I’ve been taking a break from my usual non-fiction book diet. Since I had a long list of recommendations to go through, today’s list is mostly a star ensemble of books.
Snicket uses simple words to discuss several philosophical questions. I especially enjoyed how each sentence seemed to flow endlessly into the next. Just take a look at the first passage in the book:
This morning I had poison for breakfast. This book is about bewilderment, a word which here means “the feeling of being bewildered,” and “bewildered” is a word which here means “you don’t have any idea what is happening,” and “you” is a word which doesn’t just mean you. It means everyone.
Also, the narrator of the audiobook has a deep, raspy voice, which made the linguistic trickery land even betterI highly recommend Libby for free audiobooks!.
There is no Antimemetics Division is all about “antimemes”, ideas that cannot be remembered. The first half of the book was a wonderful read. The plot was unpredictable, dark, and jarring, all while exploring a novel concept.
Unfortunately, I thought that the execution in the second half of the book was lacking. The ideas became more and more abstract and I was losing interest in the story as the book progressed. With a better execution this could have been an easy five star.
This year I decided to tackle One Piece, one of the most beloved stories out there. I was skeptical about whether I would really enjoy a manga, and suspected the hype was overblown. Now I can say, One Piece delivered on all fronts.
The characters consistently act as someone with their personalities would given the situation. The best way to describe it is that “Luffy happens to the story” instead of the story happening to him. The story has superb foreshadowing, frequent plot twists, and the deus ex machina moments are kept to a minimum.
Some things to note: The story telling really picks up after the first 300-400 chapters, once all the key players have been introduced properly. Stick with it in the beginning! You need to be at least okay with the classic manga story arcHero loses to bad guy. Allies stall while hero recovers and trains. Hero beats bad guy., although Oda executes it a lot more tastefully than other anime I have seen.
This was my first manga, and reading panels right to left definitely took some getting used to. I really enjoyed learning about how panelling is its own art form similar to prose. Panels can be clear and naturally flowing or confusing and unengaging.
Combining the manga with key episodes from the anime will give you both epic fights, and the fastest way to catch up. Overall, I took around 3 months to catch up. Do not consume any One Piece related material during that time, or you will get spoilered.
I absolutely recommend diving into One Piece!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow uses clever writing and time jumps to explore the lives of two game developers.
I read a lot of reviews online that complain about how much the book talks about video games, or how the main characters are unlikeable. I felt like this was the point of the book. It explores how complex human relationships are. The main characters are fundamentally flawed, and we get to experience how that plays out over their lifespan.
A classic case of “this should have been a blog post”. By chapter 4 the content was so repetitive that I did not even finish the book.
So, here is my blog post summary: “Common knowledge” is when everyone knows that everyone knows ad infinitum. The ad infinitum is necessary to avoid the Two Generals’ problemTwo generals and their separate armies are planning a synchronized attack on a city. To win, they must attack simultaneously; attacking alone leads to defeat.. Once you have that established, everyone can act on that knowledge with confidence, while it might have been too scary to do so before.
That’s all you need to know from this book…
Donna Tartt writes very vividly. All the different places Theo visits throughout his life really came alive in my imagination. The focus of the book is on its elegant prose and not some plot twist or tension building.
Small warning: You need to be up for this kind of trauma heavy story that seems to be common among Pulitzer Prize winners.