This book truly is atrocious... really disheartening how successful it was... creepy, off-putting, written like a 13 year old who doesn't know how to describe anything beyond using a simile to reference some other thing that has nothing to do with anything. Easily the worst book I've ever read, everything is so maximized: "I've mastered every arcade game from the 80's, I've memorized every single frame from every Brat Pack movie, I've read the biographies of every 80's author 10 times each," the protagonist is extremely creepy and stalkerish towards the girl love interest and justifies his creepiness towards her and then is rewarded by getting her at the end, again the descriptions are just hilariously lazy, packed to the brim with endless 80's references which, if you don't get, then you're out of luck cus there's nothing left in the book. "Stop hitting yourself like Rain Man, OK?" The kid's family gets killed by some evil faceless corporation and he doesn't even care, just goes to text the girl he likes, for fucks sake. This book is truly truly dreadful

Yeah, p much destroyed my life... finished it in just over a month a think, but that is with spending every free moment reading.... letting all my tv watching go to the wayside, neglecting to go out for walks/bike rides, letting chores pile up.......

Still.... it is apparently part of a "series" of four books (second book being a prequel though).... kind of want to continue on, but the books keep getting longer it seems (except the third which is shorter) and I don't know if I want to put myself through that again...

Maybe when winter comes around and I don't want to leave the house anyways.... I guess the library only has the second book in Spanish also.... only has the 3rd and 4th in English so if I wanted Spanish I'd have to buy it or something like that....

Since I listed that book as #14 of 2020 without posting the rest here.... here is the rest:

#1: "The Totally Useless History of the World" by Ian Crofton - Good for some chuckles and very light reading

#2: "Quest for the Past: Great Discoveries in Archaeology" by Brian M. Fagan - Cool but old book, probably so many updates to be made

#3: "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations" by David R. Montgomery - Radical

#4: "We Are The Weather: Saving The Planet Begins At Breakfast" by Jonathan Safran Foer - Some good stuff

#5: "La Vuelta al Mundo en Ochenta Dias" or "Around the World in Eighty Days" by Jules Verne (Edition with Spanish on one side of the page, English on the other) - Decent story, but again feeling of accomplishment at reading Spanish. No Kung-Fu present like in the Disney adaptation with Jackie Chan.

#6: "The Mosquito: A Human History of our Deadliest Predator" by Timothy C. Winegard - Appropriate reading for the beginning of a pandemic

#7: "The Mysterious Affair at Styles" by Agatha Christie - The first Hercule Poirot story, these are always fun

#8: "Noise: A Human History of Sound and Listening" by David Hendy - PrettyCool but too short, wanted more

#9: "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" by Agatha Christie - The last Hercule Poirot story

#10: "The Art of Loving" by Erich Fromm - Meh

#11: "21 Lessons for the 21st Century" by Yuval Noah Harari - PrettyCool.... like this guy's books a lot

#12: "Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels - From the Jungles to the Streets" by Toby Muse - Pretty disheartening and sad. Would recommend.

#13: "The Lucky Ones" by Julianne Pachico - Was decent enough

Based on a true story - Norm Macdonald: 9/10


possibly the funniest thing ive ever read

Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Absolutely brilliant, even if I didnt really get deep enough into everything.

Basically adresses many philosophical questions on society and the way we live and still applies to the modern day.

The last book I read was a book from India entitled, "the other side." It was about a man who had been married to his for 17 years, but then decided to eat a cock one day. He found the penis entering his mouth to be extremely exciting and exhilarating. Although he swore that he would never taste cock again after that, he kept being tempted to do it again and again. Although he never acted upon his impulses and urges, he would often make love to his wife while picturing himself being destroyed by erections.

"Stock Market Cash Flow" by Andy Tanner.

9.4 / 10.

2020 Book #15: "The Anthill" by Julianne Pachico - Was ok I guess, but confusing in the end.

2020 Book #16: "Dancing Feat - One Man's Mission to Dance Like a Colombian" by Neil Bennion - Maybe my fav book of the year.... good energy from it....

2020 Book #17: "Magdalena: River of Dreams" by Wade Davis - Really enjoyed this one too

2020 Book #18: "The Intimate Bond: How Animals Shaped Human History" by Brian Fagan - Meh


And that's it for me from 2020

Getting back into my sports autobiographies/biographies

Just finished Burke's Law: the Autobiography of NHL GM Brian Burke.

I read "In Order to Live" by Yeonmi Park who escaped from North Korea when she was 14. I've read a few of these North Korean memoirs and this is one of the better ones, incredibly sad but also "inspiring"

John Grisham- A time for Mercy. 9.5 out of 10

2021 Book #1: "Dopeworld: Adventures in the Global Drug Trade" by Niko Vorobyov - Pretty good.... never done any recreational drugs in my life, but interesting to read about it and how the war on drugs is pretty much BS worldwide.... which I already did know, but not in this much detail.....

What is with people numbering the books they read each year, nobody does that for movies or music or anything. It just feels like bragging. Wow you read a whole book,,,congrats

I know someone who does it for movies

Give me their address

i know a guy who does tha with video games

Lol true nuff but I feel like with the books it's signaling how intellectually superior you are, look at me I read this many books, which are for smart people :roll: any eejit can play video games.

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Look, I don't have a lot of other ways to signal that I am intellectually superior. Let me have this one.

You, sir, are intellectually superior

I have FINISHED Infinite Jest. It took me exactly 1 year.

I have a lot to say about this book, but also I don't know what to say. There are times when it is very brilliant or very funny or very sad. Usually a combination. There are also parts where it's extremely lucid, there would be multiple chapters where 90% of it is just some insanely detailed descriptions and observations of stuff and then something insane happens in the last few pages. I always felt like those conclusions compensated for the inanity though.

At some point though you have to be like respectful of your reader, and introducing 450 characters with weird names and details that are presented in a way that's just kind of hard to remember is like not nice. The aggressively non-linear nature of the whole thing made it so that I didn't really grasp what was happening until 700 pages in. It's incredibly difficult to read but it does feel rewarding when you're working through it, up until you realize the thing has no payoff. It's frustrating and it makes me feel stupid, like I am not "smart" enough as DFW is to understand all the different layers or some shit.

And now it's got me making up all these backwater ass stories for random people who may or may not even exist, like Kanye West starting riots outside of Wikipedia's HQ to get his Wiki page taken down, or a guy whose porn addiction gets so out of control that it ruins his family and leads his daughter to actually start acting in pornos and then the dad went to watch porn one time and saw his daughter getting screwed from the back and jerked off to it, and after he splooged he let the video keep playing, and the girl turns over for the male actor to splooge on her face, and the guy only then realizes that it was his daughter he jerked off to, and is like psychologically scarred from that, and now can not watch porn anymore, but is suffering from addiction withdrawal via kind of having his hand forced into quitting cold turkey, so he becomes like vegetative and turns to hard drugs, and now has just like totally addled himself. My brain is full of this shit now

I just read a vcr manual. We cant all read the classics Mr Highbrow

Book #??? of 2021: "El Juego Del Angel" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

667 pages in Spanish. Went a lot easier than the last one... pretty much didn't need to use the translator a lot (for grammar/sentence structure), but only the dictionary for words I didn't know/forgot.

Good story but an unsatisfying ending/resolution.... but maybe because the mysteries are being saved for the next two books in the series.

Library doesn't have the next two in Spanish, only in English though....

The Grapes of Wrath. Just amazing imagery and a really wonderful snapshot of a life that so many people lived that feels impossible to me. No better postcard for working class solidarity than this right here

Recently finished "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" by Jared Diamond.... was pretty good... probably the most "logically" and "straight-forward" presentation in a book I have read.... every chapter felt more like a "scholarly essay" in traditional format....

Haven't finished yet but I started reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I loved the film so figured I would give the book a shot so I could roll into the 2 sequels that aren't getting the film treatment. What I have discovered is that the book is vastly different from the movie. Way more mysterious and ominous right off the bat with things that aren't even mentioned in the movie being the focal point of the book thus far. I'm actually glad in a sense that they differ so much because I don't feel like I'm reading something that I already know the story of at all. I'm hooked and feel like I am going to burn through the trilogy in short order.

The Corner by Simon and Burns. Great fucking read and laid the foundation for the Wire.

Crying in H Mart, pretty good/sad, lots of descriptions of Korean food, still haven't really listened to Japanese Breakfast

Annihilation is way better as a book. It's an excellent movie but does not come close to the novel. Moving on to Authority.

2 down, 1 to go.

Authority is so much different than Annihilation was. It comes from a completely different perspective that sheds so much light on some of the unknown factors of the first book. Super hyped to start on Acceptance now.

The Outsiders

had to read it 4 middle school class i'm student teaching... good, fine... makes for some good lessons abt listening to other ppl despite your differences & "destructive behaviors" when it comes to conflict. good to know the origin of the phrase "stay gold ponyboy" init

This chick became a right wing airbag who just repeats Fox News talking points on her youtube channel... sad

gross take you got there

Read another North Korea book called "Without You, There Is No Us" abt a woman who goes to teach English to elite kids in North Korea... not sure if propaganda. The most valuable thing from this book is the snippets of dialogue that the North Korean kids would say and the questions they'd ask her, there seems to be some gloating about capitalism and at least she admonished a bunch of the missionary teachers for being shitty

Not many ratings. Less talk more ratings plz.

"El Prisionero del Cielo" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

The third book in the series. Feel like nothing happened in it... was mainly just exposition and stuff setting up for the final book. No real "character arc" or "journey" in this one I feel like.... Some plotlines just kind of "end" and others that are like "ok this will be a challen- oh no, wait they solved that immediately"....

Getting better/faster at reading these books.... this one was the shortest of the three so far... I guess I want to read the fourth one to see how it all winds up, but it's more than 900 pages in a smaller type-font..... gonna take a break and read books in English before I try tackling that one....

Best book I read this year:

"Oxygen: The Molecule that Made the World" by Nick Lane

Was very fascinating.....

SHut up bitch

"Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"

2/5

King Lear

47

That book was fucking cringe and pretty racist, lol.

Choas: Charles Manson, The CIA and the secret history of the 60's - 5/5

I was more than skeptical when i started this thinking it was likely conspiracy and as it turns out it absolutely was. it just happens to be completely true.

a single reporter spending decades investing the discrepancies found in the both the official coirts records and the book Helter Skelter with the official documents lead the journalist down a spiraling decent into his own obsession that took up most his adult life and what he found is a least unequivocal substantiated evidence that the official channels with held considerable information.

does that lend to some of the grander connections? well thats another topic altogether but after reading this im completely certain based on the physical records that remain we are looking at a heavily redacted and edited narrative.

that sounds fucking crazy, destor

it cartainly does. but the book is purely evidence based reporting. no conjecture or theorizing.

"El Laberinto de Los Espíritus" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón..... the fourth and final book of the series.... 925 pages of Spanish but I made it... started it late February. Was easily the best entry of the four books.... feel "emotional" at having accomplished reading them all and also at the time with this world and characters being at an end....

Last book I read was Toni Morrison Song of Solomon... really f*cking good... "transcends" normal novels... feels biblical

Anna Karenina

so very complicated and tedious, yet a simple message prevails: put goodness into the world. took me all summer to finish this. Konstantin Levin is the greatest literary character of all time

My only issue with Tolstoy is his insistence to always use a chracters full name everytime anyone mentions the character...ever. brevity is ok

"Murder on the Links" by Agatha Christie

Once in awhile I'll just get a Hercule Poirot mystery out to read.... was an enjoyable one. Liked the "contrast" of having another detective working the case....

Every character has 5 different names and half of them are Alexey

"Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict" by Ara Norenzayan

Was alright.... feel like he was a bit long-winded sometimes in saying very simple things.... Some interesting stuff I guess. Not quite what I was expecting. Was expecting more history but was more psychology.10

Cinema Speculation - 8/10


Really enjoyed this. A dive into the history of 70s cinema and into what makes the theater an experience

"Football and Nation Building in Colombia: The Only Thing That Unites Us" by Peter J. Watson

Wasn't sure on this one but actually turned out to be super fascinating sometimes. Feel like it was almost a "perfect" follow up on the last book I read about Gods/Religion, because it was just another study in the efforts to unite larger "tribes" of humans and create co-operation.

May I ask why you are interested in Colombia?

Went there randomly on a trip and dunno.... just is a fascinating place. The history, the culture.... such a diverse country geographically, biologically, culturally....

So many problems but so much life....

Just the more I learn about it the more I get sucked in...

"The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and the Hidden Error That Transformed the World" by Ken Alder

Book about the origins of the Metric System... was a lot more fascinating than I expected...

I'm currently re-reading Frank Herbert's Dune at the moment, which I originally read around 15 years ago (I think; at least a decade).

As much as I liked the Denis Villeneuve film adaptation, and I look forward to Part Two, reading the book shows just how shallow that adaptation is. They should never have done a film or two films; it needs a big budget HBO series to do the book and its world building justice.

Finished Dune; as great as I remembered.

I've now started Children of Dune, which I haven't previously read. I decided to skip Dune Messiah, as I remembered reading it years ago and not thinking much of it.

I've also bought the first book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, Master and Commander. There was a film based on this series years ago with Russell Crowe - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. I'll get to this novel after Children of Dune.

Read "Salka Valka" by Halldor Laxness... got this in Iceland at the "Laxness Museum" which was just his house

Long book about an Icelandic fishing village that unionizes... very boring which I like of course

I finally finished Frank Herbert's Children of Dune. Not as good as Dune, but good enough that it has compelled me to buy the next two books in the series, God Emperor of Dune and Heretics of Dune.

I still need to read Master and Commander.

Just finished Heat 2. Liked it better than Heat.

It was funny reading the written version of Chris, given Kilmer's performance is...I dunno...portraying someone who's a bit hapless. But in the book, he's this deeply profound, tortured soul.

Was also fun hearing McCauley and Hanna's dialogue as I read it, because (as much as Pacino's performance pisses me off) both characters are so indelibly acted with such iconic line delivery.

hmm... "America for Beginners" by Leah Franqui

About this indian woman who goes to america "to kill herself"... it wasnt anything special... fine... a book that "liberals" would prolly like. i had to proctor the SAT last year and i was flipping through an extra test booklet when i saw this passage and decided to get the book. seemed better then but oh well

Have "regressed" and haven't ready a book in a long time..... just comic books....

I've finished God Emperor of Dune. I'm not really sure what to make of it.

I've started Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander, and I'm loving the prose and the characters' manner of speaking. I'm getting a Hornblower/Sharpe vibe from it.

I have put Master and Commander aside, for now, as I haven't felt like reading it for the past month.

I have, however, started Chapter House of Dune. I'm digging it. We finally get to delve further into the Bene Tleilaxu.