never always started reading Master and commander by Patrick O'Brian
Audiobook. Filling worktime with something silly that maybe will help connect with a family member
Reviews and Comments
i mainly read non-fiction of a "trying to understand/overthrow capitalism" type, usually histories. in terms of fiction, my heart is primarily with sf (octavia butler and kim stanley robinson being my tops, i'd say).
perpetually frustrated i don't read more.
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never always finished reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel. In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved …
Audiobook. Fun, but a real "I wonder what this book I about?" book for me.
never always started reading A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Highly unusual After the Holocaust novel. In the far future, 20th century texts are preserved …
Audiobook
never always rated Games: Agency As Art: 4 stars
Games: Agency As Art by C. Thi Nguyen (Thinking Art)
Games are a unique art form. Games work in the medium of agency. Game designers tell us who to be …
never always finished reading Games: Agency As Art by C. Thi Nguyen (Thinking Art)
Games are a unique art form. Games work in the medium of agency. Game designers …
Super interesting book that was maybe a bit too philosophically nirty gritty for me read. The author is a good speaker and has talked aboit it on a number of podcasts, maybe i didnt need more depth than that. But very good.
The gist is: Games are a form of art whose medium is agency, like poetry's is language, and dance's is movement. Nguyen breaks down different theories of play and bears down on one of his own creation, which identifies a type of play that is common but uncovered by other theories: aesthetic striving play. Devoting oneself to the goal of a game ("winning") purely for the aesthetic appreciation of striving within a particularly structured form of agency. We do not care about winning per se, still less about having more cubes on our side of the table than the opponent, but if we get what we are seeking …
Super interesting book that was maybe a bit too philosophically nirty gritty for me read. The author is a good speaker and has talked aboit it on a number of podcasts, maybe i didnt need more depth than that. But very good.
The gist is: Games are a form of art whose medium is agency, like poetry's is language, and dance's is movement. Nguyen breaks down different theories of play and bears down on one of his own creation, which identifies a type of play that is common but uncovered by other theories: aesthetic striving play. Devoting oneself to the goal of a game ("winning") purely for the aesthetic appreciation of striving within a particularly structured form of agency. We do not care about winning per se, still less about having more cubes on our side of the table than the opponent, but if we get what we are seeking by temporarily taking that goal on, focussing on it as if we care deeply about it, and then immediately discard it afterwards.
He also talks about the dangers of harms of "gamification" where we use these simplified value structures as shortcuts to our supposed real deep value systems. Fitbit steps for health. GPAs for knowledge. Likes for social engagement. Etc.
never always wants to read Privilege of Play by Aaron Trammell
Somebody referred to this book on a podcast, saying it shows the emergence of geek/hobby culture from model train clubs at elite schools. Colour me intrigued.
never always finished reading All Systems Red by Martha Wells (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
"As a heartless killing machine, I was a complete failure."
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, …
Banger
never always finished reading Perfect Sound Whatever by James Acaster
Enjoyable
never always started reading Surfing into Life on a Bathboard by Jake MacSiacais
This is the memoir of an Irish language activist and former IRA prisoner who was …
Happened to start reading an IRA memoir in time for the Twelfth. Loving it so far.
never always finished reading Le nouveau nom by Elena Ferrante
The Story of a New Name (Italian: Storia del nuovo cognome) is a 2012 novel …
There are many great aspects, but I find these books extremely frustrating and all I ever hear, from close friends and pronouncements on the internet, is that they're fantastic. Crazy-making. If anyone knows any critical reviews I would very much like to read them. I will not be continuing with the series.
(I read it in English, I just somehow picked the French version...)
never always started reading Perfect Sound Whatever by James Acaster
Listening as an audio book
never always finished reading The Shape of Things to Come by J. Sakai
J. Sakai is one of North America’s most insightful and challenging radical intellectuals, best-known for …
Well worth reading for sakai fans, but if you're not yet there are better places to start.
never always rated Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider: 3 stars
never always finished reading My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante ([Neapolitan -- book one])
From one of Italy's most acclaimed authors, comes this ravishing and generous-hearted novel about a …
People rave; I found much to like but overall a bit of a drag. I am told it improves as the series progresses....
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History …
Historical, anti-imperialist romp with an unsubtle tendency
4 stars
Content warning pretty general description of the premise with some non-specific discussion of the themes of the ending
Bref: It's not perfect, but I highly recommend it.
Takes place in Oxford in the 1830s. Very historical, except that the industrial revolution is the "silver industrial revolution", powered by the ability of linguistic scholars to do magic by writing a word and its translation on either side of a silver bar, with what is lost in the translation being manifested into the world.
I enjoy magic systems in fantasy that feel somewhat "hard" (defined, rulebound) and while the metaphor isn't subtle, I quite liked it. The industrial revolution is powered by the exploitation of the Third World and capital.
At times I found the unsubtlety of the politics in general a bit draggy, but for a very mainstreamy adventure romp it was pleasant for that dragginess to be like "the British empire and whiteness must be destroyed for humanity to live" and not like "love is the most powerful force in the universe". There's a bit of a tendency for identity to equal political alignment in a simplistic way, which is probably my biggest political issue with it, but again, that's so much better than most well-written, well-plotted fantasy adventures, that it's hard to be mad at it.
Non-specific discussion of the ending:
There's an element of the ending inflating the power of individuals -- very much contrary to the highly materialist and systemic critique of the book -- but, like the unsubtlety of some of the politics, this has countervailing things that undercut it and is excusable in the interest of making a good story. But in particular, I enjoyed the reading of the ending that is offered, that it's not actually as significant as the characters sometimes express. That dramatic political events are often powerfully motivated by grief, and there exists an irreconcilable tension between strategy and affect, each impotent without the other.
A combination of grief, historical sensibility, and political project is EXTREMELY my weakness.
I highly recommend it.