this took me forever to finish. idk i liked some of the differences in the plot and storytelling from the movie but other parts made me a little uncomfortable. i think i liked book cliff more than his movie counterpart. the parts describing the plot of lancer were entirely too drawn out. 3/5

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino

novel about a young girl who's actually an alien sent to Earth to study humanity. saw this getting praised as one of the best books of last year so I wanted to give it a shot but I wasn't into it that much. there was this sense of detachment throughout the book that made me uninterested in the character and the concept never really contributed much. just seemed like another coming of age novel told from the perspective of an alienated teenager

6.5/10

Savage Night by Jim Thompson

second book I've read from this legendary hardboiled crime fiction author. story about a womanizing hit man sent to a small town for a job. some cringe scenes took me out of it a bit but Thompson did a good job creating a memorable main character and slowly revealing the story. nothing amazing and I liked The Killer Inside Me more but this was a nice light read

7.5/10

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty

had high expectations for this one and it did not disappoint. truly a western epic, this 900+ page novel tells the story of former Texas Rangers leading a crew of cattle herders from Texas to Montana. wouldn't say it was slow, but it was very heavy on character development which definitely paid off by the end of the book. McMurty showed out in covering action, nature, romance, and comedy throughout the story and it was one of those books I was thinking about even when I wasn't reading it. will check out the sequels down the line but this is definitely worthy of being considered a western classic

9.5/10

East of Eden

4.8/5

Another KTT recommendation (s/o @KoGoYos )

Near perfect book (wasn’t a huge fan of the final chap) and is now easily one of my all time favorite novels

The book really explores moral complexity, good/evil, family and human nature in an amazing way. Steinbeck really the 🐐 at writing emotionally complex characters

Next on the list: Crime and punishment

The Maniac by Benjamín Labatut

I was a huge fan of Labatut's previous book "When We Cease to Understand the World", which treads the same ground as this book: mathematicians and scientists discover new ways to see the world which drive them insane. Where "When We Cease..." takes roughly a dozen scientists and tells all their stories "The Maniac" looks instead at just one mathematician (John von Neumann), telling his story through documentary-style talking head portions narrated by those who knew von Neumann.

It becomes kind of rote at some point, I could only hear so many loved ones describe von Neumann as some kind of robot before I could already feel myself finishing their sentences for them. There is little surprise in this book. The first third covers the life of Paul Ehrenfest, ending in a murder-suicide that sets the tone for von Neumann's descent into madness. The second third covers von Neumann's life.

The final third covers a game of Go played by Lee Sedol (the world champion) and AlphaGo (supposedly the strongest Go-playing AI ever created), which leads me to my biggest gripes with this book: I HATE how people write about Go, and I hate how people write about AI. Go seems like it's always written about in this weird, fetishistic or Orientalist mode. Go is a game. It's a game that has rules and logic like any other, and is no more a "deep meditation on the human spirit" than any other similar game. AI, particularly in this book, is written about in a similar way. It's mystified, sanctified, assigned terror and holiness. Of course an AI would be good at Go, the whole thing AI's are good at is checking states and projecting the outcome of future states. It's not necessarily miraculous that AI's would be good at Go, they can play out 10,000 turns in the time it would take a human to play out 1.

Long story short, this book was not able to maintain the dread across it's 300+ pages in the same way that "When We Cease..." maintained it over maybe half as many.

Three by Ann Quin

I liked this one a lot, hesitant to say I love it. The book depicts a few days in the life of a married couple going through the effects of a friend, who ostensibly died of suicide shortly before the book begins. The things they find in their friend's journals, poems, and film reels bring to the surface the turmoil that was bubbling under this marriage's surface. Ann Quin uses tight and terse prose, dialogue laden with hidden meanings, and the stylistic switch between prose and poetry to make the book feel like it's constantly picking up speed while driving towards the conclusion.

Then the conclusion kind of just evaporates. This is one that would definitely reward a second reading. The characters unfold over the course of the book in a way that gives explanation to the way they acted at the beginning of the book, and looking close for what you know is coming likely reveals a lot.

I didn't super connect with what the back of the book describes as an "incisive exploration of the hidden emotions and sexual undercurrents of the British middle class", though the book does depict some truly horrific bedroom politics.

Damn you hated Maniac 😭

I thought it was pretty good, not as good as his previous book but I thought Von Neumann was an interesting subject. Also quite liked the part about GO, but that’s maybe because I had zero knowledge of it, and had not heard of the particular game in question.

Lmao maybe I was a little harsh on it. I couldn't help comparing it with his previous book, which again, I adored. Unfortunately I just felt like the format of The Maniac failed to show me really compelling development of von Neumann as a person. I admit the Go stuff might just be a personal hangup of mine. I really loved Yasunari Kawataba's "The Master of Go", which in large part is about the friction between the "old school" which celebrates Go as a spiritual practice or art and the "new school" who looks at the game pragmatically. I'd suggest checking that one out if you liked the Go stuff in The Maniac!

reading this one this year at some point.

everybody's been reading lonesome dove, what's with this resurgence?? I haven't read it but I bought it last year lol

idk I had it on my TBR for a few years now but that's true I have been seeing it recommended online a lot recently

maybe people are in the mood for a western

Idk but that s*** is a 10/10 must read

This was on my TBR for so long and I hesitated to pick it up but now this has become (I think) my favorite book I’ve ever read. When I read the first page, I instantly knew that I was gonna get lost in the story. Carlos Ruiz Zafón’s writing stands out as beautifully descriptive, witty, and atmospheric. I don’t usually annotate books, but I underlined so many quotes in this. Beneath the great writing, there's a compelling, suspenseful, gothic ghost story that grabs you by the collar and forces the need to know what happens next upon you. This book is the epitome of shadowy-dude-in-a-trenchcoat-standing-under-a-street-light vibes 😂😂😂.

The characters in this story stole my heart. Everyone is fleshed out with histories, opinions, and eccentricities that make them jump off the page. There's one character in particular who already has made their way into my top side characters of all time— and through this character, Zafón was able to put the witty and insightful nature of his writing on full display.

In true gothic fashion, Barcelona serves the role of both setting and character. The characters' feelings, fears, pasts, and futures are reflected within the descriptions of this city. Barcelona is every bit as moody and temperamental as all of the characters.

This is truly a book for book lovers and there is something for everyone in it: mystery, history, romance, political intrigue.

absolute banger

read it earlier this year and still think about it
classic that doesn't get the credit it deserves. I gotta check out the sequels some time

@PapiPedro reading this rn too, told you it was worth it bro but let this review convince ya to stick with it

Finished Hyperion last week,
Onto: Faith hope and carnage - Nick Cave/Sean O'Hagan

Books I read this year so far:

• Damian - Herman Hesse
• Beyond Freedom & Dignity - BF Skinner
• The Grand Delusion - John Maersheimer
• The Will to Power - Friedrich Nietzsche
• The Prize - Daniel Yergin
• The New Map - Daniel Yergin
• The Ego and Its Own - Max Stirner
• The Great Demographic Reversal - Charles Goodhart and Manoj Pradhan
• Augustus - John Williams

Kinda want to read some fiction next, thinking about Glass Bead Game by Hesse but idk

any favorites?

The Prize was really good imo, it’s basically a 100 different biographies with so many interesting characters and stories in it. Very long, but very good.

Great Demographic Reversal was really insightful, although it was basically a bunch of economics papers bundled together in a book

The two fictions on here, Demian and Augustus, were really good I thought, especially the latter.

Rest is mainly philosophy or geopolitics related

Tbh I liked all books I finished this year so far, but that’s also survivor bias because I’m also someone that drops a book when I feel like it’s not interesting anymore

Augustus is on my list. have you read Stoner?

classic, love fictional biographies with men that get into existential crysis

Not yet but I def will this year

Augustus is just Stoner in ancient Rome. Great book

Wish there was a better way to search on the site. My review on Stoner is on page 60 and I gave it a 3.5 (which is probably on the harsher side honestly).

Damn my last write up was November. I’ll be back later tonight with some of my pointless musings on what I’ve read in the last 4-5 months

Being able to search up key words in your profile would be amazing. Too bad S gave up on this site years ago. Our data will probably be sold to a Taiwanese group by December.

fell off a bit cuz work is time consuming but about halfway through 4321 rn what a book

Madonna in a Fur Coat (1943) – Sabahattin Ali

Pithy but punchy. The author’s prose is romantic but melancholic. A real meditation on the fragile shards of human connection and unspoken emotion. The protagonist is a REAL yearner. The twist has really stuck with me.

4.5/5

Waiting for Godot (1953) – Samuel Beckett

Infamously dubbed “a play where nothing happens, twice”. Waiting for Godot places you in an elevated state of anticipation, awaiting a resolution that never ultimately arrives. The plot can be diluted down as follows: two characters sit on a bench waiting for “Godot” to arrive. Godot never does.

An apt existential quandary – why are we waiting; is there any inherent meaning in doing so? The two characters continue living in stasis, in perpetuity, awaiting a Godot who never arrives. A commentary on the absurdism of life.

4/5

Blood Meridian (1985) – Cormac McCarthy

Impressively, the first McCarthy book added to my repertoire. So late to the party, I know.

This novel is unflinchingly violent with dense but pretty prose. The writing style is certainly distinctive, though the lack of punctuation makes the chapters a chore at times. Judge Holden is a phenomenally written ominous character. A gritty tapestry into the savagery of man.

3.5/5

Death in Midsummer (And Other Stories) (1966) – Yukio Mishima

Incredibly profound human.

Yukio Mishima was, essentially, a fascist psycho who committed seppuku over his disdain for Japan’s westernisation and refusal of deference to the Emperor/Samurai ideals — but man, could he write good literature. This collection of short (but punchy) novels deal so deftly with themes of guilt, loss, and the element of beauty in acceptance of the impermanence of life.

3/5