George D
Yes you could read this like someone who doesn't like context, in which case it's fine but clearly not the strongest detective story going around, Holmes and Watson and their relationship aren't fully formed, and the salacious shift to the foothills of Utah feels a little disjointed.
Or you can read this as the invention of entire genre, like Dracula. It's hard to pick between Sherlock Holmes and Dracula for who is more culturally significant. What's bigger, detectives or vampires? Impossible to answer. But the point is that is where this book sits in the history of culture.
It's definitely not as good as Dracula but, lets face it, few things can be. It's still fun, and if you read it as someone experiencing the concept of a detective for the first time it's even better. All the elements of all detective stories are there, the experienced but cynical genius, the police claiming the glory, the extended reveal at the end, it's great!
Plus as a 19th Century resident of England think how exciting and exotic the Mormons would sound like, it helps explain that extended detour.
I'm glad this book exists and was popular, it's so extremely Melbourne and I love it for it. Peter Temple has a fun eye for detail, and the concept of an amoral lawyer/detective/woodworker is a lot of fun.
I just think it might not quite be for me. Structurally it felt like it was missing some connective tissue to help keep me engaged. I can read fantasy books that include hundreds of made up words and names, and I'll handle it well, but with this book I couldn't hold onto anything so when someone was mentioned later I had no idea who they are or their relevance. It was quite odd.
But still, now when I'm walking down Russell St and take a right into Little Collins I feel like a character in a story, and that kind of gift is incalculable.
3.5
Le Carré's last book was his magnum opus, that's an impossible act to follow.
This was probably the weakest book of his I've read, but that also might be because of what preceded it. And it's still Le Carré, which means it's miles ahead of what most people can write.
Written in 1989 - not a banner year for the USSR - this is his first book explicitly dealing with Russia losing its superpower status compared to the USA. It's an interesting new status quo and gotta give credit to him for immediately exploring it.
Overall, it's fine, but more for the fanboys. Of which I am one.
A beautiful little book on the powerlessness of the poet to be anything other than what they are.
Even as it gently reveals an empathy for these innocent and wise souls it doesn't shy away from the capriciousness of what they feel, or the potential selfishness in what they are.
No matter what else, this book will make you want to go skiing in Japan.
This book definitely isn't for everyone but for those who it's for (word and history nerds) it is really really for.
A book about how America added to the English language doubles as a history of the country, something blindingly obvious in retrospect. Every stage of Americas history mapped out by the words created during that period. Depressions and gold rushes, slavery and emancipation, desperation and invention, modesty and arrogance, innocence and cruelty, social freedoms and economic losses, you see how all played out in America and set the benchmark for the modern world. This book perfectly captures the wild, heady, inspirational years of Americas growth into the behemoth it is today.
And so many words created or grown there! Even many foreign words that have entered English parlance (rendezvous, tsunami, kindergarten, glitch, guru) found their entry through Ellis Island. Honestly by the end of the book it's hard to imagine saying a single sentence without having some influence from the new world.
This book is about as 2006 as you can get. It should be studied in a museum for how Americans used to see themselves and the rest of the world at the height of neoliberal self-belief. It is a story written in a world before the GFC, Trump, and COVID.
The best example is China being shown as technologically backwards and administratively inept with their inferior communist government.
The concept is cool, but hard to pull off in an engaging way. Also I can't be the only one confused at how similar every single person sounded. Surely you could get an editor to run through it and help give each individual a unique voice. I didn't even realise some characters had come back at the end without checking their names.
A perfect book for anyone who would like to read about the high risk life of catching swordish (swordfishing?), a detailed explanation of how storms are formed, and the administration involved in managing ocean rescue operations.
Most dads, basically.
A brilliant example of a flaw turning out to be a strength, Sebastian Junger couldn't get first hand accounts of the last moments of the crewmen of the doomed ship (obviously) so he fills in the gaps with other people who went through a similar situation but survived. This elevates the story, capturing the human universality of the experiences he is documenting.
This book ain't great. There will be spoilers.
The writing is bad. And yes, I appreciate there's a cultural gap but the only thing worse than me completely ignoring cultural differences would be me saying “oh maybe stale dialogue, shallow characters, and messy structure are how all Chinese people write”.
And to be honest I can forgive the writing, some sci fi authors are better at coming up with cool concepts than writing well (cough Phillip K Dick) so it's not necessarily the end of the world.
My number one issue with this book is that, for a book apparently all about hard science, it has such a profound disrespect for both science and scientists.
The entire crux of the plot - the sophons (which lets be honest, is straight up magic and raises more questions than it answers) stopping particle accelerators from working will cause scientists to just give up on researching things - is completely insulting. History is full of nothing but scientists working around handicaps, and often relishing the challenge. Instead this book treats scientists as close minded and lazy who give up as soon as there's a hurdle.
Don't get me wrong, I really loved reading a story by a Chinese author that is so informed by Chinese history and culture, but I can't forgive that mistreatment of an entire discipline.
I might still read book two though, the series is so popular I feel like I should give it a try.
As a male comedian in his mid 30's whose attended the Edinburgh Fringe for almost a decade, whose career feels stalled, and is struggling with the most difficult breakup of his life, Dolly Alderton bringing out a book about a male comedian in his mid 30's whose attended the Edinburgh Fringe for almost a decade, whose career feels stalled, and is struggling with the most difficult breakup of his life, feels like the universe has given up on sending me subtle hints.
It's impossible to be objective about a book that has you saying things like “That's not what I did!”
But I'll try.
The book is funny with some good characters, you know exactly where the stories going but it's still fun getting there. Between both Andy and Jen's points of view, everyone whose gone through a breakup will be able to relate to something. Like technically, I was Jen (though also technically the exact opposite of Jen - a relationship confirmed all her opinions, a breakup made me sort out what I didn't know).
Dolly tries her best to be empathetic with the male experience, you can tell she's gone out of her way to do her research but, just like the standup comedy elements, it's very much written by someone on the outside looking in. While the comedian elements mostly work, the male emotional elements felt like cliches started creeping in.
The most glaring example of this is the way she describes the male friendship group dynamics after the breakup, which feel like the book was written in 1987. Sure in real life the group will go get drunk, that's a given, but they will definitely also have stories to share about the emotional difficulty of breakups, especially a group of guys in their mid 30's. You're going to have at least one guy wanting to talk about it too much, if anything.
What is lacking in the Andy POV narrative is actually taken too far in the other direction when Dolly writes from Jens perspective. I think Dolly made the mistake of being unable to separate herself from her character, she couldn't handle making Jen “the bad guy” or unaware in any way, and the point she was making suffered for it. From a narrative standpoint the choice Jen made should've been starker, like she was giving up something beautiful or betraying someone who didn't deserve it for the sake of what she really wanted, that way the choice has weight. As it stands its still nice to see this idea of being happy alone talked about, but the choice isn't exactly hard when it's not even a real relationship.
“You should choose to be happy alone rather than stay with a selfish whinger who slags off your entire family and doesn't support you emotionally, financially, or mentally” isn't quite the groundbreaking point it's made out to be.
Having said all that, the book helped me realise I've been floating in a limbo of impossible hopes for way too long, so whatever, 5 stars.
Ok first off, my copy is titled ‘The Maths of Life and Death', now technically as an Australian who speaks the kings English I should be pronouncing it ‘maths' but you know what? ‘Math' sounds better and also makes more sense etymologically, so I'm going to defensively stick to math.
Now to the book, it's a series of standalone articles about how math (and numbers more broadly) influences real world events. This is anything from evidence in court, algorithms optimising your feed, news agents reporting “facts”, and a whole heap more.
Each article includes a fairly easy to read explanation of the different number principles being discussing (whether it's statistics, probabilities, or even the concept of numbers themselves), so it's a nice primer to understand the concepts and see how it applies to reality. Plus because it's articles, it's very easy to put down and pick up again when the mood strikes for some more math.
Tom Holland has written a very big and bold book on the entire history of Christianity to show how it relates to every facet of our modern culture, both good and bad. I have to wonder how cherry picked his events are, but even so it is a great read from a reputable historian who knows his stuff. Turns out I didn't know a lot, like what came before the Old Testament, or how much the Greeks influenced Christianity, or how Christian England is.
The core ideas of his thesis, that Christianity is genuinely unique for its focus on the weak and the downtrodden being worthy of praise, symbolised perfectly by the idea of venerating Christ for dying on the cross, and that Christianity is a movement/religion that has revolution built into it, are very convincing.
And I just love the boldness. The way Tom writes it, if you can think of a concept, Christianity created it. Atheism? Christian. Religion? Christian. The Enlightenment? So Christian. Homosexuality? Literally invented by Saint Paul.
A fun part of reading a sweeping tome like this is when it starts self-referencing, you get these satisfying little callbacks to councils/events/places from centuries or millennia before and how they are reinterpreted or referenced at later dates.
Can't wait to explain to everyone for the rest of my life how Christianity shaped everything in the modern world. And since it turns out Christianity is way more Greek than I ever realised, Greeks really did invent everything.
This book has made me at least 12% more annoying.
I was unduly harsh on this book on the first attempt but that's only because I rate Sanderson at his best so highly. It's totally fine, if you want to turn the brain off and enjoy a very YA action story.
This book has highlighted something I hadn't considered though, and that is to be worried about the Cosmere mythos becoming too involved in the Stormlight Archive. I desperately hope Sanderson manages to keep the Stormlight Archive as its own semi-standalone series, full of connections to the wider universe but you don't need to know any of those other books to follow whats happening.
I don't even know if it's possible, but a boy can dream.
I forgot how phenomenal this book is.
Listened to the audiobook this time and Joanna Froggert absolutely knocks it out of the park, her voicing of the younger Linton managed to perfectly capture how hilariously horrible he was.
Can't believe Emily Bronte - a young woman from the 1800's who lived her whole life at her rural house with her brother and father the only male contact - could better capture the complexity of masculinity than most modern authors.
And gotta give a shout out to Heathcliff, one of the great villains of literature. On the one hand, yes, a monster. On the other, I've never related to a character more.
At least he also channeled his obsession into a very respectable property portfolio in West York.
Respected it rather than liked it.
This is a case of very cool mythos and great concept but later authors have written the same type of stories better. It left me even more impressed by Dracula and Frankenstein, which managed to be great books in their own right even as the blazed a trail.
A lot more geology than you'd expect in a horror novel and HP Lovecraft is not gifted with the writing ability to make descriptions of sediment layers interesting.
The payoff is top notch, loved the description of the shoggoth and the terror the protagonists experienced as they fled the city, really well done but it was too little too late.
Almost but not quite made up for the turgid middle.
A cute romance set in a unique yet well thought out world. Rate the imagination needed to create these characters, what they do and how they interact. Can see why this would be peoples favourite though it was a little too YA for me.
Also huge credit to someone making a story that references more than one element from Final Fantasy X, one of the most iconic games ever made. Sanderson really knows how to appeal to all aspects of my nerdery.
It loses a star for that ending though. Don't get me wrong it was the usual Sanderson brilliance of ratcheting tension and well executed emotional payoff but the fact it ended how it did was very weak, missed a chance to be a truly memorable ending readers would talk about for years. No spoilers but anyone whose read it will know exactly what I'm referring to.
This book was not an easy read, Ismael is painstaking in her analysis of what consciousness is, how it comes to be, and why it means free will exists.
Dry, but informative. I am convinced. I will switch my multi-decades long opinion about the deterministic universe. I am now sure that we do, in fact, have a choice. That free will exists. That we are all masters of our fate, captains of our soul.
Not sure if I'm happy about it though.
A delight.
Highly recommend everyone listening to the audiobook narrated by Dougray Scott, it's the audio equivalent of sitting wrapped in a weighted blanket enjoying a perfectly made cup of tea.
Gill loves to ramble but he has the flair and observational skill to make it fun. The book isn't really about his addiction, it's more of a loose memoir of various parts of his life.
I am definitely reading the collection of his best restaurant reviews.
Halfway through I was ready to chuck it in, the world building was great - and for Cosmere nerds there's the “I get that reference” game - but the style was odd. I'm not quite sure who this style is for. It's hard to describe, but it's like it's written so adults can feel like they're reading a childrens book. It's not for kids but it reads like it is. Which isn't necessarily bad, but the balance isn't quite right. I can see how it was trying to be The Princess Bride, and it gets close, but tonally doesn't quite hit the mark. To be fair, it's really hard to nail that style of tongue in cheek, ironic yet warm humour.
Having said that, he knows how to keep up the pace in his books, so it's easy to push through and get to the part where Sanderson shines; well executed and highly entertaining endings.
I thought it was good writing until I realised the entire book sounds like the most pretentious, annoying, overly serious 20 year old arts student, the kind who can't get a haircut without finding all these “deep meanings”. As soon as I made that connection it was a bit of a slog.
Having said that, you can still find interesting things in a melodramatic 20 year old's diary. He has writing talent, some of the themes he touches on are interesting, and we can all admit to being overly dramatic sometimes.
Apparently this book is also about masculinity but it's not really - apart from the fact that everything is about everything if you squint hard enough.
I genuinely don't know if I like this book because it's good or because it's about Arsenal. I like to think it's the former, and the latter was just what made me pick it up.
A well-written entertaining memoir of a football obsessive and the highs and lows of fandom. He does not hold back from painting the full picture of his addiction, regardless of how it makes him look. I was laughing at a few of the moments I could relate to far too much. This book will obviously appeal to men who can relate to these sort of feelings - whether it's about football or something else - but I like to think anyone could read this and still enjoy it.
I am nowhere near as big a fan as him, I will hold my hand up and admit it, but I'd be lying if I said this didn't leave me a little more obsessed with the Gunners, and football in general.
It was also nice to hear how boring Arsenal were in the 70's after having to endure the 2010's.
I've never read anyone so perfectly convey their unbridled joy for the act of writing.
A book that's both brilliantly inspiring and brutally deflating. Write 2,000-3,000 words a day for 10 years to get good? But there's so many shows I'll miss on Netflix :'(
He writes with such passion about the pleasure of creation he almost manages to convince me to get started.
Almost.
Obviously not the definitive guide to 3,000 years of history, but a well written and engaging summary. If something strikes your fancy, you can now dive into it. The author does well to make the lessons of Greece's history feel relevant to today.
Will definitely try out some of those other shortest histories.
Plus I learned the 1946 Greek civil war was the first proxy battle of the Cold War. Who knew it started so early?
As good as the first time I read it. I think I grasp it a little better this time too.
I love how he will casually throw a concept in - one that barely takes up half a paragraph - that you will be thinking about for days afterwards.
A masterpiece of genre bending and my favourite Neal Stephenson book.
The final instalment in the Karla trilogy and of course le Carré managed to end it in style. A return to the style of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - rather than the more action packed The Honourable Schoolboy - a grey man under a grey sky reading files in various government buildings and occasionally interviewing someone.
And it was brilliant, le Carré can ratchet up the tension in a seemingly small conversation like no one I've ever read, and his ability to provide just the right amount of detail describing different cities, professions, and people, never ceases to amaze me.
A brilliant conclusion.