Currently Reading
Finished Books
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Death's End
February 2025
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The Dark Forest
February 2025
The book started a bit slow as I felt like we abruptly changed gears. It was worth reading, but definitely had places where it seemed to drag. It isn’t clear to me what the third book will pick up from that is relevant. The abandonment of basically all of the original characters, less one I think the author likes because they’re a trope, combined with Chinese names that make it hard for me to remember them all was tough. to settle in. To be clear, I don’t want the characters to have Western names. I love the setting and the ability to see China and concepts like a political cadre from a new perspective. I also really like the multi-generational force ideas allowed for by the introduction of hibernation, however making them exclusively the heroes feels a bit heavy handed.
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The Three-Body Problem
January 2025
Wow. I really enjoyed the book. I can’t imagine how a tv series does it justice, so I assume it is a related story that is also good. Beyond the premise, the book weaves together elements of Chinese history I am ignorant of. Seeing events which I was aware of cast in a different light.
This book and the subsequent wait for the hold on the second one to get filled also were significant. Not because the periods were long, it was only a few weeks, but because it finally represented a form of the “slow” movement I could comprehend. I wrote about this more when I blogged about starting this page.
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Ellie Mystal connects a lot of dots through an African American lens I need a guide for. I found the additional context around things I knew, or blindly accepted, fascinating. This is also a very interesting read when set against the second Trump administration’s horrifying start. I’m putting his second book on my list to read.
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Hit Refresh
January 2025
This was a slow read, I started it in October 2024. The book was tough to feel super engaged with and felt like it drifted around a bit laconically and was a bit repetitive feeling. I can’t help but wonder if this was heavily edited or had a lot of ghost assistant writers who stuck to their chapter and didn’t consider the whole book. It may also represent the output of a distractedly busy executive. Either way, it was good to hear what Satya thought (thinks?) Microsoft can be. It puts the internal conversations around Diversity and Inclusivity in context. And, despite being dated, shows how strong the company has been at executing on a Cloud and AI strategy.
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Rogue Protocol
January 2025
The third in the MurderBot Diaries, a return to the feelings of the first book. Definitely distracting me from reading other things.
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Artificial Condition
November 2024
The second of the MurderBot Diaries, this one felt like it was suffering a bit from “middle book syndrome.” It was still a great read and definitely helpful for the larger story arc I’m expecting, but definitely slower at times.
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All Systems Red
October 2024
The first of the MurderBot Diaries, it was a rollercoaster of a read. Light and delightful I binge read it in essentially one day.
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The Hamster Revolution
September 2024
The premise of this time management text is cute. However, by the second or third chapter I was tired of cute hamster references. The book wasn’t helped by covering material I already knew. It wasn’t a bad book, but definitely not for me. It did teach me it’s ok to not struggle through the end of a book that isn’t working.
When finishing the second book I’d noted, that “It isn’t clear to me what the third book will pick up from that is relevant.” This was born out as this book surprised me by where in the timeline it started, but it made sense. This book also covers the most time, which is interesting because it felt like the longest read in terms of the time I felt like was going by as read it. Adding a new “hero’s” story arc feels like an interesting way to refresh, again, with a new cast of characters. That Luo Ji was around until near the end of the book makes me feel like there were other ways the story could be told. There were also a ton of places that could have been explored in more depth. This isn’t a bad thing is well within the author’s rights, it is an interesting one. I think part of the lack of exploration and change of cast comes from the use of the memoir as a vehicle of story telling. It’s clever, but also makes the book feel like Cheng Xin’s life of only about 10 years outside of hibernation over such a long period of time. She doesn’t do a grea job explaining all of her thinking and we are expected to take it for granted, despite us ostensibly reading her memoir. That said, I still think the book was great.