Jon Reading Books > Recent Status Updates

Picking this one up again from last fall. Second read.

I worry that I've made a mistake in reading Wuthering Heights prior to this. Pride and Prejudice feels milquetoast by comparison.

Also probably not the best idea to leap directly from Dostoyevsky to Austen.

Supposedly Austen was revolutionary in her time, but I can't say I'm much enjoying this in mine. I'll finish it, though.

Chapter 1: In which Haruki Murakami discusses what it's like to copulate with an obese woman.

Sorry if my old reviews are popping up and cluttering your feeds. I'm updating some old reviews to be more readable. I'm afraid I terribly overwrote some of them in an attempt to sound smarter than I am.

This has become my nightly "pretty words before I drive off to sleep" read, hence the small instances of progress when compared to my usual reading pace.

Oh god, it's so good.

Note to self: Read more Dostoevsky asap.

Isaiah: Very long book. Portions of it were difficult to read but it did include some nice poetic passages.

The bible is such an odd "book". Messy, weird pacing, retreading events already covered at seemingly arbitrary places. I pity whomever had the actual task of organizing all of these books.

Jeremiah is next but I'm traveling to Southeast Asia for the next couple of weeks, so don't expect another update soon.

I apologize for flooding all of your feeds with short story reviews :) But there are more on the way. I think I've been bitten by the Raymond Carver bug...

I'm going to have so many damn highlights for this book they're going to take over my GR page.

"This has all got to be, patently, the most unbelievable, the most ridiculous story I have ever heard."

Murakami in a nutshell. At least he knows it.

And for some reason, I like it.

Ecclesiastes: An odd book. Seems to want to be focused on living in the moment and enjoying life, but constantly contradicts such a notion with orthodox thoughts lifted from prior books.

Song of Solomon: Alright, I was completely unprepared for this one. To summarize; they're talkin' about fuckin'.

Proverbs: Pretty much what you'd expect given the title, a set of Christian-inspired proverbs and moralistic stories.

Someone needs to tell Conrad about paragraphs

Psalms: I'm ashamed to admit I zoned out for most of this entire book. It's incredibly long and most of it is just recorded verse celebrating religious statutes. It really did nothing for me, though I can see why it'd be an oft reread portion by worshipers.

Psalms: This is the longest book I've seen thus far, and I didn't get as much time to read this week. Thoughts to come next week upon finishing.

I question the sanity and intelligence of anyone who reads this and finds Heathcliff the least bit romantic or attractive.

Job: A beautiful but appalling book in which Job is mercilessly punished for no reason, further displaying the cruelty of the Old Testament's God.

I find the entire thing detestable, I reject the idea that pointless suffering is praiseworthy so long as it's done in the name of God.

Made more interesting by Satan's appearance, as I still find him intriguing. Hurt by Elihu's banal, curiously out-of-place droning.

Esther: A short book, but far more enjoyable read than the previous two chapters. No mention of gods or religious rules, no genealogies. Some politicking, a memorable heroine, and lots of drama.

Notable is the whole "every man should bear rule in his own house" crap that still hamstrings us even today. Funny how Christians who take this as gospel are actually living (probably unknowingly) an ancient Persian custom.

Ezra: I discovered during extra reading (which I do for each book) the blueprint of the temple here is physically impossible.

Some more genealogy and dry religious law in this one, too. Yuck.

Nehemiah: The capable Israelite helping to run a wider empire (Moses, and now Ezra/Nehemiah) is emerging as a common theme in these books.

The Israelites' reluctance to intermingle with other societies is interesting.