Mark Zhang > Recent Status Updates

Return through the empty quarter!

Night by night with Frannie :-)

Losing track of the number of Aurelianos, Jose Arcadios, and Remedioses 🥴

Goals for the Month of January:

100 Years of Solitude
Masters of the Air
Confessions of St. Augustine

May or may not make progress with Dostoevsky (really want to get time for a chunk of Brothers)

Finish my SWO Engineering qual 🥴

The reign of Phillip Augustus!

Plantagenets vs Capetians

On to Revelations

Brought my paperback with me to Japan this time! So refreshing to read Thesiger. I love the world and I love his wanderlust.

Seamus I am once again renewing my fealty to Steinbeck. Also I hate the banks!

Commute book for when I don’t have my paperback Dostoevsky. Seneca is still as helpful as I found him years ago (maybe little character development on my part?).

I love love stories

Bratja! Oh Brothers! Honestly have a lot of high hopes for this one - everyone I’ve talked to has hyped up Brothers Karamazov.

A hit of nostalgia - revisiting the streets of Novigrad ( memories of 2019 winter vacation and playing Witcher).

I can’t remember why I didn’t continue the series after Last Wish but gosh it’s different to read good fantasy.

He was filled with faith and love
Faithful to his soul’s ideal
Blazoned AVE, MATER DEI
In his blood upon his shield

To live is Christ, and to die is gain

Paul’s letters!

Ippolitcore - bro just didn't live long enough to experience the joys of doomscrolling ans situationships. Oh Ippolit you would've loved 2025

Catching up on my readings between 05:30 space walkthroughs and being dismissed at 23:00… incidentally not really having much to do from 1200 onwards.

Turns out Nepo baby got an inheritance and people started to like him and then others tried to scam him. Messy love triangle but if I were rich like that I’d also shoot my shot with the kept woman fr

Innocence and broke Nepo babies

Unfortunately reading Dostoevsky always reminds me I’m base and evil (Ganya) and too removed from the lamb of Christ that is Myshkin

But oh Nastasya! We need to bring back falling madly in love with beauty at first sight

Enjoyed that Steinbeck loved Wisconsin. I miss home!

@Seamus when you see this just know that I am also pledging my fealty to the American novelist

Tbh this reads less like a memoir of a great American novelist than an ordinary guy trying to find greatness in America. Maine in the 60s was endearing but I have a sense that much of this story will be negative - if not filled with hope for better like all Steinbecks

Actually really enjoy Corinthians

Lotta yapping to say don’t kill yourself tbh

Honestly hurts brain a little to read - but then again I’m not the target demographic of Camus enjoyers

Africa, Americas, Australia and New Guinea just sorta resource cucked from the start on domesticable plants and animals fr

But imagine how cool Bison 🦬 cavalry or Hippo 🦛 riders would’ve been in a different timeline where they were less temperamental