I had heard good things about this book that takes a broad look at influential people over history, especially but not limited to women and their roles in overcoming a male-centered society.

This is a long book, and one of the things that made it worth reading was the writer’s beautiful writing, a sort of poetic prose that made every sentence worth considering and savoring.

She describes her work as a “project”, and I can understand given the huge amount of information and research that went into this. One of the key features of this book is the author’s ability to tie together people from across history, and see how they influenced each other’s thinking. For the most part I found these connections interesting, but some felt a little forced or vague or unsubstantiated – more like wishful theories than fact.

The scale of this project is huge, and for me sometimes it was a little overwhelming. Within some chapters points of view changed abruptly, and stories are completed in a non-linear way that had a discussion of Darwin’s feelings on hydrotherapy suddenly appearing in the middle of someone else’s history.

There are many key figures examined here, including Maria Mitchell, Johannes Kepler, Margaret Fuller and Emily Dickinson. But I found the section on Rachel Carson the most interesting, and I’m looking forward to reading some of her work in the future.

It was a long read – but overall I thought it was worth the time. If you are a big fan of more of the people I mentioned above, then I’d strongly recommend the book.

Next I am reading The Great Escape by Saket Soni.

This was a book with a pretty unusual perspective: the memoirs of a security guard who was paid to stand around the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, killing time and protecting countless works of art for around ten years.

With all that time on his hands, the author had the opportunity to really appreciate the art that surrounded him, from the old masters, to the Egyptian gallery, and each chapter focuses on some area of the gigantic museum combined with some aspect of his life experiences – his relationship with his family, the loss of his brother to cancer, meeting his eventual wife, having kids.

While I really enjoyed the art analysis from a layman’s viewpoint, I didn’t get a cohesive feeling from the way the book was structured. I understand what the author was trying to do, but it felt a little awkward sometimes.

I also experienced a strange jarring feeling when hearing his thoughts on New Yorkers and their behavior – it has been a long time since I’ve been exposed to the sort of brusque NY attitude and it was interesting to see that he preferred that kind of interaction. Living in Japan so long I’ve gotten used to the careful, calculated and polite conversations that are necessary here.

In this book there are a few sketches of some of the art that he is describing, but the best way to read this book is with Google Images ready to go and to load up the artworks that he is talking about while reading each passage. This book made me take the time to really look deeply into the artwork, and also made me want to visit a museum to try it out in person. In this aspect at least the author hit the mark.

Next I am reading Figuring by Maria Popova.

I haven’t read much by Kurt Vonnegut, and most of what I have read was back in high school and university. I heard good things about this book so I picked it up at the library.

The story was an extremely clever and sharp look at humanity and the power of time and nature. Unfortunately it was not exactly a celebration of the human experience.

But the sharp satire here was pretty funny, and it holds up well even well past the publishing date of 1985. There is some outdated stuff (Japanese economics, acid rain) but for the most part it was very entertaining.

Although the tone was a little wearing on me I enjoyed the book, and I liked that the author took the chance to be completely ridiculous on purpose to make his points.

Next I am reading All the Beauty in the World by Patrick Bringley.

My first work of fiction by this author, and it was a pretty good one. Set in the early stages of Vietnam conflict (before America got truly “involved”) the story is told from the viewpoint of a British news correspondent.

There is a lot in here that tells the future, for America and for colonialism in general. The way he writes the main character I could see how locals were treated, and why they would fight against foreigners living in their country. I don’t know much about what kinds of social issues were going on in the UK and the USA at the time this was written, but I suspect some of that background knowledge would make the book even more interesting.

The writing really makes you feel like you are there – Saigon, Hanoi, and the villages in between that were caught in the crossfire.

This book also jumps back and forth through time, which is common enough nowadays but struck me as a little unusual for an older story. It was done very well, and was instrumental in setting up the tense conclusion. I really enjoyed this book.

Next I am reading Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.

This was recommended to me by a friend, but other than the title and the author I had no info going into reading the book.

In that spirit I won’t reveal any of the details of the story here. The book tells a compelling story, it is educational (at least for me it was), and the pace keeps you turning the pages. There was a lot of action inside a courtroom which I enjoyed – I didn’t realize there would be a legal aspect to the story and that made it more interesting for me.

However, this book came off to me as a sort of mom-targeted. The details, hints and undercurrents of the story were blunt and oversimplified, and I felt like there was a lot more room to gracefully approach the topic rather than hit you over the head with it. So much time and energy is spent on the relationships between mother and son, mother and daughter, and mother and abusive husband.

Overall the book didn’t really work for me. Maybe part of the problem is that it was written by two authors. For me, the oversimplification of the issues was the biggest problem of this book.

Next I am reading The Quiet American by Graham Greene.

Here is a travel writer that I haven’t read yet, and here is an area that I am curious about. The last time I read about Patagonia was when I read about Paul Theroux train journey from North America to South, and the two writers share a certain similarity in style.

Chatwin is very observant and analyzes people and situations well, just like Theroux. I liked Chatwin’s beautiful descriptions of nature – while Theroux focuses more on people and what they are doing.

This book started with an interesting story related to some “dinosaur” skin, and then ended in a very satisfactory way with the author finding the source and even a few fragments. But in between these two well chosen bookends there are many stories, broken into oddly short chunks. Some of them are about his journey, while others explore the history of people who have come before – pirates, relatives, revolutionaries, and criminals (even Butch Cassidy!)

I found myself wishing for more about what Patagonia was like at that time – but the focus here is on its history and it seemed a waste to be there and describe things that had happened long ago. There was little information about the author’s actual travels and logistics – these are things that are interesting to me.

Overall it was an interesting read but maybe it wasn’t quite my style.

Next I am reading Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan,

I think this is the first book I’ve read by Carl Sagan, and since I had enjoyed the movie I figured it would be a good place to start.

This was a fairly long book, so the story could be technically in-depth. I was surprised that there was so much weight on the technical side of things, and I really enjoyed this sort of nerdy style. Especially interesting were the predictions of “the future” of 1999, written by Sagan back in 1985. In some ways we’ve done a lot better than Sagan imagined, but as you might expect we’ve done worse, too.

He builds up the story well, telling of the female main character’s challenges entering the science field, and how she is underestimated her whole life. It is cool that there is this positive view of women in science back in 1985 – but I don’t know how much has changed since then. Probably not as much as he’d hoped.

On the downside all the tech-heavy writing leaves his writing of human issues and dialogue sort of lacking. Especially the conversations between characters felt unnatural and stilted. The author prefers to just download a bunch of information to the reader rather than introducing organically – and when it comes to talk of the future and technology it started to get old.

I can see when making the movie how they wisely cut out some of the fat and made a much more compelling story. I doubt fans of Sagan would complain about the book version, though. As for me, I’d prefer some version of the story that falls between the book and the movie.

Next I am reading In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin.

This book was a little frustrating for me to read. The subject matter is game design, and also it is a novel about love. Being a fan of both those things I expected to enjoy it more than I did.

The book starts with two young people growing up differently than others their age, and we follow their lives as they get older and more experienced with “life”. I usually like books that span a long time and show development in the characters. Unfortunately, the development here was strictly game-related.

Sometimes I see a movie or read a book where the characters don’t just communicate their feelings to each other. The reasons why might be a lack of self-confidence, or they are scared, or they just forget to do it. This book is filled with these moments where they could decide to do the right thing but don’t. And the author then distills as much drama as possible out of the results of this lack of communication, drawing out the drama whenever possible.

The big moments of this book are telegraphed and predictable, so when they finally come they have little impact. The author also has wedged in plenty of contemporary social issues: gender identity, racial identity, sexual harassment and assault, drugs, homosexuality. These felt like they weren’t organically part of the story to me.

This story reminded me a bit of Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, and I think Mitchell pulled off a similar story in a much more satisfactory way.

The story does revolve around gaming and developing games – a topic I am always interested in – but when the characters are discussing games and how to make them it felt similar to Ready Player One – just checking off names to give itself credibility.

It is too bad as this was an ambitious project, and the writer’s writing style was fairly easy to read. It sort of felt like a Young Adult book for Adults.

Next I am reading Contact by Carl Sagan.

This is a book about art and the creation of it. How do artists come up with new ideas? If you are an artist how can you push yourself and become more creative? And maybe everyone needs a little creativity now and then.

Something about this book made me feel like I was listening to some stoner dude in the bedroom of a house party surrounded by black light posters and lava lamps. It felt sort of quasi-Buddhist and statements weren’t really statements but possibilities. After a while every time he wrote “maybe”, “could”, or “can” I felt like there wasn’t much conviction here.

But it was full of interesting ideas on reviewing your filter, your habits, and thinking about how you think about things. There was insight into the life of an artist, and despite the image of a free and relatively stress-free life, artists have a need to create and to answer the call of creativity in a way true themselves is a (noble) burden.

Also I could see a little more into what it means to “understand” art. I enjoyed the content of the book, but apparently the style and presentation of the content – not so much.

Next I am reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin.

China plays a bigger role in geopolitical affairs every year, and since my knowledge of Chinese history is pretty out of date I thought I’d pick up this book.

If any country needs a short version of history, it should be this one. Even in this relatively short book I often got confused by all the names of emperors, heroes, villains – all of which came in and out of history’s favor over the long history of China.

But despite this I really enjoyed the read. The writer had a tough job to distill the episodes that had a significant historical impact, and include the histories that are echoing into today. It was written in a style that is easy to read, with clear attributions and what I felt was a neutral approach.

The author is a big fan of Chinese culture. She took an open-minded approach and avoided including any agenda (from whatever source) and tried to report as much as possible about what actually happened. In this case it illustrated why it is important to think about a country as more than just its government.

Next I am reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.

This book was recommended because of its wisdom and advice on investing. I haven’t been investing very long (unfortunately) but this book would be a great one for people just starting out as well as for more advanced financial advisors or professional investors.

It was helpful to pick up some of the terms that are used in the investing world and to hear from someone who has seen a lot of ups and downs in the market. For the most part this book is aimed at the active investor – someone who is always trying to beat the market (in a good year) and limit losses (in a bad year). As you might expect it takes a lot of work and research to do something like this.

However my investment strategy is to simply follow the market using index ETFs and there is enough diversification (and what the author calls defensive investing) to be perfectly suitable for my needs. So as for specific strategies there wasn’t really much here for me.

Next I am reading The Shortest History of China by Linda Jaivin.

Non-fiction about a woman who truly is in tune with nature, and her surprising friendship with a fox living on her land.

There is some beautiful writing on nature in this book, and author has deep knowledge about the living things all around. She has worked as a park ranger, field guide, and her love for living things really shows in this book.

The format of the book is interesting – events don’t take place according to a traditional timeline. She gets into the heads of some of the animals and show what she imagines their lives and feeling might be like. What comes out of this is a unique view of nature, and I think she did accomplish that goal.

There are some allusions to her childhood (sounded tough) and how hard she has worked to learn and earn a doctorate degree, and you can tell she is intensely proud of her accomplishments and her intelligence. The Mensa group is mentioned (a few times) and I thought that her intelligence or what other people thought about her kind of detracted from the central story here – a unique relationship with an “unboxed” animal.

I was glad to read this book, because it was an unusual look into someone who really does live well with nature.

Next I am reading The Most Important Thing by Howard Marks.

I’ve seen Apocalypse Now before, and recently I was trying to remember if I had already read the story it was based on. After reading this novella the answer was no, I had not.

There are a few layers to the story, and despite some pretty outdated Anglo-centric language it remains a chilling tale of what really lies in the hearts of men. It is a short story but for me a bit too much philosophical musing. I especially like the descriptions of the African jungle and how the view of civilization shifted after the main character’s return.

I may have been assigned this book back in high school English class, but I’m sure that if I had read it then it would have gone right over my head. I’m not certain that it didn’t go over my head this time around to be honest. But it might be a lot to ask high school students to contemplate the nature of good and evil in a person’s heart.

Next I am reading Fox & I by Catherine Raven.

It has been a little while since I’ve read some science fiction, and this book was recommended as something a little different.

The book had all the right stuff for good science fiction – an interesting world (universe?), a deep backstory, and some likable characters. The story itself is quite short, however, and I was hoping for more details.

It seemed like some writers could really expand on the events of this story, and for whatever reason this author kept it short. Apparently there are more books in the series, so I may give the other ones a shot later on.

Frequently science fiction books end up in trilogies or series – what is it about the genre that lends itself to serialization?

Next I am reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

This one has been on my list of books to read for a while now. It is an eye-opening view of a reporter who after losing her job when her newspaper goes under finds entry-level jobs at McDonald’s, Amazon, and a call center company called Convergys.

What this book showed me was that these jobs have completely changed over the past twenty years, and these changes are focused on squeezing every bit of productivity out of each worker to the detriment to the happiness, health, and mental condition.

I’ve often heard people say that “flipping burgers” back when they were younger was a time that was carefree, with low wages but low stress. This book outlines the changes that employers have made to automate scheduling through software and algorithms to use the least amount of workers to do the job if they are working all out.

The workers (including this author) are pushed to their limits, and when they leave or quit there are plenty more to replace them. The author reminds the reader that she always had the option to leave – but for most of her coworkers that option was much less viable.

The book was grim, but also it showed the cost of rock-bottom prices and 24 hour customer service. Sometimes the tone got a little over dramatic, and although there were sources for some of the academic journals cited other times it felt like more word-of-mouth when relating the point of view of the workers themselves.

She wrote in a very approachable way, and it was fun to kind of sneak into these jobs and see what they are like on the inside. But in the end it tells a pretty depressing story, and shows just how easy some of us have it.

Next I am reading Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather.