Vacation Book Reading

Hard to get into, but once you are there worth the read. The biggest take away for me was the idea of "the mass" as being created by the medium, so people reading (say) twitter all of a sudden become this group, which doesn't really have an existance, but, like Santa Claus, changes everyones reality.

Expected very little of this, got much more than expected.

Its funny to reread these books when you are older and get all of the references. Really holds up, both as a satire on the Heinlien adventure-boy genre, but as an interesting discussion on how to fit inbetween places. It's a very impressive feat to put so much philosophy and sociology in a page turning absurdist caper plot that keeps 12 year old's attentions.

Since Ksenia is Russian I have a new appreciation of the Russians and Soviets. Not totally satisfying as a mystery, but felt like I got a glimpse into Moscow in the 60s.

As far as server side JavaScript frameworks go, this is exceedingly clever but I'm not sure that it really makes things simplier.

Ah… English and their distain for the wrong sort of hemegonic thought. In many ways the same sort of book as the Stainless Steel Rat – satire and commentary under the guise of silliness, as a way to harmlessly subvert the – but ultimately just one thing after another. Fun if you are in the right sort of mood.

I can't possibly do much justice. The smallest book that took the longest to read. Very interesting to see the early ways and how of how Buddhism got into the states, and also so many important reminders.

What's funny about this book is that it spawned an empire, and reading just the first one you'd never really expect it. Also a bit of time travel here since it's in the precell phone days and it's hard to find anyone.

This book was amazing – both obscure and also exactly of my world, I knew all of the references and all of the things they talked about and I had forgotten so much. Was also interesting the interview with what we would now call an incel, but before the time when the sadness had turned into hostility towards these losers. I very much respected this author and tracked down a whole bunch of other stuff she wrote.

An absurd story inside of a dumb story wrapped in a magical outer story that brought it all home at the end. I do want to read more of his work, but not in a rush.

Poe invented nearly everything! The so-called ending of this book is infuriating, but the ripples of it have influenced so much. Its the sort of book that's a key to understanding a whole bunch of other books, so necessary in a complete-your-education sort of way, but without the context it's a bit strange.

I never heard of Carlos Ruiz Zafón before but picked it up in a small english section of a Benidorm bookstore, very clever, moody and oddly soothing. Will go through the rest of his oevre.

Reading Orwell after reading both the Gutenberg Parenthesis and reflected on Foucaults 40 years was a tremendous experience and I look at intellectual efforts completely differently now, and honestly feel better about the state of the world than I did before. With the Supreme Court making kings and the farce of the elections its not getting worse; its actually the same as it ever was and we were just fed a load of liberal democracy nonsense all this time, and it's capital and power all along.