Nosemonkey > Recent Status Updates

This is pretty decent so far, as a memoir of 60s Tokyo. Seems to have covered off most of the clichés already, knowingly so, so I'm intrigued to see how the rest pans out. Hopefully not too much baseball - about which I have zero knowledge or interest...

Mainlining more Sontag essays on Audible before they drop out of the free catalogue in a couple of weeks... The essays on art have, so far, been less compelling than those in the 'Against Interpretation' collection, but quite enjoyed the one on pornography as literature. Wonder what she'd have made of today's internet porn...?

Continues to be utterly fascinating

This doesn't half go on a bit... I have no idea why this novel is this long. Still sticking with it, mind. Feels like it should be a TV series.

Read in the light of another war in Israel/Palestine, this retelling/analysis of the books of the Old Testament/Torah is fascinating where before it would have been merely intriguing.

This really is excellent, especially the imperialism section I'm in now. So very many thoughts being provoked...

This is far more readable and engaging than I was led to expect. Depressing though, obviously...

Entertaining so far

Britain really was good at being a violent dick and then blaming other people for the violence. Churchill was particularly good at it. And most of this is entirely unknown to most British people. Hopefully the recent glut of books about this will start shifting this - though Tory / far-right anti-"woke" cute wars are weaponising willful ignorance, so who knows?

Well this is utterly brutal so far...

Roberts may be a raving Tory, but he seems to love Napoleon.

This is rather different to what I was expecting - an anthropological challenge to received economic wisdom about the origins of markets, money, and capitalism. The concept of "baseline communism" is particularly fun, and convincing.

This is very good.

This is excellent so far - really enjoying it.

This is as good as people say. Wish I'd read this 30 years ago.

No matter the translator, Calvino always sounds like Calvino - and always leaves me feeling like there's something more that I'm missing. With these essays, the thing I'm missing is very clearly the cultural context - his deep knowledge of Italian literature. Still interesting, though.

This is rather decent so far. The author is not a fan of Herodotus, mind...