7858

@7858.eth

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The Pillars of the Earth Ken Follett follows the construction of a fictional cathedral across many decades. The cathedral is just a nexus, the book is about the power struggles, social dynamics, and sex lives of the people involved. It’s very good. It uses occasional archaic flourishes but for the most part, it’s totally modern English. The story arcs overlap and interlock enough to keep momentum high across the thousandish pages. The characters are all memorable, and either lovable or gratifyingly hateable. The religious crap is palatable and balanced by a few skeptical characters. My main gripe with the book is the mad rush in the last 15% to provide comprehensive happily-ever-after denouement. Every single thread got tied up with a tidy little bow, which felt like a minor betrayal of the complexity and intensity of the rest of the book. Three stars for the class it wanted to be (an enduring epic). Five stars for the class it achieved (great big soap opera).

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Your original intuition is likely on point, @benbassler.eth Take a quick pass through your followers and sanity check them Here’s a screenshot from my profile where every follower is a bot I suspect that this was stage one, maybe just the oldest and most egregious bots I bet and hope there’s more to come

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Shogun James Clavell tells a fictional story of a westerner in medieval Japan. I’m taking a break from our regularly scheduled programming to talk about this because I can’t get it out of my head. My fellow readers will know exactly what I mean when I say that I miss living in this book. I’ve felt homesick for it since I finished it a couple weeks ago. When I started it, I figured it was going to use the main character as a vehicle for touring around Japan saying “wow how strange it is here!” Instead, the book takes you deep into Japanese culture. And the characters are nuanced and interesting across the board. Great plot, riveting character development, sophisticated themes, all set against the backdrop of one of my favorite time and place combinations. I’d update my wife on what was happening in the book every day, just because I was so excited that I had to get it off my chest. Five stars, will be tough to beat in 2025. Can’t wait to watch the show 🤩

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2020 SuperRare 1/1 3.1 ETH

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Half heartedly rejecting the premise: Pound for pound polonius has the best lines But yeah, maybe Shakespeare wrote the role for himself or someone he loved, most of the bangers belong to hamlet

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I get the feeling, based on little knowledge of Shakespeare’s work, that there’s no meaningful relationship between the subject matter and the language. I think he was just firing on all cylinders at the time. Open to contrary evidence of course. And I feel like he picked the character because gifted kids are always good vehicles for pain. We’re still telling coming of age stories that echo Hamlet closely. Overthinking yourself into paralysis is an evergreen mistake, especially for bright young people. True then, true now.

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Hamlet Shakespeare tells a tragedy. I’m not going to wax poetic about the play. Its influence and power are well established by the mere fact that we’re still talking about it at all. Very briefly: it’s great. Almost 25% of the lines have become cliches, for good reason. Instead, I want to propose a path for going from zero (can read) to one (can read Shakespeare) for people who want to read Shakespeare but find the language intractable. Here’s what not to do: Don’t read a modernized text. A lot of the impact comes from the words themselves, not just the stories. And don’t just sit with a dictionary tab open looking stuff up, because that breaks your flow to the point where you experience a slog, not a story. Instead, mix 25-50% pre-1930 books into your rotation. Eventually your fluency in older and older language increases. Jumping all the way back to Middle English from Jane Austen is still jarring, but way less than the jump from modern English.

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Save up valuables in that big fat satchel of yours. You get to keep the jewelry and stuff when Arthur dies, but you lose the money, which can be restrictive for a portion of the

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Man, I played through it again this winter and now I’m just wandering around as John Marston but I can’t stop

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Ireland Frank Delaney tells the history of Ireland through a series of fictional stories. This is like a kids’ illustrated book, except instead of actual drawings it has interwoven fictional stories to hold adults’ interest across 650 pages of genuine history. The frame tale is compelling enough to keep everything feeling unified, all the way from the ice age to Ireland’s bloody twentieth century. The stories inside the frame are packed with Irish history, myth, character. It’s an agreeable way to learn a whole bunch of Irish history. The audiobook does justice to the Irish oral storytelling tradition. I’ve never read a book quite like this, so right now it’s alone in its class. Read it if you’re visiting Ireland or going through one of those phases where you’re excited about your Irish heritage.

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Infantry Attacks Erwin Rommel recounts his WWI experience in minute detail. The man went on to be one of the greatest forces for evil in the 20th century, but in WWI he was just an aggressive lieutenant with a strong memory. This is a military history deep cut. It’s rare to see the level of tactical detail that he provides, which is incredible if you’re into that kind of thing, but it’s not for casual readers. If you’ve read We Were Soldiers Once, and you want to get the level of detail about WWI that you got about Ia Drang, this is a great pick. Otherwise, you can safely skip it.

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The Inimitable Jeeves PG Wodehouse stitches a bunch of inane short stories into an insufferable novel. Quoting from my contemporaneous review: “Just the worst. If you’re the type of person who laughs by turning down the corners of your mouth, lifting your chin, and pushing small chuckles from deep in your throat out of your nose, you might find something to like here. No likable or interesting characters, no development, no unifying story. Just more or less detached episodes of obnoxious people getting into silly, boring situations. The writing is nowhere near as good as its reputation suggests.” I stand by that. I will add as additional flavor that this was the end of my run of mining Paul Graham’s book recommendations. Not good, not funny, not worth reading.

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Love these two. Can’t wait to watch it. Thanks for putting it on my radar

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Angela’s Ashes Frank McCourt tells the story of growing up in a poor, dysfunctional family in Brooklyn and Limerick. The author’s grace, humor, and empathy elevate this book above the standard crop of poverty porn memoirs, even those that share its S tier writing and storytelling. It’s mystifying to me how someone could so effectively convey that much pathos, despite having clearly matured and recovered so completely. But somehow he manages to, and the result for the reader is that you feel McCourt’s pain deeply, but without the emotional hangover that often accompanies this type of book. I think part of it is that the Irish as a culture are especially well equipped to process sadness and misery. But there’s something singular about McCourt, even in that cultural context. Your heart breaks as you see Frank coming to understand his dad’s “odd manner,” but you don’t feel like offing yourself after. The audiobook is read by McCourt, strongly recommended. Five stars, a masterpiece.

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I’m increasingly convinced that virtually all concepts are interesting enough and it’s all execution. See Vernon, Florida by Errol Morris as an extreme example

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The River of Doubt Millard tells the story of TR’s ill fated trip into the Amazon. The story itself is great. The book is full of interesting characters. But the storytelling does justice to neither, and the book falls flat. It’s at its best just reciting a litany of jungle horrors. Two stars for its class.

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Merkle is on a tear right now. Elite special forces. You just love to see a protocol, product, and team come together like that. It’s a Schelling point for the space’s best and brightest now. Huge credit to Dan and V for the hard work and good decision making that brought such a special thing into existence.

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Congrats 🎊🎈🍾

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The Two Towers JRRT packs two separate books into one volume. The first is the story of everyone other than Frodo, Sam, and Gollum. Merry and Pippin get captured by orcs, escape, meet the ents, and go with them to Isengard to fight Saruman. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli follow hot on their heels, meeting the riders of Rohan and a resurrected Gandalf on the way. And then the good guys all smash up the bad guys at Helm’s Deep. Peak LOTR. The second book is the story of Frodo, Sam, and Gollum advancing the ring roughly from Moria to Mordor. That’s the slowest, weakest section of the entire series. I think the whole series, but this book in particular, would benefit from heavy abridging. I’m not going to try to sell anyone on reading this. You probably already know if you should. It’s fantasy canon, outside the world of recommendation and rating. I will say that my boys still fight imaginary orcs many months after finishing these, so they’re definitely still relevant.

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Semimonthly refresh of the mission: Review one book per day until I’ve reviewed every book I read in 2024. You can follow the quote chain all the way back. So far, the book’s popularity seems to move the engagement needle a lot more than anything I say about the book. But the consistency is paying off! I’ve gained ~1k followers and I’m getting tagged in literature related discussions, which is fun. I’m about a third of the way through the list and at this point I’m thinking about continuing daily reviews even after burning down my 2024 list. Thank you all for following along 😊

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