Review: Meditations

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Meditations is often pitched as a serious work of philosophy. It is not. It is a collection of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius, books of developing thoughts that are not necessarily meant as a clear philosophical treatise. As such, while I was disappointed in this book, I think this does have some value as a book of quotes or references, perhaps as a piece of writing with historical significance.

As a philosophical work though, I found Meditations lacking. Fundamentally, it is simply not a coherent work. It lacks clear theses, is missing motivating statements or arguments for a number of its claims, and is too quickly content to let things stand as self-evident.

In terms of the actual writing, it is repetitive and drab. Aurelius says the same thing over and over. While there are some great bits of advice, their power is weakened by the fact that I had to encounter each of them so many times with only minor changes in flavour (if that). Since this is not a structured work, the advice is difficult to classify or work with. It's just not enjoyable to read beyond certain diamond needles hidden in a giant haystack.

I did not enjoy the experience of reading this. It was dull and dragged on. I felt relief when I turned to the last page. I think the advice here is worth at least considering, but it's probably better to read a summary of it from someone who has put in the work to edit this into something with a more defined shape.

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Review: Cold Enough for Snow

Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love the way Jessica Au writes. It is soft and sacred, with observations and deviations and unsaid thoughts that all seem to fit together like drops of water. Nothing (or, almost nothing) feels out of place. Everything feels like it belongs, in perfect harmony. Towards the end, the past and the present start mingling and sometimes, for the briefest of moments, you will not be sure whether you are encountering memory or perception. It is never confusing, never tedious, it simply flows.

The story itself is structured simply with a complex set of layers on top. It discovers, as the pages turn, insights about the complicated relationships that define the narrator's life (and reflects, perhaps, everyone's). Never getting too emotional, the narrator clearly talks through what she is feeling and is unafraid to let us know when she is lost. If she does not know what she feels, she simply says that and then does her best to give us an inkling. This is refreshing, not something one sees very often but feels reminiscent of how actual thoughts and feelings work.

It is short, it is beautiful, and I enjoyed reading it.

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Review: The Complete Urban Sketching Companion: Essential Concepts and Techniques from The Urban Sketching Handbooks--Architecture and Cityscapes, ... (Volume 10)

The Complete Urban Sketching Companion: Essential Concepts and Techniques from The Urban Sketching Handbooks--Architecture and Cityscapes, ... (Volume 10) by Shari Blaukopf
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was fantastic. I'm not an urban sketcher (yet, fingers remain crossed) and I was hoping to pick up some quick advice on how to get started. Thus, I turned to Shari Blaukopf's skilled pen and watercolour for some guidance.

There is good here and there is bad (the former outweighing the later quite significantly). The bad is quick and easy to describe: a lack of specificity. Where Blaukopf does a great job of giving overviews, she does not go so far as to give specific recommendations that are personal. The most egregious of these is a lack of clear recommendations for equipment, but this is a more standard trend where the advice is generally too broad for my taste.

This downside, however, is far outweighed by the absolutely gorgeous set of sketches that permeate every page. The best illustration of the concepts discussed are the various drawings by different people, capturing cities and landscapes and buildings across the world. I felt very absorbed in the world of urban sketching, in the flow and feel of what urban sketching can be. This is not always true of art books, and I was very pleased with this one for capturing a broad range.

It's got a lot of heart, and it captures a beautiful feel. Loved it.

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Review: Obedience to Authority

Obedience to Authority by milgram-stanley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's foundational. There are a handful of key experiments that founded the field of social psychology, and this is one of them. The results are shocking and embedded into the cultural foundation of our times, they explain so much and demand even more.

This has been written compellingly, the scientific description of the experiments paired with more evocative excerpts from interviews. The numbers are bolstered by healthy descriptions that draw out the conclusions more strongly and more clearly. The explanations are, of course, a little old and do not incorporate the most cutting-edge models when it comes to the psychology of obedience. However, in broad strokes, this works really well.

(It is worth noting that some sections are a little dated, and one particular section is a little uncomfortable to read in the modern day because of the implications towards women.)

It is engaging, it is relevant, it is surprising. It is foundational.

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Review: The Fall

The Fall by Albert Camus
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In concept, I think "The Fall" deals with some interesting ideas, philosophically and creatively.

It's told through a series of dramatic monologues addressed to (presumably) the reader. It's conversational, and the narrator has a clear and developing personality that shines through. The reader himself also has a slight personality that shines through, giving character. There are witty and quotable asides and stories,

On a philosophical level, it has a fairly interesting analysis of judgement and pleasure. A lot of the narrators' descriptions are very sharp and cutting. There is something sinister about him, something morbid, that becomes apparent as the novel goes on. This is then reflected back onto the world, onto the reader (not just the character of the reader, but the reader in life). This is disturbing and commands thought.

That is what is good, here is what is bad: it is tedious. The dramatic monologues, the constantly distracted narrator who will keep meandering. It is tedious. It gets boring. It becomes, almost, annoying. The lack of substance, of a hook, to keep you reading means that you have to work to read through this short book.

It is short enough that this "work" is not too exhausting. Still, a disappointingly presented novel.

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Review: Fictions

Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In essence, this is a series of stories about things that are lost. That is what makes them fascinating, almost inspiring. The feeling of worlds just beyond the fingertips flickering across the pages, the wondrous and mysterious stories untold in the universes Borges creates and dismisses with the mark of a pen.

I must be honest, I have not read much Borges. In the past, I have read some scattered poetry but never actually a full collection of his work. In concentration, it is almost too much. Too fantastic. From story to story, he glides through creations and characters who appear as vignettes. None of the characters are full, but then again none of them have to be.

In terms of how it is written, it feels clear that Borges is a South American writer in a very specific tradition. In translation, he reads like Marquez or Zambra (only in broad strokes, but he does nonetheless). The prose, the descriptions, the translation, the magical realism broken by many literary and philosophical references. They are characteristic.

Borges, in one of the (two) forewords, claims that "The South" is perhaps his best work. I find myself disagreeing (at least on first read). I found there were a few that stood out to me as more interesting:

1. A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain: A brilliant little tale where the twist is banal and incredible at the same time. What Borges says is perfectly intelligible, yet it is so outlandish that I had to read through the 'reveal' twice. Then, I laughed.

2. The Library of Babel: Such a brilliant take on the library of Babel story, Borges takes a simple set-up and draws it out in a way that shows his ability to masterfully build evocative worlds in short stories. (EDIT: I have since realised that this is the original Library of Babel story and not a "take" on it. It is not only well-executed, it is the source of the concept of a library with books containing every combination of letters. I am awed.)

3. The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero: Could be a full novel. Such a strong plot.

The third of these perhaps illustrates my only complaint. In being so short, Borges barely has time in some of these stories to lay out the outline of a plot. It moves at lightning pace, and I can't help but feel some of them are complex and interesting enough to be longer tales.

Then again, his brevity makes it a constantly engaging and constantly surprising book.

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Review: The Plague

The Plague by Albert Camus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There is a fascinating power to The Plague, where Camus has managed to build a story that draws you in so subtly that you cannot even tell you have been drawn in. The descriptions are matter of fact, the characters so simply explored that their complexity is hidden till something joyous or terrible happens. Then, clutching the book, I found myself breathing faster or slower. At one point, I squealed and pumped my fist in a cafe as a certain triumph felt so real and so powerful. I did not know I cared for this character, but I so clearly did. That is the beauty of this book, it deceives you into believing it is simple, it crawls in with its unheroic people, its passage of time, its bare descriptions, till you are in the town of Oran and fighting the plague yourself.

Reading this book so soon after a pandemic adds a sense of modern relevance to it, an analogy to real events beyond the Nazi occupation that Camus intends to reference. I think that did help. When I started reading, I had not learned of the context of the novel. In time, as I discovered the situation in which it was written and published, some of the motifs became clearer. Before and after, however, the novel remained enjoyable and stark.

Camus is a strong writer, though there were bits where the logical flow was interrupted for unsatisfactory reasons. Some of the asides feel ill-placed, some descriptions a little too long. Yet, at its core, this is a complex and beautiful story with characters that feel real, and events that explore emotions and ideas that are rarely discussed with such clarity in literature.

Definitely worth reading.

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Review: Assembly

Assembly by Natasha Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Natasha Brown's debut novel is fantastic. It's a book about modern Britain and colonialism. But also about corporations, and money, and politics, and privilege...and Death. There's layers to this book. You can see it peel before you. The narrator says something, and it is powerful, but then she leaves something unsaid. Something hinted. Something implied. And maybe you recognise it, and that's when it hits you. This is a book about you. Of course it is.

There's layers to this book. The subtle nudges that the narrator uses to tell you things she doesn't want to say out loud. The acknowledgement that this is the case. The way reality seems to warp as the narratives merge together into something cohesive. I'm unconvinced I've gotten all of it, all of the signs, the nods, the shrugs, everything that's hidden between these pages.

Rarely does a book so bravely capture a person in all their contradictions, ideas, sufferings, desires, inertias. It is a snapshot into a person who feels real, her judgements of the world feel real. Her actions, her memories, her decisions, they all feel real.

Assembly is a really good book.

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Review: Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need

Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

You hear all the time that "Save the Cat" is a classic. If you wanna write a screenplay, here's where you start. It's the popular quick-start guide, with a classic beat sheet and an emphasis on log-lines, pitching, and selling. You wanna write spec scripts? Start here.

Snyder is up-front about all this. He's a guy who's sold scripts, and that's what he's teaching you to do. How do you write a saleable script? Well, you watch a bunch of movies and emulate their emotional beats on a beatsheet that kinda just tells you what to do. Sure. Fine. I guess. If all you want is a script that looks like it's hitting the right beats on the right pages, then this is a fine place to get that information.

But what about the rest? How do you craft a good story? How do you craft good dialogue? How do you make engaging characters, villains, arcs? How do you build setting? What's the small stuff, the big stuff, the important stuff, the fun stuff? "The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need" says the title, and this is just not true. Save the Cat is a very basic, very quick, introduction to structuring spec screenplays and hitting emotional beats. That's it.

The rest you have to learn the hard way.

So I was disappointed. It wasn't what I'd hoped it would be. It was a quick read, fairly dull, not particularly informative. I'll use the beat-sheet, I'll probably take some of his advice. The rest? I'll just have to look elsewhere.

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Review: September Love

September Love by Lang Leav
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This has proved a difficult book to rate accurately because collections often are. In bits and pieces, this book made my chest heave and my hands grip tightly. In bits and pieces, it was beautiful poetry that I wish I could remember forever. The images were vivid, the words made to be spoken out loud and shared. In bits and pieces, it was brilliant poetry.

And then, in bits and pieces, the poetry felt off. Juvenile, rhymed badly, with discontinuous concepts that didn't quite work. And in those moments, the book was not great. I didn't want to read anymore. I wanted to put it down and find something else.

And so it was. Good and bad, incredible and not-so-great. Too short and too long. I can't help but recommend it for the gems scattered throughout, though you'll have to wade through some mud to get to them.

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Review: Azadi

Azadi by Arundhati Roy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Azadi is an urgent book, that much is immediately obvious. Arundhati Roy is eloquent, driving home the points she makes across the essays and talks she has pulled together into an important collection. Her novels are lens through which she looks at politics, current affairs, and the future. She critiques, she notes, she observes, and then she drives her points home with confident bluntness without pulled punches.

In all this, she is what you would expect. The problem is simply the nature of such a collection. Inevitably, things get repeated. Over and over. And while that drives the points even further home, it makes the reading a little bit tough. A little repetitive. A little difficult to pull through the same points again and again. She didn't write these as a set, so judging them as a set feels unfair. But I did read them as a set, and as a set they just don't work as well.

The writing itself is fine. Not especially strong or clear, not obscured under indecipherable language. It serves its purpose, and nothing more.

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Review: South of the Border, West of the Sun

South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There's a frantic urgency to reading Murakami, his scenes are put together in such unity that each one forces the unfolding of the next till you find yourself sitting on the bed at 4 AM having spent the night reading from the front cover to the back. This is good. This is beautiful.

South of the Border, West of the Sun ends on a disappointing note. This ending comes too late to prevent the cover-to-cover frenzied rush through the pages, but is disappointing enough to blunt the force of the book. While Murakami's mystical endings often create unsatisfying but powerful books, it just doesn't have the strength to carry this one.

And once it was over, the signs became obvious. The missteps, the repetition, the bits which dragged or made little sense, the emotional beats that just refused to feel consequential.

Make no mistake, this is still a Murakami novel. The scenes follow each other in harmony, there are beautiful passages, tantalising mysteries, so much worth reading. Yet, if you were going to read a Murakami, perhaps I'd save this one for last.


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Review: The Private Lives of Trees

The Private Lives of Trees by Alejandro Zambra
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I love Zambra.

This is a short fleeting book, a snapshot really. It flows from narrative to narrative seamlessly, merging and mixing. At first, you're confused as to what is real. Only for a brief moment. Quickly, it becomes clear that it doesn't matter. Everything is real in some way.

The book is tensely held together, but it is held together. Tangents all lead back to the same place. The phrases that are repeated glow within pages of softly swimming poetry. The book is held together by the fact that it is a book about a specific thing.

I will not discuss character or plot, because that feels wrong. There are characters and there is a plot, but they serve a greater purpose than being characters or plot. At the end of it all, I took a deep breath and could feel it all come together, all at once. There is complexity here that I cannot capture with my limited ability with language. I feel like I was at least a little devastated, a little surprised, a little calm, and a little warmed by the beats of the story.

What more can I say?

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Review: The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World by Malcolm Gaskill
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Ruin of All Witches is a fascinating book. It's scary, evocative, and slowly builds up the story by laying out all the pieces and working through them.

Gaskill is a skilled history-writer, he is methodical and descriptive. He brings New England to life, going through the details that make a place feel so real. He touches on the food and the rituals that make the life on the frontier feel so much more concrete. He doesn't impose a narrative on the people in the book. They exist, they live, they breathe, and they do what they must. In these, Gaskill's book is an incisive look at how Springfield descended into paranoia about witchcraft.

In parts, perhaps, Gaskill's writing was a little to dry for my taste. In parts, it felt like I was missing context, not seeing something the writer thought should be obvious. In parts, the story was a little disjointed. These are minor complaints, but they added up with some bits being a little annoying to work through.

For the most part, though, The Ruin of All Witches is a gripping and fascinating look at a tragic past.

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Review: Doomsday Clock: The Complete Collection

Doomsday Clock: The Complete Collection by Geoff Johns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a little biased here. I love Watchmen, I love Black Label, I read DC comics, and so this was right up my alley. A well-crafted story with gorgeous art in a world that I am invested in already, there's not much more one can ask from a comic.

And this comic knows that. It knows its readers, or at least some of them, are fans. It not only knows it, it thrives on it. This is a comic that relies on readers being fans. From small details to big concepts, the comic works best when the reader can stare at a panel, squint, then squeal because they recognise a specific lantern or a series of histories. This extends even to the actual plot. The book focuses on "cool"-factor fights that feel cool because of how they are different from 'vanilla' comic book fights. The book leans into themes work best when you already know what the characters stand for. When you can whisper "Classic Ozymandius", or "That's not like Batman at all".

This book works best when its reader can tap into a rich background of DC-comics knowledge. And that, consequently, is also its biggest weakness. After all, this inevitably means that when you don't get a reference, the panel making it feels off. It feels empty. It feels like you're supposed to be surprised, but you are not because you don't see what the authors want you to. You can't see it.

If I wasn't already a fan of the universe, I don't know if it'd be a four-star book anymore. It'd still be a good book, but that good? I don't know.

But I am a biased, and I am a fan, so four-stars it will remain.

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Review: The Human Target, Volume 1

The Human Target, Volume 1 by Tom King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was so well-done, it's difficult to overstate it. Each panel, each turn of the story, each relationship, they were made with care. Not one stone out of place, everything just fit together to create a tightly-plotted story marching on towards inevitable tears from the reader.

It was beautifully tragic. I felt so sad.

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Review: Very Bad People: The Inside Story of Our Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption

Very Bad People: The Inside Story of Our Fight Against the World’s Network of Corruption by Patrick Alley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an interesting one. I think Very Bad People does some things really well, and some things not-so-well. In between these things, it tells this powerful story about corruption in the real-world that is important, urgent, and demands attention. It is terrifying, exciting, and fun to read, all at the same time, which is a feat of its own.

What Very Bad People does well is build these mini-narratives, chapter after chapter, consistently interesting and varied. Each chapter deals with a different case, and it's almost framed like a mystery, and it comes together as the chapter progresses. You want to know what happened, you want to know if the bad guys were caught, if the cases were won, if the report was ignored or if it set the nation on fire. You keep reading because what is being said is interesting, and on a structural level the book puts it in an engaging structure.

What it doesn't do well is the actual writing. The actual writing is just a little bit off. It flirts with being a book of mystery stories, but they're never actually mysteries because you never really get given the tools needed to piece together clues. Some parts of the book are dense and difficult to get through, some parts are boring because of the way they are written. It's not "I can't read this" bad, but I wouldn't have finished it if the subject matter had been less powerful or fascinating. In addition, it's easy reading. It's not the kind of bad that makes a book impossible to comprehend, instead it's just bland with some hints of strange flavourings.

It's easy-reading though, and the actual content is fantastic. No reason to not pick it up.

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Review: How to Set up & Run a Fashion Label

How to Set up & Run a Fashion Label by Toby Meadows
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Toby Meadows book is good because it tries to be comprehensive. The book is laid out logically, each chapter deals with a specific aspect of the label creation process. It covers the legal and the practical, it has resources and templates and a pretty solid directory at the end. Within the chapters, Meadows breaks down the process and structures analysis in a way that feels like it's covering all the bases. Helpful case studies also dot the book, adding colour and touching base with the real world.

I wish it had gone just a little bit further than it did. I would have loved advice on how to call distributors, more concrete numbers/specific places to go for more concrete numbers, and tips that go beyond the very broad. I understand that this stuff gets outdated and the broad stuff is most accessible, but I think without it the book just feels like it's missing something essential. It needed more depth and examples.

The exercises are a let-down. They are scattered across the book, but they are not as interesting or helpful as they could have been. So much potential there.

All in all, worth reading as a quick introduction to making fashion labels if you're into that sort of thing.

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Review: Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Fast-talking, masochistic, slick. Likeable even though you don't always want to like it. In some ways, uncomfortable and tragic. In other ways, terrific and exciting. Definitely chaotic.

Held together by the fact that Bourdain's a really good writer.

Not for everyone, but I couldn't help but love it.

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Review: It Ends with Us

It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I bought this on an impulse at an airport. A friend had mentioned that the book involved Boston and a girl named Lily, and beyond that I had no clue what to expect. It starts of as just-another-teen-romance, lulling you into a sense of safety and cliche. Then, things change. The story unfolds, the tone shifts, and suddenly you're holding onto a book that is inadvertently making you very sad. I will not say any more about the actual plot because I don't want to spoil the book.

Looking back on it, I have some complaints. The pacing in the latter half felt a bit off, which broke the flow here and there. There were too few characters that were involved in the plot, and side-characters appeared and disappeared without much development. The world of the book felt a little too closed to be more broadly believable.

But I don't think these complaints matter. None of them can take away from how shocked I felt reading the book and how sad it made me. I had to sit and stare at the cover after I was done because I did not know how to untangle my thoughts or feelings after reading it. It did the one thing a good book is supposed to do: it had an impact.

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Review: The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight

The Circadian Code: Lose Weight, Supercharge Your Energy, and Transform Your Health from Morning to Midnight by Satchin Panda
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I started reading this book after a recommendation from The Huberman Lab podcast. The core of the book, the central message, is that our body follows a circadian rhythm that should be the foundation for our habits and lives. The book uses this to generate to time-restricted eating, exercise and sleeping schedules, and blue-light blocking in the evenings. It discusses the science behind it to some limited degree and explains some mechanisms.

I went into this expecting a more scientific look at these ideas. Instead, the book comes very close to being just another self-help book that could have been a twenty-page pamphlet instead of a long read that reiterates the same points over and over. The explanation of the mechanisms is too brief and not detailed, the discussion of the experiments is not critical and is very surface-level.

For some people, this will be an exciting book. I will admit that a lot of the advice here is relatively interesting and worth trying out. It's just that it feels like a lot of this book could have been cut, or at least could have done with some reorganising. Read a summary instead and look up the actual papers in the bibliography.

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Review: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cal Newport is a fascinating writer. In the self-help-style non-fiction, I rarely find books that I actively enjoy and am excited to implement, but I've read two Newport books so far and they both seem intuitively attractive.

The first, Deep Work, I have attempted to implement in bursts. I want to do it long-term, and I will at some point, because those have been incredibly rewarding and productive bursts. I feel like Digital Minimalism will be the same. I don't know whether I can take the leap or whether I agree with everything Newport says, but the core of this book is really strong and I will be experimenting with and tweaking the methods here for a long time.

I do have criticisms: it oversimplifies psychological and philosophical findings and is quick to shoehorn them into specific conclusions. Not all the advice here feels sound and not all the logic is valid.

However, it is refreshingly simple, quick, and feels very doable. The rating is to be revisited once I have tried its advice out and seen what impact it has. (Though, from tentative experience following similar advice, I'm confident the positive rating will remain).

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Review: To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters

To See Clearly: Why Ruskin Matters by Suzanne Fagence Cooper
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There's something gentle about this book. It is delicate in how it is written, it moves like a soft breeze through Ruskin's life and work. It is brief, but instead of being sparse on detail it has been written to be clear on what details it wants to focus on. The chapters are not organised in chronological order, but it prefers to jump around and discuss aspects of Ruskin's life. Each chapter starts anew, taking us to a part of his life and sometimes back to the very beginning. Then, it unfolds him carefully and selectively.

I have criticisms. I feel Cooper may be a little too sympathetic to Ruskin in some parts, the sensitivity of some of the more controversial discussions feel under-appreciated. In other places, the book feels repetitive. A number of the chapters will re-iterate his childhood, and sometimes feel like they are saying nothing new. Finally, I wish the quotations from Ruskin himself were more extended, we are told he is a beautiful writer but not offered enough of this writing. (Though on this last point, I am being pedantic. This is a quick guide, not a detailed companion. I must go and read Ruskin for myself).

At its core, however, this is a brilliant book. Despite my criticisms, there was not a moment where I wanted to put this book down. The book does not merely discuss Ruskin, but it is written in a way that reminded me of the Pre-Raphaelites and Ruskin's work. Cooper has interesting things to say, and the book is a very charming read. It is inspiring in the right ways.

It may not be as enjoyable for everyone as it was for me. However, if you are into art, then it is a wonderful introduction to a towering figure of the 19th century.

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Review: Dinosaur Philosophy

Dinosaur Philosophy by James Stewart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I've followed Stewart's Dinosaur Comics instagram for a while so I knew going into it that was a book that I would enjoy. The comics are cute, quick, and a mix of dark and heartwarming. It's not quite deadpan, but a different modern sense of humour. At the same time, I feel like it's the kind of humour that is so widespread in short-form comics now that it wasn't particularly new or exciting.

It was a nice book to hold and flip through, not particularly intense or powerful, but a wonderful way to start a quiet Friday morning.

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Review: Sputnik Sweetheart

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sputnik Sweetheart is not the best Murakami book I've read. However, it is a Murakami book. That is to say, I opened it with the intention of reading one chapter and then spent the rest of my evening devouring it till I had read it from cover to cover, and then re-read my favourite sections again. I find his style delightful, there is misleading simplicity that soon turns into intriguing complexity. The characters are charming in the strangest ways possible, they are real but also clearly not. This is all better felt than described.

It provokes thought, it raises questions that it does not answer and leaves the reader to ponder into the late hours of the night over a glass of something strong. It is interesting beyond the plot on the page, and it is mysterious even after the back cover has been turned over. It denies the reader satisfaction, but it is clear why it has done so. One can't complain.

I liked it. Maybe you will too.

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Review: Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control

Brainwash: The Secret History of Mind Control by Dominic Streatfeild
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The subject matter is dark, and it casts a relatively wide net. In some parts, that seemed to hurt the book. Things felt a little scattered, stories came and went without quite fitting into the larger discussion. Still, they were interesting stories. Further, I felt like the book needed more psychological background. It was a strong historical take, but some more information on the science would have made it a richer reading experience.

What Streatfeild excels at is powerful investigative journalism, discussing the ideas, events, and people with thorough and convincing research. Interviews, first-hand accounts, and a clearly staggering amount of work. It's a compelling book because it's so clear that it is a true one.

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Review: The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey

The Motorcycle Diaries: Notes on a Latin American Journey by Ernesto Che Guevara
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There is historicity in the Motorcycle Diaries that compelled me to put it down every once in a while to research some or other historical event. Guevera travels in a tumultuous period in Latin American history, and his observations are simple but cutting. He observes and he notes, and in that the beauty of Motorcycle Diaries lies.

Granado and Guevera are interesting adventurers to follow, they are travelling with little money and they are travelling far. There is a romance to the story, and through descriptions of pain and pleasure you see a spirit of adventure. One that emerges slowly, which is important because it makes it feel real. A lot of their time is spent hungry and sleepy, and so a lot of the book is about the food and lodging that they found. The only thing more important to Guevera than these is the travel and the people.

There is constant movement forward. On their bike, then by other means, with vague notions of a future destination slowly crystallising into Caracas. On the way, Guevera describes interactions with people from across the Latin American continent. These are largely people without privelege, lepers and Indians, and Guevera's interactions with them feature a growing undercurrent of his future convictions. His transformation is blurred and unclear, but on stepping away you can feel the way he has changed based on what he sees and what he talks about.

It is a good book.

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Review: The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War

The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There’s something fascinating about the Bomber Mafia that is difficult to pinpoint. The flow is engaging, the facts and stories interesting, and Gladwell’s writing is crisp as always, but that’s not it. There’s something else here that makes it special, and I’m not quite sure what.

My best guess is that it’s the opposition. The duality of LeMay’s empiricism and Hansell’s theoreticism, realism vs idealism, that Gladwell sets up as a debate we’ll have to settle for ourselves (or so he says). This is a brilliant way to keep the reader thinking about where he wants to position himself.

The big tragedy here is the ending, where Gladwell firmly positions himself with Hansell, dissolving the opposition set up for so much of the book. While I spent most of it debating with myself, drawing my own conclusions, the ending took away the space I wanted to consider the questions for myself.

That one gripe aside, I found this a fascinating book. Gladwell’s style works well with the historical setting, the easy-to-read voice mixing with romanticism and asides that don’t drag but fit in seamlessly. Worth checking out.

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Review: 2034: A Novel of the Next World War

2034: A Novel of the Next World War by Elliot Ackerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2034 is a pretty solid read.

It's fiction that is breezy to read, but when you stop for a moment and consider you feel that there is some weight behind what is being discussed. The style of the writing is insufficient to capture the full weight of the ideas being posited, but it does not get in the way with clunkiness either. It is clean and streamlined, even if that means telling the story in the most cliche fiction voice possible.

This kind of streamlining to fit the form extends to other elements of the book as well. The war itself and the world-building around it are shallow at first glance, but as you read you realise that detail has been sacrificed for vibe. The general vibe of the world and the war, the balance of power, the flow of engagements, these build an engaging theatre and series of encounters. I got the sense that this was a deliberate choice, because a more detailed set of scenarios would be too granular and too technical, a challenge.

Similarly, the characters are clean and streamlined, 2-dimensional but sufficient as lens into an interesting conflict that discusses war, geopolitics, and the ways in which domestic systems impact international affairs. Realism and impact would demand a larger cast with more complex characters, but the book sacrifices this for a clean, easy-to-grasp plot.

And that is the focus here. The plot itself, which chugs along with global and local events, where things happen to rather than because of our characters. This is what keeps the book going, it is history-lite, it is fast-paced simplistic foreign policy and conflict. It is easy-to-read, easy-to-follow, with a crisp message that it delivers efficiently. A message about balance of power, new kinds of warfare, intelligence and patriotism. In stripping everything else to its barest elements, 2034 focuses in on the drama of the conflict itself and amplifies it.

Yet, at the end of the day, perhaps 2034 strips away too much. In some ways, it feels like a first draft, maybe even just a first-pass at a book outlining the plot-points that need to be covered in the final edition. It demands a Max Brooks-esque epistolary treatment, or a clearer framing with stronger characters, or maybe even just evocative langauge that can capture the weight of what is being discussed.

Without better writing, the book slightly fizzles in its ability to have a lasting emotional impact. Pretty good read, but haunted by the potential of what it could have been.

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Review: Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts

Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don't Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For the most part, Thinking in Bets is a really strong book about decision-making in uncertain conditions, cognitive biases that lead to misattributions, and shortcomings in our mental frameworks for belief-formation. The analysis is interesting, drawing from psychology and philosophy as well as anecdotal evidence from Duke's poker career as well as more popular events. It is relatively engaging if a little bit epidermal.

While the book does identify problems with decision-making and belief-formation compellingly, it is somewhat weak when it comes to providing strong solutions. While some of the solutions are interesting, some are underdeveloped. Its core thesis, that we must learn to think in bets, is interesting at first but soon the book starts to over-generate. It tries to shoehorn this idea to try and solve everything from self-serving biases to regret.

The book is at its worst when it tries to shoehorn this solution through an oversimplification of interesting psychological and philosophical positions. It clearly misrepresents Thoreau's philosophical position at one point, and simplifies the literature on the "naive scientist" theory, to mention but two examples. It is ironic because this is a book whose core ideas hinge on the fact that human life is characterised by uncertainty and we must be careful before we make broad claims. The book does, and it hurts it.

That said, the fairly short read has some interesting things to say. I definitely feel like I am thinking differently after reading it. It would've been a four star rating on that basis, if not for the fact that there is some blatant inaccuracies and misinterpretations of academic literature.

Worth reading, but with a skeptical eye that is open to reading up on the references after.

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