Reviews and Comments

people like books Locked account

peoplelikebooks@wyrmsign.org

Joined 3 years ago

Main fediverse account: @peoplelikedogs@438punk.house.

This link opens in a pop-up window

Ian McEwan: What We Can Know (Hardcover)

2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate …

Interesting premise but just ok

It was just really bland. Kind of poppy and readable in the way I needed to get out of a slump, and there were some elements of post-climate-disaster worldbuilding that were kinda cool. But I don't think I'd recommended it unless you enjoy British writers with their head up their own ass.

Solvej Balle, Barbara J. Haveland: On the Calculation of Volume (Book I) (2024, New Directions Publishing Corporation)

Tara Selter, the heroine of On the Calculation of Volume, has involuntarily stepped off the …

-

This is maybe one of the best and weirdest books I've ever read? Or maybe it just hit me right today because I feel kinda nuts and just crushed most of it in one day and it covers a lot of emotional ground. Either way I can't believe my luck that there's 6 more volumes (although I have to wait for them all to come out and be translated)

Dahlia De La Cerda: Reservoir bitches (EBook, Mexican Spanish language, 2019)

In the linked stories of Reservoir Bitches, thirteen Mexican women prod the bitch that is …

-

Read the whole book on half a plane ride. It was really easy to get into and the payoff of the connections between the stories happens pretty fast. Its like, so so violent but I think if you read the summary you know what youre getting into. This is maybe the 3 or 4th book I've read that Julia Sanches has translated and I've really liked all of them.

Hiromi Kawakami, Asa Yoneida: Under the Eye of the Big Bird (EBook)

In the distant future, humans are on the verge of extinction and have settled in …

-

This was kinda vague and difficult to follow until basically the last 50 pages where some stuff coalesced and I ended up reeeeally liking it. FFO vibey Japanese fiction and impressionistic ruminations on the future of humanity (or lack thereof)

reviewed Mood Machine by Liz Pelly

 Liz Pelly: Mood Machine (Hardcover, Atria/One Signal Publishers)

An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive …

I really hated Spotify before but wow do I hate it more now

The stuff about musician nonpayment/payola is interesting and well-documented here (including efforts to unionize/resist/subvert it by musicians). Getting paid for music isn't something i personally care about, but the book does a good job and tying it to broader problems that exist right now wrt labour and the gig work economy, which is very relevant to the types of work I do (and as a participant in all this). HOWEVER, as a punk the real brain-breaker was solidifying my understanding of the tech end of how big data analysis and playlist curation shape broad understandings of genre and shape how people make (and consume) music. The example explored in the book was hyperpop but I can see exactly how hardcore and punk slot in. All the evils of the regular ol music industry plus unhinged levels of digital surveillance and squeezing every possible drop of money and attention out of …