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2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate …
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.
Teenaged István lives with his mother in a quiet apartment complex in Hungary. Shy and …
Meh
Louise Erdrich meets Jo Nesbø in this spellbinding Swedish novel that follows a young indigenous woman as she struggles to …
Ces pages sont à voir comme un petit récit d'une courte zingue de fin février à début mars 2023 autour …
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)
Vineland, a zone of blessed anarchy in northern California, is the last refuge of hippiedom, …
I was really into the setup and worldbuilding and then it kinda became a slog about halfway through. Still happy I read it though.
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.
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)
Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the …
Eliot’s epic of 19th century provincial social life, set in a fictitious Midlands town in …
Its about halfway through March and I am not halfway through Middlemarch :/ I got rage distracted by the Spotify book for a few days. Back on Middlemarch though. I march on. #middlemarchMarch
An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive …
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 …
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 both consumers and artists (who, spoiler alert, are also considered as consumers). Evil genocide-mongering billionaires. Everything is bad about Spotify. I knew it was bad bad but actually learning how the sausage gets made is truly horrifying. I am so upset. Preemptive apologies to everyone I will punish about this topic in the near future. I hope people who use the platform (in both senses) will read this.
An unsparing investigation into Spotify’s origins and influence on music, weaving unprecedented reporting with incisive …
I liked the podcast interview I heard with the author. I kind of knew it was gonna be the kind of book where you could mostly listen to an interview and get all the highlights. This book is moderately interesting and very very depressing. techwontsave.us/episode/262_how_spotify_remade_the_music_industry_w_liz_pelly
Eliot’s epic of 19th century provincial social life, set in a fictitious Midlands town in …
#Middlemarch March is off to a strong start. Yesterday I read the first few chapters on my kobo, realized the file I had was kind of busted (no paragraph breaks) so I got another one. And then I decided that I actually wanted to read it on paper so I popped out to Encore and easily found a used copy for $8. The copy I got is not the nicest edition but it'll do. The first 13 pages have kind of absurd amounts of underlining and notes and then nothing... did the previous owner give up? It took me a few pages to get used to the antiquated writing style but honestly its really engrossing so far.
Eliot’s epic of 19th century provincial social life, set in a fictitious Midlands town in …
Middlemarch March LFG
How can we make intelligent decisions about our increasingly technology-driven lives if we don’t understand …
Really enjoyed the first few chapters devoted to debunking stuff like alien abductions and ESP, promoting an approach to the world that is both filled with curiosity and wonder but also critical. I was paralyzingly afraid of a lot of this stuff as a kid and still get creeped out when I'm alone or in a bad mental state, so it was a nice comfort read in that regard. The latter chapters were kind of over the place and a bit self-indulgent, from responses to his work on this topic to [mostly valid] whining about not enough science funding, the state of education, and how democracy is definitely gonna collapse if we don't do something ASAP about the widespread culture of superstition and gullibility (RIP)