Book reviews written before the website existed. Sometimes edited.
Once you know the rules, nothing but the rules seem to make sense and all the tentative, speculative nonsense gets brushed away. But when you’re still trying to figure them out? Anything that holds together for more than a moment feels etched in granite.
Read MoreThe writing is ultracasual, colloquial, conversational. Its subject matter is linguistic didacticism, phonetic gestalts, Sapir-Whorf boundaries. The writing takes deep and engaging subject matter and makes it approachable. Most importantly, it is fun to read.
Read MoreClose attention to the text—constant engagement with the language itself rather than just the concepts the text is attempting to explain—is what it means to actually read a book.
Read MoreUnlike cricket, which technically I suppose I only vaguely understand, the category termed objectivist means almost nothing to me. Meant. Meant almost nothing to me, before this book. So when I say a solid third of this book is spent dismantling objectivism, well, it’s not fun for the neophyte. Have you ever heard someone talking—at length—about why Sachin Tendulkar, given modern bowls, should be considered as good a batsman as Don Bradman? You might end up knowing a bit about both Bradman and Tendulkar if you put your mind to deciphering their discourse, but you probably won’t walk away learning any fundamentals of cricket, the sport of choice for the two I just mentioned.
Read MoreGrains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler is not a book to recommend; it cannot be skimmed. Ever. Almost to the point of being purposefully cheeky, the fascinating is muddled together with the mundane and tedious. Perhaps the author realizes that a reader will appreciate knowledge more when they must work for it.
Read MoreThere is absolutely no thought given to what a person reading Drunk Tank Pink might be interested in reading. It is as if the hypothetical reader were interested solely in conclusions to the exclusion of any sort of depth; a study guide for the author’s multiple choice midterm, perhaps.
Read MoreEven in the underworld
Old Ji still brews wine.
But Bai is not down there yet,
So who do you sell it to?
Read MoreThe clenched pace induced by the clipped sentences, the pages of panting tension after rather languid novel; it makes the heart race.
This draws a subtle line across The Wolf Border, carving out a space of high literature within a compelling novel. Rachel sees as the reader sees. She constructs—her fear palpable—a dramatic scenario from nothing. What is writing, what is reading, other than that self-same creation? Both are visions wrought by solely by ink.
It isn’t that the action or plot or characters are new or unique; they aren’t. What’s new is the acknowledgement—the anticipation—of how audiences will interact with the conventions of the mystery genre, and how Magpie Murders leans into those conventions to make something new.
Read MoreI AM ERROR elucidates the functional, physical aspects of the Famicom and applies that knowledge onto the end product; it is why Mario looks the way he looks, or moves the way he moves; why the bushes and clouds in Super Mario Bros. are made from the same tiles.
Read MoreWrit large, this beneficial-to-me contract-breaking underlies the inherent incompatibility of capitalism with the decency; it shows that Adam Smith’s invisible hand is a crock of shit designed to justify self-service, that cost benefit analyses are soulless and destructive. They thrive only because they are easily automated, a danger to society that bolsters a palatable vision of capital accumulation: a simple—and repulsive—way to keep score in an immeasurable and vast existence.
Read MoreThis idea—of struggling to have an internal identity that is recognized by society and the world—is not a concept that I, as a white American male, have ever had to consider. I can be whatever I choose, because I am the Western global default; I don’t have to battle against a prebuilt stereotype. There are no modifying racial or ethnic verb prefixes when you’re talking about white Americans.
Read MoreIn fiction, authors need to be subtle. In reality, people aren’t. At all. So they do all sorts of mind-bendingly stupid things that no work of fiction would be able to pull off without being ridiculed
Read MoreAt no point did I ever want to stop reading, however, because each paragraph unlocks another piece of a grand mosaic that eventually leads to a more vivid mental image of current China.
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