Tiff > Recent Status Updates

Fuck yeah, loving this book. This is some fun nerd shit.

The chapter on forced arbitration was pretty sobering. Employees in the private sector in the U.S. are blocked from bringing civil rights cases to public courts, and consumers are blocked from many, many class action lawsuits. You really get a sense of what’s been lost over the last 40 years, in terms of precedence.

This one is gonna be a juice one, I can tell.

Why does everything in 2024 feel like a scam? I’m enjoying the book because it’s entertaining but I in no way think most of what’s in this book is true. I also can’t find a shred of published research from the author, even under her real name. And there’s some questionable information about where she got her PhD, whether the uni was accredited or not at the time.

Enshittification is upon us, truly.

I’m engaged and enjoying this book, but I’m also reading it like a piece of fiction—which is how I think this book should be read. Sociopaths lie, right? And a lot of this seems made up. Which is fine when you read it as if it’s fiction.

Cannot. Put it. Down.

Eternally grateful I found this book so early in my creative writing journey. I borrowed it from the library on my e-reader, but I just ordered a print copy to have for reference.

Major bonus points for FINALLY defining “tone”! (It’s the distance between your narrator and your character, which defines story’s emotional orientation in relation to the world.)

My reading theme this year seems to be “revolting.” Between this and Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings, you’d think I have a thing for cannibalism. But for real, as divisive as this book is in the reviews, I think it’s well crafted and I’m learning a lot about world building and economy of language.

Feeling like I’ve read 4 novels in one. The breadth of this story is incredible but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t waiting for the tying in of earlier stories, so it’s proven to me that those stories weren’t just meanderings. The medical mystery closer to the end is reeeeeally cool, though.

Literally seething at how much I love an Oprah’s Book Club book. 😰

The first 100 pages had me worried I’d be in for a boring time for 700+ pages, but now I’m hooked. “Sweeping” tale is right. It’s going to take me a while to finish but at least now I’m really enjoying myself.

It’s so easy to become a centrist as we get older. The pragmatism sets in, and maintaining the radicalism of your youth becomes work. Books like this help keep me radical when it’s easy to be cynical.

I made a great choice to dump the previous book I was reading—VC capitalist magical thinking—for this one, which has all the academic rigour I require for my nonfiction reads. Astra Taylor is taking me through a history of the enshrinement of the right to security throughout Britain and North America, and I’m learning a lot!

Coming off the obsessive academic rigour of Robert Sapolsky’s book, this one has me scoffing at Kai-Fu Lee’s VC-brain ramblings. He cited no sources and gives off the impression that reality will simply bend to his will and create an AI utopia, as if all that really matters is the technology. He missed opportunities to be thoughtful about variables outside the tech.

I should have seen it coming that Toyoma would try to have sex with someone in his family, but somehow I didn’t. That’s on me.

Omg. Home stretch. This is a phenomenal book. I’ve loved Sapolsky for years, but I’m even more pleased to find out how much of a compassionate radical he is, all using logical arguments against free will. His rejection of criminal justice reform in favour of complete overhaul was so refreshing to read. What a fucking giant.

We probably wouldn’t all run amok if no one believed in free will. Atheists (whaddup!) aren’t any less moral than religious people.

I’m studying the timelines of short stories for my own, and I’m noticing that Bora Cheung’s take place over much longer time periods than the “typical short story”. She skips through time with blunt language that amplifies the absurdity of events, like in “The Embodiment” and this woman’s blood clot pregnancy.

Did I just read a story about a woman who unintentionally creates a toilet gremlin with her own feces and menstrual blood? Yes, I sure did! And I loved it!

First half of the book, done: I’m basically convinced there’s no free will (not difficult, I’ve always thought we operate inside an invisible cage). Now, on to the second half: What happens if we actually live as if there’s no free will? Knowing Sapolsky, I’ve got some sick story time ahead of me.

Just finished the Nature Is Metal section, and my brain is sizzling in its own emergent system petri dish.

Just a thing to note: Robert Sapolsky’s lovely personality shines in the footnotes, which I didn’t know how to access at this point because digitized books have some notable drawbacks re: design.

Pretty great beast of a book so far. It’s been nice getting a refresher on Sapolsky’s greatest neuroscience research from previous books, and I’m looking forward to the section that explores the societal implications of the acceptance that there is no free will.

This book should come with a warning: Don’t read unless prepared to do the mental work of separating art from artist.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t reading this book with a healthy dose of millennial jealousy. To judge this book fairly, and even to enjoy it, I need to partition off one of many truths: Tom Robbins’ literary ambitions aligned with when he was born. When I manage to quiet that fact, I enjoy the man’s word magic.

Finally getting to the good stuff, as in I know the drugs are coming soon.

I missed Tom Robbins’ writing style, it’s been too long!

Yep, so there’s definitely alien rape happening!

Octavia Butler was a visionary. Can’t believe I’ve lived all this time on earth before getting to one of her novels. Can hardly put this down.

It’s been a loooooong time since I read Ann Patchett, and I was nervous I wouldn’t like this book because although I LOVED Truth and Beauty 20 years ago, I’ve always thought her fiction was just okay. It’s a little more “TV movie” than I typically go for, but I’m still enjoying it because Patchett is clearly a master of her craft.