Citizen
last updated: 2025-01-23 05:45:03.717581
mai’s favorite book. poetry and prose about the black experience in america. author: claudia rankine
the engine whisperers
last updated: 2024-09-07 05:57:50.800882
The Will of the Many
last updated: 2024-06-15 03:31:04.054562
The Color of Law
last updated: 2024-06-04 12:54:38.825633
Selected Cronicas
last updated: 2024-05-08 22:26:24.558016
Lonesome Dove
last updated: 2024-05-08 18:03:20.709812
Nothing to See Here
last updated: 2024-03-31 01:33:30.510244
Kitchen Confidential
She who became the sun
The Devotion of Suspect X
New York 2140
last updated: 2024-03-18 12:06:03.217960
No Shortcuts
Meet Us by the Roaring Sea
last updated: 2023-05-08 19:06:39.316690
The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, the Life of Mexico City
last updated: 2023-05-05 16:00:59.989169
The Ninth Series
The Alphabet Abecedarium
last updated: 2023-04-21 09:02:09.175711
The Angry Earth Series
last updated: 2023-03-11 04:30:58.895135
The Body Artist
The Four Winds
last updated: 2023-03-07 17:24:27.258421
Once There Were Wolves
last updated: 2022-12-25 18:08:01.490701
day of the locust
last updated: 2022-11-14 03:33:44.396012
Carnality
la ttitudes
last updated: 2022-03-04 19:15:49.814517
The Reluctant Metropolis
last updated: 2022-01-24 00:58:06.018857
telling the story of LA County's growth - someone on twitter recommended "the history of urban planning in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, tracing the legacy of short-sighted political and financial gains that has resulted in a vast urban region on the brink of disaster."
The Rings of Saturn
last updated: 2025-01-23 05:46:40.432863
The World Beyond Your Head
last updated: 2024-11-04 01:56:16.652192
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
finished: 2025-04-21 19:13:42.567215
The Emerald Mile
finished: 2025-01-15 23:58:43.500981
High Conflict
finished: 2025-01-03 16:42:41.777079
Severance
finished: 2024-12-15 16:38:57.482077
Bliss Montage
finished: 2024-11-03 07:00:00
Finished this in one day which is the fastest I've read a book in a hot sec. A collection of short stories that are both grounded yet absurdist (a tightrope to walk to be sure - my closest analog for the style is maybe Michael DeForge?). Thuroughly enjoyable
War and Peace
finished: 2024-10-15 07:00:00
penguins classic version going in mostly blind, only knowing the book's reputation as something classic and massive, my first two realizations were a) it’s very hard to keep track of all the characters and b) it’s surprisingly readable? Tolstoy has clear characterization and tight chapters. The actual writing isn't bloated or obtuse and it felt more contemporary than I expected. It's a marathon but not a slog. Moments are evocative, crushing, sometimes hilarious. but man, somehow this 1300 page book feels twice that length. He admits this early on but it's not fully supposed to be a 'novel'. it's Tolstoy's rendering of an important moment in the history of Russia (1800-1812) that he spent years studying and researching (the book was written about 40 years later). The narration largely follows characters weaving in and out of historical events, but regularly step outside of fiction as Tolstoy describes historical context (the movement of armies, the philosophy of movement of masses, the fallacy of 'great individuals of history', etc). These gods-eye-view sidequests can last for 60+ pages at a time. The worst offender here is the epilogue (more than 100 dull pages long) which sucks any momentum the reader may have had going into the book's homestretch and replaces it with a 101 philosophy treatise of free will. I would go as far to say anyone reading War and Peace can skip it entirely and not miss a thing. War and Peace manages to be about everything. Love and loss and battle and nature and god and mundanity and nobility and peasantry and duels and economics and It's sweeping and massive but also specific, human scaled, and cares deeply about the experiences of individuals.
The Poppy War
finished: 2024-03-11 07:00:00
Fantasy story clearly taking place in a proxy for China fending off an invasion from an island state (Japan) pretty graphic in some cases where it mirrors the japanese occupation and genocide during ww2 compelling writing, the first half is a coming of age going to school story and the second half is just ,, war fantasy elements are interesting but maybe a little half baked? a weird hybrid of real history with fake nation states and magic for RF Kuang preferred babel
A Gentleman in Moscow
finished: 2024-04-15 07:00:00
The Song of Achilles
finished: 2024-03-28 19:28:14.890102
Small Things Like These
finished: 2024-03-24 07:00:00
Beautiful short understated Irish novella (can be read in a few hours) about a busy father taking care of tasks in a small town as christmas approaches. Manages to do the wonderful thing fiction sometimes does where you feel the weight of nostalgia for a specific life despite never experiencing it. on the edge of too sentimental but i don’t think it broke the spell recommend
The Policy and Politics of Highway Expansions
finished: 2024-03-20 07:00:00
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/13x3n8zr
Babel
finished: 2024-02-26 08:00:00
Really enjoyed this light fantasy book the conceit is very fun and clever - magic is found in the distance between the translations of words - that things indescribable become tangible and carry their own energy. wizards are etymologists. the book is also clever to set itself in england, and treat the power of language as another extracted colonial good. students from other countries are prized because they are naturally multilingual but still suffer at the hands of a monoethnic racist society - these students are the main characters of the book story is long but tight, the point is clear, compelling world, good characters, recommend
Sea of Tranquility
finished: 2024-03-16 07:00:00
A pretty short light sci-fi that takes place skipping through time as various characters interact with a small strange break in reality i loved the first half, the prose is compelling, and it slowly builds questions about characters and fragments of their lives. the second half of the book then step-by-step answers those questions very literally (a detective looking for clues) which for me it broke most of the inertia i was feeling as a reader? i think still a recommend but largely got worse for me the closer i got to the end felt very classic who dun it where the reveal is the least interesting, or cheapest, part of the story it’s also the first fiction book that i’ve read that acknowledges covid (briefly leaning very hard into a “wow we’re all staying home now and it’s weird!” segment that didn’t really land for me)
Pathogenesis
finished: 2024-01-13 08:00:00
Tale of the world in 8 plagues This is a book about how plagues have influenced and driven different stages of human history. for example how christianity’s popularity was a direct response to multiple plagues rocking the roman empire interesting but not totally compelling, definitely eurocentric first audiobook i've actually finished! roman bathhouses were filthy
The Ministry for the Future
finished: 2024-03-23 07:00:00
Not completely in love but very fascinated by this book that peers into the very near future and fictionalizes how the world will respond to climate change. Brutal in the costs of inaction (massive heatwaves, storms, etc), but also cautiously optimistic about how the world can work together to solve the massive problem of climate change. It's also honest in sourcing the root of the problems to capitalism, and fictionalizes alternative models that rise up in the models of co-ops, socialism, etc. The book strikes a weird balance where it can feel grounded and realistic in the options to address climate change but then can sometimes cross over into feeling like the author writing fan fiction about potential solutions to current problems. Wikipedia gives this quote as partial inspo for the book: "it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism" so maybe that discomfort or disbelief around massive structural change is the point! at the end of the day one of the more hopeful books i’ve read
The Debt to Pleasure
finished: 2023-12-20 08:00:00
Solitaire
finished: 2024-01-04 08:00:00
by Tahar Ben Jelloun a short read picked up without much consideration in a bookstore - follows a young moroccan migrant worker in france living isolated and longing days in a busy city poetic and haunting. want to read more things transportive and undiagnosable like this
The Secret History
finished: 2023-07-20 07:00:00
Cadillac Desert
finished: 2022-11-02 07:00:00
by Marc Reisner maybe the best book i’ve read this year despite some sections that dragged - just absolutely essential reading on the water crisis in the western US. come for the story of how LA stole water from central california stay for the unending subsidization of farmers emptying aquifers to grow crops in the desert
Smogtown
finished: None
history of air pollution in LA and how policy, people, scientists responded to it. I guess grateful our reoccurring 150 aqi doesn't smell like sulfur? also interesting how early there was scientific consensus the root cause was cars (1950s) and all he way in 2022 it's still true!
The Crying of Lot 49
finished: 2022-04-03 07:00:00
by Thomas Pynchon Short but incredibly dense, paranoid, funny? SoCal a la developer monopolies, secret societies, defense industry conglomerates, greasy motels, and semi-faux european history. A quick fever dream of a book, recommend
How to Hide an Empire
Collapse
finished: 2023-09-03 00:00:00
by jared diamond first half was an interesting telling of historical societal collapses (maya, nordic colonists, easter island, etc.) which is why i picked up the book- second half was comparing it to contemporary places like montana and australia which felt a bit out of date and honestly just dragged. veered a little too close to ecofascism at the end (our problems all come back to population ://) also why was there a chapter apologizing
Cryptonomicon
finished: 2022-11-08 00:00:00
really loved some of this but other parts def felt their age. “the internet … I hear that’s exciting now” the morality of how to use broken enigma codes, U-boat adventures, maths, learning about what email was like in the 90s, komodo dragons ~ all fun stuff! Also lots of jokes! but then you'll just stumble into a chapter with huge neck beard energy or a random black-face scene and just like ???? yikes ? this book was so so long please just cut the bad stuff also big sad for Neal to write a book constantly referencing 'crypto' in 1999 (cryptography) and me trying to read it in 2022 lol
This is How You Lose the Time War
finished: 2023-05-30 07:00:00
The Insufferable Guacho
City of Quartz
finished: 2022-07-01 07:00:00
By Mike Davis One of the most important books written about LA
The Dispossessed
finished: 2023-05-13 07:00:00
by Ursula K Le Guin. about a guy who exiles himself from his anarcho-communist moon to preach revolution on a planet with a capitalist system of government. some of it hit, some of it felt outdated/reductive (written in the 1970s) - would have loved to spend more time on Anarres - a compelling harsh environment with a workers society constantly doubting and reaffirming it's way of life.
Worlds of Exile and Illusion
finished: 2022-04-12 07:00:00
3 books by Ursa K Le Guin each book about the intersection of humans across technology gaps. Dealing with colonialism and tribalism. Storytelling is solid but imo Le Guin really shines as a world builder creating complex and specific societies across different human species Rocannon’s world Planet of Exile City of Illusions
An Apprenticeship or the Book of Pleasures
finished: 2023-01-12 00:00:00
by Clarice Lispector beautiful prose, Lispector is such a joy to read. every sentence floats and feels so specifically human. story about a young teacher in brazil existing and longing and falling in love, wish it was more of her wanderings and thoughts and much less of the annoying man who she fancies
All About Love
finished: 2022-01-24 08:00:00
Ecology of Fear
The Remains of the Day
finished: 2022-08-25 19:29:10.786037
Kazuo Ishiguro this book was a short and simple story about an english butler going for a 3 day road trip but managed to be entirely devastating. recommend
the Map that Changed the World
finished: 2022-04-12 23:41:47.579778
by Simon Winchester honestly thought this would be more boring than it was? non fiction about this mess of a man who created the worlds first geological map when he realized strata layers matched in multiple coal mines despite them being miles from eachother. many interesting little english anecdotes like the canal bubble, fossil facts, debtor prisons, all in the backdrop of the napoleonic wars