Adam > Recent Status Updates

Skimmed the past 450 pages over the past week and half. I do not think ai missed much.

Probably will come back to this book. So expect infrequent updates.

Just finished the chapters about LA and SF, respectfully. I found both fascinating.

Getting really good!

Writing impeccable and characters all flawed. Loving it.

Books like this drive me BONKERS. It does not need to be over 900 pages. So much is filler that the book could easily be 200 or 300 pages less and be a spectacular novel. The verbose nature, however, makes me feel like I reading a philosophy textbook as opposed to a novel.

REALLY interesting so far.

Getting a little better

Dense but informative.

I read the first book after watching seasons 1 and 2 of the show. Loved it! Especially the subtle changes the show made. It kept the book and show fresh without ruining either. I am excited to read this one before watching seasons 3, which recently came out.

Book VERY different than I expected. Harris on point 3 of 4 ways to solve “planetary” crisis. His first three are Marketcraft, Public Power, and Communism. So far I agree with most of his points, but the writing style leaves MUCH to be desired.

Good not great.

Slow and steady. Interesting facts but DENSE.

Going to take a while to read this. Each story is short but the book is over 700 pages and big.

Still interesting, but may read and/or listen to other books and come back to this one.

So informative! Extremely dense, however, so may read a chapter, take a break, then read another chapter.

At the part where he starts living in the slums. The writing is still a bit verbose for my personal taste (lots of philosophical takes), but the story is interesting.

Getting back to this book after shelving for a while. Good not great.

Liking it…but loved the regular book better.

He makes solids point utilizing (questionable?) evidence. Unfortunately, he almost negates his entire argument because I feel like every other page he claims the “big bad media” is trying to convince you Global Warming is going to kill you. This is a bit extreme and regularly takes away from his main argument.

Author attempting to integrate previous historical figures into a greater narrative about the West. It is a bit disjointed, in my opinion.

I am enjoying the story, but the long philosophical prose of the narrator is NOT my jam. Especially knowing the book is 900+ pages.

Now learning about María Gertrudis Barceló, a famous gambler and saloon owner in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Part 2 is about James Pierson Beckwourth, which I have not read about since grad school back in 2014. I enjoyed hearing this author’s interpretation of Beckwourth’s journey.

Just finished the section on Sacagawea. It is telling the difference in this author account of her versus other historical works.

This is very similar to King’s other work “The Outside.”

Dinniman really has found his voice. The character development, plot development, and world building is on point.

This book is growing on me. I feel, however, that every other paragraph I find myself going “Hmm…I don’t know about the validity of that claim/argument, what source(s) is he citing?” I then go down an inquiry that may lead to a rabbit hole of Googling & research. This is not a bad thing, but I doubt most readers would take this approach and instead take the claim at face-value, which CAN be a VERY bad thing.

If the author did not shove down your throat the misleading statement of “The media shoves Global Warming gloom and doom down our throats” every few pages I could take this author’s contentions more seriously.