Justin Monisit > Recent Status Updates

February may be the busiest month ever in my college career thus far, but I managed to sneak in a bit of reading.

I have a Bio Quiz on Monday and my Professor is not that good of a teacher, so looks like I'll be reading my bio book instead of any book this weekend :(

I've been trying to sneak passages of this in on top of college - which all of a sudden got a lot busier than I anticipated it being. I have to read ahead in all my classes due to not wanting all this work piling on top of each other.

In other words, my reading is about to slow down a lot.

It is unfortunate that so much of this book is watered down by his diversion and opinions. A lot of the book is interesting, and insight from the author makes it more digestible for non-academics, but it goes on for way too long at points where it is advisable to skim/skip sections because of them.

Good book but it is sullied by such excessive filler.

The joys of not being able to sleep at your usual time and spending hours reading books and making significant progress in both.

Trying to get these books out of the way before I start a new one and will probably read much more nonfiction since I'll be in college.

I will get to the second Harry Potter book eventually I promise

WOW. Longest I've spent reading in a single sitting in a while - and would have gone longer if I didn't have to wake up early tomorrow.

I finally got to the solutions portion of the book and I'm sold. It's written in a way that makes all the information digestible without being condescending; it's straight to the point with facts for corroboration.

YANG GANG 2020

That ending was beautiful.

Sad it has ended because I don't know if I will read another book like this; so meta-textual, tongue-in-cheek, and yet brilliantly touching. Nabokov managed to write a masterpiece poem as a joke and then was able to spin a novel made entirely out of manic annotations out of it that is endearing, funny, and sad.

Have one last footnote to read and then I'm done. What an amazing experience this book was. I've experienced every emotion to this book in a meta-textual sense - thinking this book was pretentious to believing this book is brilliant.

If the poem was anything less than great, this book would not have worked. But this "fake" poem written as a joke is a masterpiece, and the rest compliments it so well.

Didn't expect learning about empires could be this interesting but here we are. I feel like I finally got to the part that makes this book so interesting, to see humans evolve out of their primitive self and into building empires forged together by culture.

Should finish this by tonight/tomorrow.

Not all of it is great, but every part adds to its overall brilliance. It may be a book I appreciate more than I enjoy, but those two feelings come very close to each other. Not a book I'll read twice but I'll never read a book quite like this again.

This chapter really showed the author's liberal bias, as in I pretty much didn't learn anything I didn't know already in terms of the differences of gender and sex.

My suggestion would be to skip this chapter once you get to it because the author goes on a REALLY long tangent about disenfranchised women throughout history.

Still a solid read but the book took quite a detour.

This is the most I've enjoyed reading nonfiction in such a long time - the information is laid out so clearly and digestible, with insights from the author that may be opinionated, but just as interesting. It's fascinating to see where humankind keeps going.

I just love the feeling of finding a book so interesting that you speed through and devour the content.

Yes I'm indecisive about what I read, whatever.

Picked this up again and while it's really interesting now (more than I remember) - the bias that the book has been lambasted for starts to seep through the pages. It doesn't get in the way of facts but it's there, and it does make the book an easier read rather than dense.

This book is brilliant. The part when he starts talking about the second Canto was just devestating to read, the parts with Zembla (after doing some research i.e. Sparknotes) actually bring another layer to this poem I didn't realize at first. It may be a little dense, but it's worth it

This far into the book and I literally could not tell you what this book is about. I don't even know if I can tell you if I am enjoying this book (which I am...I think?).

It's really well written with poetic prose, but damn am I confused by the concurrent storylines.

Welp I have absolutely no idea what's going on in this book - somehow talking about a King and a fictional country. Looking up a synopsis helps (spoilers be damned) but it's an interesting read still, if not a bit dense with just how wild the tangents get.

It's told entirely through footnotes of a poem that slowly build a narrative. And somehow it spins into 3 different stories from them.

The book could only be the poem itself and it would be a 5/5. It's that good, but I'm excited to read the deconstruction of this poem now and see what really makes this a novel.

This is legitimately beautiful and it was written as a joke. This is one of the few pieces of poetry that has moved me - and apparently it was written as a joke.

Kind of spoiled it to myself by seeing why this book is so long, but now I'm excited to read that. The poem could stand on its own and it would have sold me already, but now there's an extra layer to it.

Picked this up again - same old mantra, just kind of hoping that Yang brings up solutions eventually because while it does seem like Industrialization is of dire consequences, it does get a bit dry to read without the accompaniment of an audiobook.

It's actually pretty decent when you don't stretch this over the course of many weeks, but I'm still not in love with the book. First time I've read a book for the second time - didn't notice anything hidden in the book (since it is surface level), only my enjoyment of it improved.

Can't explain why I enjoyed it more but I just did.

Reading this again after being inspired by my enjoyment of Hemingway's other short stories after loathing this book the first time I read it.

Still not in love with the book, but now I see its merits. Definitely a better read through the second time, but a lot of my complaints will still remain the same.

Doubt I will remember a thing from this book. It started off well and then I was just sort of bored by it halfway through that I found myself skimming passages to get through it. Not the worst book in the world, but it was disappointing even though it started off promising.

WHO ENDS THE CLIMAX LIKE THAT? That part was so bad that I'm actually angry, especially with how it was told. I'm so close to the end I can't quit now.

Hopefully my next fiction book will get me excited about reading again.

Inflating my reading with multiple books at the same time? Yes I am.

Trying to read more non-narrative non-fiction this year and I'm continuing the trend with this one. So far it's sold me on how to be a productive person and I'm intrigued as to what it is going to say next.

Okay starting to see what people were saying about the thin characterization now. There are huge leaps of logic with the protagonist willing be as noble as he is acting (risking his life for someone he has no opinion of) and the romance is taking much more of the spotlight than it really should. And there is a LOT of explanation for their plans. Good for what it is though, took a while for the flaws to come through

First read of 2020 still. Shame I didn't get to finish it, but my opinion still stands that this book is still actually some solid light entertainment. It is very surface level but it's almost intentional with the tone the book is taking that it doesn't matter.

Really hope that it continues to be as it is right now.

This book is surprisingly underappreciated; real big surprise with how enjoyable this turned out to be. There are some minor flaws I have with the story, but it is light enough that my enjoyment eclipses those feelings.

THIS TOOK ME A MONTH TO READ? I got sidetracked and distracted by other books - it's not indicative of its quality, college and business got in the way.

Anyways, this book is a flawed masterpiece. Deserves all the praise it got but I had minor quibbles with the book that prevent it from being an all time favorite. Would read again if I had the chance to.

Automation is the necessary evil to our society and we shouldn't try to stop it - but it is going to have severe ramifications on the populace where so many our going to be displaced and unemployed.

Only the Yang Gang can save us now.

Great solid read so far.

Color me surprised because I'm actually really invested in this book - expected it to be dated and boring but it actually is really entertaining. Flawed but still really fun to read.

The prologue is essentially just set up for the latter acts that are actually a lot more engaging.

Trying to read an action-oriented book to observe how to write action.

So far this book is eh with flimsy characterization (but it's a first act so whatever) and a really rough first chapter. Familiar with the story so that'll help me get through it.

But wouldn't be surprised if I put this on a DNF shelf soon after

And Merry Christmas!