Kyle Toth > Recent Status Updates

So far, hilarious! It helps that it’s British humor, which I’ve inherited from my grandmother.

I don’t see how it’s relevant to the present, despite the claims that it’s used in sports and business. It’s mostly about two things: logistics and faking out your opponent. Still, it’s a surprisingly pleasant read. It has a very poetic, philosophical style to it.

I had to skip the first bit because for some reason the author writes out a whole story about he and his non-existent grandson doing research on the equally non-existent “original author” of the book. Why bother with all that? And cruel as it may sound, I want to read The Princess Bride, not the story of the author’s divorce. I’m not even sure if that happened, between the fake grandson and original author.

It’s taken me over a decade, but I’m finally close to finished! Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten an engineering degree since then, but I appreciate the detailed descriptions of the castaways’ projects better this time around.

I can see why the author has her own statue, may she rest in peace. She pulled no punches describing the horror of Nanking’s invasion, and rightly so. My grandfather was a WW2 veteran: my family has read books, watched documentaries, and discussed the war for decades because of that. But even I’ve never heard of this before, other than a passing reference on The Office. Everyone needs to know about this.

Keeps getting better the further you get from the hospital scenes.

While it randomly brings up the evils of slavery several times, this has been a surprisingly good book so far. A little bit like cliff notes mixed with a biography. I can tell the author really is passionate about the original story (which checks out, since he wrote “In the Heart of the Sea).