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Young writes so well, yet the premise of this book feels quite uncertain: is it about the joy of reading? Is it about novels and stories themselves? Is it a vehicle for the author to explore the thoughts of various other philosophers? I spent a nice time with this book but could not recommend it. 

The book is very much something you might buy at an airport, and so long as that is what you expect going in, you might have an OK time: I found the book pretty uneven and the ending was unsatisfying. Nonetheless, there are some genuinely interesting ideas about survival and humanity. 

I wanted a really trenchant and forensic analysis of the odd world of crypto and instead I got more of a journalistic process story/gee, bitcoin bros sure are tacky/awful gossipy thing. There is enough that is genuinely concerning about crypto (which, to his credit, he touches upon, although not nearly enough) that we don’t have to make fun of the individual participants.

A new book from one of my favourite authors. A lot less witty than his earlier books (intentionally so, I presume, given his command of language), and I liked it a little less.

I’ve long been interested in how media depicts mental health; and, in particular, fascinated at the differences between its treatment in the East and West (not that these two groups are of course meaningfully homogenous). This book gives you a fly on the wall perspective of someone receiving therapy, which oftentimes paralleled my own mental health journey. While I enjoyed the transcripts, I think the short essays were a little less meaningful for me. The title is really a bit of throwaway, there’s no meaningful discussion of the author’s love of food (or tteokbokki in particular).

A wonderful introduction and exploration of being slow, as explored through categories like work, cities, sex, music, and food. I think of this more of a primer than something that dives deeper into a specific category: which is to say I made very few notes while reading, compared with some other more focussed books. Nonetheless, very well written.

Despite being a little bogged down in middle book syndrome, this book explored the thoroughly bizarre and abhorrent alien race the Oankali, who exist through drugging and manipulating each other chemically. It is hard to escape the book’s bitter conclusion that there is something very dark at the heart of humanity that gives rise to such violence. Incredible writing and world development from Butler.