Joshua Glasgow > Recent Status Updates

Everything about our legal system is so beyond fucked up and unconscionable. Gibney makes the point repeatedly: aren’t these the things the Founders fought a war to escape? Yet here we sit, tolerating a regime 100x worse. I’m not talking about Trump—I’m talking about the whole enterprise. Trump is just the symptom that finally makes you go to the doctor where you learn your whole body is riddled with cancer.

Am I back into reading after a lengthy slowdown? A: Possibly? Time will tell.

2 months in, I’m finally past the halfway mark. This book really is exactly what I enjoy reading and I think it’s very, very good. The only explanation I have for why I’m struggling to read it is the endnotes. I get why they’re necessary, but they destroy the flow of the read and mostly add nothing substantive. But I can’t just ignore them. What if there’s additional commentary? So I check every one. 😩

Just one 15-page chapter today. (Kobo pages) And I’m rounding up from 18.9%.

Holly gave this 5 stars and recommended it. Then she started reading LINCOLN IN THE BARDO, which I recommended to her, so I felt guilted into reading her recommendation now instead of putting it off. 😝 Seems okay so far.

Slowed down a lot because I no longer have to go to an office and am only listening on my way back home from Odo’s daycare, which is like 10 minutes away. There were some more funny moments recently but I forgot to write them down so I’ve forgotten them. 😕 Overall, Arthur Less is a charming sad sack, though. I’m feeling mostly positive about this book, I guess you could say.

This book kind of reminds me of THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB in that it is a mild murder mystery which is somewhat charming but not laugh out loud funny. That said, I’m over 1/3 of the way in and the protagonist is literally at a place called “Sex Island” but there has been zero sex so far. Beginning to think this is a bait and switch. (There *has* been a murder, but that was less of a draw for me…)

Audiobook. Holly read this recently and highly recommended it. I started listening to it while driving to Olympia and back for my new job (!) yesterday. It wasn’t doing a lot for me at first but there have been some funny moments in the most recent 10% or so. Holly said it gets better as it goes, so I’m hoping as I get further in I’ll like it more.

I didn’t really expect this one to be available but it was so now I’m reading it. I have positive feelings about Jo Firestone because of her role in ‘Joe Pera Talks to You’. I’ve only seen one review of this book and it was a 3-star so that’s unfortunately coloring my initial impressions of it. I think her humor is kind of like Pera’s, though: a little more restrained. Gotta be on the right wavelength.

This is a poetry book written by one of my son’s former preschool teachers. I’m unfortunately going to end up being the first person to rate it on Goodreads and it’s probably going to be 2 stars so I already feel bad about that. To be fair, I don’t usually like reading other people’s poetry. But it’s equally fair to say that this isn’t great poetry. If you’re not going to rhyme, just write prose.

I’m a little more into this than I have been now that I’m so deep into the book. Which is not to say that I think it’s especially *good*. It’s fine. I’m thinking 3 stars with 25% left to go. I don’t feel strongly about it one way or the other, but the “mystery” has enough momentum to keep me engaged, at least.

I have mixed feelings about the book. There have been some effectively creepy scenes… but they all rely on the same imagery: the ghost of a badly broken woman, contorted at gruesome angles, with half her jaw missing. There’s been some repetitive moments, too, where info gets restated for no clear reason. But there was a reference to MICROFICHE! (Well, microfilm, really, but still.) Microfiche is classic AYAOTD!

I thought I’d start something different to see if I could get out of my reading slump. I also had hoped to read this one for the Halloween season and time is running out. So far… eh. It DOES seem faithful to the show. But part of what makes the show great is lost in the transition from video to the page. I’m still willing to give it a chance and I think I will finish it fairly quickly. We’ll see how it goes.

Another one that’s suffered from my reading slump. I’m not sure that I’m really into this book, honestly, but I still want to finish it. Eventually. I’ve read a little more of this than my other one because I’m reading it on my Kobo and that’s easier to pick up than a bulky hardcover, plus it’s short chapters and fiction so easier to take. Still very slow going, though. 😕 I wish it wasn’t so.

I am just like not reading anymore and I am upset with myself for it. I DO appreciate this book and want to finish it but I’m never drawn to read it. I play Sudoku or Mario Kart or just watch tv or make TMBG or Animorphs memes instead. I guess I need to pause this and find something that reenergizes me about reading. I do want to finish it, though. I’d also like to get back into writing reviews. 😭

Finished the chapter on Congress and, yep, it’s a joke. Interested to see what Gibney’s advice is for us other than “start over from scratch”. Things is completely off the rails at this point, across the board.

I had to go to the doctor’s office a couple of times over the weekend and didn’t want to have to take my bulky physical book so I checked this out as an ebook. So far, eh. It’s a sci-fi murder mystery which means future cops
are involved and that aspect bothers me. It’s engaging, I’ll say, but not sure how I like it at almost 1/4 of the way through.

The book is now following Yeong-hye’s sister, but the narrator is still male even though they’ve occasionally had a female voice interrupt to offer Yeong-hye’s wandering “poetic” thoughts. No reason a woman couldn’t narrate this portion. Also, the word “superfluity” has been used like 3 times in this book, which is weird, but I also saw the word in the other book I’m currently reading. Very weird!

I’m in a chapter about how American law schools are utter failures at preparing students for the actual practice of law and costs are soaring so much that it is destroying access to practitioners for most people. I don’t disagree with any of this, but I feel like I didn’t need a whole chapter on it. Feels like it’s taking a bit away from the discussion about the “system” as a whole.

It’s now about Yeong-hye’s brother-in-law, who is attracted to her and—I’m lost on how this happened exactly—has convinced her to pose nude for him as part of an art project. Also, there seem to be hints that she’s literally turning into a plant. I don’t know what to think about the fact that the story is largely being told from these gross men’s perspectives, rather than Yeong-hye’s own.

Several piercing quotes, too lengthy to share here, but offering examples of how incomprehensible and illegitimate much of American law is. I’m absolutely happy with this read. It’s in line with what I was seeking. I need more like this on my WTRs.

So far it’s exactly what I hoped it would be. Both a little more informal and a little more formal in its writing style than USUAL CRUELTY, I’m not sure I like it quite as much, but it’s still hitting its points and I’m copying quote after quote, even though I’ve really only read the preface and introduction so far.

Oh god, there’s still so many of these books left. I also still find it unfathomable that I could dislike this series as much as I do despite it coming from the same people who wrote the ANIMORPHS series I love so much. There have been some cool moments, to be fair, but at this point I’m reading the series out of obligation and with a sense of resentment. Nothing in these first 40 pages has set this entry apart.

The BFG farts loudly in front of the Queen of England. I never saw the movie—is this in it? Also, there’s an unfortunate racist moment where an Iraqi official claims that in his country they are “cutting off heads like you cut parsley”. 🫥

Alright, my feeling on the book has turned. There was a pretty interesting event which has kind of become the crux for the rest of the plot and I’m into it. Also, all the stupid fantasy names, while definitely still stupid, are bothering me less now that I have a decent grasp of who the characters are.

Sybel has to call the name of a shadow demon and reads its name in code at first, Rommalb. As it turns out, its true name is Blammor. This is a really dumb name. In any case, the Blammor is the THIRD character to tell Sybel “If you need me later for some reason just call me and I’ll show up, idk why.” Still not loving the book but even as I find some things eye-rolly, I am softening on it actually.

It is growing kind of comical how irrationally angry everybody gets once they find out Yeong-hye is a vegetarian. Is it a cultural thing beyond Americans’ reverence for meat, or is it just as crazy as it seems?

In wondering whether I ever did actually read this as a child because none of what’s happening with a giving the Queen a nightmare is familiar to me at all. Another thing: I will certainly miss doing the BFG voice when this book is over.

I’ve been reading this (very slowly) to my son at night. I think I read it a long time ago, like in middle school, but I did not remember the scene where Sophie and the BFG both fart so loudly and intensely that it shakes the walls and lifts them up off the ground. Also a little annoyed that Sophie only becomes motivated to do something about the man-eating giants once she hears they’re going to England. 😒