#I just got to that quote in the audiobook and I was immediately like “John House”

[irenespring]

Tw child abuse

"As we all know, boys respond best to beatings and the withholding of food."

---Evelyn Sader, School for Good and Evil book 2, having apparently graduated the John House School of Parenting

[thegrabowskis]

why is Mike your favorite I want the dissertation OP

IN THIS ESSAY I WILL

- His lowkey obsession with Rich’s life. There was a quote from, I think Mike himself? that I saw once where he jokingly said his true calling in life was to put Rich Evans on camera and film him (if anyone can find that quote again, please send it to me, I think it was in an old interview with him)

- His unique creativity? I mean he basically created the modern video essay format wholecloth on his own. You can’t type the name of a pop culture film or tv show into the youtube search field without tripping over fifteen hundred video essays that were directly inspired by him.

- The shrugging humility when he’s reminded of this. He doesn’t seem to think he’s anything special; he’s just like “I wanted to get my thoughts out, so I did.”

- I once heard Jack and Rich on pre-rec talking about how they accidentally went to the same screening of a movie; Jack heard Rich laughing at the end and said “Hey, that’s Rich Evans!” and they joked that Mike ran away immediately because he doesn’t want to be recognized. It made me feel such a kinship with Mike as an extreme introvert myself

- As a giant Beatles stan (seriously I have a whole sideblog for it, I’ve bought all their albums which is wild cuz I try not to spend money on music, it’s a whole thing), I love that he’s a big beatles fan. A man can recognize good music!

- speaking of good music, he loves Elton John too? And musicals? Grease 2 is a musical that only a theater kid could love, and he loves it, therefore he is a Certified Theater Kid I don’t make the rules it’s just how it be

- his love of Star Trek is so pure and bright. Absolutely nothing in the entire world could make me care about Star Trek, but Mike and his enduring love for it has definitely come the closest. I mean, he got choked up talking about the motion picture for god’s sake. How can you not love this Soft™ Man

- I know it’s considered a bit gauche to talk about their patreon exclusive content, but for a while I was subbed to them there and watched a ton of outtake videos. My favourite thing about them, the thing that delights me the most every time, is that Mike is almost always the one who breaks first when they’re trying to film something scripted, like the nerd crew. People think of him as the stoic one but he’s not and it’s GREAT

- This is a small thing, but a lot of the time he covers his mouth and shrinks down when he’s laughing and it’s end**ring don’t @ me

- He loves making Rich Evans laugh more than anything in the whole world and I think that’s wonderful

- There is nothing funnier to me when he breaks and keeps trying to talk through it

- He’s such a bully sometimes but it’s ok he doesn’t mean it, probably. My favourite instance is when he gave Jay his shirt to wear for the Best of the Worst panel and then roasted his ass with a fucking flamethrower for it

- On a more serious note, he has some really good insights on movies, things that I never would have thought of; the most recent example I can think of is in the Exorcist III Re:View, when he made the point that the movie wasn’t really about people; it was about institutions and how they are supposed to be things that keep the world functioning, and the horror comes from the demon breaking those institutions.

- His Chicago/Upper Midwest accent is so choice, and he’s got a great reading voice. He should do audiobooks

- Every time he tries to tell a story he completely fails and goes on five hundred tangents and has to rely almost entirely on Jay’s superior memory to get to the finish line (like the Joe Pilato story; case in point, he asks Jay if he can tell the story and then doesn’t actually get to the story for two more minutes)

- He doesn’t give a single shit about video games and I love that because neither do I

- wish someone would look at me the way mike looks at his friends

- He just seems like a nice soft guy masquerading as a cynical asshole and i identify with that

[shitty-check-please-aus]

2020 Books Read So Far

Note: Most of these are audiobooks (listening to books counts as reading books and if you disagree I’d ask you to consider why you believe that), books I started and didn’t finish will be listed but not reviewed, and all my opinions are extremely subjective. I’m putting this on this blog because I want to and I think it’ll help me keep track of what I’ve read if I write it down in a couple places. 

Some notes:

I’m surprised that most of these are nonfiction! I don’t usually think of myself as a nonfiction reader. 

Having audiobooks has made me way more productive as a reader, since I can read while I’m doing repetitive tasks at work, when I have to stand on the bus, when I’m running, etc. 

Naked, by David Sedaris

3/5, the audiobook was “unabridged selections” which means “we didn’t edit the individual essays but you’re only getting half the book”– it would probably have been a 4/5 if it was a whole book. I liked that Amy Sedaris was reading parts of it, but that’s because I like her more than I like her brother. This is sort of an example of the difference between “comedic” and “humorous,” because it’s definitely the latter. 

Read it if: you want to read something pretty fucking weird. 

Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, by Sarah Vowell

4/5, I saw this recommended a lot when Hamilton first came out so it’s been in the back of my mind for a good while. The book had a great cast, and having different people reading the historical quotes was an excellent touch! 

However, I think Vowell’s conversational style is a little jarring here sometimes. It’s like “wait, why are you talking about Bruce Springsteen, I’m not that familiar with his work but he definitely isn’t from Revolutionary War times.” I got her book Assassination Vacation at a used bookshop recently as well, and both books suffer from post-2016 hindsight, where she’ll say something about how incompetent and foolish the politicians of her time are, and I just have to snort to myself and say “Sarah, you’re going to lose your goddamn mind soon.” That’s a bit of an unfair reaction, but it’s hard to avoid having it.

I was also, maybe unfairly, expecting to learn more than I did. The problem is that I know a Lot about the Revolutionary War, and from the introduction I thought we’d hear more about Lafayette’s later life (my knowledge drops sharply after about 1810). The book basically ends after the Battle of Yorktown, though.

Read it if: you have not seen/listened to both Hamilton and 1776, or if you want to read a summary of the Revolutionary War with a focus on one French captain. 

Assassination Vacation, by Sarah Vowell

3/5, honestly maybe a 2.5/5. Okay, so. Either I know a lot more about American History than I felt like I did or this is again a very surface level thing. Part of it is because she spends 123 pages on Abe Lincoln. There are 255 pages total. 2/3 of the states I’ve lived in are Indiana and Illinois, two states that fight about claiming Lincoln as their own, and I’ve been to D.C. 4 or 5 times, so I feel like I know enough about Lincoln. I know about John Wilkes Booth, and his brother Edwin who saved Lincoln’s son’s life, and the death train that took Lincoln’s body around the country. I did enjoy learning about the doctor who was probably conspiring with Booth and how he ended up saving tons of lives in prison when there was a yellow fever outbreak (also to be briefly unbearably nitpicky: I think she might have mixed up dengue and yellow fever? She calls yellow fever “breakbone” but I can only find instances online of people calling dengue fever that. Maybe they called them all breakbone in the late 1800s. If anyone reading this is an epidemiologist, let me know).

It was interesting to hear that Charles Guiteau, killer of President Garfield, was part of the Oneida cult. I’m trying to think of anything notable she said about Leon Czolgosz, killer of President McKinley. I guess she talks about how people assumed he was a foreigner because of his name, but I already listened to “The Ballad of Czolgosz” in Assassins, so I knew “Czolgosz, angry man, born in the middle of Michigan.”

This one is from 2005 so the politics stuff is a little more interesting, since at the time I was busy learning multiplication and spending one entire baseball season learning about baseball and following my team (they won the world series, I have excellent timing). I will say that in 2005 we did have Google, so I am again annoyed with some of her asides and personal anecdotes. Look, if you go to the Hemingway house and you don’t know there will be cats there, that’s on you if you don’t bring your Claritin. Hemingway is associated with only two good things, six-toed cats and Daiquiris. 

She also does not acknowledge that the parties basically switched platforms? Lincoln’s Republican party is not today’s Republican party, in fact kind of the opposite, so it’s weird that she starts the book with a dedication that’s like “to my lifelong Democrat grandpa, he’d be pissed I dedicated a book about 3 Republicans to him.” I guess she does sometimes say stuff like “how did Lincoln’s party become Reagan’s” (paraphrase), but she doesn’t actually get into it. 

Speaking of Democrats, she literally spends more time talking about Pablo Picasso than she spends talking about JFK. She doesn’t explain why she didn’t talk about JFK, but it seems bizarre to me to write a book about American assassinations and to leave out John Fucking Kennedy. Literally I’ve talked more about JFK in this section than she did in her assassin book. It’s not until page 253 that JFK gets a full paragraph. There are 255 pages total. Truly, if she’d taken a paragraph to be like “I’m focusing on the presidents who were elected before 1900″ or “the presidents whose immediate families aren’t still alive” or even “I didn’t want to travel to Dallas for research” or SOMETHING to explain why she left out JFK, I would have understood it more instead of flipping through the pages wondering what was going on. 

Read it if: You do not listen to too many history podcasts and you didn’t read the Wikipedia page for the musical Assassins. And I guess if you don’t want to acknowledge that JFK did also get assassinated and that was kind of a big deal. Actually just listen to Assassins instead. 

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

5/5 as a mystery, 0/5 for its original title (not gonna say it here but if you’ve ever googled the name of HP Lovecraft’s cat, it’s along those lines). Less than 6 hours, narrated by Dan Stevens from Downton Abbey, fairly ideal as an audiobook. I am 95% sure I’ve already read this, because I spent the summer before I started high school reading every Agatha Christie book in the library (I do not have a list of all the Agatha Christie books in my library the summer of 2010, so there is some question). 

Read if: you want to hear the guy from Downton Abbey deliver the line “I’m not a complete fool!” in a tone that makes it sound like “I’m not a fucking moron!” Sidenote: Can anyone tell me if Brits say “solder” by pronouncing the L that I’ve always heard as a silent L? Or if Dan Stevens just fucked up that one word?

Over The Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love, by Jonathan Van Ness

4.5/5

This was a super enjoyable audiobook! It’s a testament to JVN’s considerable charisma that this book is full of him giving people in his past who would rather be anonymous Russian names, and it doesn’t get grating (as a Marina, however, I was shocked to not hear my name at any point; most of the other Marina’s I’ve met in my life are Russian). JVN has had a wild ride in life, and it’s a really raw, honest story of how he became who he is. I will say that if you are interested in reading this, please look up the trigger warnings; there are a lot of things that could be triggering to people. 

I feel a little bad at how much more I liked this one compared to Tan France’s memoir, but I also feel like whoever was ghostwriting that one did a bad job at making Tan seem... not extremely defensive, cocky, and prickly (it seems that JVN did not use a ghostwriter; Tan’s on the other hand, let the phrase “I’m proud to be a petty bitch” make it into the final proof several times). Also JVN advocates going to therapy in his book, while Tan kind of says that you should only go to therapy if you have no friends or family or life partner to talk to, which I fundamentally disagree with. I don’t know. I also feel like, if I were to get a makeover from the Fab 5, Jonathan would love my hair (I have great hair) while Tan would say that I’m dressing too old for a 24 year old and then take me to fucking Lane Bryant or Torrid (I wear a size 16 US so IRL options are limited). 

Read if: You like Queer Eye or Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Medallion Status, by John Hodgman

4.5/5

I really like John Hodgman’s podcast, and I got to ask him a question at an event he did at the Field Museum and he was very nice, so I went into this inclined to enjoy it. 

And I did! I had a good time reading it. I read it the first week of January and now it’s the second week of February so I have already erased much of the book’s content from my mind, but he somehow made the perspective of being a formerly kinda famous person really interesting. I would also recommend Vacationland, particularly if anyone wants to write an au where Nursey, as a New Yorker, has a vacation home in Dex’s town in Maine. That’s right, I brought it back around to the topic of this blog. And that would be a fucking fantastic au. 

Read it if: you like memoirs! it’s a good one. 

Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

Gonna give this one a 3/5 for performance, because Dan Stevens (again, because I liked his narration in the other one) does a really annoying American accent for a few characters, and an extremely bad Italian accent for another. I’m starting this review only a few hours in, so if it turns out that the Italian man is not Italian, I’ll revoke my criticism. Still a 5/5 mystery, though. I did have to stop many times when they were talking about Istanbul to go over to Spotify and play “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” by They Might Be Giants. 

Books abandoned in 2020 (so far) (no real spoilers, I didn’t get more than a few chapters into any of them):

The Unhoneymooners, Christina Lauren

I got to a point where the main character was telling a lie that would put her newly accepted job into jeopardy, and it stressed me out so much as a relatively new hire that I stopped listening for the day and started another one, and then the week had passed and then the library took it back. I think I’d enjoy it more if I was reading it physically and I could control how fast I got through awkward parts (I am practically allergic to secondhand embarrassment). The performance was good and I did get a hankering for cheese curds. 

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

I had like three audiobooks checked out at the same time, and even though this was again an abridged version, I just didn’t have time for all of them. My mom has a physical copy, I’ll borrow that at some point. 

The Witch Elm, Tana French

This is one I may revisit someday. The main character is kind of an asshole, which is the point of his character I think, but it made it hard to get into the story. It’s also a 22 hour audiobook, which is kind of insanely long. Additionally, the narrator has a very slow way of talking, but if I tried to speed up the rate of playback I had trouble understanding his accent (I think I just have trouble processing really fast speech in general as well, but I would’ve had an easier time understanding someone with the same accent as me). Anyways, someone put a hold on it at the library and then I didn’t check it out again. 

[scarletwelly-boots]

Books Read 2019

It’s time again for my annual books read post (a little earlier than usual, but I couldn’t wait). I read 24 books in 2019, 4 books more than last year, though two are in progress and I expect to finish them by the new year.

It is year four of the reading challenge from Popsugar. There were 48 categories this year, so I got 50% again. Unlike last year, I did not change any categories, but I may have taken liberties with some again, we’ll see. So, without further ado, let’s begin the list. [Under the cut]

1. How to Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell (A book becoming a movie in 2019). Okay, so there have already been two movies in this series, but the last one (*sob*) came out this year, so it counts. I read this book and a few of the others in the series a few years ago, but revisited the first one this year. It’s really good, but don’t go into it expecting it to be like the movies. The character names are the same, but that’s about it. If you can get your hands on the audiobook version, it’s read by David Tennant, which is excellent. Definitely recommend; it’s just as good as the movies.

2. Little House in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (A book that makes you nostalgic). This is another reread. My dad read the whole series aloud to my sister and I when we were barely older than Laura is in the first book. It was the series he read before the Harry Potter books came out, and we both got sucked into that series. So yeah, very nostalgic. This is a series of semi-autobiographical stories chronicling Wilder’s pioneer childhood, and this is the first in the series. Some of the language doesn’t really age well, but for the most part it’s a delightful book.

3. An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, by Hank Green (a book you think should be turned into a movie). Holy. Shit. I was very, very pleasantly surprised by Hank Green’s debut novel (and yes, John Green is his brother). This is a mysterious book about first encounters and internet fame, with a queer young adult (like, really YA, as in post-college) protagonist. She’s kind of shitty sometimes, but I would argue all twenty-somethings are shitty sometimes (I mean, I literally typed “*sob*” two entries up, like I’m channeling my 2009 self, and I didn’t delete it.). I would highly, highly recommend. And apparently, SOMEDAY, there’s supposed to be a sequel, thank GOD.

4. Loki: Agent of Asgard, by Jason Ewing (a reread of a favorite book). I could actually get away with a reread for this one! I love this graphic novel series. I love how they depict Loki, how he finally gets a goddamn redemption arc. It’s a really fun read. Check it out.

5. The Beast Within, by Serena Valentino (a book inspired by mythology, legend, or folklore). A companion novel to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. I don’t really remember much about this book. It was weird. But like, it plays with the timeline and the curse a little bit, where the beast gets cursed but doesn’t become a beast immediately. He slowly transforms as his behavior gets worse and more cruel. Apparently he used to be friends with Gaston, but Gaston forgot about him once he finally transformed. Really weird. If you’re obsessed with this fairytale like I am, give it a shot. If not, it probably won’t be that interesting.

6. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen (a book you see someone reading on TV or in a movie). Another reread. I know it’s a classic, but I seriously just love this book. 

7. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diane Wynne Jones (a book about someone with a superpower). Another reread of a favorite book, what can I say. The movie is my favorite movie, but the book is better.

8. Carry On, by Rainbow Rowell (a book told from multiple character POV’s). Okay, listen. I had to reread this book, because it had been a few years and the sequel came out this year. Think of this as generic brand Harry Potter if Draco was a vampire, was Harry’s roommate, and helplessly in love with Harry. I’m serious, it’s generic brand. But damn if I don’t love it. @JKR, this could be us but Harry had to be the jock that married his high school sweetheart and grew up to be a cop. Definitely read.

9. Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger (a book with no chapters/unusual chapter headings/unconventionally numbered chapters). My brother got me this book for my birthday. Before this I had only read Catcher in the Rye, which I started out hating when I was fourteen but turned into loving when I was nineteen. Honestly I think this novel is better than that one. I really loved it. Highly recommend. What’s it about? Who the fuck knows? But to quote my brother: “At its core, I think this book is about a smart brother and a smart sister. I think we can relate.” So read it and buy it for the smart brother or sister or sibling in your life.

10. 1916, by Tim Pat Coogan (read a book during the season it is set in). This is an Irish history book about the Easter Rising of 1916 and (what I didn’t know when I started reading it in April) everything that came after that can trace its cause back to the rebellion, all the way to the centennial of the Rising. The Easter Rising was the catalyst of Irish freedom. It was like the Boston Tea Party of Ireland, rather than the Battle of Yorktown (as in it kickstarted the War for Independence but didn’t immediately result in freedom), that is, if the instigators of the Boston Tea Party were rounded up, imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol, and a week later almost all executed by firing squad. It’s a tedious read if you’re not into Irish history or history in general, but I enjoyed it.

11. Loki: Where Mischief Lies, by Mackenzi Lee (a book set in space). Okay, technically it takes place on Asgard and Earth, but those are planets, and planets are in space, so it counts! I’m still reading it, but I really like it so far. (Honestly I maybe just like the idea of Loki in knee high black boots marketed towards women and black nails. I never promised not to be gay.)

12. Norse Mythology, by Neil Gaiman (a book set in Scandinavia). I’m sorry! I read this book every year. Neil Gaiman is an amazing writer, and we all know I’m gay as shit for some good Loki tales. 

13. Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer (a book that takes place in a single day). Okay, I know people love this fantasy series, and since it’s Irish I fully expected to, too. But I didn’t like any of the characters enough to read the rest of the series, least of all Artemis himself. I struggle to enjoy stories if I don’t like the main character, and Artemis was kind of a shit. Sorry, I did not like this one.

14. Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy (a debut novel). I just started this one, too, but I really like it already. I think the audiobook is read by the same guy that read Artemis Fowl, but already this is way better than that one. The characters are likable, for one (god, the bar is so low for fantasy books for me right now). It’s a mystery and a fantasy, and the main-ish character is literally an anthropomorphic skeleton detective. It’s excellent. I’m going to read the whole series. (I have to; my mom accidentally got me the 12th installment for my birthday.)

15. Red, White, and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston (a book that’s published in 2019). I read this twice. It’s so beautiful. I really expected it to be a shitty YA novel, but it wasn’t! It was very romantic (once they stopped “hating” each other), and gay. The premise sounds far-fetched: First Son of the United States falls for the Crown Prince of England. But, guys, it’s soooo gooooood. Highly, highly, highly recommend. 

16. The Wisconsin Road Guide to Mysterious Creatures, by Chad Lewis (a book featuring an extinct or imaginary creature). I mean, you can make your own decision whether these cryptids are real or imaginary. This is a travel guide to cryptids in Wisconsin, which I got on vacation earlier this year. I liked it, but reading a road guide for pleasure is admittedly kind of weird. Recommend if you’re planning a road trip through Wisconsin and want to stop at some cryptid, ghostly, or Nessie-like hotspots. Or if you just want to fuck Mothman, like me. (Dustybae’s not in this particular travel book though.)

17. Take Me With You, by Andrea Gibson (a book recommended by a celebrity you admire). Okay, so it was by a celeb I admire, not recommended by. This is a very quick read, of quotes from Gibson’s poetry. They are a queer spoken word poet with some really good pieces. They’re on spotify and apple music, probably among other sources. Recommend their work, but the book is very short, so maybe only purchase if you enjoy their work.

18. This is How it Always Is, by Laurie Frankel (a book about a family). This book was really, really good. It was passed around the aunts in my family until it got to my mom and I, which was really kind of a magical thing. It’s about a family navigating the challenges and gifts of raising a trans child. I cried a couple times, and it was so good. It’s written by a parent of a trans child, so it came from a place of understanding, and it was interesting to read this type of narrative from a parent’s perspective, when usually being genderfluid myself, I tend to consume media that is from the perspective of trans characters themselves. I had some very interesting conversations with my aunts and mom about it, and I really think this book changed my family a little bit, and I didn’t expect it to change me, too. Highly recommend. 

19. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Suzanne Clark (a book that includes a wedding). So the wedding is at the very beginning, and sadly not between Strange and Norrell. But it’s really good. Lots of magic, lots of regency-era Britishness. The book is huge, but there is a miniseries on Netflix based on the novel and that’s really good too. Highly recommend, and still in love with my man John Childermass. Hnng.

20. Wayward Son, by Rainbow Rowell (a book by an author whose first and last names start with the same letter). Sequel to Carry On. Sheer madness. I loved it. Think of it as generic brand Harry Potter post-DH, if Harry sprouted dragon wings during the final battle, is gay as shit for Draco, and a year later Harry, Draco, and Hermione are set loose on America with .5 seconds of research, severe culture shock, one cell phone between them, and a half-assed plan to rescue Ginny who may or may not want to be rescued. Shit show, but well done and I’m fully invested and ready for the third installment.

21. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman (a book with a two-word title). I’m sorry, I need to shift to caps for this. GUYS I FUCKING LOVE THIS STORY YOU HAVE NO IDEA IT IS THE GREATEST THING THAT HAS EVER COME INTO MY WORLD! I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE WATCHED THE AMAZON SERIES THIRTEEN TIMES TO DATE AND IMMEDIATELY DEVOURED THE BOOK IN THREE DAYS. You don’t know what it’s about? Where have you BEEN?! An angel and a demon who are gay as shit for each other and love humanity way more than either of their respective sides. One downside is that as the miniseries came out like twenty years after the novel, my two favorite parts were only written for the series, and are not in the novel. But the book is still very, very good. 15/10.

22. Dumplin’, by Julie Murphy (a book revolving around a puzzle or game). I took game to mean competition, so this is about a beauty competition. I watched the Netflix movie first. I honesty thought I was not gonna like it, but holy shit it was amazing. Admittedly I think the movie was better (despite having Jennifer Aniston in it), but the book was really good, too. Recommend.

23. The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde (your favorite prompt from a past Popsugar reading challenge; a book with a queer protagonist). God, please read this book. This has been up there in my list of favorite books since I was fourteen. Oscar Wilde is a master storyteller, and Dorian Gray is intriguing and despicable and beautiful. I’ve already read this, but I love it too much not to.

24. Terrible Queer Creatures, by Brian Lacey (a book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent). Okay, so it’s not set there for the whole book, but gay monks and nuns are things. This was another birthday present, and an absolute hit. Combining two of my favorite things: Irish history and queer history. I had no idea a book like this existed. I’m still really excited about it. The only issue I have is that most of the one chapter dedicated to gay women involve biographies of people that were actually probably trans men, like Dr. Barry. They could have probably had a separate chapter and then a chapter of the clear lesbians and bisexual women (including trans women, of course). Lumping them in with the women in a chapter specifically dedicated to queer women did not seem particularly inclusive. But overall I really enjoyed the book.

Top Ten Books of 2019 post will be forthcoming.

[sahibookworm]

You can find all the original questions and link up’s for this year’s survey at Perpetual Page Turner.

I hope everyone has had a good 2018 and my best wishes to everyone for the New Year…!!! I can’t find a better way to end this year’s blogging journey than this post to sum up all my reading. It has been a great year of reading and blogging for me, discovering new authors, enjoying more blogs and making online friends who share similar passions as me. Even though I haven’t felt very good in my head sometimes, all my books and you blogging friends have made me feel better and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. I only wish 2019 will find me in a better mindset.

Enough of my rambling….. Let’s get started with my year end wrap-up..!!!! I’m going to try not to repeat the same books for all the answers, but it’s totally unavoidable for some of my favorites.

Number of books you read: 300

Number of re-reads: Too many to count because I love re-listening to my favorites!!!

Genre you read the most from: Romance

1. Best Book You Read In 2018?

This is probably the toughest question for any avid reader and even tougher for me, because I have varying definitions of what’s the best and what’s my favorite. I know… I’m weird that way😉😉😉 But I’m going to name the books which I thought were the most well written books I read per genres:

YA Contemporary: The Nowhere Girls

Adult Contemporary: A Charm of Finches

Fantasy: Foundryside

2. Book You Were Excited About & Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

I’m a very easy to please reader, so it’s especially disappointing when books I’m excited to read don’t live up to my expectations. And one such book that I still think about is Furyborn. It had so much potential to be great, but the execution didn’t work. I still want to read Kingsbane because I want know what’s going to happen next.

3. Most surprising (in a good way or bad way) book you read?

I hardly ever read historical romances, so even trying out The Duchess Deal was just an impulse. But I had so much fun while reading it and it was such a pleasant surprise.

4. Book You “Pushed” The Most People To Read (And They Did)?

I don’t really “push” books to my blogger friends because we all are quite aware of the popular and not so popular books. However, I did manage to recommend books to my best friends and they enjoyed them, so that was a great feeling. One friend became obsessed with ACOMAF and it was a joy fangirling with her. Another one was quite enamored with The Deal and wanted to reread it immediately…. just like I did 😍😍😍

5. Best series you started in 2018? Best Sequel of 2018? Best Series Ender of 2018?

Best series I started: Where Death Meets the Devil

Best sequel I read: Deal Maker

Best series ender: It’s difficult to choose between my two favorites – Kingdom of Ash and Queen of Air and Darkness

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2018?

Wow… I discovered so many of them, it’s been that kind of an year. But some notable ones are Suanne Lacquer, Sarina Bowen, Elle Kennedy, Ella Frank, Lily Morton, Mackenzi Lee, Alice Oseman, C. S. Pacat, Christina Lauren, Nisha Sharma, Sangu Mandanna and many many more.

7. Best book from a genre you don’t typically read/was out of your comfort zone?

Sci-fi/ space operas are not my thing and A Spark of White Fire is the only book set in space I read this year, but it was a glorious reading experience.

8. Most action-packed/thrilling/unputdownable book of the year?

I finally finally got back to reading the two latest books from the Jack West Jr series by Matthew Reilly and it felt so good being in that thrilling zone again. The Three Secret Cities definitely was one of the most action packed books I read this year and it has one of my most favorite and daring rescue attempts ever.

9. Book You Read In 2018 That You Would Be MOST Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

I re-read books a lot. Especially, I love listening to audiobooks while sleeping every night, so I repeat the same ones. So, this would be an equally huge list just like by TBR. However, I have a feeling that I will be revisiting Kingdom of Ash again, because I want to savor the book the second time around.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2018?

There are so many to choose from but Monstress is a great looking set of graphic novels, both outside and inside. Some of the most gorgeous and intricate artwork I’ve ever seen.

11. Most memorable character of 2018?

I fall in love with fictional characters everyday but the one who is very memorable and very unique is Clef from Foundryside. You have to read the book to know his story.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2018?

I’m not one who chooses books with well written prose because I’m here for the emotional connect. In that context, the book I found most beautifully written was Autoboyography.

13. Most Thought-Provoking/ Life-Changing Book of 2018?

Fresh Ink is a very intense anthology by diverse and/or marginalized authors which will leave you with many thoughts and questions.

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2018 to finally read?

It has to be The Four Legendary Kingdoms. It took me almost two years after I bought the book to actually read it, and I have no clue why because this is one of my all time favorite series. But, I’m so glad I finally read it.

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2018?

There are way tooooo many quotes that I have highlighted and loved this year, but a particular one that I read last week is very profound and unforgettable:

“History is not a John Wayne western with all the people of color erased and the narrative distorted to match white nationalist mythology. It’s beautifully, wonderfully mixed.” – A People’s Future of the United States

16. Shortest & Longest Book You Read In 2018?

Fence # 1 is my shortest book this year and I loved getting introduced to Nick and Seiji. My longest read is obviously Kingdom of Ash – it was a mammoth which I read and completed on the day of it’s release.

17. Book That Shocked You The Most

Nevernight. Nothing happened in this book the way I expected it to. It’s completely shocking and riveting and I loved every second of it.

18. OTP OF THE YEAR (you will go down with this ship!)

I have a lot of OTPs to choose from but I will stick to my first favorite from the year and who have become one of my all time favorite adorable couples – Jaime and Ryan from Him / Us.

19. Favorite Non-Romantic Relationship Of The Year

Best friends Frances and Aled from Radio Silence are probably one of my favorite non-romantic relationship ever. They call themselves platonic soulmates and that’s the perfect description.

20. Favorite Book You Read in 2018 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

After really enjoying The Remnant Chronicles last year, it was a joy to jump back into the same universe with Mary Pearson’s latest installment Dance of Thieves.

21. Best Book You Read In 2018 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else/Peer Pressure/Bookstagram, Etc.:

Everyone was always talking about Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda in the blogging community and I’m not sure why I was holding out. But once the trailer of the movie came out, I just had to read it and it was a beautiful read and an equally cool movie.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2018?

I have had many crushes throughout the year, but the most recent one is Silas, the Earl of Ashworth from Oz. He may belong to the aristocracy but he is so compassionate and sweet and down to earth, I loved him right from the get go.

23. Best 2018 debut you read?

Apparently, I have not read a lot of debuts this year but Mammoth, Intercepted and Running With Lions are some of my favorites.

24. Best Worldbuilding/Most Vivid Setting You Read This Year?

Foundryside. I love Robert Jackson Bennett’s worldbuilding more than anyone else and the magic system in this book is one of the most unique I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

25. Book That Put A Smile On Your Face/Was The Most FUN To Read?

There have been quite a few books that made me laugh a lot this year, the notable ones being My So-Called Bollywood Life, Josh and Hazel’s Guide to Not Dating and The Lightning-Struck Heart.

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2018?

I’m a huge crier, so atleast half the books on my list have made me weep. But one I remember really making me very emotional and sobbing every couple of pages is Risk Taker.

27. Hidden Gem Of The Year?

I still can’t believe that A Thousand Beginnings and Endings has less than 500 reviews on Goodreads because it’s the most beautiful short story collection I have ever read and I felt immensely satisfied and pleased as a reader to see my culture and mythology and those of other countries in Asia represented with such love.

28. Book That Crushed Your Soul?

I have to mention Kingdom of Ash again because even though I really loved the book, it was still a very exhausting and soul-crushing experience – maybe because I did not want it to end.

29. Most Unique Book You Read In 2018?

Where Death Meets the Devil and Why the Devil Stalks Death are two of the most uniquely thrilling novels I have read this year and the author’s style of writing in two timelines and cliffhangers in almost every chapter makes for a very adrenaline filled reading experience.

30. Book That Made You The Most Mad (doesn’t necessarily mean you didn’t like it)?

It has to be the two books I mentioned as my favorites in the first question. The Nowhere Girls made me mad because it showed a mirror to how ingrained misogyny and sexism is in our society and A Charm of Finches portrays the gut wrenching struggle that one of the MCs has to go through after his traumatic experiences.

1. New favorite book blog/Bookstagram/Youtube channel you discovered in 2018?

I have discovered so many bloggers this year and I apologize for not including everyone, but please know that I love all of you. But the couple bloggers I really enjoy reading and communicating with are Sara @ The Bibliophagist and Melanie @ Mel to the Any. Another one who has been a joy to befriend, buddy read with and whom I hope I will get a chance to meet in 2019 is Nandini @ Unputdownable Books.

2. Favorite post you wrote in 2018?

One of my favorite posts of mine this year is Bookish Worlds I’d Want to/Never Want to Live In.

3. Favorite bookish related photo you took in 2018?

I don’t take a lot of bookish photos but I like this one because I’m trying to look festive standing next to my bookshelf.

4. Best bookish event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, etc.)?

The first event I attended was the NovaTEEN Book festival and it was so wonderful to meet some incredible authors and my favorite booktuber Samantha from Thoughts on Tomes. It was my first bookish event ever and I can never forget that experience.

Baltimore Book Festival was another great event, which I really cherish because I got to meet Nisha Sharma and have a fun and extensive chat with her about books and Bollywood.

I have also greatly enjoyed our virtual Overbooked Book Club run by Dilip and Ana and it has been so much fun reading and discussing one book per month and having lots of bookish discussions everyday.

A very recent wonderful experience has been becoming a part of Book Dragons India run by Nandini.

5. Best moment of bookish/blogging life in 2018?

Meeting and getting clicked with my favorite booktuber Samantha. She has been my introduction to booktube and I never ever thought that I would get the chance to interact with her.

6. Most challenging thing about blogging or your reading life this year?

I have had a couple of long and bad reading/blogging slumps this year and it’s very difficult to cope when all I want to do is read, but I am unable to.

7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?

One post which I really got a lot of love for is my July Wrap-Up: Blog Love post where I highlighted some of my favorite blog posts by fellow bloggers.

8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?

I always wish that my reviews get a little more love than my tags/memes because I absolutely love writing reviews. But I do understand that they can be very time consuming to read.

9. Best bookish discovery (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?

My favorite bookish discovery has to be the Bibliophile planner that I bought for myself this Thanksgiving and I hope it will help me organize my reading and blogging better in 2019.

10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?

I changed my Goodreads challenge from 130 to 150 during the middle of the year, but I also completed it a while back 🤩🤩

I tried to get into readathons too but the only one I successfully completed and had a lot of fun participating in was the month long Marvel-A-Thon.

1. One Book You Didn’t Get To In 2018 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2019?

Ohhh I would never presume anything to be my No. 1 priority because I’m too much of a mood reader. But I would definitely like to read Empire of Sand very soon.

2. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2019 (non-debut)?

My planner is already full of books that I want to read but my most anticipated release is King of Scars and I’m so glad it comes out in January. I can’t wait to read more about dear Nikolai.

3. 2019 Debut You Are Most Anticipating?

Definitely has to be The Tiger at Midnight. It’s a fantasy based on Indian mythology by an Indian American author and I just can’t ask for anything more.

4. Series Ending/A Sequel You Are Most Anticipating in 2019?

Heirophant, the sequel to my favorite fantasy of this year. I can’t wait to read what Robert Jackson Bennett is going to do next with these awesome characters.

5. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging Life In 2019?

I am not a planner, but I do hope I am able to post more consistently to my blog. And now that I’m close to 760 followers, reaching the milestone of 1000 would be a dream come true 😀😀😀

6. A 2019 Release You’ve Already Read & Recommend To Everyone (if applicable):

I just finished reading this book, and I whole heartedly recommend A People’s Future of the United States – a speculative fiction anthology written by an excellent diverse group of authors, which is very scary and terrifyingly relevant and thought provoking and you will find atleast some stories that will resonate with you.

So… this has been my reading year of 2018. Hopefully, all of us will get to read many more wonderful books in the New Year !!!!! HAPPY READING everyone 😃😃😃

Annual End of the Year Survey – 2018 You can find all the original questions and link up's for this year's survey at Perpetual Page Turner…

[poweredbydietcoke]

My favorite books of 2016

(~3500 words, 10-15min read)

As I was thinking back on 2016 over the holidays, I decided to go re-read my notes from all of the books I read this year (a total of 48 books—4 audio books, 5 “tree books”, with the balance on Kindle, and 3 of them were repeat reads) and see what I had learned (or simply enjoyed) … then it seemed easy enough to write it up. Rather than a generic top-ten, I picked my favorite twelve just because, and all by themselves they came out with an interesting blend of topics. My favorite quotes are in block quotes below the book.

Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow - originally recommended to me by Ryan Barrett, this classic engineering tome holds up well in theory (if not in the examples he chose), and is a fantastic reminder to anyone building (or operating) complex systems … which these days, is basically all of us. TL;DR the more linear you can make a system (interactions flow one direction in a well-defined path, instead of complex where everything interacts with everything else), and the more loosely-coupled you can make a system (with buffers and room for slack to ensure errors are isolated to one part of the system, rather than tightly-coupled where an error in system 1 immediately spills over to system 2), the safer and more reliable the system will be. 

the characteristics of high-risk technologies that suggest that no matter how effective conventional safety devices are, there is a form of accident that is inevitable.

If interactive complexity and tight coupling—system characteristics—inevitably will produce an accident, I believe we are justified in calling it a normal accident, or a system accident. The odd term normal accident is meant to signal that, given the system characteristics, multiple and unexpected interactions of failures are inevitable.

computers are more reliable than pneumatic controls.

A note on the terms “complex” and “linear” is in order. It is difficult to find precise terms that are also brief; I have opted for brevity. “Complex” should read “interactions in an unexpected sequence”; “linear” should read “interactions in an expected sequence.”

tight coupling is a mechanical term meaning there is no slack or buffer or give between two items.

Tightly coupled systems have more time-dependent processes: they cannot wait or stand by until attended to

Straight to Hell by John Le Fevre of @GSElevator fame - this one can best be described as a guilty pleasure, but it’s funny (and inappropriate) as hell. It’s one banker’s memories, likely exaggerated for good measure, of his time in New York, London, and Hong Kong. Definitely not appropriate for kids.

Who by Geoff Smart - originally recommended by my friend Jordan Burton, and then a number of other people, this is probably the book I’ve gifted most widely this year. Like many “practical” “business” books, it could probably be half the length and just as good, but it lays out a fundamentally useful (and from first principles) approach to evaluating people for the purposes of hiring. TL;DR it emphasizes the importance of functional scorecards (rather than vague, useless, traditional “job descriptions”), well-defined interview objectives, and behavioral interview techniques to increase your chances of hiring well. 

Part of successful hiring means having the discipline to pass on talented people who are not a fit

Jonathan Livingstone Seagull by Richard Bach - recommended by my coach Chris Holmberg, this is the closest I got to philosophy this year (that I actually enjoyed), but it was fantastic. Basically, a fable about a seagull learning to fly, and while all the rest of the seagulls just want to “fly to live”, Jonathan wants to “live to fly” and learn everything he can about flying, just for flying’s sake. I certainly haven’t absorbed all of the learnings, but it’s a very rewarding read on multiple dimensions. 

He spoke of very simple things—that it is right for a gull to fly, that freedom is the very nature of his being, that whatever stands against that freedom must be set aside, be it ritual or superstition or limitation in any form. “Set aside,” came a voice from the multitude, “even if it be the Law of the Flock?” “The only true law is that which leads to freedom,” Jonathan said. “There is no other.”

“Why is it,” Jonathan puzzled, “that the hardest thing in the world is to convince a bird that he is free, and that he can prove it for himself if he’d just spend a little time practicing? Why should that be so hard?”

Manna by Marshall Brain - I don’t remember who recommended this to me (maybe Ryan?), but it was a fun pair of short stories on the best- and worst-cases of our future robot overlords. TL;DR don’t kick the robot dog on Youtube (LINK), because its descendants will probably retaliate. But seriously, very quick read and thought-provoking, even if it does diverge into utopian ... "hopefulness." 

The Other Side of History by Professor Robert Garland - recommended by Cornell professor David Collum (whose end-of-year essay my dad passed on last year and I quite enjoyed...warning it's not for the faint of heart or easily offended), this was the first Audible audiobook I listened to … and it was fantastic. An engaging series of lectures based on the premise that most of history studies the heroes, the royalty, the “influential figures”, this would instead cover all of the nameless, faceless people that history generally glossed over. What was it like to be an Egyptian peasant during the reign of the Pharaohs? Or an Italian shopkeeper during the time of the Medicis. 

Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler - recommended by my colleague Steve D’Angelo, this book is another easy/quick/fun read. Based on the premise that the author hired a former Navy SEAL to come live with him for a month and train him (for fitness), it’s an amusing tale of “you can do a lot more than you think you can,” peppered with quotes of “SEAL says …”. Some highlights:

“I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.”

“It doesn’t have to be fun. It has to be effective.”

I found out SEAL once entered a race where you could either run for twenty-four or forty-eight hours. Shocker: SEAL signed up for the forty-eight-hour one. At around the twenty-three-hour mark, he’d run approximately 130 miles, but he’d also torn his quad. He asked the race officials if they could just clock him out at twenty-four hours. When he was told they couldn’t do that, he said, “ROGER THAT,” asked for a roll of tape, and wrapped his quad. He walked (limped) on a torn quad for the last twenty-four hours to finish the race and complete the entire forty-eight hours. “When you think you’re done, you’re only at forty percent of what your body is capable of doing. That’s just the limit that we put on ourselves.”

Open by Andre Agassi - recommended by my old roommate Tricia Lee prior to my first-ever trip to Wimbledon, this was a great autobiographical account of one of the great legends (and characters) of tennis, including all of his ups and downs. 

The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. Over the last twenty-one years I have found loyalty: You have pulled for me on the court, and also in life. I have found inspiration: You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments. And I have found generosity: You have given me your shoulders to stand on, to reach for my dreams—dreams I could have never reached without you. Over the last twenty-one years I have found you, and I will take you and the memory of you with me for the rest of my life.

Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet - recommended by Robert MacCloy, this was the other contender for my most-gifted book of 2016. From the email I sent to our executive team: 

It’s the story of a USN captain assigned to command the USS Santa Fe, one of the latest of the 688-class nuclear attack submarines, and how he guides it from one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet to one of the best. Let’s start with the metrics he chose — not only performance evaluations during exercises, but also the promotion rates for the crew, and how many of them went on to bigger and better things in the Navy (captaining their own ships, etc). And what’s even cooler, he focuses on what happens to those numbers *ten years* after he has left command; it’s about building a system that runs itself, not simply about him being awesome. 

He, and the crew, affect this change largely through adopting his philosophy on leadership (which he calls “leader-leader”, in contrast to “leader-follower”) … this matches very well with my own personal philosophy, only he has thought about it a lot more, written it down, and is probably way better at it to boot. :) 

First, a few observations he makes about leader-follower. It’s great when you wanted physical labor from people, and didn’t need to harness everyone’s intelligence. But it tends to suppress people thinking for themselves the farther down the chain they get. Even when it works, it leads to personality-driven leaders (and organizations) that fall apart when leaders leave. There are no checks and balances (he tells a great story about an order he gave, by mistake, which is a physical impossibility and yet was relayed all the way down the chain of command “because he said so”). And finally, he points out that to scale this type of organization demands incredible stamina from the leader(s), who must be everywhere all the time to make sure things don’t fail. 

In contrast, leader-leader is the idea that each individual in the organization has both the responsibility and the authority to do his or her job. This doesn’t mean there’s no org chart / structure (it’s the Navy, after all!), but that the default assumption is that each person does his/her job and his/her manager will only step in when things go totally wrong. Put differently, “don’t move information to authority — move the authority to the information.” The person closest to the work is probably the right one to make the decision. I could write a few more paragraphs on specific learnings and stories but I’ll leave it for you to discover, and/or maybe discuss in the future. Instead I’ll leave you with one major change he made in his organization which, while we’re way less formal, I think makes sense for us as well. Instead of the classic “sir, I request permission to…”, everyone on the Santa Fe says “I intend to…”, and one of the captain’s goals is to go as long as possible saying only “very well.” This means that the crew plays “a game” of providing just the right level of information upwards in any decision to allow the approver to decide it’s the right action (without needing to ask a lot of questions back). 

And the Weak Suffer What They Must by Yanis Varoufakis - I think I first heard about this book from dad; it’s a fun, opinionated (even if I don’t agree with a lot of them) account of the Euro crisis by Greece’s short-term finance minister, starting from before Bretton Woods and going to the present day, and closing with a chilling personal warning about the rise of the Golden Dawn party in Greece and what he believes is a return of Nazi-ism across Europe. As with many political economic texts, I found it hard to separate fact from opinion (there’s an immense amount of “X caused Y”), but the perspective is interesting and certainly credible. 

“Gentlemen, for years you have been disparaging our stewardship of the postwar global financial system—the one we created to help you rise up from ashes of your own making. You felt at liberty to violate its spirit and its rules. You assumed we would continue, Atlas-like, to prop it up whatever the cost and despite your insults and acts of sabotage. But you were wrong! On Sunday, President Nixon severed the lifeline between our dollar and your currencies.4 Let’s see how this will work for you! My hunch is that your currencies will resemble lifeboats jettisoned from the good ship USS Dollar, buffeted by high seas they were never designed for, crashing into each other and, generally, failing to chart their own course.”

looking through Keynes’s papers and books at King’s College, Cambridge, I noticed a copy of Thucydides’s Peloponnesian War in the original ancient Greek. I took it out and quickly browsed through its pages. There it was, underlined in pencil, the famous passage in which powerful Athenian generals explained to the helpless Melians why “rights” are only pertinent “between equals in power” and, for this reason, they were about “to do as they pleased with them.” It was because “the strong actually do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” ... “those who find themselves in the clutches of misfortune should . . . be allowed to thrive beyond the limits set by the precise calculation of their power. And this is a principle which does not affect you less, since your own fall would be visited by the most terrible vengeance, watched by the whole world”

So what did these Bundesbank men do? In a move more reminiscent of a banana republic than a European democracy, Germany’s central bank engineered a sharp recession to oust the government.

Volcker symbolizes the self-confident American policy maker whose greatest fault is an unquestioning conviction that what is good for the United States is good for the world; a weakness compensated for with an astonishing capacity to look into the future and distinguish between that which is desirable from that which is feasible.

If the budget goes into a deficit exceeding the Maastricht Treaty maximum of 3 percent, the commission begins to issue warnings that can eventually lead to sanctions. Usually this triggers a long negotiation between the member-state and the commission that becomes the subject of lengthy Eurogroup meetings, leading to some additional austerity for the country in question plus a great deal of creative fiddling with its macroeconomic accounting.

The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semmler - another recommendation from Chris Holmberg, this could be quite simply described as the hippie version of Turn The Ship Around. :) A discussion of Semco, a reasonably large and successful company in Brazil which eschews all traditional management structures in favor of complete “use your best judgement”. Both are somewhat light on tactical explanations of how this actually works, and strong on the reasoning behind “why”, but clearly there’s something here (and clearly it resonates with me!) 

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, sometimes I just sits.” —Satchel Paige

To put it another way, people who have learned to answer e-mails on Sunday evenings also need to learn how to go to the movies on Monday afternoons.

We brainstorm up to ten years into the future, but we only write down the next six months, a process that guarantees freedom. Besides, every one-year plan that I see has all the good things happening in the second half.

It’s hard for a leader, especially a charismatic one, to avoid becoming synonymous with the company in the eyes of employees and the public. Equally harmful is that leader who believes all the hype and equates himself with the company. To avoid this trap, I believe a dedicated leader must physically distance himself from day-to-day company workings and continually decrease his influence.

I also want my customers to depend on the company, not on me. I learned this maxim from a client who owned a large chain of diners and bought his dishwashers from us at a heavy discount. He was a ferocious bargainer and often tried to go up the corporate ladder for even more rebates. When the unit general manager passed him on to me, I listened at length to his tale of loyalty and commitment. When he finished, I asked him the size of his current discount. I expressed utter shock at the size of his discount (shock akin to that felt by Claude Raines that there was gambling at Rick’s place in the movie Casablanca), but immediately promised to honor it and also have a stern talk with the manager who’d authorized it. The customer hung up, relieved that he could keep the same deal, but knowing that deeper rebates were unlikely. After I’d done the same to a half dozen customers, they stopped calling me.

How did he keep his job when his official forecasts were so off the mark? “Ah,” said the man with silver hair and thick eyeglasses, “I have the right to be wrong, but only so long as I am precisely wrong!” Talk about Alice in Wonderland–style logic!

As an IBM CEO once put it, “We only restructure for a good reason, and if we haven’t restructured in a while, that’s a good reason.”

Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian - this was a book that kept popping up enough I finally had to read it (first Lizzie, then Scott Cannon, and so on from there)…and it was totally worth it. The basic premise is “what do computer science algorithms look like when applied to life?”, and it a) largely jibes with the way I think about my life, b) is a great reminder and exploration of new stuff, and c) is quite entertaining. Think the optimal-stopping problem applied to apartment searches or dating; explore/exploit applied to trying new restaurants; etc.

I find that the three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty. —Clark Kerr, President of UC Berkeley, 1958–1967

A similar insight might help us resist the quick-moving fads of human society. When it comes to culture, tradition plays the role of the evolutionary constraints. A bit of conservatism, a certain bias in favor of history, can buffer us against the boom-and-bust cycle of fads. That doesn’t mean we ought to ignore the latest data either, of course. Jump toward the bandwagon, by all means—but not necessarily on it.

When we start designing something, we sketch out ideas with a big, thick Sharpie marker, instead of a ball-point pen. Why? Pen points are too fine. They’re too high-resolution. They encourage you to worry about things that you shouldn’t worry about yet, like perfecting the shading or whether to use a dotted or dashed line. You end up focusing on things that should still be out of focus. A Sharpie makes it impossible to drill down that deep. You can only draw shapes, lines, and boxes. That’s good. The big picture is all you should be worrying about in the beginning.

The world’s most difficult word to translate has been identified as “ilunga,” from the Tshiluba language spoken in south-eastern DR Congo.… Ilunga means “a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time.”

Now is better than never. Although never is often better than right now.

I’m an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart.… I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. —Steve Jobs

the value of a stock isn’t what people think it’s worth but what people think people think it’s worth. In fact, even that’s not going far enough...We have reached the third degree where we devote our intelligences to anticipating what average opinion expects the average opinion to be. And there are some, I believe who practice the fourth, fifth, and higher degrees.

James Branch Cabell: “The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”

NB: once again, all links are Amazon Affiliate links ... any affiliate fees go to the charity of my choosing, right now Wounded Warriors.