If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?: My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating by Alan Alda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Good book about the importance of good communication and how to improve at communicating with others. I’m familiar with some of the research that Alda referenced from other books. Alda seems to over-emphasize his own ideas and under-emphasize more researched strategies such as reading literary fiction (though he does mention it). He spends too much time making fun of “shakras” and not enough time explaining the research on the effectiveness of meditation and a simple explanation of say, breathe meditation. Still, it is definitely useful to read, and the more people that read it the better.

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Apology by Plato

Apology by Plato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Interesting, moving, my favorite dialogue so far. Though we've all heard "the unexamined life is not worth living" I particularly enjoyed the full quote (depending on your translation this may vary obviously):

"And if I say again that the greatest good of man is to converse daily about virtue and all that which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the unexamined life is not worth living, that you are still less likely to believe. And yet what I say is true, although a thing of which it hard for me to persuade you."

This quote is a great precursor to Jesus:
“The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.”


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Antimatter by Frank Close

Antimatter by Frank Close
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is a very short book about antimatter, but it took me a really long time to read because it was very difficult to understand in places. The beginning gave the impression of being more of a popular science book with lots of bad jokes and whatnot but things grew in complexity to the point where I was rereading certain sentences again and again. I don't regret reading it because its specificity to antimatter makes it different than the more general physics material I've read (like when I read that book on black holes, The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics), but it was tough going.

It's also almost 10 years out of date now, so if I really want to know about antimatter, I'm going to have to update myself on the more recent discoveries.

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Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book appears to have the seeds of other better books like Anathem and Ready Player One, but it's fun, imaginative, and delightfully detailed.

I participated in the 24 in 48 Readathon this weekend, and as part of the readathon, I finished this book. I didn't make it up to 24 hours, but I'm satisfied that I got to enjoy so much of this story over the weekend.

Readathoning

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20 Poemas de Amor y Una Canción Desesperada by Pablo Neruda

20 poemas de amor y una canción desesperada by Pablo Neruda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this in Spanish, and I generally enjoy Neruda much more in Spanish. The problem here is that good poetry in Spanish is very difficult for me, and I might be missing something significant here. Ideally, I'd read this in both Spanish in English, so I'm off to find an English copy.


Current favorite line, Poema 14:
"Quiero hacer contigo
lo que la primavera hace con los cerezos."

As an aside, he really loves the word "crepúsculo" which mean twilight in English. Crepúsculo crepúsculo crepúsculo.

Here's an online copy of the poems in Spanish if anyone is curious: https://www.poemas-del-alma.com/20-poemas-de-amor.htm.

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Love Poems by Pablo Neruda

Love Poems by Pablo Neruda
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this in English and in Spanish, and I wasn't crazy about this collection. I thought the poems were just a little better in Spanish. I especially liked the laughter poems in Spanish better. I find the English easier to understand because I'm more comfortable with it, and the Spanish a bit more musical, but there's not a huge difference in these particular poems for me. Love is a maybe the most difficult topic for poetry, and this just left something missing for me.

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City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin

City of Illusions by Ursula K. Le Guin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a thousands-of-years-later sequel to Planet of Exile, so I recommend reading that one first, though it's not strictly necessary, as all the Hainish Cycle books stand alone pretty well. The beginning is a pretty straightforward adventure fantasy book with a hero on a quest, but soon becomes more of a puzzle that the reader has to engage with, while simultaneously pondering what constitutes a person's identity.

Le Guin wrote books 3-5 of the Hainish Cycle first: Rocannon's World (1966), Planet of Exile (1966), and City of Illusions (1967). I've read those and the prequel (book 1) The Dispossessed. So far this is my favorite in the Hainish Cycle. I'm going to read The Left Hand of Darkness (book 6) next.

RIP Ursula K. Le Guin. Thank you for all the books.

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Fire and Fury by Michael Wolff

Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff


I'm not going to give this a star rating for the time being. I'm just going to share my thoughts for now.

For me, the first question is how do I know anything in this book is true? Well, the most convincing thing is that there isn't a lot of "new" information in this book so much as there is a more complete picture based on behind-the-scenes information from inside sources. A lot of what is in this book has been public information in terms of Trump speeches, interviews, and tweets. The author himself was given White House access and claims to have been there for a lot of the events. About a half of the book is information and impressions that must have been provided by Bannon. Bannon's information appears colored by his dislike of Jared and Ivanka Kushner but does not appear otherwise significantly biased. (By which I mean that Bannon is pretty open about the ways in which he's evil, and isn't too bothered about it.) Jared Kushner himself leaked a great deal of information which seems to be in play in the book as well-- especially trash talk about Bannon. That leaves very little which I have any reason to doubt. Perhaps there isn't any good reason to believe the details of Trump's relationship with Melania, but that appears to be it.

Even though there's not a lot of new or shocking information, I think the book's full narrative of events is useful. For example, before reading this book, I kept thinking that maybe Donald Trump was "crazy like a fox." But after reading this, my impression is that he's just really ignorant (more than I thought) and even less curious about reality than I thought he was. He seems to believe he can just invent his own reality and buys into it to a certain degree. All of this is puzzling and troubling and definitely gives different coloring to how I view recent political events.

The conclusion is that Trump is unfit to be president according to his own advisors. Additionally, his advisors are unable to educate him or restrain him in any meaningful way. He is inconsistent and has poor impulse control. The "fire and fury" quote which the title uses is from Trump's threats to North Korea, but the book ends before the bulk of his North Korea threats. The whole world is at danger from this presidency and everyone knows it, but the people with the power to do anything about it, Senate Republicans, refuse to do anything.

PS: The Prologue and Chapter 1 aren't written as well as the rest of the book. If you find the beginning annoying you might want to reserve judgment until Chapter 2.

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Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges

Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Borges writes philosophical fantasy and sometimes mystery stories.

1. Borges and Me/ Borges y Yo (4 stars)- I've read this one in both Spanish and English. I don't prefer a version. It's a simple short story about Borges's identity as a person versus as a writer that I enjoyed.

2. The Garden of Forking Paths (4 stars)- One of the things that is particularly interesting to me about this story is that its concept of time has been hypothesized by the multiverse theory of physics. The first person to propose information that would later lead to the multiverse theory was Erwin Schrödinger, in 1952, some years after Borges wrote this story.

3. Man On Pink Corner (5 stars)- Rosendo Juarez, men and dogs respected him. A fun little murder mystery. Pay close attention!

4. The Library of Babel- (5 stars) Amazing thought experiment/ work of philosophy. (Note: The library in The Magicians anyone?)

5. Death and a Compass/La Muerte y La Brujula (3 stars)- Read in Spanish and in English. Erik Lönnrot tries to solve murders which seem to follow a kabbalistic pattern. This one appears to be a favorite as it appears in all three of my Borges anthologies, but it's not one of my favorites. It's tricky and clever but I don't get much more from it.
"... la realidad no tiene la menor obligacion de ser interesante."
"... reality does not have the slightest obligation to be interesting."

6. The Lottery in Babylon/ The Babylon Lottery (3 stars)- More of the ideas of infinite choices and possibilities expressed in The Garden of Forking Paths and The Library of Babel. This is not my favorite execution of Borges's ideas about possible futures and philosophy.

7. The Maker (3 stars)- Very short, and I didn't get much from it.

8. The Zahir (3 stars)- Whatever this metaphor is I missed it.

9. The Encounter (3 stars)-Knife-control? Didn't love this story either.

10. The Circular Ruins (3.5 stars)- This is a very "La Vida es Sueno" type story. It's lovely though not earth-shattering.

11. Shakespeare's Memory (5 stars)- I love a lot about this story. I love Borges's conception of personhood. I love Shakespeare. I love the way Borges blatantly shows off his literary chops. Like many of his other great stories, you start to inhabit the story as if you are dreaming it and you lose sight of the real world around you.

12. August 25, 1983 (4 stars)- Hello me, it's future you. Don't you have anything useful to tell me? Nope.

13. The Immortal (5 stars)- As above, I am lost in the dream.

14. Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote (3.5 stars)- A bit of a spin on Borges y Yo basically.

15. The Story from Rosendo Juarez (3.5 stars)- Sequel to a Man on a Pink Corner!

16. The Aleph (5 stars)- What a super amazing story of romance. It is an insane work of fantasy. It's an interesting work of spirituality and philosophy. I love the ending. My heart might explode.

17. Dreamtigers (2 stars?)- He really was obsessed with tigers though. It's in almost all the stories.

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Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds

Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is incredibly sad, dark, witty, funny, and awesome. It reminds me a little of A Christmas Carol, but it's completely its own. I also love the conceit of the poetic form to the dribble of the ball on the court or in the small space of an elevator.

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