Of all the books in the series this one hits closest home hardest, when I read this in, say, 2009–10, I just thought of Walmart, not know about the shitfest that is The People's Republic of Walmart by Leigh Phillips, Michal Rozworski and thinking humanity's heading for very rough waters, if their example (currently amzn) is implemented worldwide. Dark days ahead.

Just great. Information, good resources, well-cited, good interviews, good descriptions. Writing style at times on par with Palahniuk's. Sufficient.

Just real good. Top candidate for a screenplay.

Slow. Not much happens. Good descriptions and 'feel'.

Immature, self-centered, superfluous examples and stories. Yo, this ain't a bio. kys.

Honest-to-fuck, (prolly ccp-sponsored/backed) chink scifi. Propaganda seeps thru, and is felt constantly. People 'act' unlike evolved creatures, or bogstandard hoomans.

Nice layman's dive into the shitsea that is psychiatry and, more so, psychosurgery. Often over-detailed, great nonetheless.

Bemused, infantile rantings of an old man trying to make sense of things using communism derivatives, postmodernism, history of old dogma and authority, and often times objectively false reasoning and premises. As a fellow hooman bean, sad. As sb w/ an bigass audience- spreading unknowledge, misinformation, regardless of pseudonym, annoyingly infuriating.

Story revolved around jews... Inclined on boring and wasting your time.

Hadn't seen/been shown the economic face of matters alongside the political/cultural one, this book is a good introduction. I'll have to reread it, since I've already forgoten whether or not it makes any predictions (other the obvious ones), or just describes history- ya no, the easy part.

Repetition through the book and insufficient detail lower score. Otherwise great, would make one helluva movie.

Perhaps my first modern Middle Eastern novel. Not half bad, predominantly caused by the foreignness of (civil) war in one's own country, the not jungle|city|space|hightech|lowtech setting, just plain ol' toyota hilux and domestic and foreign terrorism against all people you deem unworthy. Boring whenever the interpersonal, or rather man-woman?, or 'civil'? or merely familiar?, occurs. The rest is fine by me.

Boring, bad writing, wantonly fallacious.

The woman author massacred beforehand mediocrities in such a show of force, it whet my critique's edge such that within the ~1' I'd given each subsequent story, not a piece was left. Shit authors. To be expected of a woman, they shouldn't write about what they cannot comprehend- pick something you know, like knitting or emotional bullshit, chiclit and woman power fantasies - lit. 90% of audiobookbay's inventory.

Like(d) the style, but the main goon riots, has no redeeming qualities, neither do any of the non-elderly characters. Could be a manual on how to be shit human. It's like all the nigger, small American city, actually probably all ethnicities given there're several follow-up novels, fit into their stereotypes, the ones prescribing bad qualities, mostly. Author blacklisted.

Rather condescending writing, catering to either bigger audience under publisher pressure, or actual malice, albeit the rich dad was supposedly the bad guy. Platitudes, garnished with too-detailed-to-be-real example from 'real life'. Nothing you can't figure out yourself before hitting 18, practicing it is another matter- and that's nothing to do with books. Also, contains falsehoods, flawed argumentation, and false premises. Of zero intellectual worth to >90-iqlets.

Abook, actually greatly done. Lovely writing, humorous and witty, some new words for myself, very believable and consistent. Although I know criticisms of his main work, s.h., perhaps from seasoned, hard-boiled crime novelists and the like, but this, the first of 5 novels w/ prof. challenger, essentially a series, this books seems like an excellent package.

2. book of Doyle's Prof. Challenger series. Abook again, and this time I didn't feel like opening up the text, inferior to the preceeding one- the ending is heralded before act one is half done. Appreciable epilogue though- some discussion around the topic of ether and additional anti-nuc.war propaganda story.

Collection of short stories but in a unprecedented fashion, I liked each and every one. Either I've only ever had bad luck starting stories, or the stories just are original in concepts, content, and feature good writing. Glad I gave the guy a shot, I'm dl'ing his other works hoping quality wasn't sacrificed for depth and longitude.

The book gets better, and better, and better. Maybe the hostility from 'Fortunately the Milk' has withered (maybe I should give it another go..?). It weaves together strands from various cultures, geographies, and times into an American story told from the settler on the continent far before the country's founding. Like Under the Volcano, it has a dreamlike, continuous, or stream-of-consciousness-like quality that I quite fancy, and similarly simultaneously find it hard to put down, and myself unwilling to go faster to avoid completion, to prolong virginal self-indulgences.

I like the plot a lot, style isn't half bad, too. I wish it dug deeper, there are many possibilities. The single narrative ties everything together and down. But episodic stories taking place thoughout historoy in the same universe could've made been more expansive, even if slightly less grandiose. The novel's commentary on the American Dream, which was the subject directly and indirectly of Peter Cline's Paradox Bound (recently finished), depicted both sides of an ugly, ugly coin - that of human praise, worship, tribalism, tradition, inertia. Shown was how humans can and will fuck up any thing, not just a good one. The book is a very satisfactory read and deserves a second one as well.

Great body horror short stories, not bad.

Auto-fellatory.

Hard to believe this guy's a comedian, because this books is a good joke you can hear once, and it's good. And then it's repeated til the second book cover. It functions more like a friend one know well, whose stories all bare a certain tinge, nuance, flavor, that you enjoy, but recognize from afar and whose end you can spell out.

From the foreword already I'm hooked by the irrelevant to the book backstory of the author. From the first paragraph, it's a style of writing that regales me. Witty, good storytelling. Being a text phonetically written out in an accent - here, New Orleans'-, though understandable unlike trainspotters (or -watchers?), which was irish or welsh; is also a bonus. Characters are memorable, distinct, colorful, but not unbelievable.
Very fucking based.

Now, this passage, albeit written in the 80s, demonstrates the type of thinking, at least superficially, present among modern-day lefties. Although satirical, somehow the author had had enough either fore- or insight, or had already witness this in his time. The ideas should have already taken root in American higher education then.

...As the magnificence and originality of my worldview became explicit through conversation, the Minkoff minx began attacking me on all levels, even kicking me under the table rather vigorously at one point. I both fascinated and confused her; in short, I was too much for her. The parochialism of the ghettos of Gotham had not prepared her for the uniqueness of Your Working Boy. Myrna, you see, believed that all humans living south and west of the Hudson River were illiterate cowboys or—even worse—White Protestants, a class of humans who as a group specialized in ignorance, cruelty, and torture. (I don't wish to especially defend White Protestants; I am not too fond of them myself.)

Soon Myrna's brutal social manner had driven my courtiers from the table, and we were left alone, all cold coffee and hot words. When I failed to agree with her braying and babbling, she told me that I was obviously anti-Semitic. Her logic was a combination of half-truths and clichés, her worldview a compound of misconceptions deriving from a history of our nation as written from the perspective of a subway tunnel. She dug into her large black valise and assaulted me (almost literally) with greasy copies of Men and Masses and Now! and Broken Barricades and Surge and Revulsion and various manifestos and pamphlets pertaining to organizations of which she was a most active member: Students for Liberty, Youth for Sex, The Black Muslims, Friends of Latvia, Children for Miscegenation, The White Citizens' Councils.

I like to laugh from a non-human perspective, because from a human one, it's just sad, disappoint, suboptimal, grotesque. I'd like to laugh knowing I've never stated or opined (only to not be heard or regarded) and turned out wrong. I'd like to, but I'd rather be wrong and have humanity be better for it, others, the ones I interact with. But no. I'm right, but for my own sake, and I mourn for society every waking moment in the presence of others.

ANOTHER ONE:

'Maybe your boy went to school too long,' Mr. Robichaux advised. 'They got plenty communiss in colleges.'

..Anyways, it's a great read, it's reread-worthy. No wonder it's a cult classic of the southern us.

Decent concept, dull storytelling, and at that length - 16h abook, so ~2e5 words, I'm not fucking waiting for sub-par delivery. NEXT!

First story had this nice passage:

I rushed into the nearest newsstand and gathered up as much as I could find on the petroleum crisis and the nuclear energy hazard. I'd just decided to plane ticket for New York. 'Helluva world we live in, huh?' The proprietor was a thin black man with bad teeth and an obvious wig. I nodded, fishing in my jeans for change, anxious to find a park bench, where I could submerge myself in hard evidence of the human near-dystopia we live in. 'But it could be worse, huh?' 'That's right', I said. 'Or even worse, it could be perfect.'

That aside, these stories bore. The editor, himself a famed author in this direction, is enthralled however. I can't figure reconciliate what kind of a person would actually find these monotonous, drab, snoozefests, i.e., cyberpunk-, interesting. Or anything positive really. Visionary in predicting future technologies and/or ideas - sure. Entertaining, enjoyable, pleasant - no.

A cocktail of 1 part interesting, 1 part bland, and 1 part sad, frustrating and disappointing. I've only ever watched one Asa scene, I'm not into anal, or (pseudo-)rough stuff, or any of her strong parts. The surgery make her look fake, alien, uncanny, definitely all south of neutral, let alone arousing. Regardless, her name is recognizable and one can hear this or that over the years about her, the industry, specific other performers. So I was expecting to hear some depressing shit of 2. gen american immigrant youths squandering opportunity, being shitheads, and horrible people. Correct-o. I expected some cool, or interesting stories though. I know it's a profession like any other, but when you work with people you get to do more getting to know, more locations, more scenarios, i dunno. Likely, this is her very first long-form text. Says she wanted to be a writer before becoming an addict and even more of whore. The work is stereotypical of a woman - { aforementioned adjectives }; and either her nib has many miles more of paper to cover before something decent emerges, or, and this is subjective, I don't like autobiographical shit, esp. female. The repetition become more frequent, and predictability increments lockstep. After the first third, you can close the book content to not waste any more of your time.

My kinda book, about highly intelligent, prophetic, endeavor-ous (coining this til a sub swims up), who were right about almost everything, and whom nobody listened to regarding matter of most import.

Today, one gets single-sentence, single-word, or, worst of all, emoji replies. Back then, good-faith discussion in long form, in 20-page letters was normal. Thought was expanded n-fold, refined m-fold both written and oral. Somewhere in the technological frenzy, probably since the invention of the telegraph (paraphrasing quote from another book): 'What the fuck does Maine care about Missouri?'. This book is also my first encounter with founders' texts. I do have The Federalist Papers, but the amount of monographs, epistles, speeches given by these four dudes astounds. I've ever only twice spoken in front of people, both failing either time from being under-prepared, and nervous (having failed the first time many years ago). My dude Hamilton gives out five-hour speeches, ffs.

I find the 4-four showcasing of only the currently examined founder's statements lamentable, albeit, it's supposed to be about their hesitancy, despondency, worry, not their correspondences.

Dangerously red-pilled.
Meticulous explanation of connections between key players in various high-level fields - us news, us politics, china, among others. The author does not know the actual nature of the virus, but at least he skirts around the issue, not paying it more than it's due. Little-to-no else was blatantly false.

Reading this at first, I was struct by new-ness of the ideas, or narrative presented. I looking up ol' Rodney in audiobookbay to find that, lo and and behold, dude writes exclusively about religion. Fine, maybe the complete selection elucidates the connection with religion—and it does. A journalist turned sociologist, currently some distinguished prof. of it at some uni or religion-oriented institute, he writes about rel. diverse topics, mostly human ones regarding history, Christianity, etc.: from wiki "Stark has written over 30 books, including The Rise of Christianity (1996), and more than 140 scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as prejudice, crime, suicide, and city life in ancient Rome."

My only gripe is regarding assumptions for the emergence of 'science' in the Middle Ages being due to Christianity, Catholicism specifically. I grant you, no other society with or without religion succeeded in isolation to getting to it. But, just because I wore a mauve sweater today and it didn't rain on me, doesn't mean that: it didn't rain elsewhere, it would have rained on me had the material or color of the sweater been different, or the article, or had I gone bare-chested. An affirmative conclusion from a negative premise. It wouldn't be prudent, nor expedient, to takes thousands of modern-day hunter-gatherers, and observe them enough time in similar enough conditions to allow for a development of religions, and a progression of that development - as he points out, Christianity is the (perhaps?) only orthodox (i.e., based on correct interpretation/opining) religion, whereas others are orthoprax (i.e., based on correct execution of rites and practices): Judaism, Islam, Taoism, and even pseudo-religions such as whatever passes for Marxism these days. It is logically fallacious to assert that it is the sole contribution of Christianity. That it played a big role, however, crucial even, is substantiated sufficiently.

The book is consistent through and through, covers history from around the 8th to the 18th century without unnecessary jumps; topics are chaptered well, and these in turn—well sectioned.

Assuming his references are in check (and I've no reason to assume they're not), this book deprives wanton 'debunkers' and agenda-pushers, most of which he himself points to whenever relevant. Well written, presented. I will also check out some of the titles considered heavily biased, and demonstrably false by ol' Rodney 'ere.

I'm not layperson when it comes to medicine, but I'm also no ER doc. This is mediocre. Almost all of these questions are easily answerable from an old corpus of scientific knowledge, or from thinking rationally about them, scientific method, bitch. What a waste of time. Speaking of time, I've been thrusted longer religious sect pamphlets than this. A writer's and doctor's combined effort results in a pop-sci Q&A and old-wives-tales 'debunking'/explaining. Any search-savvy teen, non-idiotic teen could get to these answers sans the faux entertainment.

Faux condescension, the wording of every fucking sentence, annoys to the bone. Nothing of worth is said. This is below trash. And so is Dawkins regardless of all his previous work.

Supposed psychological thriller writer. Yeah, and I'm a tram. I gave it, like, 5 chances, and it never fails to disappoint. Regarding the rating, as they say, if it walks like a duck, and talks a duck...

The first quarter-to-third (or -half) of this book is extremely weak compared to Kahneman's other books, if I recall correctly (I'm not rereading that shit, yo.). To anyone who's had a statistics class, paid attention, and done the work, this is wholly superfluous. Is the intended audience really stupid people? Uneducated people incapable of autonomous thought? Children..? Similar applies to the quotes appended to every chapter. These often occur within paragraphs of their 'source', and if you've working memory at all, you quotes to half a page back are pure filler.

... which is my next gripe. So far, character count can but cut by half without lose of information or narrative flow.

Next gripe: unnecessary terminology—noise this, noise that—, and obfuscation of already perfectly clear concepts from statistics by changing established terms can or does confuse anybody who's ever dealt with them.

Lastly, there's is a slight not full woke, but clearly leftie-drone drag about race and sex that continues reappearing. My stupid nigga, stereotypes exist for very good reasons: because they are very often, on the whole, true or truisms. And whatever cards one's dealt at the start of life, one should blame, whine, and finger-point, but do whatever's in one's capabalities. Not all X arguments are platitutes as much as stereotypes, but therein you see the double standards (again). Also uses female pronouns for general and neuter cases (you, one, person)—I fucking hate this shit so fucking much.

Also fuck you stupid cunts for referred to the 'covid' thing as a pandemic, something objectively false by definitions of that word up to 2020, when the shills at WHO changed it.

Hm, anyway, it also struck me finally, namely that I'm a superforecaster (kinda?):

What makes superforecasters so good? Consistent with our argument in chapter 18, we could reasonably speculate that they are unusually intelligent. That speculation is not wrong. On GMA tests, the superforecasters do better than the average volunteer in the Good Judgment Project (and the average volunteer is significantly above the national average). But the difference isn't all that large, and many volunteers who do extremely well on intelligence tests do not qualify as superforecasters. Apart from general intelligence, we could reasonably expect that superforecasters are unusually good with numbers. And they are. But their real advantage is not their talent at math; it is their ease in thinking analytically and probabilistically.

Consider superforecasters' willingness and ability to structure and disaggregate problems. Rather than form a holistic judgment about a big geopolitical question (whether a nation will leave the European Union, whether a war will break out in a particular place, whether a public official will be assassinated), they break it up into its component parts. They ask, “What would it take for the answer to be yes? What would it take for the answer to be no?” Instead of offering a gut feeling or some kind of global hunch, they ask and try to answer an assortment of subsidiary questions.

Superforecasters also excel at taking the outside view, and they care a lot about base rates. As explained for the Gambardi problem in chapter 13 , before you focus on the specifics of Gambardi's profile, it helps to know the probability that the average CEO will be fired or quit in the next two years. Superforecasters systematically look for base rates. Asked whether the next year will bring an armed clash between China and Vietnam over a border dispute, superforecasters do not focus only or immediately on whether China and Vietnam are getting along right now. They might have an intuition about this, in light of the news and analysis they have read. But they know that their intuition about one event is generally not a good guide. Instead they start by looking for a base rate: they ask how often past border disputes have escalated into armed clashes. If such clashes are rare, superforecasters will begin by incorporating that fact and only then turn to the details of the China–Vietnam situation.

In short, what distinguishes the superforecasters isn't their sheer intelligence; it's how they released in a final version but that is endlessly used, analyzed, and improved. Tetlock finds that “the strongest predictor of rising into the ranks of superforecasters is perpetual beta, the degree to which one is committed to belief updating and self-improvement.” As he puts it, “What makes them so good is less what they are than what they do—the hard work of research, the careful thought and self-criticism, the gathering and synthesizing of other perspectives, the granular judgments and relentless updating.” They like a particular cycle of thinking: “try, fail, analyze, adjust, try again.”

To give the book its due: it is a nice reminder of what one must always keep in mind. Albeit, having a paper copy of Bo Bennet's Logically Fallacious would be more helpful than this shit, 9/10 times.

Found this in my dir whilst looking for some fiction, something to forfeit my mind to in pleasure. Welp. this Brazilian-born strange dude self-described as having been a criminal behaviorist/psychologist, been a 'musician' with famour glam rock bands (I've never read up, heard up, seen, experienced person describe themselves as such, rather they choose the more apt instrument-er/ist) and somehow settled from the US to London, of all shit places.., to become a (thriller) author.

His major work is 10 novels with an L.A. detective Robert Hunter in the 'ultra violent crimes' division. There are no clear ties, or feelings of missing something, regardless that this is the 8. one. All in all, is was alright or good. Two flaws in the writing which haven't been fixed (and I'm hoping aren't intensified retroactively) are that: 1. faux drama—a very toned down version of Indian soap opera reaction shots and utterances that are distracting, non-plot-developmental and inconsequential, and, worst of all, jarringly out of character (for the main guy, at least); 2. 65 chapters, really? slightly redundant with former point, but they're structured like soap episodes, all but the epilogue end on suspenseful moments, that I wouldn't always call cliff-hangers, not even author's teasing. Annoying if anything, because you don't get all the information at the same time, or even in the same chapter. This staggering messes with suspense-release on > tracks, which I'd call bad.

All that being said, given how shit the competition most often is, it a good thriller, or crime-novel. Gore good.

Compared to 02, less interwoven plot, less characters and fewer plotpoints to resolve. Sadly, less gore and violence, too. Nonetheless, worth a one-read, enjoyable.

A deeper look into the superforecasters mentioned in Kahneman's Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. Slightly rehashing, bc., I guess, it's hard to make a book out of a handful of paragraphs of good advice. Literally a single page. Still worthwhile for the many examples. Too much slog at times, too lay-centric.
Two okay quotes (the latter, which rends at every nerve cell every time I'm amidst the fucks daring calling themselves humans):

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER We have learned a lot about superforecasters, from their lives to their test scores to their work habits. Taking stock, we can now sketch a rough composite portrait of the modal superforecaster. In philosophic outlook, they tend to be:
CAUTIOUS: Nothing is certain
HUMBLE: Reality is infinitely complex
NONDETERMINISTIC: What happens is not meant to be and does not have to happen
In their abilities and thinking styles, they tend to be:
CAUTIOUS: Nothing is certain
HUMBLE: Reality is infinitely complex
NONDETERMINISTIC: What happens is not meant to be and does not have to happen
In their abilities and thinking styles, they tend to be:
ACTIVELY OPEN-MINDED: Beliefs are hypotheses to be tested, not treasures to be protected
INTELLIGENT AND KNOWLEDGEABLE, WITH A “NEED FOR COGNITION”: Intellectually curious, enjoy puzzles and mental challenges
REFLECTIVE: Introspective and self-critical
...
The catch is that the Kahneman-Klein collaboration presumed good faith. Each side wanted to be right but they wanted the truth more. Sadly, in noisy public arenas, strident voices dominate debates, and they have zero interest in adversarial collaboration.

This book was referenced in Dinesh D'Souza's The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left, and it goes over the history, motivations, ideations of the innumerable people, dead and alive, showcasing the many connections between any and all flavors of marxists—be it presidents, senators, judges, lawyers, students, teachers and professors, authors, journos, or just people— and fascism/nazism/socialism/statism from the 1900s to the present day. Dinesh's criticism about him barely equating them to nazis (perhaps because of the baggage, although national socialism is brought up many a time; more likely due to danger of being raked over by everybody in his circles..?) is apparent after a significant chunk of the book.

This book is so fucking thorough, so fucking thick with references and quotes, that I needed to section my time, being it feels heavy, the material, the implications. Tight, very tight.

This book was publish 7 years after The Victory of Reason. Omitting some 30–40%, it often is an argument-for-argument and word-for-word rehash of it, especially parts 1 and 2. It is a broader topic, correspondingly accessing more resources, citations and references spanning a greater period. I'm still wary of the Christian bias, however well-substantiated and -referenced. I'm always wary..

When one is this deluded, and wrong within less than 5 pages, the book would be an exercise in pointing out mistakes. I'm not teaching a class, and I'm not educating idiots, so that'd be less wisely spent time. Fuck you, Vince. Though I hope you learn some day.

Somewhat interesting story, or rather interesting from the point of view that it's a nothing author from a shit country with shit writers (about as much as Ireland) making a story about a sociopathic child/teen inflicting harm on various living subjects for no discernible reason other than plot. deus ex machina, divine intervention, plot armor, blind everyone, etc., all seem to be typical of 1970s–80s–90s whereversville, scotland. This is bad writing that's good enough for for somebody who occasionally reads, and has never thought for himself in his life. That some people might think this is normal sociopathic, or psychopathic, or any kind of consistent human behavior is appalling to me, but hypocrisy, that is, self-serving and often malevolent self-inconsistency reigns over most humans.
Great closing act, though.

Good enough, not as strong as previous two. Great reminder of why women should be barred from mens' work (and vice versa), and why emotions are mostly useless, unhelpful trash. Ridden with same issues as previous 9.

The Metamorphosis but funnier and with more exploration of sexual matters.

Bit of a while it took me to make concrete wherefrom remembrance was nagging me. The latest Alien franchise movie is based on this very novel (or vice versa, who fucking cares). However, whereas it was exponentially underperformant compared to the already diminishingly returning Alien3, this vivifies that sterile moneygrab, redeemed by its visuals only. Even though characters were too numerous for me to keep track of (personal flaw stemming from difficulty to relate to human matter—my guess), they were distinct in their motivations, aliances, relations, attitudes. To me, that, rather than some rando future space names, made them.

Aboard the crashed ship and within the cathedral the movies hands-down outshines the book's descriptions. The latter's layout of the plot is substantially denser, more explicit, detailed (assuming it's the same).

Along with 127, and The Abominable, this is my third book into mountaineering/climbing/etc. A true story as the former, but unlike it, well-written, more interesting and having more substance, consequence, and character depth.

Post-scriptum. Just now I understand why the whole plot seems familiar, namely, there exists an eponymous movie based on the book's events, that I've watched in the past.

On-the-ground reporting, or documenting of marxist infantiles destroying property, tradition; injuring/killing police officers/civilians, and, ultimately, making everything worse for themselves and anyone in their vicinity. This is no historic look-back, scholarly or theorical work, as the other books on the subject that I have or have read. It's not new information, but nevertheless, the perspective it offers is one of a target and of just another blackbloc in the crowd.

Slightly one-sided biography. I get the drift once, and it keeping the very same every so often. Listening to Donald Trump Jr. talking about his grandparents was far more content-ful. The modelling world has changed much, if at all, I think, in the last 40 years. Despite the matter's potential, the author bored.

Surprised to a see a 'boat kino' I hopped aboard. HBO or NetFlix had made a series or movie out of this, I later learned—likely why the audiobook came out synchronously. The author's sole entry in libgen is our here title.

It has its moment, few as they may be. Some characters seem to be more black-and-white (mostly black) than what the real world presents, and I wouldn't allow a measly century or two to change all humans (in the book) into either cunts and saints. Being involve in the conspiracy exculpates the somewhat, but moral qualms or thought are more deficient the present nonetheless. Like a theatrical play, wherein everything is exaggerated, such that 6-year-olds can get the moral of the story, The North Water (title drop, lol), to me, seems more staged than plausible, only—the lesson to be learned is missing. Just a story.

I know, right?: the book. I'm around 137, give or take (not shelling out for certified, official test, although that'd be most accurate, by definition bc. it's normalized such that 100 is the baseline).

Although slightly announcing, I found the book describing a significant chunk of my problems in life from highschool onwards. Purporting to offer solutions, I didn't find any offered.. Mostly an encouragement to keep on doing the activity most likely to produce desired outcome. Pretty useless as a book, if you do or do not have the IQ score. At best, one, who is experiencing issues derived from having 1–3 standard deviations the intelligence quotient above the rest could, rather than repeating one's position and arguments therefor, suggest the forgetful parties to read through this short title to get their answers (for the umpteenth time).

Now this... THIS. IS.—, well, not Sparta, but КИНО. With far re-enjoy value than 300, and as dense as osmium. It is the abominably cute and scrumptious, aborted fetus, diamond blade angleground to mellifluous, metallic, menarcheal (closest I could think of to an m-initiated word for red), matinal mist. Whose (you don't ask)? Mark Leyner's, via Last Orgy of the Divine Hermit, and Malcom Lowry's, via Under the Volcano, others too. More cum than eggs. (side note: I really need to get to reading stream-of-consciousness novels; these are too voluptuous) Update: Only, you see, it was written in the 70s US by prominent counterculter figures, so I (perhaps) predates both mentioned by decades. Schizophrenia and multiple personality disorder reside within as well, evidenced by inclement, tacit vicissitudes in who narrates; their mood; the date and/or time; and what the fuck is going on. Having no experience with such a case, I can't assess its aptitude in this, but, paying (strenuous) attention and sometimes going back a bit, I've yet be confused, or lose the plot, and it's very, very enjoyable. Point for style and substance. This is the first of three books that, according to Wikiepedia, best or most widely introduced Discordianism to the masses. I gotta saw, I'm hooked by some of it. Either way, it's great reading material for the likes of me.

The outside jokes, memes, old wives' tales, and anecdotes surrounding secret societies and various idolized founding figures, that one might've come across the past decades (centuries..?), take stage with a seriousness, absurdity, and hilarity, alongside platitudes and truisms about the world, its countries, its peoples. Various scenes are reminiscent of ace observational comedy; and much the rest is grob gesagt schizoposting. Absurdist art + mathcore, jazzcore, atonal speedcore all blended, poured into the good ol' textifier9000. Or some GPT monstrosity. R.A.W. won me over big time, I dl'd every article, book, or story he's written, and all the major Discordia works.

I'm enjoying myself more than I did with Lolita, but pausing much more often. It's so dense, fucking hell, like metal inside metal. I love this shit.

Annoying Yalie shite pointing out conspicuities about the American tertiary education system, and graciously proffering fuckall solution-wise. The hope tree bears naught for anybody (with a brain) having above common knowledge about the current sitch and, roughly, the history.

Really liked the below 4 paragraphs or the third part at around 67%. Claws on the door to the answer of how I feel about recorded thought.

But popular culture also gives you models for experience, and so does advertising. Fifty Shades of Grey, a Nike commercial, half the pop songs in the world: they tap directly into your id, submerging you in fantasies of pleasure. Who wouldn't want to live like that? The difference is that art provides you both the models and the means to question them. It demands that you read alertly, with your mind and not just your glands. What are the limits of living like Elizabeth? What might Stephen miss about himself? Does Holden get it wrong? Does Ahab get it right? If the liberal arts turn certainties into questions, the humanities do that, in particular, with ethical and existential certainties: our convictions about how we should act and whom we should be. Stories, says the writer Andrei Codrescu, are engines of reflection. Middlemarch, A Portrait of the Artist, Heart of Darkness, the Odyssey: literature enables us to think about our lives, just as it's been doing in this book.

Nor does that reflection only go to values. Everything we find in life we find in art. Ambition in Macbeth and The Sopranos, ennui in Chekhov and Fellini, marginality in Ralph Ellison and Arundhati Roy, and on and endlessly on. I have learned from Dante that love and hate are complements, not opposites (a good thing to know if you happen to belong to a family); from E.M. Forster, that liberal attitudes are often a cover for vanity and ignorance; from Mary Gaitskill, something of the ways the soul is manifested in the body. I don't know that any of those perceptions have influenced my choices, exactly, but they have deeply shaped my understanding of both myself and the world. Edmundson speaks of “the incessant labor of combining your own experience, taken in and metabolized by intense feeling and thought, with what you have acquired in books.” Art and life, back and forth, each illuminating the other, both together creating a self.

...

You need to know what people are—how they think, what they want, how they act—as well as something of the moral pitfalls of your own proposed interventions. (The law of unintended consequences is pretty much the governing principle of narrative art.) The humanities put back everything the social sciences, by way of necessary simplification, take out. Economics, e.g., the most authoritative of the social sciences today, informs us that people are rational actors, forever seeking to maximize their material self-interest—an assertion that would come as news to the author of King Lear, let alone The Brothers Karamazov. Only literature, in the words of the diplomatic strategist Charles Hill, is “methodologically unbounded” enough to show how the world really works. I've heard it said that novels are obsolete, that books like War and Peace belong to an age when information could be delivered only in extremely inefficient forms. But War and Peace doesn't tell you the same kinds of things that you can learn from a blog post or a Wikipedia entry, not even fourteen hundred pages of them. It needs to be big and complex because it's telling you something that's big and complex. It doesn't give you “information”; it gives you life.

...

“The most successful tyranny,” said Allan Bloom, is “the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.” The past gave rise to the present, but it is also different from the present. It shows us that things do not have to be the way that they are now. It provides us with a vantage point from which to see that our conventional wisdom is just conventional, not wisdom—that what we think is natural is merely cultural; temporal, not eternal; particular, not universal. It offers us an exit from the present. It tells us that things change: not only don't they have to be the way they are, they will not be the way they are. The past, in other words, allows us to create the future. ...

An exploration of the question: why conversations pertaining to religion (almost) always go sour for either or both parties tacitly or vulgarly explicitly. A far greater divide than that resultant from arguing with a Marxist, which has been descibed aptly as two people in same cinema watching different movies simultaneously but thinking the other is watching, and indeed perceving (concentrating on) the same thing. This is like that, only the two people don't recognize they're both wearing VR headsets, and aren't even sharing the physical space, that is, they're arguing on incommensurable levels. Reminds why church and state are separate, and why church should be so when talking about community, education, morals, rites, etc. Clear-cut argument, well-written.

Very nigga.

P.S. Fuck me, the movie was bad: Ripley looks like an aged skeletor with hair; all interiors are smothered in socialist drabs (brown and gray), whilst also looking decared older than the first Alien movie's; the cast are reduced to one-paragraph memecicles or themself, as if. The weird thing for me is that the novel came later, meaning from that did Mr. Crispin create this. And this is much, much better is showing each's motivations and desires, history, relationships, making them more intense and less stereotype-y or comical than the movie does. The costumes and effects used for the xeno are also markedly worse off—using as if multiple nozzles to drown their heads in what should be saliva, comes off as cartoon-tier sweating, their movements (and numerous camera cuts to clothe how bad it looks in 'action') and bodies look stiff and rubber-y/plastic-y, respectively. Perhaps it was rushed, perhaps money was unwisely spent, or was never enough to begin with.

Having followed the situation in the UK and Ireland with Ivor mostly, little was new to me, information-wise. Reading it in a single sitting—well, two actually, since it's so fucking depressing to read what humans do to each other—, overextensions and overreachings, double standards, otherings, dehumanizations, privations, economic turmoil, etc. etc, etc., etc. But I did allow me some more perspective of the common man, since I am abnormal in a few ways. Written by a female, it only occasionally juts up, rarely even, she kept her cool and did, lo and behold, actual journalism by talking, inquiring, reading, comparing, etc.

Nice premise for a book: chapter delivery in reverse, that is, reverse chronological plot unvealing. However, it's a fucking woman again and shit revolving around her, her child, and the cucks orbiting this slovenly whore. Fuck you, Deaver.

Sweet mother of fuck:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
Horrible writing.

My third book from this dude. Indirectly centered around emotion (and controlling them or making use of them) and, vaguely, a few ideas. All (natural) characters drag mental baggage with every step of the plot, struggling til the end, wherein all is resolved. I find the character all unexceptional, normal, maybe a third of a standard diviation above the nation's average, but certainly not bright. The ideas of both tacit and explicit complicity in 'evil' and 'horrors', of rules, and of overaching, bigger-than-thyself things were well trod. I didn't enjoy the content as fully perhaps because 1. I'm so emotionally distant, or numb, or rational (whatever that means; think the word's lost all meaning nowadays...); 2. Smitherd's vocabulary isn't either well-utilized, or well-suited for horror, or tension: local climax felt improperly heightened/intensified; 3. people.

A wealth of information collated. Book itself slighty bores, given the format of 'year/s relative inc/dec, possible reasons' ad solitum vomitum. Although not presented as such, it well may (help to) explain many a trend in the US, as well as other countries. I'm no statistician, certainly I'm the doing the work of looking up all data sets and seeing if all the controlling supposedly done was proper, but it seems more true than false on most accounts.

Wholly missing the point and shilling ineffective, self-destructive politics using faulty, objectively wrong reasoning. Fuck you for ruining the one country that could've be good on this shithole of a planet.

Stream-of-consciousness: I'd seen the cover many a time on in /lit/ threads, knew of the style just like 'slam poetry'. Only later did I realize I'd read something similar quite some years back, about a dude that got drunk in a Mexican tavern, went through an attic door inside it, ended up in a whimsical, nonsensical world, that ends up merely a mirror of the real one—politics, sex affairs, sexes' affairs, feuds and wars, clashes, revolutions and resolution, youth and senility: same package, different wrapping.In the drinking aspect, Mexican'ness, and partially the writing style, it is similar, although I cannot remember that novel's title (and I checked out all of wikiepdia's novels set in Mexico in addition to 3 other lists).

Anyhow... I was listening to the abook and thoroughly enjoying it, but doing other things and among 3–4 other reads, aaand I'd lost the plot. . . Downloaded the source material and will slowly redo the experience. (batman scene segway music) *tarada dadada daaaa* It's, like, 5–7 (?) months later. Gonna finish this baby.

Aaand, I love it. It's just.. lovely. A case of ob- and subjective attraction, absolutamente claro.

The dystopian future isn't a future. It's has been happening for at least years already. And it's being legalized, uncontensted, unprostested, even accepted, in most of the rest of world: North and South American, Europe, Asia, Oceania (Africa has other problems on its hands). Since some 2e8 weren't enough, let's see if just how many really have to die to get there–-the no place. A must-read.

The book very lighty explores these themes: race, guilt, duty, respect, entertaining of ideas; sex and love and trustfulness some. I don't know if on purpose, but the future written is filled with misinformation, agenda about the environment, energy and various matters pertaining the that, hence the G.

More an alternative history novel, wherein NatSoc Germany 'wins' WWII, than a detective one, with the majority of the plot focus on events that took place. Eerily similar to present day China and its Uyghurs, or post-revolution Russian. In real life, national socialism's and fascism's apparaent mogging of everything attempted in the East (bolshevism, menshevism, leninism, trotskyism, communism, stalinism, socialism, maoism, juche), I think, is due to both nations' prosperity beforehand (compared to despotic, feudalistic states) rather than the ideoligy, and certainly not any latent demographic superiority (the amount of decent to good or great citizen expelled, expropriated, or exterminated German citizens, let alone the conquereds' ones could have been used for the good of the many—instead potential was lost, for the worse of all). Does the ideas of national socialism justice in presenting them honestly, and American leftists' flirtations with them. A nice book on totalitarianism and authoritarianism.

Yet another touch upon the ideal-for-a-scapegoat idea explored in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, or 1 or 2. Argueably, Huxley's Brave New World and—,wait a sec, this has remained unfinished quite a bit 20211221–20220212, anyways, it was fine.

The other book I did on Gacy went into detail criminal and or deviant aspects followed by dull milksop. This one, however, portays a human being, presents a whole lost that had being covered by autorney-client privilege, but that Gacy wanted eventually told by said autorney, the author. Interesting character study, characters. Good read.

My second read, first being the in-the-foreword-somewhat-beshaded one, translated by Stuad Gilbert some years ago. I have both copies, and I compared a few pages. Although I prefer this one's wording and vocabulary, the discrepancies are subtle. The book itself is one I take to heart, about acceptance, about the absurdity of life, of things happening and us going along with them, about shit happening. Could have been of a person doing the exact opposite and likewise caring little.

A tribute to 80s horror/gore flicks à la Cannibal Holocaust. Suspense-release-wise, it does very well, taking many hints from 1987's movie Predator. People die, well, they all die, but it's satisfying most often, not cheap, and all people seem reasonably plausable. Short and sweet, like his other novels.

Uuuh, David Cage's Detroit: Become Human much? However, this was released 2 years prior thereto, and it's actually good, specifically by not ham-fisting you another person's childish moral views via good/evil binary choises. I think, Cage may in bulk buy books, written by indie, unknown, and or new authors, for the total price less than that of a single one by a mediocrely known author. He'd go through them until an idea grabs him, he'll do minor alterations to fit his worldview, change the names, and wa la, a David Cage cage.

Most of Jon Athan's works reside around 40k words, this being one of the very few going to 55k, however, it suffers a few problem. Namely, the harried second half or second and third thirds, leaving no room for showing or telling, character development—you could say, these are androids and this is the future, hence rumination would be a calculation, possibly a recheck at a later time, no 'sleeping on it'. Bladerunner 2077 asks/challenges some of the same or similar enough questions/ideas, as does Cage's Detroit, albeit poorly, but the former's pacing is spot-on, latter's—goes from okay, to bad, to wtf?. Otherwise, a great read.

In the very beginning of the book, when describing the bomb shelters' peoples' differing fears and practices, either of which unsubstantiated and or unreasonable, I was reminded of sarscov2's shits—double-, no triple-mask! cloth! no, pvc! 1.5m! 1m! 3m! etc. etc.; Funny how irrational stupid, content people become always. Anyway, listening through Harald Jähner's Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945-1955, a few books stood out, this being one of them. Harald's had the issue of being delusional at times, which didn't sit well with me, neither did its long bouts of nothing-saying. Anyway, around two-months' worth of happy-fun-rapey time, differences between early 20. century Prussia/Germany and Russia, and other European and Asian countries are made evident. In upbringing of children, in priorities of grown-up men and women, in pussy tightness (fucking lol).

Though a translation, the terseness of the German language and the author's heavily abbreviated/contracted and laconic entries were well-conveyed in English. As well as a fascinating character study, it shares the everyday man's—, or rather -woman's viewpoint, experience, voice. Not that much happens, but no 'boots-on-the-ground reporting' comes close to this: any one event—a distant katyusha launching or landing, an yankie bomber bombing, a drunken glare without parole in search of loot, a full bottle— has both direct and indirect consequences, provoking varying reaction in all nearby parties, all intensified, strung-out as the people are. I wish to read more of women, or men, or children, toughening up in somewhat grave or, at least, uncertain circumstances. This is no PoW tortured til blackout daily for weeks, no, but it's also no tea party.

Why the hag gets top billing is ponderous, given her contribution consists of fore- and afterword. Ivan abridges his comings and going from various cities, villages, institution in a few USSR republics and oblasts, his dealings, misgivings, conversations, pleas, fights, meals, etc. with many people. He is, to a degree, a walking, talking example of a stereotype for Russians, but he hauls in the much needed absent context for the reasoning of the common folk of various groups at the time, bringing to life the Soviet and post-Soviet periods in these places. If you've experienced any of which, you'll get a good tragicomedy, otherwise the austereness may fly over your head, and the jokes you won't get (not that they're meant to be funny—the absurd attempts at poking fun is more human triumph than risible any play on words of these sad fucks can ever be, or very, very depressing, depending on your view on life and meaning). The brevity of the piece is disappointing, since it is quite an interesting read: if gulag and konzlager survivors could at write novel-length, this dude's life should've filled around 4 or 5 books of this one's length with observations and tales, albeit memory's a bitch when you're shitfaced most of the time, I'd wager. Great read.

Documents the many trials and few tribulation around the discovery, manufactor, patenting, sale, etc. of insulin from the very start. Meticulous work, possibly too much so for the lay, but well put together.

Icelandic author become prominent in the Nordic countries enough to risk translation into English several times over. I'd seen his name here and there and new of his existence. On a whim for a fun thriller, I went for The Island, thinking of the movie Shutter Island, with which it only shares insular locations, nevertheless it wasn't disappointing. Hours ago, I finish Snowblind by the selfsame author, and have begun the second in that series. Those share with this book the following: all characters receive backstory, motivation, and either development or refinement. It is rare to have an impartial spectator divvying of his time amongst all actors, major or minor, filling in blanks, adding nuiance, tints and shades, credibility or believability. That and the setting and atmosphere I most enjoyed about it. Additionally, even though I said there's no lead, the investigating officer, since this is almost a detective novel, but not really, is female and very female, very normal, and, I don't want to repeat myself, but, believable. No pacing issues, no over-the-top or superhuman bullshit. Nothing's been hidden from the reader to be noticed only by Holmes to then spew bullshit, everything written seems carefully deliberated, and is never in deficit or excess.

The book childishly, in that cookie-cutter Japanese way, tackles what books are worth, what one's time is worth, how books should be interacted with. I recall an article (https://perell.com/essay/against-3x-speed/) that was objectively wrong in some of its author's assumption or presumptions, and more moralistic and holier-than-thou than informative, argumentative, comparative from what I recall; since the topic is dear to me, it left a bad taste in my mouth, that of missing out on a challenge, on something new, more, better. This short book presents that article's arguments in a way, as well as fictitious examples. I appreciate the book, I do. If you'd cut out the relationship with the girl and the other classmate altogether, and made the main either a normal child (rather than a Japanese one—cookie-cutter self-insert with B&W worldview), or just a hooman bean, it'd've'n a been great. Although I disagree with a child another person literally shouting out you 'no, you don't live books, bc i don't do that!' I like the ideas and challenges as food for thought. Think snacks. Brain gum.

Ultimately, a cominbation of the first two labyrinths' masters' and the protag's reading styles, one'd get the best of all, since neither is endless repetition, with or without depth, inherently good, neither is ceaseless novelty chasing, neither is there sufficient time to read all books deliberately, carefully, taking notes, taking one's time. Commenting on the side of the publisher is hard, on authors' too. Some author have worked over one odd jobs for decades before 'making it', that is, making enough sustain theirselves and or families.

Could've'n a mix of The Catcher in the Rye and Dead Poet Society, but nah, let's be boring. 40% and nothing of note has happened, the main hasn't developed, regressed, progressed, changed.Unsatisfactory and offers nothing.

More anecdotes (and hearsay, as if) dryly reported than documenting events or weaving a narrative, or anything interesting (to me). The reluctance of the characters to be identified, open etc. doesn't help with that. So be it. The movie The Exorcist, based on the eponymous novel, derives from this case. More here.

Main story kinda dragged out, suspense not often built up properly, releases also weak, making whole bland and easily forgetable. The few cards it had, were played suboptimally. But, this is one of his early novels, thank fuck.

Meh, passable. Hard to believe this cunt is famous for this. Neither the gore is gore-y, nor the descriptions extensive, nor the intensity palpable. Take out the cenobites and it's a dump cheating wife story that takes place over a few paragraphs. The only saving grace is its brevity.

What is says on the tin, no more, no less, no politics, no inanity. Exactly what an M or bold M should be.

Nice, perhaps too-short-to-be-really-enjoyable telling of Nic Cage's life and career, published around his fourth decade in the business. I'm a Cage fan and have been intrigued by this cool weirdo since childhood. The appended to the book catalog terse reviews plus ratings of each and every flick he's participated in is well appreciated. Stays on topic without jumping around, but does bad to stick too much to officials.

Defo find the audiobook! Has grade A voicing. The content itself is an entertaining travel-log/diary with funnies based on lingual and cultural misundertstandings, and stereotypes about an Italian magazine writer's 1950s relocation and ultimately establishing in Australia.

So, it's 201705XX and this shit gets published. ... Pardon me, but how exactly did this pass the cutting room, or is this the heavily edited version we're getting? The cabin-in-the-woods slasher has been done how many hundreds of thousands of times since the 1960s on the cinema screen or page? The cannibalistic family or 'family' story has been reiterated on film, television, and literature, cheap and well-known. In my last 1.5y of reading, I've come across 4–5 of the latter, and over 10 of the former. Not a single character, motive, settings, motivation, description, action herein has not been elsewhere done far better, and given when it was published, one would think the author would be familiar with the the genre, with the competition. Well, no—this reads like babee's first horror novel, and babee's equipped with the vocubalary arsenal, sentence construction complexity, and lack or failure at seriousness/depth of a late teenager, and the predictability and repetitiousness of a senile. Characters are static, no development over the few hours this takes place over, and what is reveals is exaggerated for the purposes of easer constrasting of the otherwise nondescript characters.

Takes way too long to progress, leaving me wanting for something, anything of note to happen. No clues are there to be discovered. Nothing funny to be observed. Nothing spooky, nothing perverse, nothing special. Stereotypes, mediocrely to badly portrayed. The loop at the end really just tells me this cunt think's he's clever. Writing is again amateurish. An editor or three is lacking.

Hm. Promising, slightly entertaining first act, tailed by a noticeable change in both pace and tone, both for the worse, and ditto for the third. We have the nice premise of creatures having past lifetimes' experiences, or memories, but mostly knowledge being hunted for various reasons, among which by some weirdo 'extra-dimensional' race, that are, for all intents and purposes, magic and surival-type evil. Not overly consistent, but whatevs. Begrudgingly, the one character featuring depth and actual character got necked by an idiot 'savant'. Our protagonist and the necked bro see most of the development, sadly, and I say that because there was the opportunity ample for exploiting memes, subverting expectations, slapstick, stereotypes, etc., but, no. The neck bro is consistent, at least. Our main? A pallid facsimile attempting to hit some of the marks his clone in act one made, missing more often than not. Using jargon to the reader unfamiliar and never explained is also a no-no, rendering sentences into baby-talk at times. Same with the 'science' bits—it doens't take itself too seriously, and it doesn't attempt hard scifi, at least. Supposedly there's a romance at the end..? These two exchanged, like, 2 paragraphs over the whole book, with no insinuations of anything being there. Second novel by this bloke, I'm hoping the first is better, and, if not, the third (nonextant).

p.s. reminiscent of Jack Townsend's Tales From the Gas Station

[Citation needed.]—the book. Bitter; making okay-ish at times points but for/from bad reason-s/ing, providing little-to-no evidence and citation; hearsay; strawmaning; both often on point and off his rocker, missing the point; too often seeming to be adorned by rolls of aluminum foil as cranial coverage. Bloke has much to say, but I am not his targeted audience. He hasn't a way with words, is far-flung from the scientific method or rationality or objectivity, nor can he entertain ideas. Features wholly one-dimensional mental space. Overall, nothing was learned. The bold M is for its, to me, light entertainment value as an endless, unreferenced tirade from a would-be besodden uncle on Thanksgiving with his trifle of truths, truck-load of truisms. Low-key slides in (rather easily outright refutable) amuse-bouches at stratetic places. The tone and wording are 89% wrong, defo not reaching anybody not already familiar with or convinced of the the points brought up within.

Old time pulp fiction series member, yet still just boring and meh. Gave it a wide berth, yet failed to make the tiniest of impacts.

Annoying, woman writing. Slightly cringe too.

Fuck me. Compared to the movie, which, let's be honest, gave a humorous take on the source, which is incidentally this book, it's just a shitton of hearsay alongside what was dug up during the mid-00s on the subject. It's dry, too dry, but it also has zero science or explanation. I don't know if this is how military reports are or war journalism is, but only getting to resolution of the journo's questions kept me reading on. Good material, suboptimally conveyed. It can read like a boring (to me) novel, or a investigative report by some one dude.

Autobiographical account of Ed's story. Good, it explains governmental inadequacies, shadow government type conspiracies your uncle may spout at every occasion; but, it doesn't go too deep in, it omits some, it is a whitehat whistleblower in action. I greatly appreciated him going through the steps taken to ensure inculpability, security, indistinctivity among others, and privacy.

Way to show you bias, Matt, fisting them in at every obvious hole. Sheesh. Which is to say, the impact of the book is somewhat lessed, the reader offput, if not of the same persuasion and of lower standards of reasoning, which the author transgresses against every time the issue strikes a nerve, which, I'd say, is all too often. What you're talking about isn't bad because you're mainstream religious (e.g., catholic), or whatever-the-fuck, it's bad because it doesn't work, hasn't worked, can't work, because it is internally inconsistent, doesn't hold any predictive power, is vastly more wrong/bad than right/good in its statements, predictions, actions. That small critique aside, I would say this is book portrays a man's attempt at grappling with a currently difficult to answer question by anybody on the marxist left, anybody politically correct, or etc., and getting sidetracked into gender studies and its effects on children, adolescents, adults; the economy, public policy, and big pharma among others. While Matt doesn't give it a shake as fair as James Lindsay, he does try. The book is comprised of his thought process and various interviews with both victims and perpetrators; some history is covered in 2–3 individuals, but he got bogged down by the obtuseness of the language (mis-)used in their articles, is my presumption.

Favorite of many TV chef and household name, I finally learn why so many like this bastard: the 60s' sex, drugs, and rock n' roll attitude, that of rebelling against decency, normalcy, or established anything, or its own sake, of beating and poisoning your body, and, ultimately, of being superficial (by which I mean, it was reactionary in being defined through what it opposes, out of which an aesthetic was born, which stuck unlike the attitude towards the' other', which didn't—because the latter changed (not gonna say 'evolved', lol)), that is, until he realized he may want to live a little longer and more stably, as he states around the end. He traverses his own history, pressing pause to tell stories, embellish, really, the minutae of the world. Somewhat of a snapshot of 70s, 80s, and 90s (coastal or big-city) America, its culture; and it's your kooky uncle Tony doing the exposé. Entertaining even if you don't like the guy, comme moi, but, to some degree, tolerate/excuse the actions/thoughts. I wish it were more vulgar, and longer, and had more stories, but no uncle is forever.

This hit hard. As hard as Anna Ruston's Secret Slave at its worst. Only, it never lets up, never dangles an opportunity for salvation or even respite. Combine that with some of the plot, methods, or touched points from Jon Athan's Grandfather's House and you get this. Dependent and handicapped child or adolescent receiving physical and mental torture at the hand of mental illness, peer pressure. The fruit from the tree of knowledge, learning to discern between right and wrong, the golden rule, thes. Rarely poignant pacing in that gore-lovers and torture fans won't get their rocks neither from the latter's intensity, nor from its length, it is sobering realistic. It is depressing perhaps, how many curt, local obituaries may involve such experiences.

P.S. Yet another title sharing the main idea/question in Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas featuring a scapegoat, and asking how much is enough, how much is too much, and why, albeit less arbitrary and in the end focusing on mental illness.

Fourth (or still-less-than-tenth) attempt at getting into WH40K literature. The Black Library. The Boring-Cringe Library, more like... For once though, the writing is at least above mediocre and, at times, decent. Trollslayer is a collection of about 4–5 interwoven stories, that have naught to do with trolls, but provide little background on thI read William King's Trollslayer and Skavenslayer. There is a noticeable decrease in overall quality. The second (of the currently 19 in toto) novel sticks way too much to its title. Josh Reynolds, who's written so seriously boring trash for the universe takes the reins from Nathan Long, whom I'm unfamiliar with.

Welp, Daemonslayer was, as if, mostly non-combat and more of the same type of writing, slowly getting on my nerves. Again, overly long; in the Wastes several things made no sense as they were described, but that could be excused becuase muh Chaos. You could very well summarize the entirety of plot in 1--2 paragraphs. Worse still than Skavenslayer (which was mostly memeing on skavens. Which, it would seem, as I'm writing this after having finished Dragonslayer, exist mostly as a joke in the WH40K universe. Ha-ha, good joke, real kneeslapper—let's repeat it at ev-er-y skaven verbal exchange and opining). Every further title, the trend is, reads more unpleasantly than its predecessor, very noticeably so, and this isn't burnout, it's shabby, uninspired, second-rate work.

Orks have British football hooligan/chav language and culture..? And the Adeptus Mechanicus are illogical, hypocritical/inconsistent, self-serving ultimately? These are standard normie, shit human qualities, they only talk like nerds, or try to, rather. It's kinda cringe-y. I wish the universe, its races' languages, dialects, cultures, etc. had been better fleshed out by craftsmen, not amateurs. It takes itself seriously, adding to the internal inconsistencies. Were it at least (more) tongue-in-cheek, had the author introduced some fun, puns (or nuns) it'd've'n better for it. An unwilling to exert themself adolescent might like this or get into the franchise with it, but the hardcore WH40K books are even more stuck-up, cringe-inducing, and annoying or inconsistent. The Black Library's great pollution can be traced to a several names, contributing a surfeit of novels.

Nigh readable, but ultimately too slow and boring. Too English, and hence annoying, English in the stereotypical way, focuses (along with the above two books) on interpersonal relationships, but they're remote from what is human, or normal, or interesting... Altogether, I wouldn't say MS is my cuppa.

Fuck me is this a tedious read: 3–4x the length its plot's worth, everything is needlessly prolonged, without throwing the reader a bone for their squandered time. A spoopy, ancient virus infects civilizations or peoples, disappears them in angst, panic, confusion, bloodlust. The last surviving members had had to seal away, burn, destroy, etc., those infected or themselves. And now it's happened again, who could've forseen it, human arrogance spawning from perceived mastery over nature, over others.

The setting of (Ancient) Egypt I've read of only in Lumley's Kai of Khem, whose story was predictable—I wouldn't call it an isekai, but it is both a power fantasy and a time/location-transfer. I like the the descriptions of the geography, nature (significantly wetter 4e3 years ago), traditions or rituals of another people. Ancient Evenings is fucking huge at a third of a million words, and it's books/parts may well have been reworking into 3–4 separate novels for how distant to each other they are. Proceeding over a few days in the afterlife of Meni, our protagonist, in the necropolis in the Luxor valley along with his great grandfather (also dead), the Egyptian mythology is laided out, that is, how the gods came to be and what they patroned, their relationships among themselves, with the world, its people. Parts of Meni's childhood we read about, wherein rites and rituals, and the power structure of Ancient Egypt are described or observed, including the latter's various positions' everyday, familial relationships, culture, value system.

This novel was toned down from his usual, and relied much more on the psychology, that is on the emotions rather than gore: fear, anticipation, tension, panic. And it succeeded with the 'if I can't have X, then nobody can' spin. An all too human story given some extra weight is all this is.

Cringy, and getting predictable, and does absolutely nothing new (for, what, 3–4 novels now?). I'll tunnel to other two authors in the series. William King is dead to me.

This schlock-y thriller from 1987 was the bedrock of Die Hard 2, wherefor it was way toned down. My nigga W.W. has a mighty hardon for extrema, making for an overall placid tension curve. Credibility is most hurt thusly, pacing also suffers, since every conflict is presented as grander than it is, the movie handled this better. I am biased and influenced in having seen it some 10 times, and enjoying it. You'll like this, if you did too; gives the villains some more color. Like a three-fifths-to-the-top-shelf airport novel. From the 80s.

Kay Rubacek's Who Are China's Walking Dead and Geoffrey Cain's The Perfect Police State do a far better job at both telling others' stories, and showcasing the intended evil hiding under the guise desire of a idyllic world marxist governance.

So, you're good start off your 7. or 8. layman finance-focused book by listing praise by a bunch of nobodies, foreword/s of no content, and an unnecessary introduction? And you're gonna follow that up with 5 chapters of nothing financial, or advisory, or new/novel/insightful? How. in. the. fuck. did this stupid cunt get published 8 times? How braindead are other people?! I am astounded, yet again.

κινο, also fuck greeks.

Reading this, my rating when from m to M to ✓ to ✔, it's like Shrek says, layers 'n shiet. Absolute masterpiece in pacing, from 'normal' novel to world-wide conspiracy spanning few millenia. The book is both compelling both as story and as critique at modern-day cinema, and that easily is translated to all (nascent?) artistic media. 'Compelling' is apt, this is a page-turner, it's not a slow-burner, but the tempo does only increase, and not linearly so. 2018's Under the Silver Lake came to mind towards the end—they are comparable in how the scope or shadow of the conspiracy/mystery grows over and around the main character, subsuming him ultimately, both not exactly entertaining, but, to reiterate, compelling. I wish I could better express myself... I apologize.

Focuses strongly on the people, but the narrator is boring, although the story is nice. Gave me some outrageous (for the 70s and 80s) fic to read. It'll be shit, I'll do one a later today before retiring to something decent (Beatrice Sparks).

Yeah, no 14-year-old turning 15 uses both 'blah' and 'nary' within 2 paragraphs, right? I know of at best one 15-year-old with a good vocabulary, but This is an American lassie from the 1970s and –80s, publically educated, so—err, no. Knowing beforehand that this account is wholly fictional and sensationalized (s. Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries. Rick Emerson., 'tis aboot the author), riding the wave of hippys, Manson's and the likes crimes, aaand it just doesn't read as a youth's. The choice of words, for one, and, for two, it being a placcid, sub-mediocre, middle-aged, religious nut and her friends' experiences of a salad toss. It stinks of pre-owned vehicle dealer.

The first of the two diaries end in an arrest, drug bust. She's run away from home with a one year elder colleague, at 15 to do drugs and works for a living, that is, to quote: Another day, another blowjob., prostitute herself. The rollercoaster ride, that is the tone and qualitity of writing, gives is unconvincin, it's desperate. Beat for beat, it's a 3-bar repetition of: I-love-my-family-and-God-and-chuch-and-Roger, I-love-list-of-drugs-I-feel-so-list-of-descriptors, I-feel-so-bad-and-I'm-never-doing-this-again-and-self-pity til the end. Ends abruptly on a the good bar of the periodical, with a note serving as epilogue to instill doubt and distrust in all past, present and future drug users. See? This is what happens to your children when x,y,z. This is the first of the anonymous teenage diaries distributed/leaked by B.S.'s agent, so it should get better, but I'm not holding my breath.

post scriptum
Chronologically going through the first 4 four of the diaries, one very same primitive 3-cycle I'd described reoccurs without fail, starting right after the preliminary up to 5 pages. Jay's whatever, published three years after this one, has wrting not an ounce of improvement, nor difference. For the third and forth, I increasingly quickly noticed similarities, and could predict there the story was going, not necessarily substance-wise, but still made for an unenjoyable read.
None of the children, adults, living creatures were real or even relatable-to.

Part uno is about alleged harm caused by pornography, most of it is trash. 1. paper was just plain bad, unless I haven't seen enough porn, or 2008 was radically different porn-wise; it's a big heads-up for all the upcoming female 'scholars'. Good to start off with the disappointment. The 2. paper is okay-ish; 3. & 4. feature faulty argumentation and use fallacious studies, which are attempted to be passed off as crime statistics. These all ring like the hysteria stirred up by a few parents, preachers, or otherwise Karens, when rock and metal were gaining footing, becoming normal (or any new, edgier, or more extreme genres). Jack Thompson (campaign against video games) all over again to a significant degree.

The professions of female persuasion are oblivious to the gynocentric Western world they and their clients live in, they only bitch and whine, and possibly make matters worse. Okay, I'm generalizing and strawmaning, fine. It tires keeping with everything wrong in what I'm reading. It is astounding how many unfounded claims about pornography are made, which, I guess, are hoped to be forgotten by piling on new ones..? How any of this could have been published in a journal, or even a proceeding is beyond me: poor scholarship, deficient intellectual humility, arrogance and moralization, aruably lies.

The first point to make is that sexual desire belongs to that aspect of the human being which we summarize in the concept of the person. Many of the things that we experience we experience as animals, and what we feel does not normally depend upon thought, intention, or personality. We feel the same pain from a wound that a dog might feel if wounded in the same way. But there are other states of mind that only persons can experience. While a dog can experience aggression, he cannot experience remorse or shame, cannot wonder about the laws of nature, cannot judge another dog morally, and so on.

Roger Scruton confirmed furry-/dog-hater.
Part dos features actual people (men) and is decent, about the ethics of the pornography, tres circumnavigates the legal aspect, meh.

A small short story collection, all composed astoundingly beautifully. Bruno Schulz was described in the foreword and his wiki article as a national treasure of a Jewish Polish writer, and even past Celina Wieniewska's translation, I would believe that. Had I the time to learn 1930s Polish, I would, just to read this. Critically however, he goes overboard in description—words, wordings, comparisons, literary devices used in every sentence cloy. It is only the virtuosic variety and novelty employed that somewhat mellow it out. As the foreword says, the tales are autobiographical in nature, all about the author's quaint hometown, his childhood memories. Style reigns here, whereas the substance of each could charitably be decocted to a paragraph.
Thank (You) for mentioning him, or rather lowkey recommending Jewish media. Lastly, a nice quote:

He walked with an awkward oblique roll in an undecided direction, along a shaky and uncertain line. His usual mood was one of indefinite basic sadness. He had the dejected helplessness of an orphan---an inability to fill the emptiness of life between the sensational events of meals. This was reflected in the aimlessness of his movements, in his irrational fits of melancholia, his sad whimpering, and his inability to settle down in any one place. Even in the depths of sleep, in which he had to satisfy his need for protection and love by curling himself up into a trembling ball, he could not rid himself of the feeling of loneliness and homelessness. Oh, how a young and meager life, brought forth from familiar darkness, from the homely warmth of a mother's womb into a large, foreign, bright world, shrinks and retreats and recoils from accepting the undertaking---and with what aversion and disappointment!