Not bad. Just not what I expected. A few essays and an interview regarding an art show a few years ago. Some the arguments were very didactic and one of the essays just didn’t even make sense. The essayist went full art speak and I knew what they were getting at but it was highly unnecessary for the content and very self mastabatory. Interesting pieces of work in the book though. Turned me on to some interesting artists doing interesting things. Not even going to rate it because it’s not really a book and the equivalent of a zine.

I'm planning on reading Narcissus & Goldmund, Steppenwolf and Demian next

I havnt read Catcher in years. I do remember my experience being wonderful though. It was the book that got me into reading and wanting to read more. I need to revisit it soon. I’ve spent a lot of time in post modern lit so I wonder how it’s held up after I’ve been pilled by DFW and Gass

All of the your critiques are valid and also what most people critique about it. It’s unfortunate because it’s one of those books where you can’t have an argument because it’s like “Well I don’t like the book because of ____” and the response is always “Well that’s the point and that’s what he intended” or “I hate Holden” “Then you’re Holden”. But I will have to say I think Franny & Zooey was far better. Still has that JD prose that you probably didn’t like as much in Catcher but far better and much more free and had a tighter rhythm. Catcher felt very constrained which makes sense because at the time I think a lot of authors were trying to figure out how to navigate the Post Modern lit world and I feel like JD gets more credit than he deserves but his catalog is fire and I think super important for young people to read before moving on to the big stuff.

Things we lost in the fire

Love the abandoned house story in that one

Re-read this recently, I love this silly little book. It all takes place over the narrator's lunch hour where he over-analyzes to death every little thought that pops into his head. Might seem a bit wanky and pretentious and I guess it is, but it works - partly because it serves as a commentary on how the minutiae of our daily lives makes us who we really are, and partly because it's just really funny.

Would recommend to anyone who has ever worked an office job. Also every cover I've ever seen of this book is f***ing hideous, the one I posted isn't even the worst one lol

the first one with the homeless kid she takes for ice cream ?

yea that was definitely my favorite, she shouldn't have put it first lol. Under the Black Water about police brutality and a mysterious radioactive ghetto was probably my second favorite

also really liked the one about the tour guide talking about a real life serial killer that everybody in Argentina knows

A man of the people by Chinua Achebe

3.5/5

Crazy that this was published just a few days before the uprising in Nigeria leading to the Biafran war. The story follows Odili, a school teacher dissatisfied with the country's state of affairs.

Enter Chief Nanga, a popular public figure who used to teach Odili in primary school before he got into Parliament. The two have an encounter at a rally where Odili teaches, and from there brews a rivalry spanning the entire book.

I liked it. You really have to get up to speed with your Pidgin English if you want to follow some of the dialogue.

Nah that one's good too though, I meant the one where the kids break in to the haunted house. 'Adela's House'. That one really spooked me out

haven't read catcher in years but I guess it's book that hit profoundly during adolescence/early youth

Just finished Kafka on the Shore. Extremely moving. The book evoked such a unique feeling. It was the second Murakami book I’ve read and it won’t be the last.

Proulx is a legend, nobody in the world is able to evoke a sense of place like she can. By the end of this one I honestly felt like I was living in the Texas panhandle with a job repairing windmills.

this sounds interesting I'll have to check it out

I liked this a lot. A short little fantasy in a beautifully described world with a really charming and curious main character. I loved the beginning of the book, the middle was kind of tedious but the ending was actually pretty great. also the first book I read on my clara HD

At first I was kinda iffy on this book but the second half kept me pretty glued. I don’t necessarily agree with the take that the main girl is just autistic and this is a slice of life. Kinda surface level. She’s definitely more of the writers vehicle to talk about societal expectations on an individuals success, on women, and on men. Also acts as a vehicle for the writer to discuss how we truly define ourselves by the people around us and how our careers/jobs can engulf our lives. I really liked it and like it more everytime I think about it. Short read, would definitely recommend. Some of y’all are shiraha fr

I just started this book , at least it’s short if it’s trash

Read that last year. Wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I really enjoyed the journey but I wasn’t sure how much of the message or ending resonated with me

Never saw the movie but I def want to after reading this. Can’t imagine the amount of time that Weir had to put in to research all of the details he put into it, along with coming up with countless things to go wrong and thinking of ways to fix them all. Just amazing.

many times I really had to put this down and take a break from which i've never done before. After finishing it, I really don't know what to think.

On one hand, love the prose and i've never read a book where a main character is so well realized.

but on the other hand, i'm a little lost at the overall message. I mean this IS trauma p*** and the amount of s*** the main character puts up with is almost beyond belief!

IDK, at the end of the day, I was completely enraptured in the story so for that alone, I have to say I liked it quite a bit but boy was it a lot to engage with.

Life Ceremony by Sayaka Murata

2017 collection of short stories from Murata that was released in English last month. still not convinced by this author, and this collection especially seemed to rely on being gross and shock value to carry a lot of the stories. I think her writing isn't really suited for short stories, and hopefully her next novel she'll go in a different direction, although gross stuff seems to be what sells now

6/10

Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien

loved the movies as a kid but never read the books as I'm usually not much of a fantasy fan. took me a bit to get into this, but I was glad I finished it as the world building and story were excellent. wish Tolkien spent a bit less time describing landscapes and more time describing characters or the action scenes, but it's clear why this is such a classic. gonna try to keep going and finish the next two this month

rewatched the extended first film afterwards, that trilogy is the GOAT book adaptation

Paradais by Fernanda Melchor

latest novel by Melchor. read this one in spanish but it was a bit difficult for me because of the slang. also really didn't like Melchor's writing style on this. very stream of consciousness, run on sentences, and one paragraph per page type of prose which I usually can't stand. is Hurricane Season like that too? almost gave up on it but it's so short I kept pushing and the last 15% (kindle fam lol) was worth it. extremely dark, tho I guess that's Melchor's thing
/ 10

btw we're now at over 400 books read itt, keep it up you literate ass mfers

remarkably clairvoyant, he critiqued a rising materially minded civilization and noted how hedonism + materialism was slowly but surely becoming the new zeitgeist in the 1920s, im pretty sure bro would've had a literal mental breakdown if he saw the state of the western world today (let alone how some of these Eastern "teachers" sell spirituality and commodified versions of formerly complex Eastern philosophies) he denoted the time he was currently in as the Kali Yuga within Hinduism's avatara cyclical model of the universe and it seems like to me he was right on the money. great book and extremely refreshing.

he made a note that true and actual spirituality will slowly but surely dwindle and that it will become progressively more difficult to keep faith in one's principles as man progressed further and further from God and placed humanism + secularism on a pedestal, he tied up the book with the quotation "Vincit Omnia Veritas" (Truth conquers all) which is a lovely way to tie up the entire thing after painting such a bleak and hopeless picture.

sankara is an absolute genius. so this book is basically a long-winded commentary of his interpretations of hindu scriptures (the upanishads) and through his reading he came up with a school known as advaita vedanta. advaita vedanta directly translates into "non-duality" and the basic synopsis of the school roughly is that they believe the atman (or the soul, pure consciousness etc. the part of you that does not perish) is identical with Brahman (God) and it's packed with so much wisdom and things that directly tie in with my own personal experiences spiritually that i honestly wish i had gotten into reading diff religion's theology and philosophy a lot earlier. lots of concepts + terms to get familiar with if one has no background in hinduism.

tl;dr hindu philosophy + metaphysics are FIRE.

Catcher in The Rye was great