Eva
This was such a highly satisfying popcorn read. I wish I could listen to Aurora right now. The oral history of a fictional 70ies band that has it all: ambition, fame, drugs, sex, divas, brothers, hidden relationships, dark obsessions, jealousies and all the drama. As someone who's read their share of (60ies) band biographies, this hits all the familiar buttons and makes you fall a little love with all the characters. From the enigmatic yet self-obsessed lead singers, to the slightly cranky rhythm section.
A book to be consumed in one go, not sure how long it'll stick, but I might go listen to some Fleetwood Mac now.
I liked the basic concept, but the novel never fully clicked for me. I expected a psychological portrait of a couple that is unable to conceive children in a very patriarchal rules-bound society. But the narrative relied too much on different perspectives, time jumps and twists to really let the characters sink in. Same with the mythological side stories, they functioned as interesting elements, but didn't organically weave into the narrative.
A hard one to rate, because it's a decent book, but it didn't fulfil my expectations, which always makes me judge it harsher. I'd go 2, but the writing is good, so 3.
An introduction to logic through the lens of debated issues in our current illogical (unreasonable?) society. Cheng provides us with a good framework to understand why certain arguments can never be fruitful if people argue from different basic assumptions and/or levels of abstraction.
Most of the book is a slow buildup on the basics, fallacies and limits of logic (possibly by overusing the white-privilege and cake examples). Slow and steady is good, but maybe it went a bit too slow. The more intriguing part comes in the last 2 chapters, when Cheng looks at the false dichotomy of Logic and Emotions and how logic should be used intelligently. Instead of giving tips for how to win debates with unreasonable people, she calls upon empathy, to help us understand where they are coming from, and altruism, to ultimately have everyone's better fortune in mind (we can choose for it not to be a zero-sum game).
An interesting perspective on debates about classification/decision-making methods: Do you care more about the false negatives (murders that go free) or false positives (innocent people locked up)?
Always a good reminder to hear that even two logical people can fail to find agreement, when arguing coming from different beliefs. And that a major sign of intelligence is, how much you're able to change your own beliefs when confronted with conflicting evidence.
Told with dry humor and report-like precision, this novella tells the story of the downfall of Katherina Blum. From her supposed first meeting with a wanted bank robber to her murder of a tabloid journalist four days later. In between these two moments lie the sensationalism of the cheap press, police misogyny, everyone's easy prejudice and love of gossip, and the hurt all these cause. In the end Böll gives Blum a hand in her destiny, even though it ends in violence.
A smart and sarcastic society portrait of a specific era in pre-fall Western Germany, that very much can speak to any period in time dealing with the yellow press, defamation and nepotism. I enjoyed how Böll's writing style kept us guessing Blum's innocence.
We know how easily scientific studies can be skewed by biased researchers. Consequently centuries of gender studies conducted by male scientists got a few things wrong. Analogously to Cordelia Fine's [b:Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference 8031168 Delusions of Gender How Our Minds, Society, and Neurosexism Create Difference Cordelia Fine https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348833681s/8031168.jpg 12635310] Saini's book sets out to rigorously and thoroughly debunk some of those myths. With a heavier focus on biology and anthropology than Fine, Inferior looks at influential and controversial studies, that ultimately ask if patriotism is hard-wired into our biology.
How do you grow up normal if your mother has bipolar disease and your father is a womanizing artist who drains his muses. Sisters Edie and Mae basically only have each other, one blond and scraggly, the other raven-haired and doe-eyed. Edie gets fits, and Mae sinks into trances. When their mother attempts to commit suicide, they have to move in with their estranged dad in NYC. And when the sisters drift apart, each leaning towards the one parent, things get darker.
While I enjoyed the gloomy dynamics of this twisted family, I wanted to like it even more, but never reached those heights.
Aciman writes angst and longing so well. In Enigma Variations we follow Paul/Paulo through 5 lovestories, that are intriguingly structured into 5 separate vignettes, interlacing in time yet separated by lovers. From an unrequited crush in his young adolescence (Nanni), to obsessive yet detached jealousy (Maud), to intense craving on a tennis court (Manfred), to doomed love on a rhythm (Chloe), and unfulfilled infatuation with a younger writer (unnamed).
As in CMBYN Aciman plays with the theme of patterns and repetitions. His protagonist enjoys daily rituals, revisiting and reliving moments of the past. Paul's love-stories - all full of desire and similarly tortured by hesitation and regret - are different variations on his attempt to “drink the wine of life”. Does he ever reach it, or was he there all along? Does our first love set the tone - of bittersweet longing and unfulfilled melancholia - for the rest of all our loves?
The first story on the Italian island was wonderful, but almost too reminiscent of CMBYN. I immensely enjoyed the angst and torture that were the Manfred and Chloe stories. Sadly I felt the last story was the weakest.
L'histoire d'une femme mariee avec une addiction sexuelle, qui a un effect destructeur sur sa psyche et son mariage. Adele suffoque dans sa vie stable et apparemment parfait, elle ne trouve sa liberation que dans les aventures sexuelles avec des inconnus. Quand son mari le decouvre, elle est devastee et soulagee en meme temps.
L'ecriture de Slimani est vraiment parfaite pour ma lecture en francais. Ses phrases sont courtes - mais pas simplistiques - et la narration et vif.
A very lyrical, educational and thought-provoking book, pleading for a better time- and geo-literacy. I loved learning about geo-chronology. Traces of the past are in the rocks and rivers and air all around us. Everything is in motion, mountains grow at 0.5cm a year, particles in the global ocean take 1500 years to perfectly dilute. The earth is a seemingly forgiving, yet reactive and constantly adapting system. We tend to think of natural disasters as exceptions. But looking at the earth's past, we learn that they are part of cycles and reactions to atmospheric disturbances. As we move from the Holocene to the Anthropocene, a more powerful reckless humanity is suddenly at the rudder, blinded by the short-lived success of the Right Now, leading us all into a potential climate nightmare. Bjornerud adds her voice to the many advocating for a more long-term and sensible future thinking, by putting our humanity's lifespan into perspective to planet Earth's billions of years.
A quirky sad slim novel, about how we're fitting ourselves into boxes in order to fulfill the norms and expectations society and other people are projecting onto us.
Keiko, the protagonist who clearly registers on the autism spectrum, finds fulfillment in her work as a convenience store clerk. The store's rules and repetitive tasks please her, by giving her life clear guidelines and goals. She copies other people's behavior in order to appear as human and normal as possible. Yet her friends' and sister's expectations of what the life of a woman her age should be like, weigh on her and she approaches it like a puzzle to solve.
An epistolary novel, giving us only one side of the conversation. We spend a year with Fraulein Schmidt's letters to almost-fiance Mr Anstruther. A lot of this was lovely, talking about the simple life of an educated woman during what must be the end of the 19th century. But a lot of this also dragged, considering the format was very limiting and Fraeulein Schmidt likes to muse about the beauty of meadows. I fluctuated between 2 or 3 stars, but then the ending thankfully went the way I hoped it would. Even though it rendered our main character's actions either a bit clueless or rather cruel.
Told in diary entries, Lilli de Jong, the novel's titular character, tells us through her own tale about the cruel fate that unmarried mothers had to endure around the end of the 19th century. We follow along as she is shunned by family and acquaintances, as she delivers her baby in an institution for disgraced women, and then scrambles to survive and to nurture her baby in a society that won't rent room or give jobs to people like her. What could have easily become a very bleak tale, is saved by Lilli's gentle and insightful voice. She's thoughtful as she contemplates the fates of the lower working classes and the fallen, without her voice ever becoming too didactic.
A romance between two damaged peopled, further complicated by a large age gap. I was almost ready to drop this, after the first half hour, because the poetic, stream of consciousness prose was pretty hard to get used to. But then the romance, with all its sexy bits, started, and I was pulled in.
This is mostly a first person narrative, but sometimes it became a crazy game of telephone. Like when he told her, what his ex told him, what his step-father had told her, what his mother had told him! It really worked in those moments, but what an interesting choice for presenting a lot of the heavy plot.
3.5
The history of quantum physics as detailed through the many theoretical and experimental iterations of the double slit experiment (the Mach-Zehnder interferometer being the easier to grasp and easier to replicate cousin). Non-locality, spooky action at a distance, collapse of the wave equation, quantum erasers, many-worlds. The fascinating question at the bottom of the nature of reality - the wave particle duality. Splitting the physics community in two camps. Are you a realist or a non-realist?
Great read, very lucid and concise, I could follow most of the physics (most, not all).
820+ pages des suedois traduit a francais, c'etait mon plus long roman francais de petit dejeuner a ce jour la. Beacoup d'effort, mais j'etais tres engage avec les vie et les amours et les tragedies de ce groupe d'amis homosexuels vivant a Stockholm dans les annees 1980.
C'est un grand roman sur la difficulte du sortir du placard quand tout le monde et toute ta famille ne comprendront pas. Et c'est la chronique de l'arrivee destructrice du sida dans Suedois, comment une communaute deja detestee de public a recue encore plus de haine et de mauvais traitements.
Meme en ne lisant que 10 pages maximum par jour, l'ecriture m'a fait pleurer plusieurs fois. Je pense que Rasmus, Benjamin, Paul, Bengt et Reine resteront longtemps avec moi.
What a weird cerebral novel that tickles one's brain. Imagine you're in that state where you'd have to learn to walk again. Instead of simply taking an intuitive step, you need to deconstruct all the individual movements into sequences of coordinated muscle contractions. That's how our protagonist seems to be experiencing life, when we meet him at the beginning of the story. He feels like he's faking it, something is off. To familiarise himself with life and living again, he takes an unconventional approach. He picks a place with a sequence of events of the past, and sets out to recreate them. He spends millions to reconstruct the scene and hires a large staff to orchestrate re-enactments. Wanting to get as close as possible to the real thing. Yet instead of having a goal in mind, he's stuck in these loops of reenactments. Unable to break them.
This is a very stylish concept novel, that's obviously not for everyone, but this spoke to me. Of artistic obsession and obsessive perfection, of a system thinking approach to life. Of simply setting out to execute a crazy idea, chasing those moments when your brain buzzes with the pleasure of perfection. Memorable.
At one point one of the characters refers to the small dusty Texan town this novel is set in as “this horny town” and she is right. Sex is on everyone's mind. There's teenagers and their first times, pranks to get the local simpleton laid, various May November affairs, secretly gay teachers and a mild case of molestation. There's even bestiality as farm boys will be farm boys (the casual way McMurtry dropped this in, was really disturbing).
And despite all the sex, this novel is infused with sadness and sad characters. That are stuck in their limiting surroundings, drudging along, yet never self-pitying. With a few scenes they become lively and memorable. I especially enjoyed his Ruth, and Lois. Sam. Billy. Genevieve.
My second McMurtry after Lonesome Dove (which i LOVE) and really enjoyed this one too.
A good pop science overview to the algorithms that are in use in our judicial system, the medicine branch, car industry, in crime prevention, and the arts. Illustrated with lots of real life anecdotes and studies of algorithms saving lives or causing havoc.
Fry ultimate makes the case for society to give up the expectation of achieving perfect algorithms, and instead focus on human-algorithm collaborations and algorithm transparency. No surprises there, but as this is a great primer, i would say it achieves its goal with very engaging writing.
Half memoirs of an obsessive tidier (the noun?) and half self-help book about how to clean one's mind by putting one's house in order. This book might not be for everyone, but if you're someone who gets an energy rush after a little tidying, then Kondo's tips and tricks will sound very helpful.
-Doing it all at once instead of gradually, for the ultimate mental boost.
-Only keeping the objects that spark joy, and building a better relationship to your belongings.
-Don't pile, store vertically so you can see everything at once.
I finally got around to this one, in preparation for this year's spring cleaning. So now I just have to wait for a proper spring. Looking forward to decluttering :)
Something is amiss in our economies when the finance sector is allowed to contribute to the GDP even though it's simply pushing money around. Mazzucato's book is a call to reevaluate what counts as economic value and where we draw the line between value creation and value extraction when it comes to measuring economical growth.
At the root of the evil is a financial market driven by share-holder-optimization, which makes financial gain for investors the only goal of companies. Instead of re-investing profit into R&D or improving of worker conditions, big companies are using the profit to buy back shares. All the ratios (CEO to median worker) and values are off, and it would require a whole new set of policies to encourage long-term planning vs short-term gains.
Mazzucato also makes it her mission to discredit the assumption that government and public spending is inherently bad for the economy, and that less taxes would result in a more prosperous private industry. States investing in health, education and research are a highly influential instigator of economic growth. Yet governments should have a stricter hand on what happens with the result of publicly funded research. Pharmacy companies shouldn't be allowed to drive up prices to ridiculous heights when their products are based on early public funding. Instead of searching for tax loopholes, tech companies should re-contribute part of their wealth considering innovations like the internet or GPS came from public money.
You'd think economics is a straight forward science based on numbers, but this book definitely proves its not. So this was very fascinating, even if it was sometimes a bit too dense for me. Especially the first 2 chapters had too much dry historical content. But as I am new to the topic, it was also pretty enlightening, introducing me to terms like rent-seeking (growing wealth without re-contributing value, like licensing or patents).
