7858

@7858.eth

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Red Rising Oppressed poor boy who’s Ackchyually Super Awsome sneaks into the rich kids’ hunger games summer camp. He sees through the meta, crushes the game, and gets the girl, even though she’s not as good as his old ride or die poor girl. The writing at the end is mediocre, which comes as a huge relief after the atrocious writing at the beginning. The author was apparently figuring out how to write in real time over the course of drafting the book. God awful prose, even by the most tolerant standards. The storytelling, as distinct from the language itself, is passable, if unimaginative. The character development is laughable. The thesis is exhausted, the tropes are threadbare, and the relationships are entirely implausible. Absolute slop, a waste of attention, almost no redeeming qualities. My 5yo loved it. Two stars, only because I have a soft spot for Battle Royale stories.

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I’m not sure if you’re a bot or not 😅 But either way, for those following along at home, I’m hoping to get it into the hands of a good citizen of the Nouns community, ideally someone I know and respect Cc @toadyhawk.eth as a candidate or connector

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Anyone interested in a very good looking noun? It’s in the market for a loving home

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That seems exactly on point for me and I’ve somehow never heard of it. Thanks for the recommendation. I’m going to read it next

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Roughing It Mark Twain describes crossing the country, trying his hand as a prospector, and then sailing out to Hawaii. Just like yesterday’s review: great travel writing, hilariously written. The Hawaii section hits like a ton of bricks. It evokes the place modern visitors know and love, but at a time before it had become widely known as an earthly paradise. It will make you nostalgic for a time long dead before you were born. Like the rest of his travel writing, this book is a mainline hit of the distilled essence of the times and places it covers. Plus, of course, a heavy dose of Twain’s personality and perspective. Five stars for its class.

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Not often. I averaged one every three days or so during 2024 and now I’m trying to review one per day between now and May. But I see the ambiguity now. I’m going to stop labeling these with “Day n:” to mitigate the confusion

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Day 19: The Innocents Abroad A young Mark Twain makes fun of everything between here and Jerusalem. It works as a travelogue, but he also parodies contemporary travel writing, self deprecates hilariously, and evenhandedly roasts everyone he encounters. I originally meant to read a Bill Bryson book as a palette cleanser following The Magic Mountain, but I discovered I’d run out of them. So I read this instead and liked it so much that I binged five more of his travel books in a row. I can’t believe these books don’t get talked about more. They’re funny as hell, they’re delightfully anachronistic in their takes, and they’re peerless as time capsules of the travel experience of ~150 years ago. “In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.” Five stars for its class. Tender, irreverent, exotic travel writing at its best.

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It was one of the highlights of my 2023 reading experience. It still rattles around in my head constantly. The work matures with its main character. I encourage you to stick with it for at least a couple volumes. BTW super flattered to be tagged in a Proust post 😊 https://warpcast.com/7858.eth/0x6f1fdcf6

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I loved Cryptonomicon. What else?

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It’s incredible how well it holds up against its contemporaries. Even masterpieces that were well ahead of their times like John Ford’s works from that era look and feel quaint and dated in comparison. It’s the Citizen Kane of movies, really

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Paging @phil, @tldr, @july, @horsefacts.eth Did you guys like it? Do you know anyone who does? I really want to be initiated into the cognoscenti

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Day 18: The Magic Mountain A novel about time, illness, death, and the fight for the spirit of Europe. If you pick this up, you better be prepared to put your ass into it. Superficially, it’s ~1000 pages of the petty squabbles of affluent Europeans in a sanitorium. But it’s one of those books that professors love where actively decoding it transforms the experience. I read it primarily because Joseph Campbell treats it as a peer to Ulysses in Creative Mythology. It falls well short of that mark. You probably already know if you should read this. If you’re uncertain, read something else. I’m going to reject its classification as great modern literature and I’m still going to give it only three stars for its class. I did the interpretive work and it still fell flat for me. If you loved it, please reply to convince me that I’m a phillistine. Until then, I maintain that the only reason to profess fondness for it is to impress others who also think they’re supposed to like it.

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For $26 you’re up and running It’s not hard and the tea is better https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07XM9GYYS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09BHY34VY?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

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RIP to one of the greatest to ever do it

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Day 17: The Jungle Book A series of fable-ish stories mostly populated by animal characters, including a bunch that don’t star Mowgli. The Mowgli stories are the best known for good reason. The Rikki-Tikki-Tavi story is the second strongest. The rest are good but not noteworthy. My 6yo and I both had a pretty tepid reaction to it. If you’re out of content to read with your kids, go for it. But here are some alternatives I’d recommend more strongly: Better orphan story: The Graveyard Book Better animal story: Watership Down Better adventure: Treasure Island Better Kipling: Captains Courageous Four stars carried on Mowgli’s little man cub back

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Day 16: Death in Venice A book about age, illness, decay, and obsessing over a teenage boy so hard that you die. There’s a lot going on underneath the fairly mild surface, which is typical for Mann. I love writing that draws on classical stories and myths, which this does heavily. But Mann is subtle about it mostly and I prefer it to hit me on the head like a billy club. It’s an unsettling book on every level. You feel like a sick old degenerate just reading it. For a book without deep cringe that handles some of the same themes, I recommend Narcissus and Goldmund by Hesse. That being said, it’s undeniably a classic. Four stars for its type.

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Mom can we get some Anabasis? We have Anabasis at home The Anabasis at home:

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