how specific women used insomnia was interesting; she draws on a history of women using the night time to create (be it painting, writing, or researching).
     
     I wonder if the consequences of insomnia vary depending on one's waking hours. She starts to touch on this—21hr of darkness, or 24hr in some parts of the world at some times of year (I think I'd like to experience that)—not widely applicable, and not interesting enough for me to look elsewhere.
146. Tiananmen 1989 - Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, and Améziane trans. Edward Gauvin - fg - one of the authors notes that this is a relatively true-to-life retelling with some invented characters. What it says on the tin. The artist used a nice, dull color palette.
147. Speaker for the Dead - Orson Scott Card - fv - a proper novel with themes. He shows off his maturity as a writer. As of half-way through, he seems to focus on these questions:
     • What drives someone? Who is someone trying to be?
     • How do the communities we are/aren't a part of influence us?
     • How does guilt influence people?
     • How do we talk about the dead? How do we remember the (recently) deceased?
     • How do you study a sentient alien species? How do you study their culture without influencing them?
     • If there is a God, what role should it play? Are individuals owed by God?
     Footnote: something about Ender as a Christ-like figure. He is both the Xenocide and an incarnation of pure good. His goodness is repeatedly emphasized throughout the novels I've seen him in (this being the fourth). Still, his legacy as the Xenocide lives on, nearly 3000 years after the buggers were defeated.
148. Snuff - Chuck Palahniuk - fp - ya like the porn industry? What a waste of a novel. Palahniuk's style is barely present; the prose could've been anybody's. Sure, the topic is a little bizarre—porn actor sets out for a record-breaking gang bang—but not really. Is there a point to this novel? (If there is, I've missed it). Does he have a story to tell? Reads like something some edgy teen pumped out in a week. Four underdeveloped narrators, a bucket-load of porn title puns, and a shrug of a story. At least it's a quick read.
149. Into a Silent Land - Paul Broks - n - A peregrination through neuropsychology, patients with disordered brains, and philosophy. He'll offer up an anecdote about a patient and use that to talk about another aspect of neuropsychology; he'll meander back to the patient, perhaps a minute mention of his own life, some other tidbit about the world, and a philosophical tangent. Glimpses of information interspersed with glimpses of life. "What is the self?" may be his primary question. He thinks through the differences between the brain, mind, and self. He offers no answers; merely a collection of (interesting) ruminations that go from one nowhere to another nowhere. The book is a bit of a haze. A pleasant read nonetheless.
     
     Interesting quote:

     As a student I had tutorials with the famous psychiatrist Anthony Storr. He was a relaxed teacher, very charming, and I'm sure I learned something about psychotherapy. But all I can recall is one of his thought experiments.
     
     He asked us to consider how often we swallow our own saliva. We do it all the time, of course, without thinking. Then he invited us to imagine that, instead of swallowing, we spat into a tumbler. How would we now feel about sipping from a tumbler full of our own spit? It's the same stuff, but no thanks! Not even with ice, lemon, and a large dash of vodka. What's the difference? A boundary has been crossed. As the philosopher Daniel Dennett puts it, once something is outside our bodies it becomes alien and suspicious, not quite part of us, something to be rejected. The spit in the tumbler has 'renounced its citizenship'. Boundaries and border controls are important.

150. Letters to a Young Mathematician - Ian Stewart - n - a pleasant, light read. The book is presented as a series of letters to "Meg" as she embarks on a career in math; these letters follow her time from beginning an undergrad math program to becoming an associate professor. These letters aren't math heavy—I'll admit that I skimmed parts that were (shh, I'm not interested in angle trisections!). Rather, he focuses on understanding what math is and what mathematicians do. Is math real? Why do proofs matter? What is a proof? What's the difference between pure and applied maths?
     
     This section of his definition of math was nice:

     “A mathematical circle, then, is something more than a shared delusion. It is a concept endowed with extremely specific features; it “exists” in the sense that human minds can deduce other properties from those features, with the crucial caveat that if two minds investigate the same question, they cannot, by correct reasoning, come up with contradictory answers.
     
     That’s why it feels as if math is “out there.” Finding the answer to an open question feels like discovery, not invention. Math is a product of human minds but not bendable to human will. Exploring it is like exploring a new tract of country; you may not know what is around the next bend in the river, but you don’t get to choose. You can only wait and find out. But the mathematical countryside does not come into existence until you explore it.”

     He'd spent a section discussing whether or not math is universal. Take some hypothetical alien race; would their math be the same as our math? His argument relies on math being a result of one's environment. If one inhabited a gas planet, the kind of math that's a part of daily life would be a consequence of that habitat. Our math-in-daily-life tends to be arithmetic. What if it weren't? How does the math we use relate to the math we develop? How does math relate to the world we're in?
     
     Another interesting tidbit on talent v training:

     “I suspect that psychologists overrate the role of training because they have fallen for a politically correct theory of child development that views all new young minds as “blank slates” upon which anything whatsoever can be written.”

     He's citing The Blank Slate (Steven Pinker); seen it mentioned often enough that I should bump it up the TBR.
151. The MAGA Diaries - Tina Nguyen - nt - take a memoir, distance the memoirist from the story she's writing, and you'll end up with this. On one hand, the book feels like it's missing a part of the story; her—disillusionment?—with right-wing groups is never quite clear. There's little to no drama, stance-taking, praising or condemning; she gets a "t" (instead of a mere genre-identifier) for her objectivity. On the other hand, I never realised exactly how many right-wing/Republican associated groups were out there. Their propensity for long-term plans and explicitly training youth (say, ages 16-25) as activists is concerning. Part of it's a networking thing—offer young people resources, money, jobs, connections, everything they're lacking, and who cares if you sprinkle ideology into it? Then you get to a point where people are sticking their fingers into too many pots they shouldn't be close enough to stick their fingers into.
     
     I'm left to wonder if someone could do an expose like this from the left. She'd argue no---in her opinion, and from what she's seen, the left is incompetent and lacks long-term plans---but maybe she's not spoken to the right (hah) people.
152. Bookshops & Bonedust - Travis Baldree - f - simultaneously cozy and gripping. A story about an orc who is waylaid in a small town and briefly becomes part of the local community. She revitalizes a dying bookshop (and falls in love with reading), has a summer fling, and befriends a skeleton who has a thing for reading 'moist' books. Satchel—the skeleton—was my favorite character. He's funny, and his desire for a better life (one where he's free of the necromancer) was a nice detail.
153. Slapstick - Kurt Vonnegut - f - Q: what do you do when the person you're closest to dies? A: you're lonely. Q: then what? A: you become the president and turn the population into ten-thousand people families. Q: What? A: Yeah, and issue everybody a new name so that they know who their new relatives are.
     
     Vonnegut's absurdity strikes again! Most of Slapstick is weak compared to his other works. The prologue is the strongest part of the book, as it explains why he wrote the book. Without the prologue, the book might seem like a senseless story of someone's life.
154. Dying to Be Ill - Marc D. Feldman & Gregory Yates - n - I am bored and think I've lost interest in Munchausen's. (Given how much time I've spent/wasted reading about Munchausen's by Internet, I consider this a good thing. What I read of the book seemed fine.)
155. Red Memory - Tania Branigan - n - subtitled "the afterlives of China's Cultural Revolution." The author interviewed a pile of people and compiled their recollections. She's great at describing the environment she's in (at various points).
156. Watchmen - Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons - fg - akin to neo-noir with superheroes. I know it's supposed to be one of the greatest graphic novels, but I'm not seeing it. (Pun not intended). Abandoned after the first chapter. The color palette is off-putting—too bright, sort of neon-pastel? I know it's a standard palette for graphic novels—saw it in Monica, by Daniel Clowes, amongst other ones that don't come to mind—but I find it annoying. The plot and characters disinterest me. Something is being teased, but it ain't capturing my attention. Disappointed.
157. The Guerilla Factory - Tony Schwalm - ne - when you've reread a book multiple times, there comes a point where you stop remembering the details. You knew it by heart, and then you stopped knowing it, though you'll remember every detail as you flip the pages and refresh your memory.
     
     I think—is this a memory, or an idea of one?—I'd read this twice, that first time I checked it out from the library. Seventh grade. I'd grown annoyed with the library's teen section and swapped fiction for nonfiction. I think I'd reread it multiple times after that; the book is too familiar for me to have not to. Military training has this strange allure to it; his accounts of resistance training, Robin Sage, and the Trek are what's stuck with me over the years. How do you train someone for being a POW? How do you train for unconventional warfare—getting to know locals, training locals, being in a foreign environment where half of your work is getting to know people—with pseudo-real-world situations? The Trek was closer to a standard exercise; navigate 60km of terrain in three days. (Then it went down to 30km, and then goodbye, Trek).
158. Ender in Exile - Orson Scott Card - f - a bit of a nothing-burger. Technically, this is the direct sequel to Ender's Game. There were also three other followups to Ender's Game which were published before he wrote Ender in Exile. Per the back cover, there's a significant gap between Ender's Game and its following books; this book fills the gap. I wonder if it'd've been better if I read in the order published, instead of the order of which the books occur? Then I would've been more aware of the gap.
     
     The book felt like a collection of three novellas: Ender travelling to Shakespeare (the planet), what he found there, and dealing with Bean's kid. These were tied together by his improving relationship with his sister. I liked seeing Valentine move on from being Demosthenes and adapt the role of historian. This demonstrates her break from her other brother—mentions of him were odd, since he'd seemed to have succeeded in world domination?—and her developing as a character. She kept struggling to decide whether she would be a mother or sister to Ender; come the end, she's taken up the role of sister.
     
     The giant's playground was the one part that stuck out to me. This began to fill in some holes—humans keep using Formic technology; Formics were aware of it. The reader (and Ender) are starting to get an idea of what the enemy was. Filling in the gaps in a war fought by children who were told that they were merely playing a game. Hyperion followed a similar outline, though to different results; X is the enemy, but wait (300pg later) what is X?
159. The Fall of Hyperion - Dan Simmons - f - less a sequel to Hyperion, and more so the second half of the book. It drags. I'm at 35%; what role is the John Keats cybrid supposed to be playing? He dreams the reality the seven pilgrims are living through, and his waking hours provide insight into the politics of the current situation. This isn't as compelling as the first book. Maybe the story-telling aspect appealed to me more than I realized. The prose is less vivid. Some places where I'd expected him to launch into a beautiful description of the setting just didn't occur. The reduction in humor was to be expected, but what remains is lackluster when compared to the previous novel.
     
     Do I even want to know where this story is going? The characters are being killed off one-by-one; very And Then There Were None, which I could swear Martin Silenus has made two references to. Silenus' death was nice; Simmons managed to portray the poet, his muse, his process quite well; yes, yes, the writer knows what it's like to write. He captures the passion and hopelessness of a writer. Even Silenus knew his end was a fitting one; inevitable too.
     
     Kassad's rape was bothersome. He goes from thinking "oh she's raping me" --> "eh I'm fine with this" --> realizing he wanted it. That line of thought ain't okay. Admittedly, I don't understand his thing with Moneta, but that could just be me not getting human things. She's a jerk? She betrayed him? She raped him—wait, no, he was fine with that. (a sentence laced in sarcasm). Her actions (in that scene) are even worse when you remember that, from her standpoint, this is the first time she's met him.
     
     Now at 53%; merlin, does this one drag. The political side of things is too predictable. The main characters are being killed off (yet kept alive) as the Shrike pleases. Rachel's death was a mere blip. The cybrid's increased access to witnessing what he doesn't experience is convenient. The author is trying to have is cake and eat it too. The many main characters have been separated from each other; I've lost track of where everybody is. Is Kassad still alive?—that cliffhanger may have been introduced several chapters ago; too much time has passed. Martin, thought to be dead, is alive. Brawne, appearing to be dead, is some sort of alive. Who else...did the tree die? The Templar (tree) reappeared as a Shrike cultist, yet he'd been thought dead long enough for him to have slipped my mind. There are more. Ffs, author, you better have a good reason for these "character is dead! jk now character is alive again", as I'm growing weary. What's next? Shall Duré, resurrected from Hoyt, die and resurrect Hoyt? Even Johnny has returned.

     “[Are you/ Brawne Lamia/ the layers of self-replicating/ self-deprecating/ self-amusing proteins between the layers of clay]”

     (Emphasis by the author—testing my patience indeed.) I'm aware this "Ultimate Intelligence" section is hinting at an explanation for every thing. Not unlike a deus ex machina, yet it seems to be an unnecessary one. Too pseudo-spiritual-philosophical; I'm skimming this part.

     “Is it possible that a deity could evolve from human consciousness like that without humanity being aware of it?”

     Ahh. We've received a summary of the philosopher-AIs words. My issues with the plot have been smoothed over; seems like the rough patch in the plot culminated with the AI encounter.
     
     The author is juggling a tricky plot; I can't be certain if he's dropping the ball or cleverly subverting my expectations. The theological aspects of the novel are more pronounced than ever, as is—what I must assume is—the author's research into (biblical) theology.
     
     Well. The ending itself gets a thumbs up. I don't know what to say that isn't merely summarizing what happened. Did the book redeem itself?—I think so.
160. In. - Will McPhall - fg - As I was reading, I kept wondering if this narrator was relatable to me. Is he like me. Is this what I sound like to others? Are his behaviors like mine? Is his closed-offness, difficulty—opening up? to? with?—others the same as (my supposed difficulties)? He recognizes there's more to human interaction than surface-level conversation, but struggles to cross that bridge. Or open up. When he does open up (how?! I need to know the how!), the author shifts to full-color illustrations that may as well be in a different world.
161. The Lost World - Arthur Conan Doyle - f - abandoned. Realizing that "life is normal, but what if dinosaurs still exist in one corner & also the locals are helping us out" isn't a plot I'm much interested in. His descriptions of everything—people, animals, the environment, etc.—are vivid. Also, dear narrator, never go on some wild adventure just to impress a woman. That's shitty decision-making.
162. Hyperion - Dan Simmons - ft - some thoughts at 18%: initially, I've been hooked. The setting is scifi, but it clearly calls back to mythology and folklore. The tree-ship the characters are travelling in is called Ygdrasill. There are seven characters; strangers called together to embark on a quest. While travelling to the planet they shall quest upon, they've decided to share each of their stories. The author managed to work in a reason for infodumping on backstories.
     
     The first character to share his story has said that he must talk about another person to provide context for himself. And talk he has—the past 10%+ (maybe 50-75 total pages?) of the novel has been him recounting another's journey. A novel in a novel. Don't get me wrong—I've liked witnessing this single character's quest. A lone priest in exile who has travelled to understand a supposedly-lost tribe. His explanations & explorations have provided a better idea of the kind of planet he's on. On the other hand: how much longer must this go on? The payoff—or context established by this section—better be worth it. There are too many other characters for this supposedly side character to have spent this long taking center stage.

     “When the priest quit reading, the six pilgrims at the table raised their faces toward him as if they were awakening from a common dream.”

     At last! And yet I'm compelled to note a few more thoughts on this section before continuing. The Bikura gained immortality through their faith; yet they lost their humanity. These subhuman masses of flesh live forever, yet they're truly incapable of thought. They can keep themselves alive—food, I mean, they're sexless and can't reproduce—and they can worship. Father Duré became of the cruciform. Unlike them, he was terrified by the fact and continued trying to escape. Could one say he saw more to life than mindless faith?—ahh, mayhaps, monsier, she's overthinking this novel. The priest has rethought his beliefs, unwillingly, and re-approached his faith. He sets out looking for one thing and finds something else.
     
     Two more quotes from this section:

     “Tonight I visited Tuk’s rocky grave as the evening wind began to wail its aeolian dirge. I knelt there and tried to pray but nothing came.
     Edouard, nothing came. I am as empty as those fake sarcophagi that you and I unearthed by the score from the sterile desert sands near Tarum bel Wadi.”
     “The Zen Gnostics would say that this emptiness is a good sign; that it presages openness to a new level of awareness, new insights, new experiences.”
     “Merde.
     My emptiness is only…emptiness.”

     “If the Church is meant to die, it must do so—but do so gloriously, in the full knowledge of its rebirth in Christ. It must go into the darkness not willingly but well—bravely and firm of faith."

     Oh. It wasn't done. Fuck. That's payoff all right. Even in the short term—more horrifying than I expected. He did it though, that Father Duré. Also: fuck.

     “The twentieth century’s most honored writer, William Gass, once said in an interview: “Words are the supreme objects. They are minded things.”

     Hahahaha. Gass is an oddly pervasive author—I've seen him mentioned in multiple books as of late. I'd read The Tunnel a few times. Where does he lie on the spectrum of genius to overrated? No clue.
     
     Is Heaven's Gate supposed to be a reference to the cult?—I think not, but it is odd. This poet's voyage into drunken decadence is wonderful. He's hilarious. Maybe a bit too vulgar, and maybe cursing more than necessary. He reminds me of the character of BoJack Horseman; shitty but easy to sympathize with. He knows the universe is a farce. He's also got a habit of staying along for the ride.
     
     At 49%: These lengthy side-stories seem to be more important than I thought. Why spend so much time on each character's context?—to introduce the reader to the world the characters inhabit, and to understand the significance of the quest they're embarking on. The cast genuinely feels like something born from myth: seven characters, so far having heard the stories of a priest, soldier, and poet.

     Weintraub passed a hand across his bald scalp. “It’s a dull tale,” he said. “I’ve never been to Hyperion before. There are no confrontations with monsters, no acts of heroism. It’s a tale by a man whose idea of epic adventure is speaking to a class without his notes.”
     “All the better,” said Martin Silenus. “We need a soporific.”

     Sol Weintraub's tale feels Biblical. Being told to sacrifice his child—now where have I heard that before?—later: to watch one's child age and then de-age is horrifying. Plot-wise, introducing a second ticking clock (in the form of his child growing younger) seems like it was a good idea. I presume I'll understand the order of these stories by the end. The author has tackled a bit of everything; each story draws on different themes. These aren't "all over the place" either. This somber tale balances out the previous three.
     
     
     These few sentences were too long. Loved the description anyways.

     “Chronos Keep jutted from the easternmost rim of the great Bridle Range: a grim, baroque heap of sweating stones with three hundred rooms and halls, a maze of lightless corridors leading to deep halls, towers, turrets, balconies overlooking the northern moors, airshafts rising half a kilometer to light and rumored to drop to the world’s labyrinth itself, parapets scoured by cold winds from the peaks above, stairways—inside and out—carved from the mountain stone and leading nowhere, stained-glass windows a hundred meters tall set to catch the first rays of solstice sun or the moon on midwinter night, paneless windows the size of a man’s fist looking out on nothing in particular, an endless array of bas-relief, grotesque sculptures in half-hidden niches, and more than a thousand gargoyles staring down from eave and parapet, transept and sepulcher, peering down through wood rafters in the great halls and positioned so as to peer in the blood-tinted windows of the northeast face, their winged and hunchbacked shadows moving like grim sundial hours, cast by sunlight in the day and gas-fed torches at night. And everywhere in Chronos Keep sign of the Shrike Church’s long occupation—atonement altars draped in red velvet, hanging and free-standing sculptures of the Avatar with polychrome steel for blades and blood-gems for eyes, more statues of the Shrike carved from the stone of narrow stairways and dark halls so that nowhere in the night would one be free of the fear of touching hands emerging from rock, the sharp curve of blade descending from stone, four arms enveloping in a final embrace. As if in a last measure of ornamentation, a filigree of blood in many of the once occupied halls and rooms, arabesques of red spattered in almost recognizable patterns along walls and tunnel ceilings, bedclothes caked hard with rust-red substance, and a central dining hall filled with the stench of food rotting from a meal abandoned weeks earlier, the floor and table, chairs and wall adorned with blood, stained clothing and shredded robes lying in mute heaps. And everywhere the sound of flies.
     “Jolly fucking place, isn’t it?”

     Little to say about the rest of the book. I began to grow weary of the storytelling and want them to enter the Time Tombs already. Alas, that's what book 2 is for. The conclusion to this book was a bit cheesy, but heartwarming. I'll let it slide.
     
     I'm being reminded of one of the other reasons why I stopped reading scifi: keeping up with the plot, characters, and their intricate universe is tiring. Don't get me wrong; the book was relatively good, and I enjoyed reading it. There's just so much to it. I took my time with this one; think I've been reading it for 4-5 days.
163. Inherent Vice - Thomas Pynchon - f - dropped at 9%. What I read feels like a drug-induced haze; everything is tinted lime. The 70s setting is strong. Here be hippies. IDK, I'm not very into it.
164. The City We Became - N.K. Jemisin - f - annoying. The premise was interesting---personify each of NYC's borroughs---and fell flat. These characters feel like walkin' talkin' stereotypes. The characters also began to feel a bit SJW-y; fine, your characters are non-white/queer/etc., but please give these characters more substance than labels. Preachy, too.
165. Ender’s Shadow - Orson Scott Card - ft - I'd repeatedly read Ender's Game in high school. This offered a nice return to the world of that book without needing knowledge of the novel before it. While it is a companion novel (to Ender's Game), it stands in its own right. Bean is a fleshed out character---well-done for a literal child---with his own motivations, traits, and ways of viewing the world. I enjoyed reading his reasoning through things, strategy-related and not.
     
     On the other hand. Bean is a bit overpowered, predictably so. Genetic modification to be a genius who'll die in his twenties? Seriously? This is how we explain a smart 4 y/o who is streets ahead of his compatriots? There were times where the author seriously tested my ability to suspend my disbelief. Who is brother was is too much of a clean-cut coincidence. The novel wasn't particularly original; didn't stop it from being enjoyable.
166. Pan - Knut Hamsun trans. W. W. Worster - ft - fine writing. A peculiar story about a man and woman. The two of them have their own odd mannerisms, and bizarre way of interacting with each other. They weren't flirting; just catching each other's attention, taking it in, and ignoring one another. The author's descriptions of the environment were nice, too. Love a good forest. A pleasant, immersive read—devoured it one morning.
167. Tell Me I'm Worthless - Alison Rumfitt - fp - fucking hell. The prologue is a headache of social justice keywords. I can't read past this.
168. The People That Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs - f - it's boring. Had an okay start, but the adventuring isn't much of an adventure. He's wandering around; he seems to have forgotten why he set out for Caprona in the first place. There's no reason to keep reading. He's forgotten about the people he left behind all too easily.
169. The Land that Time Forgot - Edgar Rice Burroughs - f - wow, I forgot how much I used to enjoy classic scifi/fantasy. I'm not sure if I wished I paid more attention to it---was half-paying attention to an audiobook while doing other things---but it was nice and meh. A bit of a simplistic adventure ft. surprise dinosaurs and other humans.
170. Symptoms of Unknown Origin - Clifton K. Meador - n - some doctor sharing medical cases that were more psychological than physical (in origin). Or a medical issue resulting from a seemingly benign thing (environment-related triggers).
171. Skin - Kathe Koja - f - the prose reeks of someone trying to find their own voice and thinking that they've developed a unique style. Many times, "a" "the" and similar words are dropped. It's as if she's trying to achieve fast-paced prose and missing the mark. Going full-speed-ahead at all times obfuscated events; major plot points blended in with insignificant ones, as they were all portrayed in the exact same manner. The plot and characters became incoherent masses. This may have been intentional; the novel is about obsession (with one's work, with another) and how it infects a person. Yet it lacks the bite it could have had. Maybe it just wasn't all that well told. The degree of body modification Bibi undertakes is intense, but the intensity could come through in a stronger manner. We could've seen more of how her intensity impacts Tess. Tess' ending was unresolved; she's half-separated from Bibi (in the third half), and this goes nowhere. Vague and disappointing.
172. Museum of Mistakes - Julia Wertz - ng - looking at her older work is interesting. She's clearly improved over time. Still a funny grumpy lady. The strip where she heard people talking about Fart Party was awkward. It isn't as good as her later work, but it still obtained an excess of chuckles.
173. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark - Don Thompson - n - very dry. The subject itself veers from interesting (art; people trying to make contemporary art into something better than itself; how some people 'make' art) to annoying (these people are so stinking rich). For the record, I abandoned it at a whopping 30%.
174. The Raw Shark Texts - Steven Hall - f - conceptual thought sharks? Yes please. The book focuses on a man who lost his memory after his wife's death. Initially, these memory losses were portrayed as a recurring thing; then they weren't. Some plot threads & ideas seemed to be there for a mysterious element only for them to be dropped; ex. the thing with the lake in the filing cabinet. Narrator was very annoying at the start; why was he listening to the doctor? Why wasn't he doing any-fucking-thing? How did he write those letters? I can suspend my disbelief as much as I want; would have appreciated an answer to that last question.
     
     What else, what else...nice to have something with the right amount of fantastical elements without properly being a fantasy novel. Things like the Un-Space Exploration Committee, and the expanding mass of Mycroft Ward, were these kinds of "larger than life" secret organizations. Tangentially reminded me of All The Wrong Questions, by Lemony Snicket, as well as Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. Though the code-cracking here was lame AF. The initial lightbulb tape was cool, but what it decoded into was boring. There was no reason why it needed to be coded information. Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh.
     
     Also: Scout. Talk about a manic pixie dream girl. She has little substance, little backstory, and reads like the trope she is. The whole "this is why she's here / betrayal moment" was predictable. Our main character is just here for the ride. Romantic subplot took center stage for too much of the book. Arguably, the book was going well until Scout came into play. So...the first quarter of the book was good. The rest was meh (at best). Were he a better writer, it could've been a better meh, or even a good read. Looking online, people were saying it's meant to be a bit of House of Leaves meets Memento meets Jaws. Talk about creating high expectations. And failing miserably. The more I think about this book, the less I like it.
     
     Loved the handful of pictures made from text; they were a cute addition to the story.
     
     Apparently, there are "un-chapters" that are hidden elsewhere. Dude. Steven, dearest. Listen to me. You aren't that good. Your story is so lacking in substance that more pages can't fix it. *le sigh* did find a google drive with some of 'em. Maybe I'll look at them later. Maybe. I. won't.
175. The Biographical Dictionary of Literary Failure - C. D. Rose - f - there's one failure in this room, and it ain't amongst these micro-fiction-al biographies. These are 50-some iterations of the same <1000 word story. Are some of them more interesting than others, yes, but that's besides the point. It's practically a short-story collection with slightly more coherence.
176. The Cabin at the End of the World - Paul Tremblay - f - due to the last book of his I read, I had a feeling this one would annoy me. He lacked the courtesty to try to prove me wrong. Read two chapters. There is no difference between the narration of the 8 y/o and her parents. She's too upbeat. Hate her. Also, this ain't supposed to be a queer novel, why not just say she has two dads and leave it at that? No need to spend a good page and a half discussing different parenting arrangements.
177. The Other Name - Jon Fosse trans. Damion Searls - f - as much as I enjoy his prose, the divagation into Christianity really grated on my nerves. It's like he doesn't see himself as a Catholic, yet is grateful for the Church because it's "given him a lot." Back to reading; we'll see if he becomes annoying again. Fuck it. He's still annoying. Maybe A Shining was better because it was an insubstantial haze; here, he hints at substance, and what he's doing ain't working for me.
178. Muscle - Roy Meals - n - (no criticisms; just realized I wasn't interested in it)
179. Spermjackers From Hell - Christine Morgan - f - solidly meh. The plot was reflective of one of the few true things in life: teenage boys are horny and just want to stick their dicks into something. What's a boy to do but summon a succubus that'll start going after men all over town? Drawbacks: the two or three chapters from the succubus POV were annoying. Skipped each one; maybe they'd appeal more to people with dicks. Just annoyed me. The interludes were bothersome for a different reason. I can see what she was going for: they break up the plot, give the reader a little more context, and flesh out something that could've just been a short story. The interludes had some funny tidbits:

     “We could watch as he fucks her in short, hard, fast thrusts…as she whines a little, confused like she always is, and stringers of drool splat on Coach’s belly and chest…as his fists clench at coarse coat and loose skin…as he grunts and strains and spurts into her…as he collapses, spent, and tells her to go on and get down…as his limp cock slip-plops out of her like a stillborn puppy trailing a placenta of Vaseline and cum.
     
     "Yes, we could do that, we could look in on him and watch. But it’d be sick, gratuitous, and wrong.”

     Yet she's self-aware. She knows that these are annoying. She breaks the fourth-wall and says as much. C'mon, if you know there's a problem in your book, fucking fix it. Could've done with fewer characters; each male blended into a mass of horny boys, and the female lead added little to the plot.
180. The Fall Into Time - E. M. Cioran trans. Richard Howard - n - initial thoughts (just shy of halfway through): he is an absolute riot to read. He ruminates, divigates, writes in circles. Full of loathing for the human race and human society. "The Tree of Life" focused on God, purpose, and the limitations of language. Language is filters man's perception of the world. Man's ability to be aware (consciousness) is what differentiates him from all other animals. Man's quest for knowledge is inherent and will always leave him unsatisfied. While I was annoyed by his reliance on the Garden of Eden / Adam & Eve (and eating the apple), he takes his argument to an interesting (or merely peculiar) enough place that I am less annoyed with his false premise.Array of quotes from first essay:

     Had we fallen from a total, a true innocence, noth- ing could withstand the vehemence of our desire to regain it; but the poison was in us already, right from the start, vague at first, increasingly distinct until it left its mark upon us, individualizing us forever.

     Clear-sighted and quite mad, man has no peer: a true outrage to the laws of nature, nothing suggested his advent. Was he necessary, this being ethically more misshapen than any dinosaur physically?

     What are our greed and our frenzy but the remorse for having sidestepped true innocence, whose memory cannot fail to torment us?

     True, everything changes, but rarely, if ever, for the better.

     "Civilized Man: A Portrait" continued to shit on civilization. He claims man is inflicting problems on itself; society the prime example of this. People attempt to proselytize others to bring them into their suffering; ex 'civilizing' 'uncivilized' peoples, religious conversion (to Christianity).

     Civilization, at this stage, would seem to be a bargain with the Devil, if man still had a soul to sell.

     Grown annoyed. Where's his point? Doubt everything, everything is meaningless, life is composed of suffering—yes, and? Everybody figured these out when they were five. Get with the program, Emil. Move. on.
181. Project Neurocam: An Investigation - Robin Hely - n - on one hand, the implementation of his ideas appeals to me. Blurring the lines between real and imagined worlds is a recipe for a grand time. This blurring can take place in something that is pure fiction—why yes, I do mean House of Leaves—or, in the case of an ARG, can take place in the real world. Whether or not this is art is bullshit. He's merely reinvented playing pretend for adults. The main difference between the players being children and adults is that children are quick to suspend their disbelief, whereas adults need to be coerced into doing so. He cited one of his former projects where he was transparent about it being a piece of art; that piece was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Neurocam did not let participants know it was an art piece, and was relatively successful.
     
     He consistently calls his work 'art' while sidestepping all definitions of what art is or could be. A bit harsh, as he does come to a conclusion at one point:

     I think that art is all about the relationship between the artist and the audience as a kind of exchange of ideas. To make art purely to explore one’s creative self seems selfish and pointless to me.

     He has confused experiences and interactivity with art. These could be elements of art. I reject his premise, and he has failed to convince me otherwise.
     
     Fictocriticism is also an interesting idea. It works for his thesis—what better way to explain Neurocam than to write about someone going through Neurocam?
     
     The final film was a meh watch. Bordered on cringey, especially with the scene with Charles Hastings. Felt like a comic book villain. Seeing the camera crew and actor interact with each other was novel. It worked for this film.
182. Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson - f - prose had a nice Southern accent to it. The plot is—not quite a constant stream of bullshit, but it’s. It’s certainly something that someone threw together. Kinda like someone had an idea for a main character (and to be fair, Nick is a fun main character; nice amount of dim-witted-ness alongside all of his other odd traits. He plays by his own rules) and needed to pull together a story alongside it. Stop it with all the girls! Good grief, the three of them started to blend together. Ain’t sure what that ending was. Plot twists . . . ?
183. 57 Ways to Screw Up in Grad School - Kevin D. Haggerty - n - not of much use; just a lot of common sense advice that could apply to any one and any thing. Balance, people, balance.

     “You will also need to be able to work in a competitive environment. I am constantly baffled by graduate students who say they resent being evaluated or being compared to one another. If you hate being judged, you are in the wrong institution.”

     “Undergrad students usually write to deadlines. They learn approximately how long it takes to compose a respectable term paper in a frenzied push immediately before the due date. It is a process involving isolation, caffeine, and late nights. Use this as your approach to writing if you want to publish only intermittently and live with constant angst.”

184. Beijing Rules - Bethany Allen - n - light, easy read. Fulfills the premise of looking at the role China has played on the global economy (spoiler alert: they've played a role; yeesh, maybe they should stop sticking their fingers in everything). Nothing much to say on this one. No, I didn't pay close attention; what gives?
185. The Identity Trap - Yascha Mounk - n - could've left it at the introduction just being an essay. The parts of the book I read past the introduction---skipping around---made no arguments. Equivalent to bringing up points, anecdotes, etc. and never bringing them anywhere. Wow, that sure is a piece of information; how does it tie into your agument? Relate it to any-fucking-thing, plz.
186. Milkman - Anna Burns - fp - great first line:

     “The day Somebody McSomebody put a gun to my breast and called me a cat and threatened to shoot me was the same day the milkman died.”

     Next few chapters nearly bored me to sleep. Rambling about reading while walking. Rambling about running (she doesn't read while running). Some brother kept pushing her to go more miles. What is this shit.
187. Eva's Man - Gayl Jones - fp - what is this plot? Two chapters in, and it’s cutting between a sex scene, tidbits of this girl’s childhood, and other flashbacks. There’s nothing coherent here. The narrator has a slight Southern drawl, yet not enough for it to be a proper one either.
188. The He-Man Effect - Brian Brown - ng - more disappointment. It gets credit for having a slightly different art style (very rounded, constant use of (can't recall the right word for a repeated dot background --- stippled?)). Whatever he's trying to tell the reader about advertisements and toys is getting lost in how incoherent this is. What's the argument? What's he doing, other than bringing up an excess of factoids about such and such marketing tactic? This is about toys, ffs (subtitled "How American Toymakers Sold You Your Childhood"), why aren't you telling me about the toys? There's been a one-off mention of Mickey Mouse, after reading three (out of the ten) chapters. There's been significantly more about cigarettes and war and other, well, marketing, but the book is supposed to be about toys. Tell me about the toys. Crossed a line from appropriate anecdotal context to flat-out annoying.
189. Tenements, Towers & Trash - Julia Wertz - ng - disappointing. Typos galore; she'd spell the same name several different ways in the same sentence, misspell other words, etc. etc. etc. Trying to fact check parts of the book made it seem like this is a vague, disorganized collection of legends (about NYC). I'm annoyed. On the other hand, it does explain why she became significantly better at drawing buildings. Oooh boy, are there a lot of buildings in here.
190. This Thing Between Us - Gus Moreno - f - initially, the prose was interesting. It's written in first person POV while continuously addressing the narrator's dead wife as 'you,' ex:

     “Your head was turned to the side like you were listening for something. I stayed still. The only sound I heard was the guy’s car reversing out of the carport and into the alley. I was about to say we should go to bed but stopped. Both of us jumped back from the window.”

     This book is soaked in grief. And, at 20%, hints of the house problems have not been introduced enough to convince me to keep reading. Wow, the knockoff Alexa ignores the narrator, buys weird shit, and says weird things. Okay, and . . ? I have no idea where this book could be going, and it's not giving me a reason to find out.
191. Monica - Daniel Clowes - fg - too colorful for me to get into it. I know, I know, weird thing to complain about. The mix of bold, bright colors + comic book style (seriously, it was like looking at a colorized version of the Fantastic Four comics, nostalgic in a meh way) was a turn off. Annoyed since this one was rated so well by others.
192. The Dead Take the A Train - Cassandra Khaw & Richard Kadrey - f - being cowritten, Khaw's usual prose has been distilled to a smattering of ten-dollar words. Feels sloppy. Only managed to get through the first two chapters. What's appeared of the story is a bit of a clusterfuck. The main character feels like an edgy thirteen year old, except she's thirty so it ain't funny anymore. She's giving snootily pushes glasses up nose / flips hair over shoulder / etc and well, actually... Annoying characters. The authors have introduced enough elements to try and set up this weird, gritty world that I find offputting.
193. A Crochet World of Creepy Creatures and Cryptids - Rikki Gustafson - n - I still can't get a hang of the magic circle, which is necessary for every pattern in here. To someone with very little knowledge of crochet, the patterns are easy enough to follow. And they're all so cute! <3 Once I spend time getting used to normal intro to crochet stuff (and figure out what that is, and do a magic circle right), I'd like to go back and crochet some of these lil' guys.
194. Impossible People - Julia Wertz - ngte - I think I just like a good graphic novel memoir. It's subtitled "a completely average recovery story," which is exactly what it is. Kept reading her voice as Reagan from Inside Job. Good sense of humor that had me cackling.
     
     Welp. Reread it. Still enjoy her humor. Constant irony, and self awareness. The constant variations of "I was waiting for something big and outside of my control to force me to change" (not her exact words) are. something. Recurred here and in Drinking at the Movies. That one was more anecdotal, 'slice of life,' while she maintains more of a plot here. Which makes sense: the memoirs had different points. Come to think of it, both of these did start in the middle of her story at a certain low point. Drinking at the Movies started with her waking up in a laundromat; here, the car in the jungle. And the shitty boyfriend :/ Medication, other issues, and, "It's so unfair that he gets to cheat and dump me and go on with his life like nothing happened while I have to spend my Saturday afternoon in an STD clinic." (It is so hard to talk about memoirs without feeling like I'm writing a review of someone else's life and the people they knew/know). Okay, anything actual to say? Her art is more detailed here. She's improved. (And literally, to boot). Still reading her as Reagan's voice. Flipping through Tenements, Towers, and Trash...yeah, I like her art. And her writing.
195. V for Vendetta - Alan Moore and David Lloyd - fge - it's easier to look at the movie objectively than the graphic novel.
     Minute movie tangent

     The movie adaptation is passable. It stands on its own, it's fine, but it's not particularly great. Not annoying either. Just exceedingly meh, which is why I keep trying to reread the book. But there's too much nostalgia (in it) for me to put it through the objective lens which I want to put it through. With the movie: the obvious thing to point out is the differences in ending. The movie is---for lack of a better way to put it---optimistic. 'Everybody is in on this,' not just two people against the world. Something about this bothers me. Yes, some sort of cooperation is necessary for a functioning anarchy, but turning the people into this anonymous, masked mass rubs me the wrong way. Can't put a finger on it. Moving on...
     
     The art is still pleasing to look at. The coloring is gorgeous. Some of it is (struggling to phrase this properly) ink then color, as if colored in, while other parts are reminiscent of color then ink (ex. Chapter 6---the lighting? Love. it). Plot, content, etc. wise, I don't fucking know.
196. A Shining - Jon Fosse trans. Damion Searls - fv - After a few pages: I don't know how to read this. The words are trampling me; drowning in—stream of consciousness? Prose is undeniably good. Not "good for a translation"; just plain good. I think. Welcome to be called out on my bullshit, of course. Compelling. Oddly compelling. Is there a plot? Now halfway through—novella—it's less 'nothing' and more 'something different.' I haven't read anything like this. I don't know how to describe it.
     
     Done with the first readthrough. I don't know what this book is. It ain't confusing either. Some dream? A haze? The plot: after his car gets stuck, a man walks into the woods and encounters things. (Things is not the right word; what he finds is too immaterial). This is how to do first person POV well. I need to reread it (what was that about? What the hell did I just read?—how was it compelling? Is it objectively good; by what criteria? Why was it appealing; was there more to that than novelty? (Yes, undoubtedly.) How is it good?). Are these musings on divinity? There's something deeply religious, or just spiritual?, about this one. Reaching the end, knowing full well my plans for the rest of this evening are to jerk off and go to sleep, makes me feel dirty. And lackluster. As if everything else I've read (and written, and done) is a waste. Why waste my time on bullshit that might get better when there are books which are compelling from page one? I take back my constant "translated prose gets the benefit of the doubt"—yes, this really was marvelous. Damn. Just...damn. Yet so insubstantial? I can't pinpoint what this is about.
     
     Footnote, because totes irrelevant: vaguely reminded of the left/right game. Not just because of the start of this novel (both: get in car, turn left, then turn right, then turn left, ????, disappear into the void); what I vaguely remember of that story's ending.
197. I Saw You... - ed. Julia Wertz - fgp - might as well have been a collection of drabbles. Most of the comics were a page or two. Nothing notable; exceedingly forgettable. Didn't introduce me to anybody worth reading more of.
198. Kafkaesque - Peter Kuper - fg - art is visually striking. Bold—'edgy' ain't the right word, nor is pointy, nor is jagged, but something along those lines—and aggressive. Commanding attention. He skillfully manipulates panels; certainly a step above the average graphic novelist. I'm not familiar with Kafka. These retellings of a few of his short stories aren't going to stick with me. The art will.
     
     This is not for children. However, they may enjoy it (with some censorship)---read most of the stories to my youngest brother, who seemed to enjoy it. He kept asking me to read more (and called some stories 'amazingly short.' His words, not mine). Funnily enough, the prose is less---dense? not quite the right word---than many of the picture books I've read to him.
199. A Head Full of Ghosts - Paul Tremblay - fp - okokok. Paul, dearie: I get it! First person POV is hard. So if you can't do it well, just don't. Bad third person is better than bad first person. The first two chapters have introduced two annoying narrators. I ain't sticking around to see if the plot is worth the shit prose.
200. Soapmaking for Beginners - Ayako Umehara - n - first off: high school orgo flashbacks. We ended the class with learning about soap, taking a test on soap, and then making soap. While seeing the word saponification again makes me want to scream, I end up wishing that a soapmaking book went into (more) detail on the chemistry involved. Instead, it’s all buy this shit (which you will only use once) and follow these instructions, don’t ask questions kthxbai. Also contains idiot subtitles like "strengthens the body and mind" and "retains youthfulness."
201. Fear of a Black Universe - Stephon Alexander - n - I want to take this seriously. Why does the idea of drawing information / ideas / starting points from dreams sound too far out there? ...and dropping it. He's started out by asking "what if we need a different approach to physics" and has brought that idea nowhere.
     
     Also very tired of how every popsci physics book needs to contain a crash course in high school physics. If there's any useful information in (many of these), it's buried under REMEMBER WHAT AN ATOM IS?????? how 'bout GRAVITY? 9.81 m/s acceleration. And then throw in some random fancy looking equations without properly explaining them. Who are these books for?!
202. Everyday Watercolor - Jenna Rainey - n - subtitled 'learn to paint watercolor in 30 days.' To someone with no experience with watercolor, it feels like a decent introduction. She focuses on introducing the reader to a new technique, becoming more comfortable with the technique, and continuing to build on / repurpose techniques. Nice to work through. Unfortunately, she relies on the reader using tube watercolors & having more than some eight-color Crayola palette. And having more than one brush. If not for supply issues, I may have kept working through it.
203. Three Years with the Rat - Jay Hosking - f - fuck you, author, this could have been good. Subjective v. objective time (how we feel time move vs. how times moves—measuring both of these) could be fascinating. Leaves me wondering if any nonfictional research has been done into this, though nothing in real life could be as fantastical as this weird box. I want to make the box. I want to spend winter break pretending to do science and pretending to research this. One would think that more of this mirror box shit disappears into would have been explained by now (fucking 50%, and the prose is bad, not headachingly / nauseatingly so, but it's not something to push through for the prose). Also, what is the deal with Grace? Did she go missing or did she kill herself? Referred to as a suicide early on, with her husband taking his own trip to the psych ward afterwards before re-building the box they'd been using in their lab experiments..? The mention of a smashed mirror implies some mix of both. But it isn't well done. I suspect this would be significantly better if written from her perspective; the narrator (her brother) has no personality whatsoever. He's there to move us through the plot and tell us about his sister (who, even in death, has infinitely more personality than him). Heh; stagnant and doesn't even know it. Get a life.
     
     Come halfway through, there is no information that wasn't in the first chapter. Nothing new. You could turn this into a short story. These characters are boring. One would think some guy who dropped out of college not once, not twice, but three times would have some substance to him. Nope! What a waste of words, paper, plot—now I want to buy some mirrors (which are so fucking expensive) and make a box out of them. Or do that bowl scrying bit I'd read about once. I know it's bullshit, but I've too much respect for (what?) to see it as such. This book had traces of House of Leaves (more Johnny than the house), briefly reminded me of Dave Made a Maze (2017), and Primer (2004), yet failed to show more than fucking hints (and showed all of its cards right off the bat). I could imagine this book as a mystery game; there's one I'm thinking of which I can't remember. Don't know if I played it or saw a video of it. Either way: shit novel.
204. Little Engines Issue 9 - ed. Adam Voith - has introduced me to Kyle Seibel, who appears to be a riot. His short story got a few laughs out of me. Dude also appears in TBQ (so that's two mags he's been in that rejected me). ...and makes me regret leaving lit-twit, as he is funny & doesn't seem to have any kind of website collecting his works. Had a nice interview. Listening to Dinosaurs was mostly fine. Cut out the feet description and it'd've been 'better.' Either way, dude has potential.
205. The Invisible World - Nora Fussner - f - annoying. Too many indistinguishable characters. Doesn't even show promise. Cookie-cutter bad writing.
206. The Vegetarian Myth - Lierre Keith - n - by an ex-vegan; audience is clearly vegans / vegetarians / etc. Writing swings between "wow she's passionate about this" and "so fucking annoying." Word/phrase repetition rarely works; this book is no exception. Weird to read. (Emphasize that; she's an oddball). Improves over time; maybe it needed another round with an editor.
     
     Her swing from vegan spiritualism to—I want to call it ecosystem spiritualism—would make more sense to people who hold similar beliefs. She does capture her growing disillusionment with vegan libel quite well. Moves between personal context (to frame the book) and concrete information. She could have cited sources more thoroughly. It's clear that this is supposed to be a "don't repeat my dumb mistakes" kind of book. With a lot of discussion about how plant agriculture isn't sustainable. A culture based on plants is destined to abuse water and damage soil (generally creating more long term problems. Oh what fun). Feels like veganism's hooks were incredibly attached to her, to a point where some of her writing borders on being satire; her being able to break free of this is a bit surprising. She manages to prove vegans/vegetarians/etc anti-animal people are hypocrites without literally saying "y'all dumbasses."

     “Religions around the world engaged in ascetic practices like severe fasting, and what those religions had in common was patriarchy. Their He-God was removed from the earth, and holiness was achieved by denying the world, made of flesh. Women were temptations of sin, our bodies sources of shame instead of miracles. Was there a way to starve without starving, to embrace life so fully I could live on air, light, energy, the cosmos? Anything besides dead things?”

     I lack the words to describe what's wrong here. Including it as a taste of how...wonky her beliefs get. She's touched on breathaireans by now.

     “Lierre,” replied my beloved, in that tone of patiently suppressed exasperation that I’ve forced her to perfect, “it’s called anorexia. And,” she continued, emphasizing each word, just to make sure, “if you try it, I’m leaving.”
     
     The voice of reason can be such a relief to people like me.
     
     “But the ancient mystical Tibetan…” I tried, fervently hoping she’d be able to stop me.
     
     “Okay, let’s pretend it’s true. Is it really the best use of your life to travel to Tibet in search of some guy on some mountain so you can learn not to eat? Is that really what you want to do with the time you’ve been given?”
     
     On balance, no. Saving the world seemed like a better To Do list. I was free.

     Her arguments about the economy and social structure are odd. Not sure what she's getting at. Does keep attributing hierarchy to masculinity? Some sort of "men did this thing, so it's bad" seems to keep appearing. Which reeks of error—men err, yes, but that doesn't mean every action by men is a problem. Conflicting feelings on this section. She's no anecdotes in this chapter (on political vegetarians), which is an improvement.
207. Drinking at the Movies - Julia Wertz - ngte - the second of hers I've read, written well before the first. Would be a "v" and not a "t" if I were more certain about why I liked it; she's good company, to me, though for what reason is beyond me. Some drunk & broke 20-something cartoonist in New York (with an abundance of friends, former jobs, apartments, life experience) who—spoiler—makes bad choices. The irony of her situation—ex. worrying about her brother od'ing again while there's an alarming amount of liquor on her desk—is never lost on her. Not reviewing someone's life—she knows she's nothing special, has a nice degree of self-awareness—moreso, what, her sense of humor? Enjoyable art style? Her humor is her strength. She manages to capture a half saying with no feeling, half (not laughing at herself, it's something else); self-awareness. Found myself taking pictures of a few panels. No doubt I'll reread it. And the rest of hers while I'm at it. I'd rec her to people who don't usually read graphic novels.
     
     ...and, less than 48hr later, it's been reread. For company. Because I'm lonely and prefer to deny said loneliness; it's what I've earned, after failing to socialize as a child. Now to spend the rest of my life paying for my mistakes and looking for comfort in all the wrong places. Though a book that I'll return to the library come morning isn't the worst of places. Laughter diminished this time around; barely paying attention, yet picking up on smaller details; some scenes hurt (too strong; merely evoke a concerned negative emotion) to read. This copy is nice, well-worn, the edges of the paper having grown dull over time. Pleasant to hold.
208. How About Never---Is Never Good For You? - Bob Mankoff - n - going in way too hard on the humor. It's like he expects you to be laughing along the entire time. Annoying.
209. In Praise of Good Bookstores - Jeff Deutsch - nv -
     Tangent I had to get out of the way before being able to take the book seriously.

     struggling to get into this one because I disagree with the premise. More accurately with other people's premise: why buy books? Two instances, in my initial opinion: it will be well-used (ex. annotated to death, frequently referenced, shared with others), cannot be (easily) obtained without purchasing it (ex. outside of library catalog & not found online). By shared with others, I mean lent out to others, or passing on to others.

     Most people do not need to buy the books they buy; if you've amassed a large collection of books, all which you will read at some magical point in the future—you won't. You are not buying books for the right reasons. Mind you, bookstores are not at fault for buying books for the wrong reasons...kind of. Too many people (only anecdotal stats) buy books which they will only read once; the local library is too often forgotten about, as owning a large collection of books is a kind of status symbol. Look at my massive library, I'm so well-read (says the person whose library only consists of YA romance (as if that's a subgenre of YA)—yes, the quality of the books one ones is indicative of their character, more accurately of how they read and whether or not they think about their reading. A well-annotated library of classics isn't necessarily better—annotations can be trash; at least classics meander through genres; enough variety that it should be an improvement over the hypothetical over-annotated YA library. Where was I going with this?—a large personal library is meant to be lent to others. Embarrassing annotations and all.

     Books are a social thing; other people are more likely to further one's understanding and tangential thoughts than in solitude.

     ---

     “The good bookstore sells books, but its primary product, if you will, is the browsing experience.”

     Holds true for me. Browsing the library is a solitary experience; one must remain quiet, uttering little more than "excuse me" & "pardon" & the like. A bookstore tends to be more social, lively; dare I say talking to strangers is a thing there? Socializing in general? It's noisier, livelier, friendlier. Then again, this also holds true for some of the libraries I've been to. Now to read what he actually has to say about this.
     
     22%. Annoyed with how he's yet to sufficiently distinguish bookstores from libraries. He also can't seem to decide which context to use to frame the book: experience with the Seminary co-op? personal experience with Judaism? Judaism as context in an impersonal sense? He's not striking a balance between impersonal and personal contexts; bringing in too much. Could argue that this reflects how he talks about ruminating and browsing; either way, I find it annoying.
     
     On the positive side: works cited up the wazoo. Moreso than I'd expect a book about bookstores to be. Names galore. It's a clear synthesis of a lot of starting points (on books, reading, etc)—should go back through it when done.

     “Good bookstores create an environment that is its own argument against digital distraction and a reminder of what stimulation and fulfillment meandering attention can yield. While the scroll through one’s phone might resemble a browse, the higher-quality browsage in a bookstore reveals the quickly fading verdure of our manic and distracted age, loosening its pull without stricture.”

     This is an interesting argument. Why browse a physical collection of books over digital anything? Is there a meaningful difference between browsing physical and digital collections of books? Between books recommended by some algorithm? I know; he's not talking about digital books here. A good physical collection might be about providing more to actively engage with.

     “On a more dispiriting note, many of our libraries have evolved over time, moving away from their former mission of being a communal repository of books and toward something more like a general community center.”

     This is not dispiriting. A general community center (which is built around books) is still a community repertoire of knowledge & resources. Quite frankly, I'm not certain what he's talking about or criticizing or finds dispiriting. Or why. Libraries are one of the few public places where people can freely exist (and obtain information! meaningful!) without being expected to pay. This "loss of third spaces" could have contributed to the library becoming a community center; I see this as an expansion of the purpose of the library. Heh, the library becoming less solitary...? I'm making unfounded claims here. His brief touching on the differences between a library and a bookstore doesn't prove a significant difference. Most—if not all—of what he's discussed applies to both.
     
     Thanks for this one. Doubt I would have picked it up otherwise.
210. This is How We End Things - R. J. Jacobs - fp - promised me a dark academia psychological thriller about some psych grad students studying deception. Failed on every account. One would think a psychologist would be capable of writing a decent thriller, decent unreliable narrators, decent characterization, grey morality—hell no. That'd be too easy. The introduction was shit; it gave 'suspend your disbelief, this is gonna be hilariously bad' and only delivered on being bad. The characters aren't distinct. There's too many of them, ill-defined, no personality, just one mass of people. Even with some dead. The plot was predictable; no sudden turns, surprises, literally failed to be a thriller, could find the killer halfway through the novel without much thought. And did; only completed it to confirm my suspicions and distract myself from worse things. What a waste. Did learn that anisocoria is a thing.
     
     The last decent thriller I read may have been Long Bright River, by Liz Moore. She nailed complicated characters where there's no clear right or wrong. Can't remember the pacing, or much else, just it being a breathe of fresh air after too many forgettable thrillers. Unfortunately, that'd've been...April 2022. What's worse: I read another of hers (The Unseen World) which wasn't good.
211. The Vagina Bible - Jen Gunter - n - absolute riot of a read. And informative, to boot. Exactly what it says on the tin.
     quotes

     • “Another proposed theory is that the hymen evolved to make first sex painful so women would only have sex with a “bonded” male partner. However, it’s pretty clear that for the majority of women, their sexual debut is not painful enough that they are going to hold out for some hypothetical Mr. Right.”
     • “there have been studies where women have stimulated themselves to orgasm in a highly monitored setting. (I always wonder how people get funding for these kinds of studies!)”
     • “If you want to prove that vaginal yeast can bake bread, you are going to need to add cultured C. albicans directly to the flour as you would any store-bought yeast, but that seems like a thoroughly unnecessary exercise. So let’s not.”
     • “Almost every woman has been told at least once (and often more than once) to wear white cotton underwear as a medical recommendation to prevent yeast infections and other vaginal mayhem. This makes it sound as if vaginas and vulvas are accidents waiting to happen. The vulva can handle urine, feces, and blood, and vaginas can handle blood, ejaculate, and a baby, so this idea that a black lace thong is the harbinger of a vaginal or vulvar apocalypse is absurd.”
     • “You do not have to make your pelvic floor strong enough to lift a surfboard or rocks, what the internet apparently calls “Vaginal Kung Fu”—I do not make up these terms, I just explain the science. Hoisting heavy objects with your pelvic floor could potentially lead to tearing the muscles and seems rather unnecessary. It is not as if you need to crack a walnut with your pelvic floor.”
     • “It’s a vagina, not a piña colada.”
     • “Regarding the lack of pubic hair being associated with femininity—well, that is an interesting social conundrum. The appearance of pubic hair is part of puberty, the transition from childhood to being a woman. Pubic hair is literally a biological sign of womanhood.”
     • “Women get to choose what they do with their own bodies, and if the small risk of injury or a potentially increased risk of STIs are worth it personally, then they are worth it. We all have our own risk-benefit ratios.”
     • “I’m amazed that society focuses on the nonexistent smells of the female genital tract while largely ignoring the greasiness of the male adolescent, many of whom seem as averse to water as the Wicked Witch of the West.”
212. A Lot of People Are Saying - Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum - n - argues that classic conspiracism—conspiracy with theory—has given way to the new conspiracism—conspiracy without theory. Didn't have enough substance to convince me to read through the entire book (hun, you only read the first chapter---it started repeating itself; bad writing), but what I did read brought up some interesting points.
     Some notes & quotes.

     • Unfortunately, this does feel like a logical consequence of social media: the fast pace necessitates outrageous claims (without evidence; we ain't got time for that) these claims are widely shared and gain credibility because "a lot of people are saying it." Treats this in the context of politics: while those believing and disseminating conspiracy are an extremist minority, the majority (which includes both political parties) does not speak out against conspiracy. They implicitly contribute to its spread.
     • Discrediting institutions without providing alternatives
     • Classic conspiracism has revealed truths; cites Flint, Michigan as an example of this. Government does lie to citizens.
     • New conspiracism has led to an increase in classic conspiracism; in light of its attempts to delegitimize institutions, people are digging deeper to connect the dots and figure out what's going on. Classic conspiracism does not come out of thin air; it roots itself in facts (sort of) to come to conclusions; product of gradual increasing abuses (uses the colonies breaking from Britain as an example of this); seeks an explanation for something (cites 9/11 conspiracists). New conspiracism does come out of thin air (remember pizzagate?).
     • “It goes further, to undermine the credibility of the whole swath of people and institutions that create, assess, and correct the universe of facts and arguments essential to reasoning about politics and policy (and everything else).”
     • “Again, the charges are cumulative: each conspiracy story has weight beyond its own particulars. The birther conspiracy, which turns on the claim that Obama’s birth records were doctored, that he was actually born in Kenya and therefore was an illegitimate president, is a discrete charge about one government record and one person. But the blizzard of accusations, taken together, weakens the legitimacy of sources of knowledge and their role in regular processes of legislation and administration.”
     • “In its complexity, QAnon has the look of classic conspiracy theory, but it is a species apart. The new conspiracists are engaged in a fantasy decoding operation using scraps of intelligence (called crumbs) that pile bizarre elements on top of each other.18 Not only does the theory fail to explain anything—it also lacks elementary coherence and defies common sense.”
     • “The power of the new conspiracism is that it is satisfied with an allegation being “true enough,” rather than true.”
     • “The new conspiracism sets a low bar: if one cannot be certain that a belief is entirely false, with the emphasis on entirely, then it might be true—and that’s true enough. This is the logic behind “Even if it’s not totally true, there’s something there.” The new conspiracists do not necessarily believe what they say. But they do not disbelieve it either.”
213. Soul Jar - ed. Annie Carl - f - not a great short story collection; too many misses. decent authors: Travis Flatt, AJ Cunder.
214. Paint Yourself Calm - Jean Haines - np - very annoying. Patronizing. At least it got me to play with watercolors again.
215. Tender is the Flesh - Agustina Bazterrica trans. Sarah Moses - f - a masterclass in how to create an extraordinary dystopian setting and still bore a reader. Don't get me wrong: establishing the world and choosing to focus on a guy who just happens to inhabit it is a nice choice. She gets points for not doing a "this world is terrible, we must revolt and overthrow the gov't to fix it." But also...who is this narrator? He has a dead kid, a father with dementia, and a wife who left him. Oh, and some meat in the barn. He's got a backstory that keeps unfolding, yet it ain't interesting. It feels undeveloped; incomplete; even at 46% there's no compelling reason to keep reading. Not to mention: her prose is just annoying. The detached, dispassionate tone makes sense—it'd have to be, to butcher in this world—but something about it doesn't work. Maybe that's because it's a translation. Translated prose will get the benefit of the doubt. Part of me says I should elaborate, or say more---at least she raises questions beyond the book: what happens in crisis, morality (what will people do, what will the masses do, what will the gov't do), turning on people (to an extreme! two classes of human (eat or be eaten, not literally, the eaten have no choice, just the sentiment is what I mean of the phrase))...can't be bothered, and shouldn't I have some disgust for this? Feels like the book's missing something, so disappointed, but maybe it's me who's missing something. Oh well. Carry on.
216. Hambre - Knut Hamsun & Martin Ernstsen - fg - a graphic novel adaptation of Hunger; no English translation, and the only copy I could find was in Spanish. It's a visual treat. Illustrated well enough that knowledge of the plot is enough to understand what's happening without being able to read it. He's got a lovely art style.
217. The Strange Ones - Jeremy Jusay - fg - the introduction explains that this is (basically) a self-insert between the author and his dream girl. It reads like one, in all the wrong ways. We're given no reason why these characters stay in each others lives. Their backstories are supposed to be that they're, like, 'weird' and 'outsiders'; we only see them around each other, so it's half there. I noped out as our dark, mysterious man (in college, studying engineering) started going on an 'oh, i'm so deep, i read dostoyevsky 'n lit' ramble. The two of them do get a single point combined (so half a point each) for Vonnegut references. The art is passable; it ain't bad, it just ain't good either; traces of manga-style (but not that exact style) are too present.
218. The Three Escapes of Hannah Arendt - Ken Krimstein - ngp - meant to be a biography. Starts out with a childlike narration, which is annoying albeit fitting; looking at the end, the narration doesn't improve or mature or give any impression that time has passed. In a graphic novel, the pictures and words are supposed to work in tandem with each other. The images are there for a reason. Here, the images offer nothing. The art is kinda shit, too; he's trying to show a distinct style and failing miserably. Waste of paper. Failure of a graphic novel.
219. Seek You - Kristen Radtke - ngt - subtitled "a journey through American loneliness"; I'd be surprised if this only applies to Americans. While the writer draws on her own life, her experiences serve as context for why she's exploring loneliness. She's a footnote to her own writing. I was surprised by how objective she is; constantly providing information and letting the reader come to their own conclusions. Don't know where to start with this one...the section on Harry Harlow was disturbing. He's known for the wire/cloth monkey; the depths of his experiments go well beyond that. Experiments with isolating monkeys for 3-24months, the 'pit of despair' (his words!), forcing them to reproduce---they wouldn't do so on their own---so that he could observe them as parents.
     
     Framing loneliness as wanting something that one doesn't have, and as the space (wanting) between having, is a new one to me. Feels obvious in hindsight. Tangential---are loneliness and obsession related? Obsession promises to fill a hole. One wants what they're obsessed with; they try to get more and more of it, building it up into a new (ideal?) thing that is continuously taken to new heights (larger than life). A continuous cycle of wanting something you can't have, but think that you can have. What you're obsessed with defines you; this is the nature of obsession. It's an all-consuming want of something that one doesn't have. This parallels loneliness (wanting something you don't have) and takes it to an extreme. Maybe? Not convinced, just going on a tangent.
     
     Anywho: nice graphic novel. She knows how to draw her essay. There aren't panels; instead, pictures cover the entire page; if there's more than one, they fit together seamlessly. Use of color is minimalistic and pleasing. Well-told bit of nonfiction. Though now I want a hug :(
220. Food that Helps Win the Battle Against Fibromyalgia - Deidre Rawlings - np - vegan propaganda masquerading as nutrition advice. Fine, fine, that's not literally what she's saying; just contains an excessive amount of 'warnings' about eating animal products. Her suggested diet is raw vegan. She doesn't call it that, mind you, but it fits the bill: raw vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and fruit. Starts off with the right idea (correlation between fibromyalgia and diet; carbs aren't great) before taking it in the entirely wrong direction (creating more nutritional deficiencies; claims fats are bad). Oh, and, uh, salt is poisonous now, b-t-dubs, and vegetables are THE CURE EAT YOUR VEGGIES. Refined sugar is bad, unless it's in cereals and dried fruits. Then it's fine. The closest thing to a bibliography is her suggested reading; she isn't really citing her sources.
     
     I spent a disturbing amount of my life being near-vegetarian before swinging in the opposite direction. While the significant increase in meat intake hasn't cured my fibro, it's done a helluva lot more than any plant-based diet ever did. 'Taking the edge off' (reduction in sharp stabbing pains) is great. Kinda wish I knew enough to properly rip this book a new one. Oh well. Don't be afraid of fats, people.
221. Self-Reference Engine - Toh EnJoe trans. Terry Gallagher - fp - this is some academic trying his hand at writing scifi. Prose suffers right off the bat; as per usual, I'll give it the benefit of doubt. Translating means that the original qualities of a text are lost. The first chapter introduces us to some mythical unnamed woman. She might be dead. She might not be. Our unnamed narrator reflects on her while trying to make vague allusions to time. Supposedly, time will be key to the book. The author is promising big things, yet being an utter let-down already. Doubt this will be as interesting as it promises. He's already given in to fits of faux-poeticism.
     
     Upon reaching the true ending of the game Alter Ego, Es (the main character) gives the player book recommendations. There is also another list of books that is key to the game. I pick them up from time to time. Such a mixed bag. No Longer Human (Osamu Dazai) was a waste, Harmony (Project Itoh) was a waste, The Thousand Year Beach (Hirotaka Tobi) was a waste, Self-Reference Engine will be a waste, and so were a few more I can't remember. The recs seem to be a hodgepodge of...I don't even know. Fight Club goes next to The Little Prince goes next to Fahrenheit 451 goes next to Permutation City goes next to a pile of Japanese literature. Hell, part of me wonders if the person translating Dogra Magra is wasting their time (most recent update; search it in r/thetempleofes). Some of these books are good, or will be (I think I'd be hung for saying that Camus is a waste of time!). Needless to say: my desire to go through the game's 'reading list' is dead. RIP.
222. Hunger - Knut Hamsun trans. George Egerton - fv - nice read, both in terms of prose and content. Continuous cycle of watching the narrator give in to irrationality and delirium (out of desperation / due to his circumstances). Bit of a look into what can happen to someone when they don't have their basic needs met: outside of the titular hunger, there's a lack of consistent housing, as well as an oh-so consistent loneliness. Not quite. He doesn't come across as lonely, but he is isolated and clings to fleeting ideas of other people. He'll chase a stray thought as far as it can get him because he lacks other choices (and, I'd argue, needs to distract himself from his circumstances).
     
     Couldn't find any concrete information on the name 'Ylajali.' Suspect it was made up; fitting, as she's less a person and more a creature of myth. Something that he can momentarily cling on to. Not unlike his faith in the monotheistic God (which seems to waver throughout the book). Comes across less so as religious and moreso as trying to find something to believe in. Another thing to fuel his spurts of delirium. His faith in the idea that he will be struck by inspiration to write is what actually keeps him going. He doesn't see his suffering as, say, something he must push through to get to where he wants to be (writing). Nor does he (the narrator) romanticize the 'starving artist.' He just gets by in hopes of writing.
223. The Alice Network - Kate Quinn - f - “But I’d been a math major at Bennington” - right off the bat, nontheless. Red. flag...until you look through the school's archives. Scrolling through some documents from the appropriate time period (curriculum, letter, course, article) imply their science curriculum was significantly more important (see: existing) than it is today. Okay. Back to reading.
     
     Scratch that. These narrators are annoying. Checking her other works; looks like this one marked the start of her writing in the 20th-century (pub. 2017). Her later books are better. She gets a hang of pacing and characterization. Then again, my first of hers was The Rose Code (pub 2021). That one may be her best. I'm reluctant to give her earlier books a shot, with writing like this. Such a shame.
224. Blankets - Craig Thompson - ngv - less YA, and moreso a reflection on the author's life that culminates near the end of his teenage years. He moves through his present, past, and reflections on the Bible with ease. He portrays the shifts in his beliefs / relation to Christianity well. It's tangible; even for devout Christians, I'd think. His relationship with Raina is the highlight of the book. His drawings---some of the shifts in style---around her are beautiful. You can kinda feel how important she was to him. And the gradual disillusionment; growing up. The art itself is distinct. There's good variety in how he draws people; every picture feels natural. You can see the characters in motion. He shifts between whimsy and serious, in his art, all a reflection of the tone suited for each moment. Quite a nice graphic memoir. I can see why it won awards.
225. Deadeye Dick - Kurt Vonnegut - f - annoying. Disappointing. Much more passive than his other works (or what I've read of them). I don't doubt that there's a reason why this narrator is the way he is (why he's writing what he's writing), but I'm not interested. Even the prose is a let down. Significantly more restrained than his other works.
226. Discordia - Kristyn Merbeth - f - from what I remember, the second book was an unnecessary installment. This seems to be following a similar pattern. Kinda disappointing, since I liked these space pirates in the first book.
227. Tropic of Cancer - Henry Miller - n(t?) - the initial novelty (it being part stream of conscious, which I rarely read) has worn off. Come 20%, there's no real reason to keep going. I'm not interested in this narrator. The prose is interesting in an abstract sense: the disconnected stream of thoughts feels natural. It ain't offputting. It ain't bad either; unsure. It lacks a pull. Orrrr I'm just reaching for reasons to justify my disinterest in this odd book. Disappointed.
228. Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird - Agustina Bazterrica trans. Sarah Moses - f - had the author's other work not been widely acclaimed, I'd've abandoned this collection after the first dozen pages. Each short story is a handful or two pages long. They're weak glimpses into an idea. Not stories, nor introductions to a passing characters life. Utterly lacking in substance. Take "Roberto." The punchline would've worked if the story were fleshed out. Tension. Buildup. Plot. Substance. Anything. Instead, you start reading, and it's over as soon as it's begun. You'll miss the punchline because you don't care. Parts of what I read were subject to comma abuse; an ill attempt at creating rhythmic prose. There are glimpses at good prose, mind you, but it's inconsistent.
229. Passing for Human - Liana Finck - ng - cute. The art lacks clean lines—it's jittery, unpolished, yet professionally so. A deliberate and refreshing choice. She uses (white) space well. Words / quotes / etc. stand on their own. They get to breathe. The pictures aren't detailed either; they are what they need to be, and nothing more. As a memoir, it's nothing great. Forgettable. Focuses on fables about shadows, and the stories we tell ourselves to get through life. That gives it too much credit. It's a smattering of ideas; a glimpse into parts of a life wrapped in fiction.
230. Dying to Meat You - Cyan LeBlanc - f - the plot is transparent. The writing is bad. And seriously, a delicacy from some islands? If you can't tell someone you're feeding them human for dinner (and it's damn obvious that that's what just happened), don't.
231. Meno - Plato trans. Benjamin Jowett - n - (I had some thoughts on this typed up, and I'm deleting them. I can't get through this one. I started it a month ago and just need to abandon it already. Buh-bye.)
232. Good Calories, Bad Calories - Gary Taubes - n - initially, I'd jokingly called it "a dense book for data whores." And...yeah. Each chapter is a constant stream of data (and it's dry) for the reader to piece through.
233. Disintegration - Richard Thomas - f - I hope I'm not being presumptuous by praising it at 10%.

     “I lurk in the blind spots and only come out at night. I wait for the rain, the clouds to pass over, the wind to rush in off the lake. I don’t make eye contact, but when I do, you’ll know it’s your time. I can’t stop. And I don’t want to.”

     Good narrator. The prose is active, snappy, and rhythmic. Not complex, nor quite vivid, yet able to evoke a picture. Chapters are short (several are a sentence) but effective. I'm enjoying myself. ...and at 75%, I'm realizing the plot has been too much of a fever dream for me to be all that invested in actually finishing it. Fun way to waste a few shitty hours.
234. Transubstantiate - Richard Thomas - f - first chapter is giving dystopia with more narrators than I prefer (seven, which is too many). But the prose is nice. Snappy.
235. How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read - Pierre Bayard - n - initially felt interesting, then began to feel boring and worthless. Sure, he raises interesting questions: what does it mean to (have) read a book? How do we talk about books? Can one understand a book without reading it? Abstracting books to what they mean (to the reader, or the ideas of the book) is just that: an abstract of the book. This feels like an odd approach, but it is commonplace. After reading, I tend to remember what I thought of the book (or other piece of media!) and how it made me feel moreso than the specifics. (...which may be a part of why I reread books).
     
     Hmm. Maybe file under "interesting, but not for me."
     
     This book reminded me of Goncharev. Y'know, that 1973 Scorcese film? Best mafia movie ever made, based on some obscure books, official release stifled, snubbed at awards cere—okay, okay, I'll be serious. Tumblr joke (with a Wikipedia page, and other news outlets---just search it up if you don't get it). The movie ain't real. That hasn't stopped people from talking about it, analyzing it, creating transformative works based on it, and having an entire fandom based on it. (Even Neil Gaiman is in on the joke). This is the same sort of reduce media to an abstract collection of ideas/impressions/(non specifics? talking about media in a more abstract sense than "On page 147, Gerald pets a squirrel") that I felt appeared in Bayard's book. How we talk about the book (and the impression it leaves on us) may be more important than the book itself. Goncharev is a concrete application (phenomenon) of this.
236. Consider This - Chuck Palahniuk - nt - ...I don't know why "annoying" was the impression I got at 10%. Late night reading errors. Fun book. The anecdotes from his book tours were colorful and surreal. The drawings bothered me. They're unnotable; a constant string of "this is the takeaway." You've already said what you mean to say multiple times, one more emphasis ain't necessary.
     
     The writing advice is moreso a look at his prose from his perspective. What makes his writing work? Well, he'll tell you why (citing his writing as he does so). Complete with many movie references; quite suited to his writing. An interesting passage:

     “If you were my student I’d ask: “Why is it that so many successful plots begin at the family plot?”
     
     Because for most of us—especially among young people—our worst fear is of losing our parents. If you create a world where one or both parents have died, you’re creating characters that have survived your reader’s worst fears. Your reader will respect them from the get-go. Even though the surviving offspring might be children or teenagers, their unspoken pain and loss will cast them as adults in the reader’s mind.
     
     Plus, from the first page, anything that happens will be survivable because the characters have already survived the worst. A dead parent bonds the surviving family in ways your reader would like to be bonded with his or her family.
     
     To create a story in which the reader never thinks to criticize the characters, kill the mother or father before the first page.”

237. Double Wonderful - John Swartzwelder - f0
238. Rouge - Mona Awad - f0
239. The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy - ng1 - Michael F. Patton & Kevin Cannon - I enjoyed how the authors presented philosophy as a conversation between the different philosophers that were introduced. There was a nice stream of "here's something one guy said, here's why another guy who disagreed with that idea." The art is fun (though Leibniz crawling through Heraclitus' ear is something I never needed to see).
     
     Title feels a bit pretentious. Should be 'A Cartoon (...)'; 'the' implies it an end-all be-all.
240. The Handyman - Bentley Little - f1 - Opening flashback went on long enough for me to begin to wonder if the entire novel was going to be wandering through someone's backstory. Was very close to putting it down. But I do like a good house (houses), and someone had mentioned this one to me, so I pushed through. And oh was it worth it. My opinion of the novel steadily improved while reading. Not in a "it just kept getting better" way; it was seeing the 'picture' become clearer as more details were uncovered that got me to keep reading. The details kept getting fleshed out in a surprisingly tidy manner (normally, I see a bit more woo in paranormal explanations). Where it went came with no surprises, nor unexpected plot twists, and I wasn't invested in the characters, yet it still held my interest.
     
     Also: Referencing the Winchester house was a nice, and exceedingly fitting, touch. (yes, 'twas just one offhand line, but thumbs up anyways.)
241. Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man - Bill Clegg - n1 - Mona Awad thanked this guy in the Acknowledgements of Bunny, and I went wait, where did I hear this name before? His memoir had been sitting on my kindle for a few months. Shouldn't have put it off for so long. He's got a pleasant writing style. He chose to alternate between third and first person (third when talking about his past/childhood, first when talking about the present), which made for a lovely reading experience.
     
     It doesn't feel right to comment on the exact contents of a memoir and say "well, I really (dis)liked when this happened." So...what is the right way to describe parts of this? Say, I appreciated how he included the paranoia and delusions that were triggered by his crack use? It wasn't that I enjoyed reading those sections; they provided another layer of depth/reality to what drugs can do to a person. (Now that sounds like trying to find a moral of the story.) His life spirals out of control. Something about the writing style reflected this well. He's detached.
242. I'm a Fan - Sheena Patel - f0
243. Is Love the Answer? - Uta Isaki - fg1 - cute lil' manga about an aroace gal. Admittedly: couldn't keep track of the characters, plot was a bit ??? (what's going on here, who is this person, what am I doing here). Very scattered book. ~le shrug~
244. The Art and Thought of Heraclitus - Charles H. Kahn - n0 - spending more time with Heraclitus feels like a waste of time. Odd dude, provides context for more philosophy, but getting a better grasp of him doesn't feel particularly worthwhile.
245. The New Me - Halle Butler - f0
246. How I Conquered Your Planet - John Swartzwelder - f1
247. Fragments - Heraclitus trans. Brooks Haxton - y1 - translated/written more like poetry than philosophy. Some parts really feel like something you'd find in a poetry workshop—might sound profound, awe-inspiring, and then you take a second look and shrug. ex:

     28: “One thunderbolt strikes root through everything.”
     31: "Without the sun, what day? What night?”

     comments on nature existing aside, he has some interesting ideas. Seems to see fire as a symbol of change and growth, while other elements become progressively stagnant. Could frame this as another example of humans finding meaning in nature, but that one is a bit of a stretch; he's only repurposing the elements to represent a point. What point?—change as a necessity, a constant part of life. Necessity != constant. People could strive to make it a genuine constant, rather than choosing to remain stagnant; if stagnant, life falls flat, and I'm jumping to a lot of conclusions from what I've read so far. Reading this suffers from the fact that these are merely fragments, devoid of context. (Like quotes that get spread through social media.)
     
     There were a few bits dissing people who remain unthinking about their lives. File under academic insults.

     3: “Those unmindful when they hear, for all they make of their intelligence, may be regarded as the walking dead.”

     Some comments on oneness that spoke to me; ex. duality is connected to itself (two sides of one thing, not two separate concepts). 'All is one' and the like feels characteristic of his writing. Admittedly, ideas so nebulous and vague feel like a cop-out, or a starting point? I'm unsure.

     71: "The soul is undiscovered, though explored forever to a depth beyond report."

     Seems to be portraying the soul as an innate (it exists, characteristic of humans) nature. So the soul as having to do with how we exist and think about ourselves.
248. Bunny - Mona Awad - f1 - where to begin. I loved the point where the narrator went from I to we, showing how she had been absorbed by the Bunnies, the odd fusion of people they were. When the individual has become absorbed by the mass, or the Work, as the characters may say. The novel is about creativity. The lengths we may go to to deal with the lack of. Writer's block hits, and where do you go? Literary alchemy, for who doesn't love a hybrid work. (I will take off points for bunny murder). It'll sit alongside all the other books about weird college happenings, the cult-like atmospheres that can emerge from them. The idea that you're part of something greater, that odd (off) degree of overanalysis that can only be located in pretentious artsy types. You know those people.
     
     Writing-wise, however, it is meh. The atmosphere and ideas cover up a plot that isn't really there. The narrator lacks agency; the story just happens to her. A closer look and it becomes lackluster. Who are these characters, why should we care about them? What makes the Bunnies and their sacrifices any different from other cliques? —this is absent. I wasn't invested in the characters, or the story; just the ideas and the atmosphere.
249. Flavor for Mixed Media - Mary Beth Shaw - n.5 - while I didn't end up working through the exercises, it was still a lovely visual experience. Vintage-looking collages galore. I can't not enjoy how people reuse / repurpose random bits of daily life to make art. Heavily reminded of elements of Dave McKean's art, though nowhere near as wacky or interesting.
250. How to Drag a Body and Other Safety Tips You Hope to Never Need - Judith Matloff - n1 - was I just not reading it closely enough, or did it fail to deliver on the title? Minor grievance aside, it's more of a popsci but for survival kind of book. Steady dose of humor alongside (well, I can't verify how accurate any of the advice is, but it didn't feel like a book that took itself seriously).
251. Less Than Zero - Bret Easton Ellis - f0 - same prose as American Psycho, but less certain, and without the constant list of brand names. I'd almost call him the same narrator, but weak, nothing violent, and overall reflective of his age (published when he was 21). aaaaand whatever I've read ain't enough to convince me to keep reading. This song mentioned is real (didn't look up anything else, but how can one not be curious about a name like that).
252. American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis - f0 - This is beginning to feel like a "take your medicine, it's good for you" kind of read. Where you won't enjoy reading it, but you'll get something out of it because it is a piece of Literature. Not unlike the writing of another author from his college cohort, in how this book could lose a hundred pages without losing a thing. We Have Always Lived in the Castle had flashes of Merricat's violent tendencies that were more effective than what's here. Said book featured a similar detached narrator, in a very different manner, but the pacing of that <200pg book made it work. Here, the flashes of violence aren't enough for me to want to keep reading. Or I've kept reading for long enough and I don't see a reason to push through it. He's hollow and violent, mmk, get to the point already!
253. Brother - Ania Ahlborn - f0
254. Let's Go Play at the Adams - Mendal W. Johnson - f0 - the prose is all wrong, and this babysitter is lacking in brain cells. Oh, wait, she's in a sorority, no wonder.
255. Acts of Service - Lillian Fishman - f1 - (the only book I read cover to cover this week, and it wasn't even a worthwhile one. *screams*)
256. Hello, Old Friend - Elizabeth Bedlam - f0p - right off the bat, this narrator is exceedingly annoying. The second paragraph:

     “She only had her writing and her illness, that was all. She had no friends, no family, no obligations other than her work and therapy. In her twenties, she wrote a series of successful sci-fi novels dealing with neurology and brains that cannibalized themselves when exposed repeatedly to the harmful pseudoscience of RMT. That money carried her now even as her new books continued to hardly churn a profit.”

     Not. really. good. writing. In any sense. I can read this in the voice of someone yawning. X happened, then Y, then Z . . . yawn, DNF too early.
257. A God of Hungry Walls - Garett Cooke - f1 - so. We've got an exceedingly judgmental house that is not above insulting its inhabitants. This thing had a riot of a personality that got quite a few laughs out of me. Certainly an enjoyable read for the first 2/3 of the book. Not sure if the last 1/3 to 1/4 of it wasn't all that great, or if it was just because I'd been reading this easy novel for six days and needed to wrap it up already. Eh. I think the author was having fun and then realized that he wanted to put together a bit more plot than "let's write about a house haunting from the POV of the house."
258. The Time Machine Did It - John Swartzwelder - f1t - What is it about people making the most obvious statements that can just be so funny? Or at least I keep snorting every few lines. A good stream of 'no shit, Sherlock.' Makes up for a plot that I'm not all that invested in. Would say that I'm not all that invested in the characters either, but the narrator's enough of an oddball for me to want to see how he reacts to whatever is going to keep happening. A bit of an idiot who forgets too much, so I'm here going 'yeah, that character was mentioned two pages ago.' And chuckling all along. Gotta love a someone who just goes 'yeah, it's time travel, none of us get it and let's go with that.'
259. Pictures of Apocalypse - Thomas Ligotti - f.25 - Some of the art in there (by a Jonathan Dennison) is reminding me of Thomas Ott, though not the same scratch-like style. Definitely fond of the lettering that titles each poem. The poems I did read were nothing to write home about, bar some interesting titles, but poetry must be more than an odd title.
260. Putin's Russia - Darryl Cunningham - ng.5
261. A Short Stay in Hell - Steven L. Peck - f1 - books, infinity, Borges---what's not to love? Was interesting to see the shifts in behavior. The characters start out by trying to make sense of their situation, fooling around really, but reality has set in. Then structure. Then unnecessary violence. Then---alone. Touches on how we comprehend the near-infinite; that is, infinity can be easier to wrap your head around than some number that is so large it might as well be meaningless.
262. Boy Parts - Eliza Clarke - f1 - enjoyable trash character study. Gradually learning about the narrator, her past, and seeing what she does was a pleasant ride. First time I've read a lengthy drug trip. Wow does she do a lot of drugs. The ending was very unresolved; there ain't much of a plot at all. Quoted the heck out of it (see quotes 135-155). Did not live up to any hype I briefly ran into: the violence ain't disturbing, she's a bog standard unreliable narrator, her views ain't unique or extreme, literally just a fun stereotype to play with. Very strong tumblr girlblogger/coquette with a hint of proana (homegirl shits on gluten! ...and cheese and red meat. So much salad) vibe; feels like it was written to Lana's Born to Die album. I do like how we never find out who a certain anonymous character is. Really nailed in the plotlessness of it.
     
     References to social justice are frequent. She reads like a disillusioned arts student who has realized that everything is a lie. She laughs at the hypocrisy of 'politically correct' and 'woke' behaviors. Other shit about feminism. She didn't seem to be a fan of pretentious-ass academics trying to find deeper meanings in her work, but she is aware of the worldly and academic context of her work. The ending sort-of nailed her disillusionment. It was a weak downward spiral that read like the author just wanted to get out of the book already.
     
     Self: when you decide to reread this (you will, and it ain't worth it), go for the one by the guy from the pretentious-ass MFA program instead.
     
     Two weeks(?) later: Well, I tried American Psycho. The resemblance between the two is there, but not in a unique manner: detached narrator with violent tendencies (and drugs, and wealth). At least Boy Parts had consistently humorous prose (still remembering the ballpoint c'est ne pas un penis bit, that was golden). She isn't hollow in the way Bateman is; she's got background, she's got an interesting career; she's detached, but she's got personality. And snark. Still rereading the quotes I pulled from it. I need more women like her.
263. The Handyman Method - Nick Cutter & Andrew F. Sullivan - f0
264. The Great Plant-Based Con - Jayne Buxton - n.25 - someone read a lot of books (and papers, and videos, and websites) and wrote up a lengthy book report. It is easy to read and provides a lot of starting points on relevant topics (ex. why fats aren't bad, nutritional value of meat (> plants), plant toxicity, seriously don't cut animal products out of your life, there's plenty more I haven't gotten to yet (she's said she'll touch on carbs more at a later point, but has made it clear that there isn't much in their favor. The way she's not giving processed foods a chance, implicitly deeming them devoid of value, is a bit amusing). The author has been pointing out issues with relating meat to climate change, with a bit of a TLDR of meat not being a primary contributor to climate issues, any issues relating the two have been overstated (let's lie using statistics!) and can be addressed. This quote felt pertinent:

     Giving up meat and dairy likely gives young people a feeling of empowerment in a situation in which they feel totally out of control – never mind the negative environmental and nutritional consequences of their decisions, which are rarely mentioned.

     Heavily reminded me of what some anti-meat teachers ranted about in school. She does cite naturopaths. Bit of a point against her.
265. The Secret to Superhuman Strength - Alison Bechdel - ng0 - her style (both writing and art) ain't working for me. Also: a vegan utopia sounds like a nightmare.
266. Chronic Pain Reset - Afton L. Hassett - n0
267. Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals - Ray Moynihan & Barbara Mintzes - n1 - a wild ride of a read where everything is so ridiculous. 'Female sexual dysfunction' (FSD) was invented by pharmaceutical companies after viagra was created. Companies were trying to market their pill to woman as well as men. Every research study cited is saying "here's how viagra helps men, we need to test women for the exact same effects" (ex. testosterone levels, blood flow to genitals). 'Researchers' trying to gather data without knowing what the data they're gathering means, or what exactly they should be trying to measure.

     An article published in the influential Journal of the American Medical Association in 1950 pronounced that frigidity was ‘one of the most common problems in gynaecology’. It suggested that up to 75 per cent of women derived little or no pleasure from the ‘sexual act’, which in most cases was because they were suffering with ‘frigidity.’

     A 1999 article in the same journal sets the figure to 43%. Ah, yes, surely there is an issue with women. Wait, something from 1953:

     Kinsey found that most of the women he interviewed masturbated, almost all of them relied primarily on stimulation of the clitoris, and most reached orgasm that way almost all of the time. In other words, most women in his survey were both willing and able to function sexually.

     Later studies looking at FSD seemed to find that most women meeting criteria for FSD were not distressed by their supposed-difficulties with sex. These problems were manufactured by pharmaceutical companies.
268. Grotesque - Natsuo Kirino trans. Rebecca Copeland - f0 - if the narrator doesn't stop being so annoying, I'm dropping it. The first chapter has been an obnoxious amount of faux-genetics. Who the hell stares at strangers and thinks about what the kid she would have with him could look like? How detached she is from her sister's death would be interesting if she weren't so stuck in random chit chat. Infodumping as much as a (bad) scifi novel right now.
     
     Goddamit, I want to know what's up. The narrator is a bit too gabby, but her detachment is intriguing.
     
     The foolish Kazue believes that hard work guarantees success, while Mitsuru is certain that being born into wealth, or maintaining such appearances?, will do the same. Our narrator thinks that appearances are everything, but she bases this on her sister. We _still_ don't know much more about her.
     
     Kazue talking about her family's pecking order is creepy. She's almost as detached as the narrator. Why the hell should what you get to eat for dinner (the quality of food?) be dependent on how well you did in school? Especially in regards to her mother, who apparently never had a chance.
     
     What the hell. Yuriko's diary is odd. I think these quotes sum it up:

     I can’t deny a man. I’m like a vagina incarnate—female essence embodied. If I ever were to deny a man, I would stop being me.

     I can’t live without men, yet men are my greatest enemies. I’ve been ruined by men. I’m a woman who has destroyed her female self.

     I craved being desired by a man. I loved sex. I loved sex so much I wanted to screw as many men as I could. All I wanted were one-night stands. I had no interest in lasting relationships.

     All of these characters feel detached from the people around them. They think about themselves, others only being an afterthought, a point of amusement, or something that they can use. Yuriko literally has a child (she isn't his caregiver) and doesn't know the kid's name. Or care. Another quote from our unnamed narrator:

     When I saw Kazue I felt like a god, manipulating that dunce like a puppet on a string.

     Yeesh. But: women who don't find people attractive my beloved <3 even got that "ardent respect" in there. I almost feel like I can see myself in the main character and I hate it. Is that how I come across? So detached, self-centered, unemotional, uncaring, disinterested, only using people for entertainment / my own ends...? That isn't who I am.
     
     As interested as I have become in these characters, the quality of prose, most likely because it is a translation, is tiresome. It is insufferable. What is here has been butchered. I am absolutely sick of reading it. aarrrrrggghhh.
269. The Deeper Meaning of Liff - Douglas Adams & John Lloyd - y.25 - a dictionary with Douglas Adams as a writer should be fine. In reality, it reads like a joke book where the jokes lose their touch after five pages. "So just don't read it in one sitting" nah, fam, it ain't all that interesting.
270. CBT for Chronic Pain and Psychological Well-Being - Mark Carlson - n.25
271. An Outsider's Guide to Humans - Camilla Pang - n.25
272. Star - Yukio Mishima trans. Sam Bett - f1 - the last work of his I read was by a different translator. Still, there's a curious quality to his prose that is maintained here. Felt a bit disorienting, intentionally so, as the narrator himself addresses this quality in regards to filming movies. Like Life for Sale, it didn't feel particularly good or bad, just (???). Maybe there's something that's going over my head, or I'm thinking too much.
273. I'm Very into You - McKenzie Wark & Kathy Acker - n.5 - too much context (both interpersonal and not) to understand the fine details, though the rest of them---that is, the easy correspondence---goes over my head just as well. Though quite a bit of what each of them had to say felt like academic posturing; that is, look at how smart I am for recognizing these names, being semi-versed in what they're saying, etc.
274. Overcoming Anticapatory Anxiety - Sally M. Winston & Martin N. Seif - n.5
275. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk - f1 - opening up a book for it to immediately tell me not to read it has been a good sign in the past. I can only recall House of Leaves and Snicket's doing the same. Do not break the trend.
     
     Damn, this guy is fun. Some of his mother's past actions are reminiscent of Fight Club (scams, other havok-wrecking. She's more interesting than her son), but I wouldn't call it the same themes.
     
     Reached Denny's rock collection. I have died several times at this point. The "why is there a rock in the fridge?" "I ran out of space in the oven" (not quotes) exchange is killing me. “Every night, I come home from a long evening of choking to death and there’s Denny with some new rock. Quartz or agate or marble" I am dead. dead dead dead.
     
     Argh. Almost feels like a rehash of his other works that I've read. Same kinds of characters, same kinds of themes; at least he's enjoyable.
276. The Passion of Alice - Stephanie Grant - f1 - it is not a good book. The plot is incoherent; it starts going somewhere and stops, takes a trip sideways, meanders, and disappears, leaving our characters having gone nowhere. There's no character development either. If they do develop, it's in a sideways manner. However. The characters were interesting. Most ED-centric books are YA. Alice is 25; can't remember how old Maeve was, but she's certainly not a teen. A devoid-of-life anorexic and a full-of-life bulimic (and the other people in the ward, plus some others, but these two are our focus). The unexpected sort-of-femslash was a nice surprise, even if it felt like the author was grasping at straws to figure out where the plot was supposed to go. Set in a treatment center, but it's no recovery novel. Just a glimpse into the lives of a group of characters that are connected by their disordered eating.
277. Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail - Ashley Herring Blake - f1p - Same formula as the previous, with significantly fewer character developments. Looks like she's cycling through the cast's attempts to find love; I ain't giving the next one a chance. Minor quibble: “The cards were colorful and modern, and best of all, they were feminist and queer as hell. Each card, even the Kings in each suit, featured either a woman or nonbinary person.” Feminism is about equality, not eradicating men from the picture. A tarot innacuracy: “She’d even take the disastrous Tower right now.” The Tower represents drastic change. It does not spell disaster (though some people certainly think change and disaster go hand in hand). Repeated use of the two of cups as meaning 'soulmates' or 'true love' is also wrong. Close partnerships/relationships do not need to be romantic, and certainly not even in the context of the card.
278. Tampa - Alyssa Nutting - f1t - can't be very objective in my judgements of this book, as I am too caught up in the sheer novelty of it. Various versions of adult/teen have occurred in various novels for various purposes. What makes this different is 1) our adult (Celeste) is a young woman & 2) she is only here for sex. Her actions tend to be based on finding opportunities to fuck, even when the situation is ridiculously inappropriate (spoilers). It's clear that she gives no thought to other people whatsoever. She literally got into teaching for the sole purpose of being around fourteen year old boys. Sex is on her brain at all times.
     
     Initially, the first chapter felt heavy handed. We get it: you're ridiculously horny, and your 31 y/o husband can't help with that because he's seventeen years too old for your tastes. Now it feels like a warning of what was to come & a nice preview of her character. Dunno what the appropriate female equivalent of thinking with one's dick would be, but it sure is applicable to her. She says, "my libido overruled any suspicion," which is quite an encapsulation of her character.
     
     What led into the ending was hilarious. She is unhinged (at most times, but especially there). The book was a wild ride that I did not want to get off of. The narrator is unapologetically terrible. Incidentally hilarious.

     “The thought that [this other teacher's] classes might be filled row to row with boyish, shy young men was unbearable. During her career, how many perfect specimens must have passed through her room without notice? (...) From the looks of her glasses, she was so blind she likely wouldn’t notice if all her students were replaced with crash-test dummies except to note that their classroom behavior had improved.”

     “I just wallpapered my cervix with the name of a teenage boy.”

     “It struck me as particularly selfish, the way the world was ignoring Jack’s need for pantied women to knock on his window at night.”

     “I realized that it wouldn’t be the worst exit ever to die young and beautiful with my pants down inside a Corvette, even if I was parked alone on the side of the road with a sex toy. Still, better to avoid it if possible.”

     Her beauty and obsession with youth are key to the book. Anti-aging routines are touched on at various points. She wants to look young, and she wants the people she fucks to look & be young too. Young and beautiful, mind you, as she ain't going for the acne-faced. Furthermore, she would not have gotten away with her actions if she hadn't been a beautiful young woman. She's aware of this, as she does think about how she'll have a difficult time getting people who suit her tastes as she gets older. She only sees this as something to adapt to. Were she an older woman or an older man, she would not have gotten off the hook. People seem to be willing to make more excuses for beautiful woman than they would similar men. Relevant review on Goodreads:

     A teen girl with a male teacher is considered a victim of his evil manipulation - a passive victim without a sexuality of her own coming into play. But a teen boy with a female teacher is victim of nothing more than the perfect teen male fantasy.

279. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon - f0 - abandoned at 30%. There was an initial bit of novelty to his directness that wore off pretty quickly.
280. The Idiot - Elif Batuman - f0 - abandoning at 19%. This author leaves nothing up to interpretation. The prose is dry, to the point, and uninteresting. There is no semblance of plot, and I don't care enough about the narrator to keep reading through the minutiae of her college life. There is nothing here.
281. What you are looking for is in the library - Michiko Aoyama trans. Alison Watts - f0 - it's a translation, so I'll give the author the benefit of the doubt. To some extent. Unnecessarily detailed prose, too direct. All too direct. The author is going for some sort of fable, guidance-esque bit. It isn't working for me.
282. Hungry Ghost - Victoria Ying - fg1
283. Ajax Penumbra 1969 - Robin Sloan - f1 - mentioned Brautigan (and came with another list of books). Lackluster way to waste time. Just a quick revisit / prologue to Mr. Penumbra's 24-hr Bookstore. Not sure it contributed anything to the original text.
284. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes - Eric LaRocca - f.25 - just read the first story. It was fun enough that I wasn't going to read the other stories; not the best prose, nothing worth a second read, but intriguing enough. Neither of the characters were committed to each other; one is all "oh wait I didn't think you'd do that" and the other wavered between doing and not-doing without much thought. Though reading that before eating a lunch of meat nearly spoiled my appetite.
285. The No-Poo Experiment - Annie Jean Brewer - n1
286. Incredible Doom vol. 2 - Matthew Bogart & Jesse Holden - fg1 - lackluster followup/conclusion. I'd fond memories of the first volume, though I'd've read it 2-3 years ago? Teenagers escape from reality, have some fun without doing much of anything, having much thought, just doing dumb teen shit with dumb teen mistakes.
287. Complex Numbers - Jörg Kortemeyer - n.5
288. Insomniacs After School vol. 2 - Makoto Ojiro - fg1 - last I'm reading of this manga. It's predictable and I don't care about the characters. Not fleshed out enough. Not much of a relationship going on, even when it's clearly heading for romance. blaaaaah.
289. Episode Thirteen - Craig DiLouie - f1t - a book that both opens with a review mentioning House of Leaves and has an intro giving the same vibe couldn't be ignored. The first half was a bore, predictable, and made me consider putting it down. But. But. I needed to know if it was compared to HoL for a genuine reason or no. It also spoke to some of my beliefs on paranormal activity (moreso in the second half, especially near the ending).
     
     When the plot finally took off, it was exhilarating. Not as much familiar recycling as was present in the first half. Unfortunately, the ending was lackluster. It fit the narrative, but it was obnoxious. Overall: good enough that I won't offer spoilers, but not good enough for me to recommend reading it. Unless you want something related to House of Leaves but easier to read. Then you do have to read quite a bit to see why someone would relate it to HoL . . . but in that case, it is worth it.
290. La nausée - Jean-Paul Sartre - f - began 20230822. Let's see how long it takes me to give up. 20230909 me has finally set it aside for when she has the will to do so.
291. The Manic Pixie Dream Boy Improvement Project - Lenore Appelhans - f1
292. Metabolical - Robert Lustig - n.25
293. Ana's Girls - Eda R. Uca - n.25
294. Your Body's Brilliant Design - Karen Gabler - n.25 - You're trying to sell me something and you keep repeating the same inconclusive points over. and. over. again. I really wanted to give her a chance, but her energy bullshit was too bullshit for me. She is ignorant of common causes of chronic pain (with straightforward solutions). For example: bad posture does cause pain. You need to relearn good posture. You do not need an energy blockage removed, or realigned, or etc. There is no quick fix to a bad habit. Quite a few issues she's mentioned are ergonomic ones.
295. The Librarianist - Patrick DeWitt - f1 - lackluster. Could've cut ten-percent of the content (such as the theatre bit) without losing anything. The prose was fine, at first, and then it turned into the same-old same-old "Yeah, I've seen this before" (and it always loses me).
296. Ultralearning - Scott H. Young - n1 - the information in here would be familiar to any student who has read about more effective study methods. Sure, there's some other fun tidbits---ending with the Polgár sisters was an interesting touch---but there wasn't much worthwhile. His section on information recall was so close to touching on mind palaces (decent tumblr post on the topic). So. close.
297. Depression - Paul Hauck - n0 - did not expect this to address religious guilt the way it did. That tl;dr is: God created imperfect humans, so we are imperfect. The author had an okay balance between spiritual/religious and not so discussion. His monotheistic beliefs are quite prominent though.
298. American Drug Addict - Brett Douglas - n0
299. Suffer the Flesh - Monica O'Rourke - f1 - meh prose, meh 'plot.' Okay way to kill time? Still can't decide if I'd call it gratuitious rape or not. idk. "Top ten ways to lose weight---number 8 will surprise you!"

     “These guys make me look like a priest. Wait—bad example.”

300. Ubersleep (2nd ed.) - PureDoxyk - n0 - interesting ideas. Author notes that all evidence is anecdotal; blogs, internet strangers, etc. are no substitution for scientific research. I'd like to go back to this when I don't have a schedule. Would be interesting to see if Uberman impacts my mood or not. Eh. My sleep is awful, so I'm not sure trying polyphasic sleep would be good for me.
301. How to be an Adult - Nerissa Nields - n0
302. Cackle - Rachel Harrison - f1 - partway through, I noted it as lackadaisical and forgettable. Approaching the ending and becoming very disappointed in the MC until the actual ending was reached. The author nailed it. Wrapped it up in an incredibly satisfactory manner. A pleasant story about friendship, self-actualization (how I loathe the term!), and spiders.
303. La chenille affamée - Eric Carle trans. ? - f1
304. All the Tea in China - Wang Jian trans. Tony Blishen - n0 - subtitled "history, methods, and musings." What I read was a haphazard collection of quotes and thoughts akin to scrolling through social media. How this warranted a translation is beyond me.
305. Fluids - May Leitz - f1 - reminded me of Maeve Fly: so close to being good. Prose could have been more active, more explosive, more impactful. Lauren and Delilah were fun, though. I'll give them that. There's something in there about playing with identities / who we are. The scene between Lauren and the wife was wonderful. Violent women my beloved <3
     
     From the author's note (which was adorable):

     I wrote a story that was anti-horny. I wrote a story that was almost erotic until it really, really wasn't.

306. The Convulsion Factory - Brian Hodge - f.5 - collection of short stories. "Godflesh" was lovely; ended at the right point yet left me hungry for more. Enjoyed watching the story unfold from something that was 'meh' to something that was good. "Childhood At The Lost And Found" is skippable; the narrator is appropriately passive, boring to read, lackluster despite the ending. Some good lines:

     It’s probably the one thing he can never forgive them for, because even today whenever he talks to a girl he remembers the shame he felt that night that love was somehow wrong and something to hide and they made him cry for wanting the girl two rows over to notice him. So if they never have any fucking grandchildren it’s their own fault, theirs and the Sony Corporation’s.

     As the remnants of his seed swirl downward, he wonders if any illegally aborted fetuses are down below, and if they feel anything, and if they do, if the sewer is anything like the womb.

     Sounds like a story to be written. First handful of stories were strong; they've gone downhill. The prose is average, positively so. Some of the ideas are interesting. Some aren't
307. The Resurrectionist - Wrath James White - f0 - barely began:

     “His mother was swimming in a river of blood. It poured off the bed as Dale’s father continued to stab her. He was still inside of her, raping her as he did every night, eyes glittering, high on crystal meth. The steak knife in his hand rose and fell over and over again, stabbing in rhythm with his own thrusts.”

     Well this is going to be interesting.
     
     Wait what.
     
     I like this kid.
     
     Josh and Sarah are annoying. They feel like caricatures of people. Can we get back to demented child (now adult?) already. No. Scratch all of this. These two are irritating/bothersome/caricature-y/not-people enough for me to abandon it at just past 20%. aaaararrrrrrhgggghhhh.
308. Toxic Superfoods - Sally K. Norton - n0 - initially surprised, then not at all. Recalling other people I've seen online talking about plant-based diets creating more problems; ex. the author of Vagina Problems noted this. The prose is exceedingly meh.
309. After Hours no. 3 - Yuhta Nishio - fg1 - kinda lackluster, kinda sweet. An ending is an ending.
310. Bleed - Tracey Lindeman - n.5 - if I hadn't started partway through (on a chapter about birth control pills), I would have put down the book. The sheer number of personal anecdotes may be relevant for people who don't suffer with endometriosis. However, they take away from the impactfulness of the information.
     
     The section about birth control pills was infuriating. Why was I never told about the side effects? Apparently, psychiatric side effects (mainly depression) are not uncommon. There are also ties to cancer, bone-related issues, and death. (Exact effects vary between pills). The entire chapter shifted me from 'I want to explore surgical options but stay on pills in the meantime' to 'scratch that, pros do not outweigh cons, no. more. pill.' (And I will not be convinced to try patches, or injections, or implants). We've already been misled into thinking using birth control to tame the symptoms of endometriosis is a good idea. Quoted passage from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists:

     There are no data to support use of medical treatment to prevent progression of [endometriosis].

     What. a. surprise. Anybody who has run the gauntlet of pills, patches, implants, etc. can tell you this.

     Your doctor will suggest hormonal birth control to tame the pain and the bleeding, and then antidepressants to control the depressive side effects of the birth control, and then when your libido is sufficiently annihilated by the antidepressants, they will simply shrug and ask, "Have you tried losing weight?"

     Only begins to hint at the influence big pharma has had over endometriosis treatment. It gets worse from there: pharma mainly looks at minimizing fatal adverse reactions to birth control. QoL / non-fatal side effects are irrelevant. At most, efficacy (as a birth control pill) is what is being tested. These pills, which are consistently the first treatment for endometriosis, are not effective. Some treatment options for endo---injections---can only be done a limited number of times (ex. twelve pain-free months, possibly, at most) in one's lifetime, else the side effects become too dangerous.

     The pill remained on the market---not because it actually was safe, but because it had not been proven unsafe.

     Does no-one think?
     
     (Pardon any incoherency. I'm livid.)

     ---

     Thinking about this again. The book suffered from the author trying to cover too much. She wanted to address medical misogyny and the underlying structures / history contributing to abysmal endometriosis treatment as well as abysmal endo treatment itself. These are different topics.
311. The Book of Disquiet - Fernando Pessoa trans. Margaret Jull Costa - y.5 - this is good. Too good. I can't read this in one sitting. I must savor it. Each sentence of each fragment is delicious. Poignant. Perfect. He understands what it means to exist.
     
     Due to the fragmentary nature of the novel, I've begun reading it haphazardly. I open to a seemingly random page, read it (and some), soak up the prose. Returning this to the library will be a shame; no digital copy could recreate this experience.
312. Lady Death - Lyudmila Pavlichenko trans. David Foreman - n0 - exceedingly dry prose. More rooted in facts than a typical memoir may be. Could be of interest to people interested in the military, or snipers. Not for me.
313. Snotgirl no. 1 - Bryan Lee O'Malley & Leslie Hung - f1 - nothing interesting. Narrator was annoying. She's just a blogger with allergies.
314. The Big Fat Surprise - Nina Teicholz - n1v - started reading for the information, kept reading for the prose. Damn can she write. On that note, excuse me while I go lie down and be disappointed in humanity for a little bit.
315. Barefoot Running and Minimalism - Scott Douglas et. al. - n1 - illustrated that arguments about barefoot v. cushioned shoes are ambiguous. Strong push for barefoot; not much reasoning for why not. Mostly due to a lack of existing (and usable, reliable) science on the subject.
316. Witchcraft for Emotional Wisdom - Paige Vanderbeck - y.25 - better than I expected. Author does explain the meaning and intent behind each object or ritual she discusses.
317. Vagina Problems - Laura Parker - n0
318. The Deviant Grimoire - Michael Blackthorn & Blithe Gimnick - y0 - intro went from 'yeah i get this' to will you just shut up already?! Ditched at 8% because the intro wasn't over and I was beyond annoyed.
319. Activities of Daily Living - Lisa Hsiao Chen - f0 - following up abysmal prose with abysmal prose. I'd like to take another look at it when I have the time/energy to think about why I dislike the prose. Put it down after twenty pages; impressive.
320. No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai trans. Donald Keene - f0p - this is the third or fourth time I've tried reading this. The prose is abysmal. Being a translation, I'd like to give it the benefit of the doubt, but I've not the Japanese to read the original. A shame when the Wikipedia page makes it sound intriguing.
321. Woom - Duncan Ralston - f1t - what. the. fuck. I couldn't stop reading. Pacing was good: intense, calms down, hits you with what it's been building up to all along. Could not look away. Still: what the fuck?!
     
     Week-ish later and the ending is still stuck in my head. Looking back, I can see how the author got from point a to point b. Real nice; you don't know where it's going, it goes somewhere else altogether, but that somewhere else is exactly where it's been going all along. I can only recall a handful of fanfics that left me feeling as ill as this one. Part of this was due to the nature of the plot; I'd say more, but too high a risk of spoilers. No spoilers for you, dear reader.
322. We Need to Hang Out - Billy Baker - n1 - or: how a willingness to put oneself out there (ex: initiate interactions) does make a difference. Even in face of repeated failure. The sheer hilarity of the Goonies bit killed me. He was committed. Love it.
323. Emotionally Dumb: An Overview of Alexithymia - Jason Thompson - n1 - ?
324. Nothing but Blackened Teeth - Cassandra Khaw - f1 - any flaws (lackluster plot, forgettable characters) were saved by their vivid vocabulary. They aren't using a thesaurus like there's no tomorrow; they're finding the right words to say what they mean. Delicious.
325. Con/Artist - Tony Tetro & Giampiero Ambrosi - n1 - wildest memoir I've ever read.
326. Drama Free - Nedra Glover Tawwab - n.5 - my family in a nutshell:

     Change can be seen as rejection, even when it's for the better. It can threaten a fractured system because the insinuation is that since you're making changes, everyone else needs to change, too.

327. Ratio - Michael Ruhlman - n.5v - would be useful if I were still baking. It's a reference book; I ain't reading it cover to cover. The author looks at the foundational ratios of different baked goods / other key kitchen creations. (I don't know what I'd file the meat ratios under).
328. A survival guide for people with Asperger syndrome - Marc Segar - n1 - another one to reread later. I am 1) confused 2) uncertain of how accurate it is. I hate people. And unwritten rules for interactions. Anything about laughter. Just make it socially acceptable to laugh at the wrong times, please. Is it actually not socially acceptable to laugh at your own humor? Feel like I need someone to fact-check this. And to think about my tone of voice. I don't know if I sound monotone. Do I need to sit around, record myself talking, play it back, redo until I have the right tone? To learn tone of voice. Forget about body language. I. am. confused.

     Autistic people have to understand scientifically what non-autistic people already understand instinctively.

329. Platonic - Marisa G. Franco - n1 - gonna need to reread this. (And read quite a few books she references. Used a digital copy; most of what I highlighted were books to read later). People are confusing.
330. How Not to Kill Yourself: A Survival Guide for Imaginative Pessimists - Set Sytes & Faith G. Harper - n1t - everything up to advice-giving was hilarious. Not literally everything. It granted a few good laughs (and I felt understood. This author gets it). May be the only self-help-esque book I will read and enjoy. The advice section is meh. Not quite anything new, but a decent compost of points I've heard before with a few new ones. All falls under advice that may or may not apply; the author acknowledges such in the intro. (And introduced me to a band called Those Poor Bastards. Give 'em a listen). The TL;DR of advice given includes: gaming, getting things done, CBT, getting dressed, certain genres of media, leaving situations behind. Keep doing the bare minimum to stay alive. To be fair, doing so is not killing yourself. Nothing revolutionary, but the author's tone is spot-on. A selection of quotes:

     You envision a big red button with "End all human life" stamped on it. You imagine pressing it and remembering what it felt like to actually, genuinely smile---albeit for the last time.

     How dare the world lead you to actually contemplate killing yourself? That's fucking horrific. The world should be utterly ashamed. Every single thing that has---outside of your own control---contributed in some way to this completely tragic state of affairs, is in fact part of an unintentional collaboration that ends (or would, if they had it their way, the bastards) in your death. That is, at the very least, involuntary manslaughter.

     I'm sure you've imagined your own suicide enough times (...) Let me gues . . . something like an overdose, or a gun to the head/in the mouth, a hanging rope (old-school), a big fall? All been done countless times. I thought you were special?

331. Disjointed - ed. Diana Jovin - n.5 - not much was useful for me. Was nice to read about how PT helps (even if the stuff aimed at physicians definitely flew over my head).
332. Blamestorming - Rob Kendall - n0 - started out fine, then began to feel like it could have been reduced to a blog post.
333. Grain Brain - David Perlmutter - n0 - DENSE. In an "I'm setting it aside for now" way.
334. The Darkness Manifesto - Johan Eklöf trans. Elizabeth DeNoma - n0 - more about insects than I thought it would be.
335. Tanqueray - Stephanie Johnson & Brandon Stanton - n1 - fun memoir.
336. The Autism Relationships Handbook - Joe Biel & Faith G. Harper - n0p - fucking hate anything that has the phrase "autism as a superpower." 'oi, you did not give this a chance' yeah yeah yeah. Blame away.
337. Delilah Green Doesn't Care - Ashley Herring Blake - f1t - okay. I understand why I keep seeing this novel pop up. Femslash gone mainstream? With developed characters!? Claire & Josh's issues were treated well. Initially it's a bit 'oh fuck Josh' before we realized that she's biased (keeps thinking of who he was). The moment where you think he's abandoned Ruby hurt. Instead, he's actually changed. Other than that: CLAIRE AND DELILAH. Ooh boy. I love these two. Sure, it's a bit HEA, but sometimes that's what the reader is in the mood for. We've got femslash and characters growing up. Recognizing childhood errors and beginning to make amends.
338. Unfuck Your Brain - Faith G. Harper - n1 - I've been loosely aware of her writings for a few years (courtesy of Microcosm. They publish cool stuff). Unfortunately, I'd file this under a lot of fluff. It's not all bad. Average. She does note that overmedication is a problem, gives room to alternative treatments, and points out the problem of environmental influences. “It’s far easier to START doing something new than STOP doing something old" is a good point. Said in the context of addictions, though it isn't hard to see how this goes beyond being an addiction-related statement. The further reading list gives some interesting suggestions. The book is a collection of starting points.
339. Poems for the Moon (vol. 1) - J. R. Rogue - y1 - mostly romantic love (and some platonic). Wonderfully average. Forgettable.
340. Grandfather's House - John Athan - f1 - meh. Could've sworn I've seen a similar plot in a Gravity Falls fanfic (or a few; wouldn't call it that unique of an idea). Characters were underdeveloped. Depictions of abuse were lackluster. I've ran into writing that leaves me sick to my stomache; this ain't it. Doesn't help that abuse is much more horrifying / satisfying / meaningful when you know the characters well or feel connected to them, which is more likely to come across in fanfiction than original fiction.
341. The Night is Short, Walk on Girl - Tomihiko Morimi trans. Emily Balistrieri - f0 - ditched it at 13% (and it's short). Something wasn't working out. The film adaptation worked well for the story; mostly due to the overall vibe (as if you can get the 'vibe' after reading so little of it). The narrator was fun. Yes, I'm just trying to justify why I didn't keep reading it.
342. Saving Normal - Allen Frances - n1 - oooh boy. That was a lot to process. Love how the author starts out with a brief history of psychiatry. Bonus points for being someone who can admit he's been wrong in the past. More than a bit disappointed to read about the problems with developing the DSM (particularly DSM-5. Concerning how the manual so-worshipped by the internet was "not prepared with method in mind" and was "distracted by fantasies of creativity").
     
     Published in 2014. The section on multiple personality disorder (best known as dissociative identity disorder, or DID) was hilariously relevant. People only claiming as many as 100 personalities? Honey. It only gets worse from here. My interaction with mental illness / disorders and tiktok is purely from r/illnessfakers and r/fakedisordercringe, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. There are people who start claiming more than 1000 alters. This isn't exceedingly common---I'd say numbers in the hundreds are much more common---but they're there. People claim alters from different media. Recently-released media that reaches the DID community spawns more alters from said piece of media. And, most importantly, DID is nothing more than a quirky thing that has little interference in the teens' daily lives. Oh yeah. It's mostly teens (with some alarming adults. What the fuck. You are thirty and acting like this niche of fourteen-year-olds. Y'all need to stop attaching your faces to this content. It's embarassing).
     
     Section criticizing binge-eating-disorder is halfway to understanding the problem. He incorrectly places all of the blame on the processed food industry. That one is a separate problem that can contribute to binge-eating. However, people can and do binge on healthy foods. The exact food is not what the binge is about; it's an mental/emotional problem masquerading as eating more food. You can't stop eating because it's the only way to deal with your problems. It isn't a way, but it feels like it is; another habit that you don't know how to deal with. The issue is when binging is impeding on one's ability to live their life / causing significant distress on a person. Even more of an issue when you get into binge-purge habits. (Then again, most of my knowledge of this is coming from certain internet communities. Secondhand knowledge).
     
     As usual, people putting toddlers on psych meds is alarming. And diagnosing toddlers with mental problems. Recalling a certain tiktok that circulated on r/fakedisordercringe. The tiktok itself was a toddler behaving like a toddler. The poster was just posting a video of their kid being a kid; no mention of an underlying problem whatsoever. Disorder fakers saw the video and were quick to proclaim that the child was autistic and needed to see a doctor immediately (because the kid was young and still had a chance at diagnosis. Other guilt-tripping ensued).
     
     Noting that self-diagnosis can "feed a kind of emotional hypochondriasis" feels like that Apollo dodgeball meme. Again: tiktok. People collecting disorders like pokemon. It's a widespread phenomenon in that sector of teenagers. Oh, but I'd say there is an underlying diagnosis. I DIAGNOSE YOU WITH: teenager. Or puberty or whatever your favorite poison is. You get the point. One minor behavior is a symptom of OCD, changed in mood are suddenly bipolar, talking to yourself is DID, zoning out is DPDR, a lack of time-management is ADHD (and/or ADD) etcetera etcetera etcetera. These people convince themselves that they have problems, and then they create problems for others because of that. Be it their parents being guilted into spending money on treatment---no, that's the Tourette's moreso than the fake mental illness. They're collecting labels and diagnosing others, but there isn't much sudden addition of medication. Or I haven't seen it to any degree comparable to that of self-diagnosis.
     
     (Thankfully, I haven't spent much time on Reddit in the past month. I'd be able to make more coherent connections if I had, but it's better that I'm not.)
343. How to Endo - Bridget Hustwaite - n1 - mixed bag of information. Is a bit too Instagramcracker-y at times. The author notes that she isn't a medical specialist, just a person with endo (RIP), but she does speak to a variety of medical professionals. She pulls you in with talking about her experiences with endo before going into other things people can do; emphasis on yoga and diet. Medical professionals even had contradictory viewpoints! Nutritionist was a 'don't eliminate foods' person while the naturopath was a 'dairy, coffee, wheat, alcohol, and red meat are a Problem you should avoid' person. These were in the context of anti-inflammatory diets. The wide range of approaches she talks about---everything from pelvic floor therapy to acupuncture to weed (with side effects! She talks about side effects!)---are reflective of how people deal with chronic pain. Trying a little bit of everything and seeing what works. Said naturopath is someone with endo, which was a plus. Does not claim that these alternative treatments will cure endo; they're only more ways to manage pain.
344. The Brain Fog Fix - Mike Dow - n0p
345. Vitamin D - Zoltan Rona - n.5 - the TL;DR was that people are deficient in Vitamin D. Applies this to a large variety of conditions. Did start to get a bit sell-you-vitamins and woo at some points; for the most part, concise. Some parts of the book straight-up repeated (no rewording, just a sentence that you've seen appearing moments after you first saw it).
346. Life for Sale - Yukio Mishima trans. Stephen Dodd - f1 - ended this book more confused than when I started it. I have no idea what to think of it. Wasn't particularly difficult reading, just a tad bit ? ? ?
347. The Art of Magic - Israel Regardie - y1 - focused on connections between psychology (many mentions of Jung) and magic.
348. Legends and Lattes - Travis Baldree - f1 - "exotic bean water" "milky bean water" I. am. dead.
349. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - Gabor Maté - n1v - about addiction, both in how it's created, how it continues, and how it may be dealt with. While the author focuses on drug addicts (which are his patients), he does look at addiction in a much broader context, such as his own issues with classical music. Was a bit bogged down by how much he talked about how childhood contributes to addiction, all of the stories there to remind us that his patients were real people also grew a bit tiresome. Yes, we get it, move on already (then again, people have little empathy for addiction no matter the form, so they may have been necessary for some). At the point I'm at (writing thoughts before you've completed the book? What heresy is this?!) the author is focusing on mindfulness / meditation as a strategy. He's also discussed how an addict's current environment can continue to contribute to their addiction. Good information all around. (Tad bit annoyed at how much having people around you to rely on / trust / etc. can help with addiction, but that's a personal qualm.)
     
     Focusing on how addiction fills a void (The Hunger - Contrapoints video comes to mind). Addiction as a substitute for a healthy way of dealing with emotions. At another point (on a digital copy, so I don't have a page number): "their addictions offer biochemical substitutes for love, connection, vitality, and joy" (in reference to drug addictions). Speaking of drug addictions, the author notes how drugs aren't inherently addictive. You can have cocaine without becoming addicted to it. Etcetera. Interesting to hear. Would be worth a reread at another point.
     
     More on childhood: importance of having adults that can be trusted. The author wrote about how children who rely on their peers moreso than adults are more likely to turn into addicts. Children are immature shits and their behaviors will influence those around them for the worse. It isn't their fault; only their nature.
350. The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows - John Koenig - y1ve - it's poetry, really. A dictionary which is also a poem about being human. Generally well-written (my only complaint being that the pronounciations should be in IPA and after stating the word. Quibble). I can only think of a handful of other instances where a second-person POV has worked. It isn't quite right to call this second person; however, the constant use of 'you' worked wonderfully. A personal connection between the book and the reader that leaves it more grounded in reality and poetry. Not much else to say beyond awe?
351. Who Could That Be at This Hour? - Lemony Snicket - f1e - latest reread of this wonderful novel. Yes, it's for kids, but it's perfect the way it is. His prose never fails to be enjoyable; characters never fail to get a laugh (as if it's that hard to make me laugh); plot never fails to interest me. Admittedly, with each reread I remember the plot less and less, but I'm here for his marvelous prose and atmosphere. The VFD---secret society based on Literature and Culture (TM)---as a noble organization doing whatnot is a consistent love of mine. The references. The writing. The way children are left to deal with the failures of adults; neither group knows all that much, but one group (the adults) assume they know everything while the children assume they know nothing. They explore and fill in their gaps of knowledge while the adults are content to jump to conclusions and fail everybody. Marvelous universe.
352. Eunoia - Christian Bök - f0 - each chapter uses only a single vowel (ex: chapter A only contains words with the vowel A). Interesting idea hampered by the inconsistencies in English pronounciation. Almost read like Fox in Socks for adults, but nowhere near as good.
353. Lies My Doctor Told Me - Ken Berry - n1
354. Multiple Choice - Alejandro Zambra trans. Megan McDowell - f1t - it is poetry and it is a multiple choice test. Ranges from hilarious to serious; in some sense, a collection of poems and thoughts that have been formatted in a unique manner. Obvious critique of the education system ("You weren't educated, you were trained" (pg76)). A well-put together experiment in literature.
355. Dinner With a Perfect Stranger - David Gregory - f1 - guy has dinner with Jesus. A novella following a single conversation. Improves once the narrator realizes that the question of whether or not this dude is Jesus is irrelevant. Some mix of discussions of various religious philosophy, their implications, and why people should believe in a singular God. Might have been an exploration of the author's beliefs: is there a God? What is the afterlife? Everything about God is confusing and you're better off accepting it than rejecting it. The author does seem to believe/agree that God is beyond human comprehension; we're trying to put into human terms what cannot. Is a tad bit too preachy about religion at times.
356. Wicca - Tracy Long - y0p - holy shit. I wanted to give it a chance, I really did, but there's only so much about belief systems that I can disagree with before I can't keep going. An organized practice / group religion is not witchcraft. They can coexist, yes, but one is not the other. Quareia has my favorite (personal best?) information on witchcraft in the most general, non-religious-exclusive sense. The author of this book seemed to be forgetting that witchcraft can exist alongside any organized religion or be independent of religion entirely. Not to mention that my time in online groups dedicated to witchcraft did not feel particularly-female dominated. This author claims that witchcraft is a space for women to be independent of men (though, of course, men can be interested in witchcraft too). All of this is false. Witchcraft is an independent practice. 'Ayyy, aren't you mixing up wicca and witchcraft' that's what this Tracy Long did. There are traditional meanings and symbolism but fuck me it ain't cut in stone right or wrong. (I have a special hatred for people who claim you need to have specific materials. You do not. Individual meaning can be (if not should be) independent of traditional meaning. Let it evolve.)
357. Natural Beauty - Ling Ling Huang - f1 - one of the reviews on the back cover mentions 'dark wellness' as a genre for this novel. It ain't wrong. The novel starts with a slightly-offputting obsession with beauty (courtesy of the company the unnamed main character works for) before becoming more grotesque. Obsession with products and treatments in the name of beauty turns into seeing the darkness rooted in the company. The main character ends up involved in the sex work that isn't actually sex work part of the company at some point. A bit nauseating.
358. Tatami Galaxy - Tomihiko Morimi trans. Emily Balistrieri - f1 - as enjoyable as the anime (though I'm beginning to think that the visual repetition/portrayal makes more sense for the universe than doing so textually). Same endearing characters, same everything changes but nothing changes. Theme and variations until exit.
359. January Fifteenth - Rachel Swirsky - f0 - not sure if there was a plot. Exploration of how people would react to UBI. Love how the author's forward notes that, "I'm definitely wrong about something." Could be an interesting book to someone. Not for me.
360. Why Poetry - Matthew Zapruder - n0 - Well-written. People who already like poetry (such as myself) don't seem to be the intended audience. It felt like it could be a book about poetry, but it was trying to convince people of the value of poetry too much for me to keep reading. I agree: poetry has value.
     
     "There might be certain psychological aspects contributing to the impulse younger poets have to keep their meanings hidden. Some fear feeling exposed. Others are afraid of being seen as banal, or stylistically derivative, or uninteresting, or stupid. These are, of course, more or less the fears of all writers" (pg20).
361. Even Though I Knew the End - C. L. Polk - f1 - well-written supernatural fluff. Plot and characters already discarded. Bonus points for being a novella.
362. Piranesi - Susanna Clark - f1 - regret reading this when I was half asleep, out of it, not quite paying enough attention. Shit. I love the setting; these near-liminal-spaces or in-between-worlds are always a love of mine and this one is no exception. Characters irrelevant. I never cared for them. Hard to write a book where I can love the setting/atmosphere and read on despite a lack of interest in the characters but she does it. Good work. The artist the title/main character's name comes from also created great works; particularly imaginary prisons.
363. Lessons on Expulsion - Erika L. Sánchez - y.5 - poetry collection. Poems were not meant to be read in a particular order, which meant that starting at the end was fine. Of note: "Circles"; "Vieques" (exceedingly average prose poem, but the average quality of prose poetry means it's above average); "Self-Portrait"; "Love Story"; "The Poet at Fifteen."
364. Maeve Fly - CJ Leede - f1 - had potential. Plot could have done with some editing, maybe fleshing out? There were ideas, there were interesting ideas, but there was something missing. Underdeveloped? Argh, now it's bugging me. Maybe it just needed another round of revision (not just editing). Can't quite put a finger on it. The 'about the author' notes that she has two more novels coming; I'd give her another chance (if I remember). Was nice to see a murderous woman. Sex scenes felt like they were trying to be grotesque and failed. The writing isn't weak, it's average. Annoyingly so. Bonus points for scooping out an eyeball <3. Maeve has some fun, that's for sure.
365. Nightwood - Djuna Barnes - f0 - didn't quite give it enough of a chance (no more than three pages) to prove itself to me, but. How do I word this. Here's the first sentence: "Early in 1880, in spite of a well-founded suspicion as to the advisability of perpetuating that race which has the sanction of the Lord and the disapproval of the people, Hedvig Volkbein—a Viennese woman of great strength and military beauty, lying upon a canopied bed of a rich spectacular crimson, the valance stamped with the bifurcated wings of the House of Hapsburg, the feather coverlet an envelope of satin on which, in massive and tarnished gold threads, stood the Volkbein arms—gave birth, at the age of forty-five, to an only child, a son, seven days after her physician predicted that she would be taken.” The writing did not seem to improve or become intriguing from there.
366. B. F. F. - Christie Tate - n1 - memoir. Two women bonding over their difficulties with friendships.
367. iGen - Jean M. Twenge - n1 - a look at iGen (aka Gen Z?) using data that's been collected over time to compare iGen to previous generations. Something about reading it felt like reading from the outside and looking in; I've been too disconnected from my peers to relate to enough of my peers' supposed-experiences. I disagree with her comments on needing to make textbooks more interactive and conversational (in the context of college) (pg65). She's a professor, surely she's seen how that works out. Interactive textbooks that try to be your friend are the worst kind of textbooks. One does not need to lower the reading level and add images and whatnot to keep readers interested. It's not a problem that needs to be solved at the college level; steps to ensure people have experience reading should be in motion from the moment children set foot in school (at the latest). Literacy is a part of life and letting people float along until if/when they attend college is shit. Also: interactive textbooks make the course content confusing and tend to run poorly. Reminded of complaints and anecdotes I frequently see on r/professors. Less tech and better learning seem to be related to each other. Please limit technology in classrooms (...says the online college student).
     
     Comments on sex and relationships were interesting. Regarding how iGen tries to keep emotions out of sex, and a certain odd preservation of relationships, she says, "this sounds like someone frantically fighting against any kind of actual human connection" (pg217).
368. Breakable Things - Cassandra Khaw - f1 - Vivid. Visceral. Grotesque. Gorgeous (gore-geous?). The kind of writing I dig through ao3 to find and am too lazy to actively search for in original fiction. Most short story collections by a single author are an utter disappointment. Here, I met the long-awaited exception. Wonderful mix of horror and fantasy. The author sets the scene and they do it well; tangible. Stories of note: "Kiss, Don't Tell"; "An Ocean of Eyes"; "The Truth That Lies Under Skin and Meat"; "A Secret of Devils"; "Monologue by an unnamed mage, recorded at the brink of the end."
     
     "as she cracks his sternum like an egg" (pg70).
369. Ethan Frome - Edith Wharton - f0 - 50 pages in; pleasant prose, atmosphere set, saying a lot without saying much of anything. Seems like the kind of work I would read in an English class. There was analysis and meaning to be done/found, I'm sure, but what was given wasn't enough to draw me in and pull me along.
370. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism - Max Weber trans. Talcott Parsons; intro. Anthony Giddens - n.5 - the introduction was surprisingly good at providing context for the work. Might be the first time I've read an introduction in full. What I read looked at the differences between Protestants and Catholics in the context of religious duty. Poorly worded sentences ahead! Catholic religious duty being to the religious system (ex. monk, nun, priesthood. Clear-cut relation to faith). Protestant religious duty in daily life; something about callings and how they interact with the world. Explained a difference between Catholics & Liberal Arts vs. Protestants & Practical College Study. I'm missing a lot of understanding here (what an understatement), but I'll be ready to understand it if I need to reread it.
371. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan - f1 - lighthearted read. Enjoyed all of the nods to fantasy without it being a fantasy book. May be more accurate to say that it's rooted in fantasy literature without being a piece of fantasy. Main character was a fun nerd, his interest in another character was adorable, everything about it was a mindless piece of fluff.
372. The Diamond Eye - Kate Quinn - f1 - not as good as The Rose Code. Plot was a bit too linear. Somehow said a lot without saying much at all, though in passable prose. She's earned her spot as a reliable author who I'll continue to read more from. Love that the author keeps her historical fiction rooted in history; the author's note clarifies how much of the story was based on true events. Mila is an awesome woman: a sniper AND a historian? What's not to love! Her friendship with the First Lady was fun to read. Female solidarity. Rooted in real life, even.
373. The Abortion - Richard Brautigan - f1 - published in 1971. Had surprisingly pleasant, straightforward views on abortion that came along with a nice setting (a library! BOOKS! (I am easily pleased)). Fun read, almost light-hearted.
374. Several short sentences about writing - Verlyn Klinkenborg - n1ve - remove the line breaks and you have what prose poetry tries to be. It is exactly what it says on the tin and does not disappoint. Loved describing a cliché as debris of another's thinking (45).
     
     Disorganized further thoughts:
     • School writing - keep doing the same thing over and over again, focusing on how to organize ideas. We never move on to 'how do you write well'; style & language are never something we work with. Just rote 'how to make an argument.' I'm doing the same kind of writing in college as I was in middle and high school. Standards aren't much different from high school either.
     • Longer sentences make it easier to sound pretentious. Long sentences take longer to comprehend; it's easy for them to lose their way and communicate poorly. Number of words (visual density) provide the illusion of substance. Poor communication is inherently insubstantial.
     • Similarly: it's easier to read into poor writing. The lack of (articulate) point forces readers to go to greater lengths to find a point. Jumping to conclusions from little (and false) evidence.
     • Academia is about communication. Poorly written long sentences are the opposite of this. Yet long sentences seem academic. There's contradictions here.
375. Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk - f1 - thought Fight Club was written in that style because it's Fight Club, but it seems like the author just writes that way. Kind of like a movie. To a point where he dragged me through a book that I was a bit meh about. Or at least the plot started to lose me when the narrator went famous? Very fun narrator, that was for sure. Enjoyed his references to cleaning. Attention to detail. That and the cycling through the DSM bit was hilarious. Caseworker: okay now this one's your problem. Narrator: studies, mimics it, works with caseworker, faux problem solved. One could pull out some English-major analysis here. I don't feel like doing so.
376. All the Lives He Led - Frederick Pohl - f0 - storytelling seemed like good worldbuilding for the first chapter. Then the worldbuilding just kept worldbuilding. Doesn't work with a narrator as boring as him.
377. I Hear the Sunspot (limit - vol1) - Yuki Fumino - fg1 - seems to be looking at how one character is handling the possibility of being deaf and how this will impact his life. Complicated issues; overall a bit meh. Will read more volumes to see where this manga is going.
378. The Voice at 3:00 A.M. - Charles Simic - y.25 - I do not trust anthologies of a single poet's work; this is no exception. His poetry is passable but rarely exciting. Any of his poems could stand on their own to some degree. Tie them together, one after another, and he becomes a bore. Interesting poems: "My Father Attributed Immortality to Waiters"; "Head of a Doll"; "De Occulta Philosophia"; "Obscurely Occupied"; "Club Midnight."
379. 1089 and all that - David Acheson - n0 - might have been interesting if I hadn't been exposed to many of these 'math tricks' before. Thankfully, I've had my fair share of interesting math teachers (and strange math textbooks, thinking of a geometry one where the author kept trying to make jokes).
380. The Dutch House - Anne Patchet - f1 - like The Goldfinch or A Little Life, but well-written. Appropriate length and readable prose. A well-put together story following the life of a brother and sister and the people around the brother. How he pushes himself through medical school to---in some sense---get revenge on his stepmother on his sister's behalf is hilarious.
381. Baked Explorations - Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito - y.25 - I don't trust a guy from Vermont who claims that Boston Cream Pie has fallen to the wayside. If this guy was all 'yeah I'm in Utah' (or some similarly non-New England state), I'd be a little more understanding, but this one has no excuse. His intro to recipes come across as ridiculously pretentious. Even the introduction, which is all 'and sometimes I lower myself to eating leftover mac 'n cheese' is offputting. Dude thinks he's better than the rest of us while also warning about the dangerous of making these recipes when you don't have other people around to eat them. Duh, baking is for other people, not just yourself. Other than that, the recipes themself seem pretty fine (though the Strawberry Jello Salad is a bit sus). Wasn't able to make anything; I am not in the right weather for baking.
382. Can't Knock the Hustle - Matt Sullivan - n.25 - surprised by how easy to read it was, even when I was skimming as fast as I could. Definitely of interest to people who are interested in the basketball / the NBA and political activism. Not of interest to me, but it seemed to have useful information for an essay I needed to write.
383. A Social Media Survival Guide - Melody Karle - n.5 - read the section about tumblr and struggled to not die of laughter. I have never heard the word "tumblogs" before (and I've been cycling through tumblr accounts for seven years). Tumblr as a blog website for people who don't want to write long blog posts? Umm. Honey, you have never used tumblr. Per her, common content includes "food and cooking images and restaurant reviews; travel photos and updates from a trip; hobby blogging about knitting, Lego Building; DIY; and tips and commentary on parenting, life, music, and more" (pg112). This book came out in 2020 and makes tumblr sound like Instagram or something. Umm. Have you even looked at the trending page on tumblr? There was a 'why is destiel trending' tumblr I followed at one point. It's a place of fandom. Her examples of content are so attached to the offline-self that they are ignorant of tumblr. It's a relatively anonymous website. Yes, the hobby sections of tumblr do exist, but. How do I word this. You're here for tomfoolery. Sure, tumblr does have a peer review process, but it isn't a website that takes itself seriously. (She does note fan uses of tumblr later). Anyone who has used tumblr for more than two hours knows that tags aren't just a way of categorizing things. They're more of a comment section. Also, the porn ban is . . . how do I word this . . . it's all there. Not even in the I know a guy who knows a guy way. There are dicks on my dashboard. Please take them away.
     
     One more note on the section on other notable social media platforms: the author lists the nanowrimo forum. No mention of Amino, of course, but the only people who know that exists are the ones who use it. (Amino is what happens when Reddit and tumblr have a child who is co-parented by Instagram.)
384. Fireheart Tiger - Aliette de Bodard - f1 - pleasant tidbit of fantasy. Novella. Average in a way I don't have strong feelings towards. Odd to read fantasy where the worldbuilding/setting isn't particularly notable. I'd pick up another book by the same author in the future, I think. Her writing has potential. If she hasn't written anything particularly interesting, though, she may be a good palette cleanser.
385. Words with Wings - Nikki Grimes - f1 - nice poetry story for kids. (It was in the children's section, so that's not an insult). The main character daydreams. Poems cover it in a lyrical manner; I could hear the rhythm. Mix of free-verse and some haiku (though I'll argue that 'who'll' is one syllable, not two). Nothing notable, but a pleasant read.
386. Greek Lessons - Han Kang trans. Deborah Smith & Emily Yae Won - f1p - wonder if the author had a background in writing fanfiction. Were it in the fanfiction context, it could have read like a romantic character study. Instead it managed to be so overwhelmingly underwhelming. It's not even average; it's just there. Really applaud the author for managing to get this book published; how long did it take to find an agent willing to take on this book? And to go as far as to having it translated. Sometimes the publishing industry astounds me. The book itself: writing felt passive. Reminded me of some good books, but it'd be an insult to those books to make the comparison (and it's too late an hour for me to be certain). There were ideas, poorly executed, only finished reading it because I was tired, needed something to do, and the writing wasn't repulsive. Bland. Utterly bland.
387. Hestia Strikes a Match - Christine Grillo - f1 - fun read. Love how you think it's going to be a romance and it is, in some sense, but it also isn't. The characters friends (Mildred! Best old woman <3) are more important to the story than her assortment of boyfriends. Thought it was hilarious that the book was both set in and published in 2023. Some commentary on the political environment of the US, undoubtedly, but it works as a bizarre backdrop. At least it's an interesting setting. "I was still uncomfortable meeting people in public, because you never knew if your restaurant, or your bar, would be the one where the next pipe bomb would explode" (12) says enough. And that's just a part of life for our characters.
388. Silverfish - David Lapham - fg0p - art is repulsive, writing is shit. The plot ain't incoherent but both the characters and plot are uninteresting. Bland.
389. The Untold Story - Genevieve Cogman - f1 - the series went on for one book too many. The Secret Chapter was unnecessary; the dragon bit wasn't very relevant to the ending and never came up in an important manner. Cut that one out and it could have been cleaner. Other than that, this was a relatively pleasant read that dealt with many of the unanswered questions about the nature of the Library. The worldbuilding wasn't as strong as I would have hoped, but I understand why the author did what she did. It was nice to see some old characters make appropriate reappearances (Aunt Isra returns!); many threads were woven together throughout the series that finally came to a close. The author could easily put together a collection of short stories to follow up this book. She has more to say, and Kai and Irene need a break from saving the world.
     
     On that note, I love how the Kai/Irene is such a background romance. It's there. We see how they start to care for each other / fall in love with each other. However, their romance is more about how they interact with each other than engaging in monogamous face-licking. Their relationship was key to the plot in terms of their character dynamics and motivations. Now that's how you have a romantic subplot!
     
     The evolution of Irene's parentage is interesting. There's the way she treats finding out that she's adopted; the people who raised her are still her parents to her, her relationship with them doesn't change based on that information. Finding out who her father is was a marvelous incident. Not sure if her birth father initially knew that she was his kid, given how he was surprised about the sharing-same-blood bit. (That was in the previous book). Meanwhile, her birth mother is a relatively pleasant woman who she has a good working relationship with. Also very fond of who her mother is. One excellent woman. I'm all in my 'these character dynamics are fun and well-thought out and get better as I think about them.' I love a character driven story. This series is great in that aspect.
     
     No doubt that I'll be revisiting parts of this series at one point or another. The whole Chaos/Order approach (Chaos, being the Fae following archetypes; Order, being the Dragons and their hierarchies. Never quite understood Order). Historical thriller aspects that were better than other historical thrillers I've read. Suppose it's the context: I love books, and book heists sound like a grand idea. There's some intrigue there.
     
     This quote to think about later: "You're probably going to tell me that you did it for a higher cause, that you were just protecting us. But true higher causes don't have everyone deserting them when they find out the truth, grandmother. Genuine ethical purposes don't have everyone walking out once they know what's really gone" (pg366).
390. Insomniacs After School - vol1 - Makoto Ojiro - fg1 - very cute. My insomnia-fuelled self felt understood. Reading reference books to try to fall asleep is a mood. (Though the dictionary can be too interesting for that, once you're delirious enough).
391. American Pastoral - Phillip Roth - f0 - gave it a chance. Kept giving it a chance. Felt like my eyes were glazing over at every page. Run on paragraphs about gloves are not something I want to read; too much and I don't even see the point in them. Nearly missed when a bomb was involved. Hamster coat section was hilarious, even though I didn't see the point.
392. The Girl that Can't Get a Girlfriend - Mieri Hiranishi - fg1 - the cover alone is wonderful. Local otaku loves a woman who is too beautiful. Semi-autobiographical, goes from the narrator being obsessed with her first girlfriend, breaking up, and learning to move on. Somehow, I wasn't annoyed with the 'learn to love yourself' ending.
     
     Also, this quote (describing creating her dating profile): "I want a wife!!!!!!!" - "Maybe that's too direct?" - "I changed my wording so I wouldn't scare people away." - "I want to pay rent and take out the garbage with you." - "That's even worse!!"
393. Our Dining Table - Mita Ori - fg1 - cute romance over food. My love of family meals and people cooking together and for each other left me very pleased with this manga. The romance is there, but it's so gradual. Less monogamous face-sucking and more people becoming a part of each other's lives.
394. The Governesses - Anne Serre - f0p - have a strong hatred for the words 'member' and 'manhood.' Sure, you can argue about context, but. Just say cock. Or dick. Can argue that the right word choice depends on the scene, wordflow. Also such a passive book. What is wrong with this narrator. Be involved in your story!
395. Small Things Like These - Claire Keegan - f0 - for such a short book the author had no writing style. Boring. Kept trying to give it a chance for 25 (out of 100) pages. Gave up.
396. The Stranger - Albert Camus trans. Matthew Ward - f1v - surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Meursault has a particular flavor of content to his behaviors and thinking. Not sure how much of the stylistic choice is Camus or translator; the tone of the narration made sense in the context of the story while being well done. It wasn't just an appropriate 'this happened that happened wow i'm passive.' I wish I knew enough about writing to explain why the narration was enjoyable. I don't think it was only because of the intent (reflection of the narrator). Reminded of the narration for Nabokov's Despair: not at all enjoyable. Truly miserable. Intentionally bad writing; reflects the narrator but at what cost.
     
     Reminded me of Sartre's Nausea. They are opposites. The narrator from Nausea is miserable because he is barely present in his own life. He's passive. Meanwhile, Meursault is content in his passiveness / lack of presence. Nausea's narrator needed to find meaning to be content, while Meursault might as well have been free due to not having meaning? Hmm. Not sure finding meaning is the right way to word this. Meursault accepted the absurdity of life while the narrator from Nausea needed to find something in it. Maybe. Don't know enough to say anything.
     
     Were these similar ideas to what was presented in Waiting for Godot? Pulled up a summary. Argh. Didn't look at Godot close enough; plays aren't usually my cup of tea, even if I'm listening to a performance alongside watching. File under things to look at later.
397. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett - f.5 - odd read, not quite my cup of tea, but what I read of it was enjoyable. Ish. Interesting ideas.
398. Missing Out - Adam Phillips - n1 - umm. waves hands around vaguely. that sure was a lot of words. I'm not sure if they were meaningful or not.
399. The Dark Archive - Genevieve Cogman - f1 - better than the previous installation. We're getting somewhere.
400. The Golden Age (bk 1) - Roxanne Moreil - fg1 - princess wants legal reforms, peasants want equal rights revolution. Not like I have room to criticize her hypocrisy.
401. The Personal Assistant - Kimberly Bell - f1 - trashy thriller, filled the gap I needed but barely.
402. Stories in the Stars - Susanna Hilsop - y0 - shit writing. Sounds like someone is trying to be dramatic while only sounding like a middle schooler trying their hand at creative writing. Narration was a major turn-off. Was in the adult section of my library, but narrator sounded like it was aimed at kids.
403. The Complete Don Quixote - Cervantes; adapted by Rob Davis - fg1 - now I need to go and read Don Quixote. 'Twas fun. I was laughing.
404. The Secret Chapter - Genevieve Cogman - f1 - kinda a let down. She's laying the groundwork for something big, but all of that laying the groundwork wasn't all that interesting.
405. Radio Girls - Sarah-Jane Stratford - f0 - did not appreciate writing style.
406. Goodbye My Rose Garden vol. 1-3 - Dr Pepperco - fg1e - lesbian historical fiction ft. happily ever after. Fun enough to have reread it.
407. After Hours vol. 1, 2 - Yuhta Nishio - fg1e
408. Before the Big Bang - n.25 - interesting ideas, multiverses are fun. Has left me with more questions.
409. The Mortal Word - Genevieve Cogman - f1 - this series is maintaining a consistent quality. Enough variety while still maintaining a mystery. Pleasant surprises. The amount of casual representation is also pleasant.
410. Dark Rooms - Lili Anolik - f0p - felt like I was reading a summary.
411. The Lost Plot - Genevieve Cogman - f1
412. I'm So Effing Hungry - Amy Shah - n.25
413. The Burning Page - Genevieve Cogman - f1
414. The Masked City - Genevieve Cogman - f1
415. The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman - f1te - started rereading it. The opening is strong: in media res, drops just enough information about the universe to provide context/give a good taste of the universe without overwhelming the reader. You don't know the details of what's going on, but you get the gist and you want to get more.
416. Misrule - Heather Walter - f1 - more rooted in the politics of a fictional world. Suitable followup to the previous book, despite being exceedingly different in tone.
417. Malice - Heather Walter - f1 - dark Sleeping Beauty retelling ft. wlw.
418. The Rose Code - Kate Quinn - f1v - now that's a well-written historical thriller.
419. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath - f1 - was a lovely spiral through depression, loss of identity, etc. mental illness until the psych ward happens. Ending is utterly disappointing. I do not accept electroshock therapy as a plot point.
420. Nimona - ND Stevenson - f1
421. Fly By Night - Tara O'Connor - f1
422. Always Human - Ari North - f1e - cute!
423. Lighter than My Shadow - Katie Greene - n1e - memoir about dealing with an eating disorder.
424. Alone - Christophe Chaboute - f1 - this guy has good ideas.
425. Park Bench - Christophe Chaboute - f1
426. Incredible Doom - Matthew Bogart - f1e
427. Estranged - Ethan M. Aldridge - f1
428. A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara - f1ep - I've read it twice. I'm not sure if it was a bad book or if it just wasn't my cup of tea. Poorly executed concept? It felt like everything was both necessary and capable of being cut out. Hmm. Maybe read it and make up your own mind, since I clearly haven't.
429. A Gentleman in Moscow - Amor Towles - f1e
430. Cemetery Boys - Aiden Thomas - f1
431. The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt - f1 - Relatively good, but it could have lost a hundred pages without losing much of the story. The author loves these characters a lot.
432. Blindness - Jose Saramago - f1v - One exploration. It seemed to be portraying how concepts of people would react to a particular situation, instead of particular characters, which was really interesting. Not something that I've seen before.
433. Can't Take That Away - Steven Salvatore - f1
434. Normal People - Sally Rooney - f0p - why the fuck do people like this book so much. boring, boring, boring. do not recommend.
435. The City Beautiful - Aden Polydoros - f1 - Jewish characters who exist outside of the context of WWII? What is this trickery? Fun teen read.
436. The Golden Enclaves - Naomi Novik - f1 - look, the series was fun. At first.
437. The Last Graduate - Naomi Novik - f1
438. A Deadly Education - Naomi Novik - f1e - the setting / atmosphere of it was gorgeous. Will lose its spark in later novels.
439. The Midnight Library - Matt Haig - f1p - shit.
440. The Cat Who Saved Books - Sosuke Natsukawa - f1 - reminiscent of fables.
441. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - f1 - told someone it was boring. I barely remember it . . ?
442. Despair - Vladimir Nabokov - f1v - one of those literary books. The incredibly unreliable narrator and his poor writing work for the book; however, the reader has to take a step back to acknowledge that the shit-writing is intentional. I only read through this because of another person dragging me into it.
443. Long Bright River - Liz Moore - f1 - complex characters.
444. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern - f.5p - felt like it was more about the atmosphere than the plot. I can see why the dark academia gang would like it, but it wasn't all that good.
445. Kraken - China Mieville - f1
446. The Silent Patient - Alex Michaelides - f1
447. Middlegame - Seanan McGuire - f1ve - love how rooted it is in its own world. Use of alchemy is wonderful.
     
     I've reread this one a few times now. Dodger and Rodger are great characters who do complete each other. Dodger is a tad bit cliche, but she makes sense to me. Rodger gets to be a nerd with a social life. Makes sense, given his proclivity towards language. The ending is still a whirlwind where everything comes together. Some of the side bits are still a bit of a drag; they're context, but they're skippable. Almost annoyingly so.
448. Magic for Beginners - Kelly Link - f.5 - for people who enjoy magical realism.
449. I'll Be the One - Lyla Lee - f1 - bit of YA kpop.
450. Tell Me When You Feel Something - Vicki Grant - f1 - I was NOT prepared for the plot twist. Okay, it's now been more than a year since I first read it. Still remember the plot twist, but not the ending.
451. Girl Mans Up - M. E. Girard - f1 - still remember how this one plays with gender and expressions of femininity. Women do not need to be feminine to be women. Also: vaguely remember a bit where she gets mistaken for being a boy in the girls' bathroom. Same, girl. Hate it when that happens.
452. Symptoms of Being Human - Jeff Garvin - f1p - cis man explains genderfluid to cis people. Not well.
453. The Lightness of Hands - Jeff Garvin - f1
454. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides - f1
455. All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doer - f1p - shit. Popular for no reason.
456. And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie - f1v
457. The Brilliant Death - Amy Rose Capetta - f1
458. Existentialism - Jean-Paul Sartre. Translated by Bernard Frechtman. - n.5 - Made more sense than the Wikipedia article on Existentialism did. Straightforward, surprisingly easy to read for philosophy.
459. Girly Drinks: A World History of Women and Alcohol - Mallory O'Meara - n1
460. Disfigured: on fairy tales, disability, and making space - Amanda Leduc - n1
461. The Anthropocene Reviewed - John Green - n1 - Popular for a reason, that reason being that it was fun / funny to read. Relatively lighthearted. Didn't leave much of a lasting impression.
462. The Secret History of Home Economics - Danielle Dreilinger - n1
463. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature - Brian Attebury - n.25
464. Civilization Will Eat Itself - Ran Prieur - n1e
465. Confessions of a Baby Vamp - Ami J. Sanghvi - f.5p - I've got no idea what that collection of words was.
466. Maps to the Other Side - Sascha Altman DuBrul - n1
467. Komi Can't Communicate (vol1) - Tomohito Oda - f1
468. Drifting Bottles - Arden Hunter - f1
469. Odd Girl Out - Rachel Simmons - n1e
470. Social Psychology for Dummies - Daniel C. Richardson - n1
471. Making Comics - Linda Barry - n.5v - takes a fun approach to creation.
472. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde - f.25p - why is there so much hype surrounding this. It was miserable reading that didn't have anything interesting to say.
473. All Systems Red - Martha Wells - f1e
474. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut - f1e - time and PTSD.
475. Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut - f1e
476. Nausea - Jean-Paul Sartre trans. Lloyd Alexander - f1e - one of those books I accidentally started rereading on a yearly basis. The prose is weary, fittingly so.
477. My Dark Vanessa - Kate Elizabeth Russell - f1e - A book about abuse and its aftermath. I loved the way that the narrator's misinterpretation of Lolita was central to the novel - who is she without it? Another book to recommend.
478. Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk - f1e
479. Perdido Street Station - China Mieville - f1
480. A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin - f.25
481. Darth Bane: Path of Destruction - Drew Karpyshyn - f1e
482. We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Shirley Jackson - f1e - Merricat's narration is stunning.
483. Hannibal - Thomas Harris - f1e - Hannibal. Hannibal Hannibal Hannibal. The gentleman cannibal. And the equally wonderful Clarice. Oh, he's a terrible person, but he pulls her in and they engage in some sort of pseudo-romantic relationship. They have transcended that bond, though, and created something Other.
484. The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris - f1e
485. The Lord of the Flies - William Golding - f1e
486. The Tunnel - William Gass - f1ep - An insufferable narrator. I've read it three times. Do not recommend (even for people who want to analyze it. Find something else).
487. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer - f1e - Some are annoyed by the precocious nine-year-old that narrates the novel. I thought that it was interesting - the lens of a child trying to process death. It's about 9/11. I recommend it.
488. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald - f1 - The classic! Enjoyed reading it in school. We love a critique of the American Dream.
489. The Whalestoe Letters - Mark Z. Danielewski - f1e - A companion to House of Leaves. One may point out that it only adds a few more letters and that they aren't that important - but they are. They are important.
490. House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski - f1ve - It's a maze - or maybe it's a labyrinth - of words that tells a well-thought-out story. The main text follows some people exploring their house. There's a hallway that can't exist. It's bigger on the inside. The footnotes follow our beloved Johnny, a guy who isn't doing too well. At least he can obsess over these words. Then there's Pelafina, Johnny's mom. (And some editors, but they don't make much of an appearance). This summary isn't doing it justice - go read it!
491. Pebble in the Sky - Isaac Asimov - f1e
492. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Philip K. Dick - f0 - I was reading an anthology of his novels. Had this not been the third of his I had read in a row, I would have finished it. His prose is fine. The plot was more exciting than the aforementioned two.
493. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Philip K. Dick - f1
494. The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick - f1 - remembering this a few months later. Still an interesting premise.
495. S. - JJ Abrams & Doug Dorst - f.5 - main text lost my interest. The annotations were fun to read. Don’t remember much other than feeling annoyed with it.
496. A Good Day to Pie - Misha Popp - f1 - nice cross between a cozy mystery and the Great British Baking Show. Technically a sequel to a book that might have established the protagonist's backstory (something about magic murder pies), but it worked just fine on its own. Pleasant easy read.
497. Basic Writings - Martin Heidegger, ed. David Farrell Krell - n.5 - fuck you. "What is Metaphysics?" had some ideas that were interesting at one time or another (notes); everything else went downhill from there. I don't know if it was his writing and thinking being a game of wordplay or the translator who made it the way it is.
498. HTML and CSS - Jon Duckett - n1e - worshipped this one when I was in 5th grade. Lugged the heavy fucker out to the playground and back inside. The graphic design was well-done; can't remember much about the content. Is the only reason why I can run this Neocities page.
499. The Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn - f1e - do you have any idea how many times I reread Zahn's books when I was younger? That ain't rhetorical; I sure as hell have no clue. Needless to say, I was thoroughly disappointed when he betrayed everyone and started writing novels inline with Disney's treachery. Mara Jade is a wonderful character and Disney just threw her away like trash (I think? The Force Awakens killed my interest in Star Wars. Saw no more movies after that). I don't even remember if she was in the Thrawn Trilogy. Just leaving it here as another relic of the past.
500. The Merciless - Danielle Vega - f1e - another old favorite. So much senseless violence between teenage girls. Utter trash. Loved it.
501. The Familiar - Mark Z. Danielewski - f0 - tried twice in four years. Could not get through it. I hope it makes sense to him, because it sure as hell was shit to me. Too much was going on. Think Game of Thrones with bizarre formatting choices.
502. Only Revolutions - Mark Z. Danielewski - f0 - stream of consciousness can be done well. This was not an example of how to do so well. The idea---read x pages from one side of book, flip and read x pages from other side---was interesting. Execution: failed.
503. The Book Thief - Markus Zusak - f0 - one of the few YA books that I abandoned after a few dozen pages. The narrator was incredibly annoying, or was it the prose was that grating? Been a few years since I tried to read it and I'm still quite annoyed.
504. The Grip of It - Jac Jemc - f1e - I'd have called it nothing notable, but I ended up reading it twice. It went a bit odd at points---vaguely remember the woman going 'off the rails' (unless I'm mixing up my roof scenes?)---but altogether decent read.