Finished reading: The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life by Ian Bogost 📚
Books
Finished reading: How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan 📚
📚 Killer new short story by A.L. Goldfuss (available for DRM-free purchase!) published at Reactor | Not Like Other Girls
“What’s your name?” Paul asks as I stare at the skin boot and stalk.
I press the fleshy lips together. “Kelp.”
Shit yeah.
Finished reading: Palaces of the Crow by Ray Nayler 📚
Finished reading: Infinite Baseball by Alva Noë 📚
Finished reading: Perdido Street Station by China Miéville 📚
Finished reading: The Hungry Gods by Adrian Tchaikovsky 📚
Finished reading: Where the Axe Is Buried by Ray Nayler 📚
Finished reading: Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky 📚
Finished reading: Why We Love Baseball by Joe Posnanski 📚⚾️
Finished reading: Tiny Experiments by Anne-Laure Le Cunff 📚
Finished reading: Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick 📚
Finished reading: Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald 📚
Finished reading: Joe by Larry Brown 📚
Finished reading: Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer 📚
Finished reading: The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt 📚
Finished reading: Supercommunicators by Charles Duhigg 📚
Finished reading: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 📚
Finished reading: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer 📚
Finished reading: The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef 📚
Had a tough time with this one considering the author provides the following consecutive examples of this mindset in practice: Elon Musk, Trevor Bauer, and Jeff Bezos. The Scout Mindset, at least in some cases, seems to be a secret code for how to be ultra successful in spite of (or maybe because of?) utter moral bankruptcy.
Finished reading: Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer 📚
And just like that I’m sucked back into Area X and planning another re-read of the series, now with additional fascinating backstory.
Finished reading: Why Buddhism is True by Robert Wright 📚
Finished reading: Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport 📚
Finished reading: A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers 📚
China Miéville wrote a book with Keanu Reeves
Thursday, June 6, 2024
Excited about this collaboration between Keanu Reeves and–of all people–China Miéville as covered in Wired. The books sounds great (though I refrained from reading anything past the spoiler warning), but I was most interested in the little glimpses into Miéville’s life and process.
Some highlights include this startlingly insightful theory about what defines “nerd culture.”
And, though 51, he still plays with toys. At one point I awkwardly gestured at this, and he told me, “I have a theory. One of the things that tends to distinguish nerds and their interests is, broadly speaking, that they have fidelity to their loves in a way that other people don’t. I don’t mean other people are unfaithful in a flibbertigibbety way, but! The stuff I was into when I was 4 is still the stuff I’m into. From as early as I can remember, it was sea monsters. Aliens …”
Further, I think Miéville perfectly summed up my own personal tastes in fiction over the last few years. What he’s interested in writing about is a direct analog to what I’ve found myself interested in reading (which includes Miéville1 but also, in my opinion, other contemporary authors like Jeff VanderMeer and Ray Nayler).
He doesn’t write science fiction because he’s a communist or because he wants to bring about the revolution. Instead, he thinks of himself as pursuing “difference” within and across his books: “Alterity. That’s where my heart beats.”
This “alterity” is something that, since reading this article, I realized I’ve been seeking and finding in my favorite literature going back years. When I think of my favorite novels from McCarthy, DeLillo, and Faulkner, this “alterity” and the ways that affects the characters and plot is at the forefront of what I most enjoyed.
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While I’ve read only This Census Taker, I loved it so much that I feel no hesitation about placing Miéville among my favorite living authors. Perdido Street Station arrived today and I am excited to start it soon. ↩︎
Finished reading: This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar 📚
Finished reading: Bunny by Mona Awad 📚
Loved this book. Not at all surprised to learn that it’s been optioned for a film by Bad Robot. Super dark and creative and fun with a voice that really leapt out as being ready-made for film or TV. Lots of interesting things to say about friendship and loneliness and college towns and desire and creativity and jealousy and on and on.
Finished reading: Something in the Water by Luke O’Neil 📚
Finished reading: Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut 📚
The real action is in novelty 📚 💬
Friday, March 1, 2024
I can’t believe all these animals we have are real and we just take it for granted I said before drinking half of my glass. Growing up our parents tell us there’s no such thing as monsters so we’ll go to sleep but a bear is a monster and a moose is a monster and a bird is a monster too. Every bird in the world would rip your head off if it were somewhat larger and you were somewhat slower.
Imagine if whales didn’t exist and then one showed up out of nowhere? We’d never stop talking about it Joe said. We would never get over it.
It’s probably no coincidence that the most famous novel ever written was about how fucked up a guy got after knowing about one particularly angry whale.
It’s just that we get used to the things that are scary Joe said. The real action is in novelty.”
― Luke O’Neil, “Kingston Street” from A Creature Wanting Form