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| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- | -------------------- | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----- | ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | | ------ | | | checkbox | position | cover The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions | title The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions | author Norton, Michael * | isbn 1982153024 | isbn13 9781982153021 | asin 1982153024 | num pages 288pp | avg rating 3.48 | num ratings 609 | date pub Apr 09, 2024 | date pub edition Apr 09, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Most of us think of ritual in terms of religious rituals - the familiar prayers, songs and gestures that are part of every religious service. So borin Most of us think of ritual in terms of religious rituals - the familiar prayers, songs and gestures that are part of every religious service. So boring, so rote, so mechanical. Growing up I saw religious ritual as the essence of hypocrisy. It was bad people attending services as a social gesture so that they could play the role of upstanding pillars of the community. Ugh! What could be worse? I couldn't wait to be old enough so that I could refuse to go.But of course the concept of ritual is much broader than that, encompassing the steps we do every day to get started and to go to bed - how we do them and in what order and what little spandrels get added just because. Famously there are many rituals in sports, special cheers, lucky pieces of clothing and equipment, victory dances and so on. There are also many family rituals and rituals of all kinds of groups of people that are designed to bind them together.And again there are those religious rituals that I hated so much when I was younger. As I age they don't seem so bad. There is comfort to be found in some of them. The familiarity and the repetition can enhance the spiritual experience. Sure the hypocrites are still there but just forget them and let it flow over you. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 30, 2024 | date added Sep 30, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Normal People | title Normal People | author Rooney, Sally * | isbn 1984822179 | isbn13 9781984822178 | asin 1984822179 | num pages 273pp | avg rating 3.81 | num ratings 1,517,812 | date pub Aug 28, 2018 | date pub edition Apr 16, 2019 | Richard's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review It reminded me of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow as a story of two people who are obviously made for each other, who have chemistry that you can f It reminded me of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow as a story of two people who are obviously made for each other, who have chemistry that you can feel when things are going well, but who somehow cannot fully connect and get together long term. Where's the Irish passion, why couldn't they just fully acknowledge their feelings? More than once I wanted to slap them around or send them secret notes saying the things that they couldn't say to each other. As I read the book, I got stuck on the title. Connell and Marianne both want very much to be normal but feel deeply that they aren't, that they don't belong to the world they live in. But don't we all feel that way and isn't feeling that way actually a sign of normalcy? Then they both start to go over the edge further and further, first Connell and then Marianne and Connell even more so and Marianne more again. Still in many ways they are both living successful lives that look good from the outside, so that other people think that the two of them are normal. So I guess none of us are normal. The people at your school, in your office and in your family who seem normal? They're all nuts. A few of the ones who seem kooky are probably better off than they seem, but they are all a little bent too. It's the normal human condition. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 29, 2024 | date added Sep 30, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Smothermoss | title Smothermoss | author Alering, Alisa * | isbn 1959030582 | isbn13 9781959030584 | asin 1959030582 | num pages 256pp | avg rating 3.54 | num ratings 994 | date pub Jul 16, 2024 | date pub edition Jul 16, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review At first I didn't like either of the girls. Sheila was angry and mean without enough reason. Angie was too airy fairy. They were outsiders, not fun, n At first I didn't like either of the girls. Sheila was angry and mean without enough reason. Angie was too airy fairy. They were outsiders, not fun, not charismatic. They might have been pretty, but no so naturally pretty that beauty could easily shine through their unkempt poorly dressed poverty. Of course they weren't popular. And they didn't even seem to be the kind of outsider reject kids who I often wanted to be friends with. But certainly there is something special about them, which we learn over the course of the book is their special connection to the mountain that they live on. The mountain speaks to them, not with words, but by letting them see things that others can't see. It protects them, though sometimes the protection seems more like threat. But more than anything it brings them together and binds them as sisters who will be close to each other forever, even if they never like each other very much. It's really how magic ought to work, not giving you power over other people, not giving you your heart's desire, always making you wonder if it is real or not, but still undeniably there. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 28, 2024 | date added Sep 30, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Ramona (Signet Classics) | title Ramona | author Jackson, Helen Hunt | isbn 0451528425 | isbn13 9780451528421 | asin 0451528425 | num pages 432pp | avg rating 3.75 | num ratings 2,371 | date pub 1884 | date pub edition Jul 01, 2002 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I have read that this book was enormously popular in its time, but it has been largely forgotten. I can see why. It has all of the elements of a cheap I have read that this book was enormously popular in its time, but it has been largely forgotten. I can see why. It has all of the elements of a cheap romance story - the beautiful young couple who have a forbidden love, the wicked step-mother, the steadfast man with good intentions who loses the girl, the escape in the night, the love child who dies in infancy. The list goes on. It didn't take a huge literary talent to write this.And then there is the social conscience part of it, telling a white American audience a story of the injustices visited on Native Americans. As with Uncle Tom's Cabin, the author means well but cannot escape the racism and misconceptions of her world. The Spanish colonial society from before the annexation of California to the United States is portrayed as mostly benign, almost idyllic. I noticed only one place where a character acknowledges that the Spanish mission system sometimes had its cruelties, though I think that the opposite is true - it was cruel system that tried to destroy the native culture and effectively enslaved the native people though there were no doubt a few people who were kind and treated the natives well. Alessandro and Ramona are scorned as Indians, but we are asked to admire them mostly for their ability to ape European manners. It's good that Ms. Jackson was able to see injustice and bring it to the attention of a broad audience. Of course, she could only express the values of the world she knew. There are some admirable qualities in the social purpose of this book, but it couldn't be written like this today, and as important as it may have been in its time, I think that it is better left largely forgotten.Finally, there is the California setting, inland from San Diego in the area around Temecula, Pechanga, Poway and San Jacinto. Much of this area is developed today as the outer suburbs of San Diego, but there is enough that is still agricultural or undeveloped desert that I was easily able to conjure up the rough beauty of the countryside as described in this book. It's not quite as good as Two Years Before the Mast in presenting a vivid picture of early California, but for people who know this area, it is a good virtual time machine that can let us visualize what an area we know was like when it was far less populated and had only a few scattered villages and ranches in an awesome terrain. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 3 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 27, 2024 | date added Sep 28, 2024 | owned | format Mass Market Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Pink Slime | title Pink Slime | author Trías, Fernanda | isbn 1668049775 | isbn13 9781668049778 | asin 1668049775 | num pages 240pp | avg rating 3.65 | num ratings 3,613 | date pub Oct 05, 2020 | date pub edition Jul 02, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review As our world progresses into destruction at the hands of humans, we will probably keep living our lives much as we always have, getting up in the morn As our world progresses into destruction at the hands of humans, we will probably keep living our lives much as we always have, getting up in the morning, eating such food as we have, doing our jobs and caring for our families. People will die, and the quality of life will be degraded, but life will continue much as it does now in a somewhat reduced fashion. We will wish for normality and try to retain it as much as we can, even as it slips from our grasp. Most of us will be prisoners of our habits, unable break them and escape to whatever better place might still exist over the horizon. We will discover the banality of the apocalypse. That's what I took from this book. It's as chilling in its own way as other stories of this genre that feature survivalist tales of roving gangs with a few people holed up in bunkers.But it's hard for an author to sustain a story about a normal person trying to live a normal life. When most of the ways in which the world deteriorates are matters of degree without dramatic turning points to drive the plot and develop the characters, the author needs to find the story inside the protagonist's mind or find ways to make the little things capture our attention. But in a story of a normal good person coping, that's not so easy. Ms. Trias tries and sometimes succeeds, but she doesn't fully pull it off. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 27, 2024 | date added Sep 28, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Ship of Fools | title Ship of Fools | author Porter, Katherine Anne | isbn 0316713902 | isbn13 9780316713900 | asin 0316713902 | num pages 512pp | avg rating 3.68 | num ratings 2,822 | date pub 1962 | date pub edition May 30, 1984 | Richard's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I saw in a couple of reviews that this book has been compared to Magic Mountain, which is one of my favorite books of all time, so I had high expectat I saw in a couple of reviews that this book has been compared to Magic Mountain, which is one of my favorite books of all time, so I had high expectations. There's a definite similarity in the set up - a group of misfits from different cultures are thrown together in an isolated environment oblivious to the storm clouds of world war gathering around them. Magic Mountain has an incredible assortment of unforgettable characters who embody the charactersistics of North and South, East and West and yet manage at the same time to feel intensely realistic. The philosophical themes and the metaphorical treatment of illness and love in Magic Mountain are intense. Ship of Fools isn't quite that, but how many books are? It's still damned good. The characters in Ship of Fools all have a sort of aimlessness about them. They have ambitions. They have relationships. They discuss ideas, some good some horrid. But none of it seems to go anywhere. They just spin. And the ship sails on, a microcosm of the modern condition. I saw no redemption or real personal growth in any of these people. Some of them have hopeful ideas at the end, but to me they just felt like an alcoholic waking up with a hangover and swearing not to drink. By mid afternoon, he's back at it. Jenny, David, Dr. Schumann, Lizzie, Freytag, Denny, Hutten and all of the rest - they are going nowhere. Whether the ship drops them in Spain, France, England or Germany, it's all more of the same. Still the story is never boring. It's always interesting to see how these characters bounce off of each other and get themselves in and out of trouble, even when it's all just a petty never ending game. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 1 | votes 5 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 26, 2024 | date added Sep 26, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Slaughteryard | title The Slaughteryard | author Echeverría, Esteban | isbn 0007346735 | isbn13 9780007346738 | asin 0007346735 | num pages 176pp | avg rating 3.23 | num ratings 3,946 | date pub Aug 1871 | date pub edition Dec 23, 2014 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review This is a classic of Argentine literature. It has some great moments. I loved the part where the bull escapes and then is hunted down and slaughtered. This is a classic of Argentine literature. It has some great moments. I loved the part where the bull escapes and then is hunted down and slaughtered. He rampages through the streets until he is finally cornered. The blood flows. The description of the action is thrilling and scary, and it works equally well as metaphor. Then the bloodlust naturally flows forward into the attack on the Unitarian. The story goes from nasty to digusting to cruel and back to nasty again. I'm fine with that part of it, but I did find the writing to be a bit uneven. More than anything, this is a political story, damning the Rosas regime and its lackeys for their lawless violent behavior. I think that you have to read it more as polemic than as history or literature. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 24, 2024 | date added Sep 25, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Willful: How We Choose What We Do | title Willful: How We Choose What We Do | author Robb, Richard | isbn 0300246439 | isbn13 9780300246438 | asin 0300246439 | num pages 256pp | avg rating 3.61 | num ratings 57 | date pub unknown | date pub edition Nov 12, 2019 | Richard's rating it was ok | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I have trouble understanding what people like about this book. There really isn't any there there. It's true that rational choice theory from classica I have trouble understanding what people like about this book. There really isn't any there there. It's true that rational choice theory from classical economics is inadequate to explain a lot of what humans do in the economy. And while behavioral economics helps to fill some of the gaps, it's more of a patchwork than a complete theory - it doesn't lend itself to equations and grand generalizations. So to cover the rest of the universe Mr. Robb proposes a class of behavior he calls "for itself." But it really isn't a true class of behavior at all. It's just a grab bag of what's left that rational choice and behavioral economics don't already cover. For the most part, his theory has little explanatory power. He identifies areas where people act against their best interests and then tells us "just so" stories about why they did it. I'm being a little harsh. It's not quite that bad. I did like his discussion of how habit and belief can drive or retard behavior. And he has a decent discussion of altruism, though others have done altruism better. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 23, 2024 | date added Sep 25, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Madwoman | title Madwoman | author Bieker, Chelsea * | isbn 0316573299 | isbn13 9780316573290 | asin 0316573299 | num pages 336pp | avg rating 3.78 | num ratings 3,878 | date pub Sep 03, 2024 | date pub edition Sep 03, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Spousal violence, particularly against women, is a horrible problem. Too many battered women are left bleeding on the floor with no effective help. It Spousal violence, particularly against women, is a horrible problem. Too many battered women are left bleeding on the floor with no effective help. It's a subject that deserves consideration in novels. However, it's so foreign to my experience that I found it a bit hard to relate. So I wanted to care for these characters, but found it difficult. Compassion at times, but empathy not so much.I liked how Clove was such a flawed person. It made her more believeable. I don't think that anyone could go through her experience and come out a paragon of virtue. She tries to be a good mother and in many ways succeeds, but also fails. She cares for her husband, but often more as a symbol of her success in escaping her past than as a human being. She's a liar through and through. Mostly to herself, but also in ways big and small to the important people in her life. The plotting was entirely predictable. I never figure out mysteries and crime stories until the big reveal, but this one was staring me in the face. I got impatient waiting for it. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 23, 2024 | date added Sep 23, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves | title Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves | author Twilley, Nicola | isbn 0735223289 | isbn13 9780735223288 | asin 0735223289 | num pages 400pp | avg rating 4.25 | num ratings 459 | date pub Jun 25, 2024 | date pub edition Jun 25, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review This is mostly a general journalistic account of the history of refrigeration. It has all of the plusses and minuses of journalistic accounts of such This is mostly a general journalistic account of the history of refrigeration. It has all of the plusses and minuses of journalistic accounts of such things. It's an easy read in a conversational style with nothing too difficult or challenging in it. But it doesn't go very deep. There's only a nod toward science and engineering. A more scientific treatment of the subject or even a more scholarly approach to the history of it would have suited me better, but that's just me. Other people like this style of non-fiction more than I do. Still there were some interesting tidbits. I was surprised to learn how people resisted refrigeration as a way of preserving food. I thought that people had been doing various kinds of cold storage to preserve food since the Ice Age and that it had always been known and generally accepted. I was also surprised to learn that ice houses which were ubiquitous in the United States in the 1800s were used more for cold drinks and desert in the spring and early summer than they were for preserving meat and vegetables. On the more modern side, I hadn't realized how important the timing is for preserving foods - how quickly from harvest to freezer and the speed at which the temperature is taken down can have significant impacts on taste, texture and the length of time that food stays fresh. And the best temperature for preserving foods is different for different kinds of foods. Then there is a discussion of the downside of refrigeration - the energy cost and the ways in which it has changed our diets for the worse, encouraging overconsumption of meat and dairy. Finally, I was interested in the discussion of alternatives to refrigeration. There was nothing on irradiation, but there was a very interesting introduction to the new field of putting edible coatings on some foods that can keep out bacteria for as long or longer than cooling. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 22, 2024 | date added Sep 23, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Martyr! | title Martyr! | author Akbar, Kaveh | isbn 0593537610 | isbn13 9780593537619 | asin 0593537610 | num pages 352pp | avg rating 4.24 | num ratings 24,523 | date pub Jan 23, 2024 | date pub edition Jan 23, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I wanted to like it more. Cyrus and Z and Orchida are interesting characters. Their concerns are universal, but their approaches to dealing with them I wanted to like it more. Cyrus and Z and Orchida are interesting characters. Their concerns are universal, but their approaches to dealing with them are original and different. That's usually a good way to get me to love a book, but not so much here.Some of us get dealt shitty hands in life. All of us do sometimes. It's depressing. It makes us wonder if life is worthwhile, and we each have our own ways of trying to dig out of the pile of manure. But I couldn't help feeling that Cyrus's obsession with martyrdom was misconceived. I understand that martyrdom has a place in Islamic tradition that is different from anything that I grew up with, and I appreciate that Cyrus never thought of it as a plan to sacrifice himself while killing a lot of other people. For Cyrus, it's mainly about making his death meaningful. And over the course of the book, the idea evolves further. In the end, it seems to survive mainly as an inspiration for his writing. Still, it bothered me. I don't need my death to be meaningful. A meaningful end to a meaningful life is perhaps better than an absurd end, but a meaningful end to an absurd life is small consolation. Cyrus finally comes to a place where he is able to celebrate life instead of death, but it felt a bit bolted on at the end, so I never got past his fixation on death and was left dissatisfied. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 21, 2024 | date added Sep 21, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty | title The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty | author Singer, Peter * | isbn 1733672702 | isbn13 9781733672702 | asin 1733672702 | num pages 302pp | avg rating 4.16 | num ratings 6,444 | date pub 2009 | date pub edition Dec 01, 2019 | Richard's rating it was ok | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Peter Singer rubs me the wrong way. He starts with premises that are hard to dispute - that if you can save a life, you should do it, that it is bette Peter Singer rubs me the wrong way. He starts with premises that are hard to dispute - that if you can save a life, you should do it, that it is better to save more lives than less lives and that more fortunate people should be willing to share a portion of their wealth to help the less fortunate. But then he gets into a discussion of philanthropy that barely acknowledges the elephant in the room and that only succeeded in making me squirm with discomfort. There's a logic to the idea that if we are going to have super rich people, they should be encouraged to give away money to the poor, and let's praise them for doing that so that they will give more. If we are going to have rich nations and poor nations, then the rich ones ought to help the poor ones. Helping only a little is better than not helping at all. But in following this chain of thought, he gives a pass to the system that created these problems. He even suggests that it is a good idea to make a ton of money building businesses that may be predatory and may step on many people as they grow, as long as you are going to give it away after you have gotten filthy rich. Instead of praising the act of putting a band aid on a gaping wound, let's call in the surgeons to sew it up. I'm not so sure that private philanthropy does much to alleviate poverty. I acknowledge that there has been progress over my lifetime in reducing the number of people around the world living in dire need, but I think that has been due more to things like economic development in China and India, improvements in the availability of elementary education and the Green Revolution in agriculture than to the generosity of philanthropists. Mr. Singer talks a bit about people who cite the injustice of the world order as an excuse for not giving and would argue that ignoring the drowning child because a bad man threw him into the deep water would be unethical, but I think that misconceives the problem. It's more like we are helping the bad man save one of the ten children that he threw in the water and telling him that he is a good man for doing that. How ethical is that?I'm not against charity. There's something fundamental in our natures that makes us want to help others. It even makes us feel better when we do. That's a great thing, and it should be encouraged. Giving money to good causes isn't a bad thing. Go ahead and do it. I'll contribute too. But abstracting it to statistical efficiency in spending billions through giant charities cuts the heart out of it. And thinking that we are solving world problems by having rich people give away money is somewhere between naive and dangerous. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 3 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 20, 2024 | date added Sep 21, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover What Kind of Creatures Are We? (Columbia Themes in Philosophy) | title What Kind of Creatures Are We? | author Chomsky, Noam | isbn 0231175965 | isbn13 9780231175968 | asin 0231175965 | num pages 200pp | avg rating 3.66 | num ratings 1,379 | date pub Dec 15, 2015 | date pub edition Dec 15, 2015 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Noam Chomsky is a very smart guy. He's way smarter than I am. He writes in a very dense style that has lots of treasure buried in it once you manage t Noam Chomsky is a very smart guy. He's way smarter than I am. He writes in a very dense style that has lots of treasure buried in it once you manage to parse his sentences. But still I remain unconvinced by most of his bigger theories. Just because grammars are generative in the sense of being able to generate infinite complex ideas by applying a small set of rules to a vocabulary of a few thousand words doesn't mean that we are all born with some sort of fundamental generative grammar baked into our minds. Just because we have a cascade of words flowing through our heads all of the time doesn't mean that our brain uses language as part of the code that drives its internal functions. Why does Mr. Chomsky need to reject the more obvious concept that language is for communication? We have a sense of seeing thoughts play out in our minds, but as Daniel Dennett has explained, that sense of having the little homunculus watching a tiny movie in our frontal lobes is not how the brain works; it's an after the fact rationalization that Mr. Dennett calls the "Cartesian Theater." I sometimes felt that Mr. Chomsky was trying to do the same thing with words, selling us a sort of "Cartesian Spotify." Anybody who is a real linguist, anybody who has a sophisticated understanding of Mr. Chomsky's theories, can probably shoot me down in ten seconds, but I couldn't help having a persistent feeling that Mr. Chomsky has jumped to unsupportable conclusions with intuitive appeal for him that are "not even wrong."This book, though short, is much broader than Mr. Chomsky's linguistic theories. He gets into is social theories too, where I have a similar reaction, feeling that even though I agree with him emotionally, he goes too far and tries to sell us on conclusions that aren't quite right. And then finally he gets into philosophy, discussing the idea of the unknowable. What can I say? I don't know. But having got off on the wrong foot in the beginning of the book, I bridled. Why do we have to accept anything as unknowable? There are certainly some things that are unknowable today with present tools and maybe some things are inherently unknowable, but the nature of the beast is that its outline cannot be drawn. I'd rather spend my time thinking of radically new ways of understanding and analysis than to accept that any problem is unsolvable. Just because existing tools fail doesn't mean that we cannot build new ones based on new principles. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 19, 2024 | date added Sep 19, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Gentlemen Prefer Blondes | title Gentlemen Prefer Blondes | author Loos, Anita | isbn 0871401703 | isbn13 9780871401700 | asin 0871401703 | num pages 165pp | avg rating 3.61 | num ratings 6,187 | date pub Nov 15, 1925 | date pub edition Aug 17, 1998 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review OK, Lorelei Lee is a classic character. She's the model for every ditzy blonde of stage and screen that appeared in the next hundred years. There have OK, Lorelei Lee is a classic character. She's the model for every ditzy blonde of stage and screen that appeared in the next hundred years. There have been plenty of them. As the original she sets the type - a sexy gold digger who has bad grammar and seems to misunderstand the simple things of the world around her but is far smarter than all of the men who constantly moon over her. I give Anita Loos a lot of credit for her creation, but ugh, I hate a ditzy blonde. I want a woman to be smart and unafraid to show it. From this era, I prefer Dorothy Parker or Ursula Parrott. Let them give the patriarchy the old one two and leave those obnoxious men struggling to get up from the floor. Don't play their game just so that you can milk them, ladies! Trip them and trick them and move on. Yes, I appreciate that this is satire and that Ms. Loos was mocking all of the participants in this farce including Lorelei, but it's one of those situations where the targets don't fully understand that they are being mocked and so that some of them take up the satire as a banner of pride.As short as this book is and as clever Ms. Loos can be, it wore thin on me halfway through. It gets a bit repetitive. I was tired of Lorelei more quickly than she was tired of some of her beaus. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 18, 2024 | date added Sep 18, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Hum | title Hum | author Phillips, Helen * | isbn 1668008831 | isbn13 9781668008836 | asin 1668008831 | num pages 272pp | avg rating 3.54 | num ratings 2,743 | date pub Aug 06, 2024 | date pub edition Aug 06, 2024 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review It's more dysphoria than dystopia. The world in this book is bad, though it is ultimately only a notch, maybe even only a half notch, up the badness s It's more dysphoria than dystopia. The world in this book is bad, though it is ultimately only a notch, maybe even only a half notch, up the badness scale from where we are today. But May lets it get to her. She loses her job to AI and doesn't have the drive or imagination to overcome it. She voluntarily submits to a subtle face altering surgery to get a few months of respite from economic desperation. She lets herself and her family get sucked into the techological and consumerist opiates that are constantly served up to her. The worst problems of this world seem to be inside May's head. It's a classic case of Marxist alienation.Here's the Wikipedia description of Marx's theory of alienation: "The theoretical basis of alienation is that a worker invariably loses the ability to determine life and destiny when deprived of the right to think (conceive) of themselves as the director of their own actions; to determine the character of these actions; to define relationships with other people; and to own those items of value from goods and services, produced by their own labour. Although the worker is an autonomous, self-realised human being, as an economic entity this worker is directed to goals and diverted to activities that are dictated by the bourgeoisie—who own the means of production—in order to extract from the worker the maximum amount of surplus value in the course of business competition among industrialists."This a perfect description of May's condition. Deprived of the right to think, she inevitably makes terrible choices and multiple disasters are the result. Digital technology started out as a force for personal liberation. It restored the means of production to the control of the working people. But now that has been taken away as the capitalist class again begins to run everything and to use digital technology as a tool of domination and alienation far more powerful than the smokestack factory.Giving this book a Marxist interpretation redeemed it partially for me, but the writing and the characters are flat. Some of the bad choices were not sufficiently motivated by the set up. Maybe that's partly intentional. If you are alienated, then of course you are flat and make irrational bad choices, but there ought to be a way to convey this with more lively prose and less stereotypical characters. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 5 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 17, 2024 | date added Sep 18, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Do Something: Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of '70s New York | title Do Something: Coming of Age Amid the Glitter and Doom of '70s New York | author Trebay, Guy | isbn 1524731978 | isbn13 9781524731977 | asin 1524731978 | num pages 256pp | avg rating 3.76 | num ratings 127 | date pub Jul 09, 2024 | date pub edition Jun 25, 2024 | Richard's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review Guy Trebay is a miracle, in part because he managed to learn to write brilliantly and to build a career as a journalist, notwithstanding his lack of a Guy Trebay is a miracle, in part because he managed to learn to write brilliantly and to build a career as a journalist, notwithstanding his lack of a college education, but mostly because he managed to live through so much and not die over the course of his childhood and young adulthood in New York in the 1970s. In his high school years he drugged and stole and took crazy chances. A lot of us did risky things at that age, since all teenagers act like they are immortal, but his edgy behavior was an order of magnitude more dangerous than anything that I did. Then he moved to pre-gentrified Manahattan and hung out as an underage clubber and party boy on the fringes of the Warhol set, living in sketchy places and scraping by in a decadant drug, crime and sex filled world without two nickels to rub together. In the process, he seems to have met and hung out with everybody who made New York a happening place to live at that time, when it was filled with outsized personalities redefining themselves in the most outrageous ways possible. It's a time when I was going to college and law school and was vaguely aware of what was going on in hipster New York, but it was so far away from my life that I might as well have been on another planet. Even after becoming a modestly successful journalist working for The Village Voice, Mr. Trebay still did crazy things, like going to Romania in the weeks after the fall of communism, searching for a revolutionary clergyman, dodging the secret police and driving around in a countryside dominated by armed and aggressive militias while not speaking the language. He lived to tell the tale and it's a story worth reading. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 16, 2024 | date added Sep 18, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Optic Nerve | title Optic Nerve | author Gainza, María | isbn | isbn13 | asin | num pages 208pp | avg rating 3.92 | num ratings 6,289 | date pub Jan 01, 2014 | date pub edition Apr 09, 2019 | Richard's rating really liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I tend to look at the world through the lens of the books that I read. That's somewhat true of the non-fiction, but even more true of the fiction. The I tend to look at the world through the lens of the books that I read. That's somewhat true of the non-fiction, but even more true of the fiction. The wonder of the art of good writing is how it helps me to see the world differently. My view of people, of nature, of philosophy and religion, of natural and man-made objects changes through my reading, and I use my reading to gain a greater understanding of the world around me. It's not so much a matter of facts and lessons or of appreciation of beauty, style and structure (though those things are also important) as it is a wholistic world view.So this is a book about a lady who gets the same thing from pictorial art as I get from literature. I get it. She's my soul mate. Words and pictures are different, sometimes in ways that clash, but great art is transformative in whatever form it takes. Hell, low art is transformative too in a similar sort of way, though snobs like me would say that looking at the world through the lens of Youtube or Tiktok or network television is a lesser experience. I think that you can even get the same sort of benefit from looking at the world through the lens of sports. Or almost anything. Take your pick. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 16, 2024 | date added Sep 16, 2024 | owned | format Kindle Edition | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us | title The Human Age: The World Shaped By Us | author Ackerman, Diane * | isbn 0393351645 | isbn13 9780393351644 | asin 0393351645 | num pages 344pp | avg rating 3.68 | num ratings 1,398 | date pub Sep 09, 2014 | date pub edition Sep 14, 2015 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review I like Diane Ackerman's writing style and her general attitude. She loves the natural world and wants us all to embrace it and live in synchrony with I like Diane Ackerman's writing style and her general attitude. She loves the natural world and wants us all to embrace it and live in synchrony with it. She's an optimist and generally a good person with a brain. But this book is a bit too much open eyed wonder at the promises of science and technology for my taste. This kind of thing doesn't age well as we can see how giant strides predicted a few years ago that were supposed to take us to a promised world of healthy, happy abundance have not panned out or are taking longer than expected. And though she includes a few notes of caution, most of it is as optimistic as the futurism of Disney's original Tomorrowland. I don't need too much downer doom and gloom, and much that she talks about still gives us good reason to anticipate a better world in the future. But I think that I'd have liked it more if she had tempered her sense of wonder. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 2 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 15, 2024 | date added Sep 16, 2024 | owned | format Paperback | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics | title Why Leaders Lie: The Truth About Lying in International Politics | author Mearsheimer, John J. | isbn 0199758735 | isbn13 9780199758739 | asin 0199758735 | num pages 160pp | avg rating 3.44 | num ratings 773 | date pub Nov 27, 2010 | date pub edition Jan 07, 2011 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review This is a book about strategic lying, mostly in foreign affairs, by well intentioned leaders who want the best for the their countries. Mr. Mearsheime This is a book about strategic lying, mostly in foreign affairs, by well intentioned leaders who want the best for the their countries. Mr. Mearsheimer consciously excludes from his discussion "selfish lies" that are intended mostly to improve the position of the liar. So we get the familiar litany of famous lies - Bush lying about WMD and the claim that Saddam was collaborating with Al Qaeda in Iraq, the staged incident in the Gulf of Tonkin, Roosevelt lying to get us into WWII, and Eisenhower lying about the Gary Powers U2 incident. It's sort of interesting, but it leaves out a giant category of lies that have become prevalalent in the world today. Let's think of them as propaganda lies.Propaganda lies have always existed, but they were raised to a high art by Hitler and Stalin and now to an even greater level of duplicity by Donald Trump. The propaganda lie may fool some people, but it is not intended to be taken seriously as a statement of fact by most of the audience. It's a coded message to the faithful. "Wink, wink. We really mean something even more horrific than we are saying and you are one of the elect few who get it." It's also designed to enrage the opposition, so that they will be distracted from real issues and will try to strike back in ways that prove ineffective and add to the numbers of the true believers who see that the enraged response is wrong. And more than anything, it is designed to create chaos, so that organized opposition is impossible. The people who foolishly rely on truth are hopelessly confused, and the insiders get rich picking over the corpses. Maybe as Mr. Mearsheimer suggests, that would be the end of the rule of law, the collapse of society as we know it. Of course it will. Duh. That's the point. "LOL. Nothing Matters." But Mr. Mearsheimer discusses none of that. When he wrote the book, the propaganda lie was in eclipse, but now it's back, stronger than ever. We need a new edition or maybe volume two. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 0 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 14, 2024 | date added Sep 16, 2024 | owned | format Hardcover | actions view (with text) | | | | | checkbox | position | cover The Goodbye Cat | title The Goodbye Cat | author Arikawa, Hiro | isbn 0593815718 | isbn13 9780593815717 | asin B0C5Q9YKFR | num pages 285pp | avg rating 3.90 | num ratings 5,761 | date pub Aug 11, 2021 | date pub edition Oct 10, 2023 | Richard's rating liked it | my rating 1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars add to shelves | review This is a book of cute sentimental stories about cats. I like cats and have owned several, but would not consider myself a cat person. Still these sto This is a book of cute sentimental stories about cats. I like cats and have owned several, but would not consider myself a cat person. Still these stories successfully tugged at my heart strings. The voices and stream of consciousness of the cat characters were nicely done. It's definitely not great literature, but it's a kind of writing that we all need now and then. ...more | notes Notes are private! | comments 0 | votes 1 | # times read 1 | date started not set | date read Sep 14, 2024 | date added Sep 14, 2024 | owned | format ebook | actions view (with text) | | | |

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