Books: What are you reading tonight?

It must strike a chord with some, but not with me.

Zero desire to read Gatsby. I think I read it in high school and hated it.

i found the great gatsby tolerable

so later in life i downloaded some audiobooks by him figuring i needed to give "one of america's greatest writers" another chance and it was some carribbean sailing thing and was just the most boring and awful thing i ever listened to and could not bring myself to maintain focus and listen because my own random thoughts of "oh there's a tree" were so much more interesting

eventually gave up and hit eject and went on to something else

I am happy to admit that I did not get Gatsby when I read it in high school. It made a lot more sense twenty years later.

I am also happy to admit a recent Did Not Finish, Middlemarch by George Eliot. It's one of those big literature things you're supposed to have read but my god.

Three hundred pages in, all I had were multiple uninterestingly pious county English folk and nothing whatsoever had happened. A guy borrowed some money [massive spoiler]. I had to go read a hundred pages of Blood Meridian to get the taste out of my mouth.

I enjoyed Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. Definitely a vibe. Like you're in an unsettling dream. The main character overthinks absolutely everything, so relatable.

in high school, i was told my english teacher that reading steppenwolf as a young person will be wasted on me and i should wait until i'm middle aged or an old man to read it, i think i may finally be ready

Steppenwolf was in fact the only one of Hesse's books that didn't resonate with me. I remember even enjoying the rambling around drinking wine bildungsroman things like Peter Camenzind or whatever.

Steppenwolf was just a weird old guy in an apartment iirc and I didn't get very far with it. Even the Glass Bead Game made more sense.

If you didn't like Beneath the Wheel , you didn't attend a tough enough high school.

Read Tender Is the Night, not Gatsby.

Polostan by Neal Stephenson

Similar tone & very well researched like Cryptonomicon but 1/3 the length.

On the Edge by Nate Silver

Fun read. What you expect from this is probably what you'll get. Too much FTX for my taste.

Staff Engineer by Will Larson

His book An Elegant Puzzle (2019) is better known (written for engineering managers). Instead, read Staff Engineer if you're a talented software developer not interested in the typical "get promoted to management" track.

I'm looking forward to Polostan. I got it when it came out, but there's a queue of books I want to finish before I get to it. I'm re-reading Fall by Neal Stephenson. It hits a bit differently after some years have past since it came out.

I liked On the Edge. I enjoyed the poker portions the most, but I liked reading more about FTX. With respect to FTX, I also read the Michael Lewis book about it (last year).

I'm currently reading God, Human, Animal, Machine by Meghan O'Gieblyn. I like how she writes. It's hard to describe. It's part memoir, part philosophical analysis. I like how she can connect certain modern ideas like transhumanism to older religious ideas.

The most recent book I finished (two weeks ago) is First lie wins by Ashley Elston. I liked it. It reads quickly and the main character is very likeable. Easy, fun read.

Humble Pi: When Math Goes Wrong in the Real World by Matt Parker.

A look at errors people have made over the years. Not necessarily math-related always: some software engineering, some communication errors, et cetera.

Interesting to read of these example, and Parker does a good job of getting under the surface-level problem, analyzing and explaining the underlying, systematic problems that lead to whatever went wrong.

A good read, especially for anyone in an engineering-related discipline. Always a good idea to think up front, "well how could this go wrong?" and reading these examples might get more of that thinking going.

Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller.

A road trip book. Miller takes off from Houston with an acquaintance, setting out for Oregon, in a beater Volkswagen van.

Usually, this is the kind of book that appeals to me, but it didn't work. It seemed like they were pretty much unprepared at first, then the author got metaphysical, writing about God's influence on their trip. Meh.

Wasn't bad; those sort of things probably bothered me more than they should have.

Well, if he got out of Houston, maybe there is a God after all.

Heh. Good point, Mack.

Paul's Epistle to the Philippians, I like it. 4th chapter is especially good.

Did the Philippians write back?

Yeah, if you consider a couple of SMSes "writing back."

Enjoyed this one. I listened on audiobook and it was very funny.

Finished Shutter Island over the weekend. Gonna knock out Classic Krakauer and then on to Gone Baby Gone.

Walking the Americas by Levison Wood.

Wood, a British explorer and ex-military, is known for going on adventure walks. A few years back, I read his account of walking the length of the Nile.

The title might be a bit overstated: he and his guide walked from the Yucatan to just over the Colombian border; so, I guess technically hitting North, Central, and South America, but just so.

Still, a good read. He writes well about the good and the bad of this adventure. Recommend if you like that sort of thing.

GBG is great as was the movie.

The Dime - Kathleen Kent. Not exactly Connelly & McDermid level police procedural, but engaging enough. First of a trilogy and a cult is involved at some point which is always a hook for me (Jupiter’s Bones by Faye Kellerman, Mine by Robert R. McCammon, etc); shouldn’t take too long, then onto Richard Chizmar’s Boogeyman books.

Books I've read/reading/dipping into so far this year:

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection - Charles Duhigg
A look at how we communicate with each other and techniques on how to do it more successfully.

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen - David Brooks
Very similar to the above, but more focused on the author's personal journey and growth.

Six of Crows - Leigh Bardugo
Fantasy about a group of miscreants with interesting pasts tasked with pulling off an seemingly impossible heist. Decent, will likely read the second book.

The Satsuma Complex + The Hotel Avocado - Bob Mortimer
Fun, pretty short, crime books. Kinda expected them to funnier as Mortimer is a comedy legend in the UK, and his autobiography is hilarious. Still entertaining and easy to read.

Starter Villain - John Scalzi
Funny book about a guy who discovers he's inherited his uncle's trillion dollar, secret, super-villain business.

Polostan - Neal Stephenson
Russian girl, raised in the US, returns to Russia and trained as a spy. Rather slow going on this one, but I like Stephenson so will finish it.

Neal Stephenson went off the deep end for me a long time ago. I loved Snow Crash until I read a devastating critique which pointed out all its flaws and theorized, iirc, that it was written as a graphic novel and quickly turned into a book when that didn't work out. I read Cryptonomicon TWICE, he could have cut 25% of the book out but it was all worth it, a lot of authors write books that are too long and when all the little details are relevant and the three page dissertation n eating Cap'n Crunch is hitting it all works.

But the whole Baroque cycle was so far up his own ass people couldn't follow him. I heard he wrote it longhand on legal paper and I do not give a single ****. Get an editor. It was three times as long as it needed to be. Did anyone read the whole thing? Anyone?

Anathem I thought was very good, the whole thing with the clock was incredible, one of the coolest things anyone has ever come up with. The second half of the book was kind of a mess. Seveneves was pretty good. I don't remember a ton about it.

Since then I've barely tried to read his stuff. He doesn't write people particularly well and his books are full of people. He won't be edited. I pay so little attention now I'm not sure I've even heard of Polostan.

I looked at the wiki. Zero critical reception for this book. He doesn't even get reviewed anymore. Sadge.

Tyler Cowen gave a pretty nice review of Polostan:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/6iWHI2S...

I heard similarly scathing reviews of Baroque Cycle so I wasn’t motivated to start that. I really liked Cryptonomicon.