Maybe I'm still in a bad mood from the last book I read, which I also one-stared, but this one was terrible.
I think it's supThe Silence by Don DeLillo
Maybe I'm still in a bad mood from the last book I read, which I also one-stared, but this one was terrible.
I think it's supposed to be a message about how scrambled our brains are due to our fixation on technology, but I really don't even know. It was weird. It didn't make sense. It wasn't interesting, even though the premise seems interesting.
To quote from the description: "...something happens and the digital connections that have transformed our lives are severed."
A bunch of people get together at a Super Bowl party and essentially have conversations with themselves that make no sense and have no relation to each other after all the power goes out and every screen is blank.
Let's straight up take a passage that appears in the later half of the book as people are talking "with" each other:
Martin resumes speaking for a time, back to English, unaccented. Internet arms race, wireless signals, countersurveillance. “Data breaches,” he says. “Cryptocurrencies.” He speaks this last term looking directly at Diane. Cryptocurrencies. She builds the word in her mind, unhyphenated. They are looking at each other now. She says, “Cryptocurrencies.” She doesn’t have to ask him what this means. He says, “Money running wild. Not a new development. No government standard. Financial mayhem.” “And it is happening when?” “Now,” he says. “Has been happening. Will continue to happen.” “Cryptocurrencies.” “Now.” “Crypto,” she says, pausing, keeping her eyes on Martin. “Currencies.” Somewhere within all those syllables, something secret, covert, intimate.
I mean, I was actually laughing because this whole thing is ridiculous. “Crypto,” she says, pausing, keeping her eyes on Martin. “Currencies.”
I think I needed to be high as a kite to appreciate this book....more
Bad Religion was probably one of my top 3 favorite bands while growing up as an angsty teenager. As I've gotten older, I've lost some of my punk rock Bad Religion was probably one of my top 3 favorite bands while growing up as an angsty teenager. As I've gotten older, I've lost some of my punk rock sensibilities and the desire to keep up with the bands that I used to love so much.
But I have so many pleasant and vivid memories of listening to various albums on full blast in my room or car, while driving around during the sweltering Southern California summers. I remember wearing my cross buster t-shirt and feeling so smug when a fellow student (who went to one of these crazy mega churches) in a high school class asked "why on Earth would you wear something like that?" I remember keeping a dictionary nearby to look up every third word of a song because their wordy lyrics were so ridiculously complex.
And although some of their albums came out half a decade or more before I started listening to them, "Suffer", "No Control", "Against the Grain", and "Generator" were critical components in the sound track of my teenage life.
Anyway, it's been awhile since I've given them a serious listen, so, imagine my surprise when I see a friend add "Do What You Want", a biography about Bad Religion, to their reading list. A book?! About Bad Religion?!
The book spans 40 years of the band's history, from their first practice sessions inside a hot garage in the valley, to their most recent album (Age of Unreason). (Have they really been at it for forty years and have something like 17 albums!? It's really unbelievable to me that these guys are pushing 60 and still at it and enjoying it.)
Despite being fairly emotionless and dry (imagine reading about a history of a band in a newspaper article), this book was a really easy read. There's nothing scandalous or exceptionally profound within, but it does share interesting anecdotes from tours and recording sessions of every album they've put out. And hey, I definitely learned some interesting things about the band!
I also found myself flipping back and forth between this book and then loading up Spotify in order to listen to various songs and albums that were mentioned. I forgot how good some of these early albums are. And I've really missed out on some of the more recent stuff. There are some good tunes there.
All in all, the book provided a nice sense of nostalgia and even helped me rediscover some more recent tunes from one of my all-time favorites....more
I enjoyed this story about the founding fathers of behavioral economics and their seemingly unlikely friendship. Their work has influenced so many aspI enjoyed this story about the founding fathers of behavioral economics and their seemingly unlikely friendship. Their work has influenced so many aspects of our lives.
We also learn about a number of their experiments, the how and why behind them, and what it ultimately means. Some of the examples were pretty jaw dropping and I found myself falling for some of the same fallacies they were pointing out. M
We are really irrational creatures.
Interestingly, I read _Thinking, Fast and Slow_ a few years ago and just now realized that the author of that book is one of the psychologists that _this_ book is about!...more
Robert Macfarlane has to be one of my favorite nature writers as of late. His latest, Underland, takes us on a journey to the ground beneath our feet.Robert Macfarlane has to be one of my favorite nature writers as of late. His latest, Underland, takes us on a journey to the ground beneath our feet. The book focuses on a number of discrete stories and adventures, all of which are unified simply due to the fact that they take place in the ground beneath our feet.
A few other reviews have mentioned that they felt the book didn't ultimately have a point. I kind of agree with that -- you could almost treat each section as its own short story. That said, I love every moment of it. Each section was beautifully written and I loved reading Macfarlane reflect on his experiences and ponder what each place (or the idea of each place) he visited means in the greater scheme of things to humanity....more
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