Brian > Recent Status Updates

“The girl had pluck, but she was being sorely tested. How much bad she could take I did not know, but I hoped it was an awful lot, for that seemed to be her portion.”

“His left leg was absent from near the hip down. A red neckerchief was tied to the stump. He looked a hard ride beyond Grim.”

“It’s not against the law for a Jew to write for a Jewish newspaper. I’ll convince a Jewish newspaper to hire me, or I’ll start my own.”
“I don’t understand why you have to go looking for trouble.”
“The trouble’s already here. I’m just going to write about it.”

Pretty fascinating. All the WW2 stories out there, and there are still a lot of people who are not well known and yet worth knowing.

I’m not sure how many authors would refer to a line of Wordsworth as a humble brag, but I’m pretty sure Zadie Smith is the only one from whom I’ll accept it...

"On Optimism and Despair" was one of the best things I've read in a long while - both in form and content, but there was also something ridiculously satisfying about Zadie Smith quoting Jordan Peele making a William Gibson reference.

“On Optimism and Despair” is one of the best things I’ve read in a long while... it’s extraordinary in both content and form.

Pretty engrossing. In addition to the history, atmosphere, and good story-telling, I wasn't really aware of Lucy Hale at all.

Somehow, this made its way from my piles of books to read to my shelves of books I've read without my having read it. I discovered this while cleaning my apartment, which only happens roughly biennially. As always, Hornby is engaging, intelligent, funny, insightful, and makes my list of books to read even longer. Bastard.

I agree with Toni Morrison, "This is required reading", but I can't help thinking... Coates is a gifted author. Intelligent, erudite, clever, thoughtful and thought-provoking, and... in such a profound level, he's still being robbed, devoting his writing to explaining and confronting issues that should not exist in the first place. It should be incredibly frustrating to everyone that this book is required reading.

Were this any other book, I'd've just reached the point where I'd think, "Clearly, I'm just going to have to stay up all night and finish this." For better or worse, though, in "Reamde", that point comes with more than 250 more pages to go.

Curse you and thank you, Neal Stephenson.

It's a pretty minor thing, but now I'm left to wonder if the third person omniscient narration is using the term "fanny" from the perspective of the American author or from the perspective of the British woman being discussed at the time.

Really excellent... the stories of explorer Alexander von Humboldt and mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss as well as their 1828 meeting. Really engaging and actually quite funny. This should probably be better-known than it is... Interesting in both their juxtaposition and their interplay.

I'm learning a lot more about China than I ever could have anticipated. It's a fascinating read, and not just for the learning about China part. Like "Anathem", it might be counterproductive to try to explain or even sum up.

I've been eyeballing this book for the entire decade it's been out, and I finally started reading it, one interview at a time. It's quite excellent. Ms. Pogrebin does a good job directing interviews, and she does a good job stepping back and letting the interviewee speak/wax on when needed. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has been the high-water mark, so far.

Hey! No more vision problems! I can read again! But it's been long enough I may need to start over.