I got through another interesting mix of books this past month. Half were Terry Pratchett novels (see part 2), and half were more serious books - a mix of fiction and non-fiction.
You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero (2013)
"We only get to be in our bodies for a limited time; why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it out until it’s over?"
I actually had a hard time getting through this book my first read-through. It starts out (and continues the trend) encouraging readers to "manifest" things and believe in the good of the Universe, and veers too close to Prosperity Gospel type stuff for my taste. Also, the author is dismissive of anxiety and depression.
But, to be fair, on my second reading (the one where I decided to go through and take notes), I found some actually helpful things I could glean. Overall, then, my caution is that the reader should know that there's a fair helping of "the Universe wants to bless you" "all you have to do is believe" and "just do it" lines - all phrases that I find excessively cringey. But there's still some helpful and go-get--'em and even practical advice that even I found helpful.
Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Rubin)
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel - Tom Wainwright (2016)
"Buy cocaine in Europe or the United States and it is an uncomfortable certainty that you have helped pay for someone to be tortured to death in a place like Reynosa. People ought to know this. It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of customers buy drugs each year without giving a moment's thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering."
I thought this book was well-written and engaging, a happy surprise for me as I don't always mesh well with the writing styles of journalists/reporters/editors. The weaknesses for me were that the statistics given become dated quickly (through no fault of the author) - for instance, more states have legalized marijuana since the book's publication - and sometimes the author's parallels to business were a bit of a stretch. But I'd widely recommend the book for, among other things, its genuinely fascinating look into the facets of drug cartels and discussion of the impact of legalization.
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962)
"They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped."
(Quick note: I haven't seen the Amazon Prime series, although I've heard it's fairly divergent from the book, in the general tradition of PKD adaptations) I found this an interesting, though strangely short-feeling, read. It's a blend of the things I've come to associate with PKD - clever, uncomfortable, terse, and depressingly realistic.
Related Reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (1991)
(Translated from Japanese to English by Alfred Birnbaum)
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."
Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a curious mix of fantasy and speculative fiction, and (by all accounts) quite different even (or perhaps especially) among other contemporary Japanese novels. The nameless characters, the unicorn skulls, the subterranean fish-god worshipers... it's a reality-bending journey that somehow carries a pragmatic thread throughout.
I've only read one other Murakami book, but I found this to be (perhaps strangely) the more straightforward of the two. This one seems to be a good starter book for those interested in Murakami/modern Japanese fiction.
Related Reads:
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The Three-Body Problem (Liu)
The Giver (Lowry)
(to be continued in Part 2)
You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero (2013)
"We only get to be in our bodies for a limited time; why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it out until it’s over?"
I actually had a hard time getting through this book my first read-through. It starts out (and continues the trend) encouraging readers to "manifest" things and believe in the good of the Universe, and veers too close to Prosperity Gospel type stuff for my taste. Also, the author is dismissive of anxiety and depression.
But, to be fair, on my second reading (the one where I decided to go through and take notes), I found some actually helpful things I could glean. Overall, then, my caution is that the reader should know that there's a fair helping of "the Universe wants to bless you" "all you have to do is believe" and "just do it" lines - all phrases that I find excessively cringey. But there's still some helpful and go-get--'em and even practical advice that even I found helpful.
Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Rubin)
Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel - Tom Wainwright (2016)
"Buy cocaine in Europe or the United States and it is an uncomfortable certainty that you have helped pay for someone to be tortured to death in a place like Reynosa. People ought to know this. It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of customers buy drugs each year without giving a moment's thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering."
I thought this book was well-written and engaging, a happy surprise for me as I don't always mesh well with the writing styles of journalists/reporters/editors. The weaknesses for me were that the statistics given become dated quickly (through no fault of the author) - for instance, more states have legalized marijuana since the book's publication - and sometimes the author's parallels to business were a bit of a stretch. But I'd widely recommend the book for, among other things, its genuinely fascinating look into the facets of drug cartels and discussion of the impact of legalization.
The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962)
"They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped."
(Quick note: I haven't seen the Amazon Prime series, although I've heard it's fairly divergent from the book, in the general tradition of PKD adaptations) I found this an interesting, though strangely short-feeling, read. It's a blend of the things I've come to associate with PKD - clever, uncomfortable, terse, and depressingly realistic.
Related Reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (1991)
(Translated from Japanese to English by Alfred Birnbaum)
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."
Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a curious mix of fantasy and speculative fiction, and (by all accounts) quite different even (or perhaps especially) among other contemporary Japanese novels. The nameless characters, the unicorn skulls, the subterranean fish-god worshipers... it's a reality-bending journey that somehow carries a pragmatic thread throughout.
I've only read one other Murakami book, but I found this to be (perhaps strangely) the more straightforward of the two. This one seems to be a good starter book for those interested in Murakami/modern Japanese fiction.
Related Reads:
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The Three-Body Problem (Liu)
The Giver (Lowry)
(to be continued in Part 2)
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