Ryan > Recent Status Updates

I might literally finish this someday! At this length, I've found Dante-Shakespeare-Goethe-Tolstoy levels of genius and originality to be relatively difficult and somewhat impenetrable.

Is it biased against Africans? Sure, but it's biased against everyone, against Europeans, Asians, South Asians, Americans, biased against humanity. Highly cynical, almost nihilistic, there's no surprise that it came from the pen of a man doomed to die at 40. But the writing is superb.

Best cover ever. I'm coincidentally reading 2 books by people who died at age 40 or before (39 Thomas, 40 Shiva Naipaul). I don't notice much, but even I noticed half way through this how profound an influence DT was on the Beats. Not just in his aura of Romanticism and Bohemianism, but in the actual prose. Some of the rhythms and cadences could be straight from On the Road, but it was written over a decade earlier.

Can anyone recommend some reviewers of the classics or of science fiction that they like and that review in Spanish?

Reading slump for a cause! I'm learning Spanish via comprehensible input, which is working WAY better for me than when I studied French via traditional methods years ago. But averaging almost 4 hours a day is sapping my reading time. Though, in a few months, I'll be reading in Spanish...

There were elements here of locked room and spy thriller, not to mention some spectacular leaps of logic, that made it not as interesting for me as some of the other titles in the series, but the charm of Emily and Flo keep it at a solid 3 stars.

I was playing wargames and RPGs 40 years ago and CCGs nearly 30 years ago, but eurogames are a much more recent find for me. This is quite limited in scope, discussing mostly just the Spiel des Jares winners (and notables), but in that way it's also focused. Really pretty cool to see how tabletops have evolved since the first award in 1979.

Well-written and intelligent, beautifully pastoral.

I thought this was really good as a story of the war in Bosnia - I was there as a tourist in the late 90s and I really enjoyed the author's perspective, but as a story about a cat I couldn't help but be disappointed at the end.

A solid post-apocalyptic tale. I didn't find it quite as literary as something like Station Eleven and it's way more brutal than The Road, but it's worth a read if you steel your sensitivities beforehand.

One could hope that everything one reads is this absorbingly charming.

I found this unconvincing. If you're looking for alternate universe detective noir, China Mieville really pulled it off with The City and the City. If you're looking for great fiction from Ben Winters, try The Last Policeman trilogy, which was, for me, completely convincing.

Terribly sad.

Though I am neither an archaeologist nor a scholar of ancient history, my next cat will definitely be named Šuppiluliuma III.

I board Eurodam this weekend so...

It's early yet, but this is reading like it has a high probability of being my favorite book since Adam Bede 9 or 10 months ago.

Brilliant, loved it.