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The "Foreword" is already setting a fascinating tone to this book, with the narrator already verging on unhinged. I am so intrigued with how it will go, but I am also confused as to how to read it and count the progress. Because, even though the narrator says to start by reading the full commentary first, I don't actually trust him. I think this will require flipping back and forth between the commentary and poem

Picked up around page 90. That was around the point that at least a conflict between the characters came to light. Seems to be a range of intersecting love interests.

Introducing all the brothers. Dimitri, the one who grew up poor and had to work for everything, Ivan, the smartest and most educated (also atheist), and Alexei, the kindest and most well liked (also a novice at the monastery). Also, their father seems like a terrible person.

This is a fascinating time capsule of a read. Some of the takes are so bad, billboards almost being a positive due to being a part of the cultural milieu, and people's commutes on the freeway maybe being two of the calmest and most rewarding hours of their day. Also, the "A note on downtown section" is completely devoid of how so much of it was razed and turned into parking lots (purely for freeway commuters).

This book feels like it is finally picking up a bit. The Roscoe chapters are actually being the most interesting, but it is still the sherif that is the most engaging story of the bunch. Actually getting into some stories and some history of Gus and Call is giving some depth that wasn’t there earlier in the book. Honestly, the first 220 pages were way too long and were dreadfully boring.

The stuff with the sherif is way more interesting than the cattle drive. Also, first death happened, and I felt nothing. For some reason I’m finding that I don’t really care about any of these characters. And I’m still close fused why they’re even doing this cattle drive in the first place. Seems like putting themselves in pointless danger.

A lot of good reasons for reform, and covering topics dealing with over institutionalization, removal of education in prisons, specific ways that women are mistreated in prisons, and how corporations utilize prisons for much cheaper labor. But, not really addressing specific questions of abolishing prisons and what systems would be in its place. One chapter left, so hopefully is in there.

Got much more interesting once part two started.

Finally entered part two and it has become remotely more interesting. The cattle drive prep was very boring and it’s unclear why they’re even going. But, the start of part two with the sherif actually has some level of conflict being introduced to the story. Still no idea how there are over 650 pages left in this though.

Waiting for this book to start. They’re talking cattle now. And Lorena trying to convince Jake to take her with. All still terribly dull.

Waiting for this book to start. They’re talking cattle now. And Lorena trying to convince Jake to take her with. All still terribly dull.

A slow dull read so far. Waiting for the plot to get going. I’ve heard it happens eventually, but I’m not digging this so far. Honestly would’ve DNF’d if it wasn’t for the book club.

Still slowly making progress on this one. Main reason my book progress this year was so slow.

I’m still not feeling it. For some reason this isn’t capturing me yet. Lots of characters and an interesting characterizations for all. But, so far it is just pretty boring. I guess things are still being set up and characters being introduced. But, it’s a snooze fest that I’m having difficulty continuing. Would’ve put it down already if not for it being the choice for my book club.

Second book club book. First chapter is an intro of all the characters, and I think helps give an idea of who the main characters are and the basics of their interactions and relationships.

Going through the consequences of the gene (eugenics), and then the discovery of its structure, talking about Rosiland Franklin, Watson, and Crick.

Learning the details behind things like the voyage of the beagle, and mendel’s pea experiments helps one to appreciate the scale of the work done and how momentous the discoveries were. Mendel’s work especially seemed to be a labor of love, with bear a decade spent tediously manually pollinating pea pods, accumulating data, analyzing it, all to be largely forgotten by biology for around 40 years.

Good technical history so far discussing the discovery of plutonium and how the scientists went about isolating it from uranium which had been bombarded with plutonium. And also the detail that the atomic pile was made with that in mind. Glenn Seaborg also seems like a real dude. Humble and hard working.

Moving into discussions of farming, and how in many cases it was a last resort, and how some early farming communities ended in failure. So, it wasn’t a linear trend of monotonously increasing farming amount.

Interesting critique of some of my favorite books (Jared Diamond, Fukuyama, Pinker type big history books). Points out how their early political development are often oversimplifications, with counter points demonstration how agriculture is an arbitrary branching point, and how hunter gatherers who built monuments or had government were not anomalies. Not sure of his overall thesis, but, the facts don’t lie.

This book is utterly useless for guys. Getting dates at all is an assumed step zero that is not significantly covered. It’s presented as if you decide to date and it’ll happen. Like, she recommends clients to go on at least 1 date a week, and to not date too many people at once (with 3 being highlighted as a good number). These are fanciful numbers from the guys side.

Good information so far. The amount of cross training seems pretty light though, coming from a tri background. The general principle makes sense (3 runs: speedwork, tempo, long. Fill in rest of aerobic with cross training) though, and seems like it would work well for people who are injury prone or need more recovery btwn. runs.

Very bored. The plot that was introduced at the beginning of the book has yet to even be touched again, so the intervening sections have felt pretty pointless. I'm finding that I am delaying reading this, so I'm just going to abandon it. I've read the second book in the series and enjoyed it, and everyone says the further ones are better, so I'll just assume that I'm not missing too much.

The parts where he talked about AI are good. The parts with Horza are so meh. I really don’t care about him as a character, and he improbably is in awful situation after awful situation which are caused b/c he’s surrounded by idiots. I almost just want to skip the chapters until it becomes plot relevant.

Has been a snooze fest so far. Basically we get introduced to what is supposed to be the plot early on, and they gets derailed so the main character can be faced with crisis after crisis that is completely disconnected to the plot. I got annoyed when it seemed like things were moving for it to only be some other vignette. Hopefully it picks up soon.