Outside of a Dog

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Masters of Doom: 4 stars

Masters of Doom by David Kushner

“To my taste, the greatest American myth of cosmogenesis features the maladjusted, antisocial, genius teenage boy who, in the insular …

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Lost in the Funhouse: 5 stars

Lost in the Funhouse (1979, Bantam Books)

Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Catch 22: 5 stars

No cover — Catch 22 (1978, Perfection Learning Prebound)

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller

Catch-22 is like no other novel. It has its own rationale, its own extraordinary character. It moves back and forth …

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Radium Girls: 3 stars

Radium Girls (Hardcover, French language, 2020, GLENAT)

Radium Girls by Cyrielle Cy

New Jersey, 1918. Edna Bolz entre comme ouvrière à l’United State Radium Corporation, une usine qui fournit l’armée en montres. …

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: 3 stars

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Hardcover, 2000, Grosset & Dunlap)

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer revolves around the youthful adventures of the novel's schoolboy protagonist, Thomas Sawyer, whose reputation precedes …

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated American slavery, 1619-1877: 4 stars

American slavery, 1619-1877 (1993, Hill and Wang)

American slavery, 1619-1877 by Peter Kolchin

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Heaven's Vault: I. The Loop: 4 stars

Heaven's Vault: I. The Loop (2021, inkle Ltd.)

Heaven's Vault: I. The Loop by Jon Ingold

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Internet for the People: 4 stars

Internet for the People (Paperback, 2021, Verso Books)

Internet for the People by Ben Tarnoff

In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because …

Whom@bookwyrm.social rated Nine Stories: 4 stars

Nine Stories (1991, Little, Brown and Company)

Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger

First published short story volume by the author of Catcher In The Rye.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed Colors of Film by Charles Bramesco

Colors of Film (2023, Quarto Publishing Group UK, Frances Lincoln)

Aw man

3 stars

While this is lovingly written (if somewhat "obvious"), the poor print quality makes it so this is little more than a list of recommendations for pretty movies. That's perfectly fine, it's just a shame since the paper is thick and fancy and they clearly tried to make it look good, but in any lighting I've had it in everything looks so dark and drab on the weirdly matte pages. A bit of a shame.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Here is the text of Nabokov's own screen adaptation of his celebrated novel, written in …

Lolita

4 stars

The silence of Dolores is ear-splitting. Well, except for the bit about everyone hating all that fucking French. I choose to believe that was an authentic thought untinged by Humbert's narration.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger

Meet Franny and her younger brother, Zooey, in two Salinger stories.

I don't like titles for reviews what do I put here

4 stars

These are the kind of mental circles one goes in when they don't appreciate the hard-earned simple wisdom of the saccharine and sentimental. I say that not to dismiss what's here but just to make clear that I have a fundamental disconnect with the struggle described, especially as someone whose religious interest has never been particularly theistic. I moved past the feeling that people are self-interested fakes with no real insight into the world young enough that I never really tried to build intellectual and spiritual supports around that feeling, yknow what I mean? If there was one thing being a young kid exposed to 4chan early actually did for me, it was shuffling me through that stage much earlier than I would have otherwise.

That said, I really love the alternate approach to that mindset we get. Rather than exploring what drives the emotions which create its immature form …

These are the kind of mental circles one goes in when they don't appreciate the hard-earned simple wisdom of the saccharine and sentimental. I say that not to dismiss what's here but just to make clear that I have a fundamental disconnect with the struggle described, especially as someone whose religious interest has never been particularly theistic. I moved past the feeling that people are self-interested fakes with no real insight into the world young enough that I never really tried to build intellectual and spiritual supports around that feeling, yknow what I mean? If there was one thing being a young kid exposed to 4chan early actually did for me, it was shuffling me through that stage much earlier than I would have otherwise.

That said, I really love the alternate approach to that mindset we get. Rather than exploring what drives the emotions which create its immature form as in The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey tackles the grown-up, intellectual, well-reasoned form of the same thing. It goes "You know what, lots of people do suck and lots of what we do is empty and you're right to be frustrated by that. But not everything is like that, and you're doing a disservice to all the good that is out there and to Christ himself if you lump it all in together and shun all that is good yet imperfect." Growth often involves learning not to let our grand observations on the universe override the individuals around us, tough as it may be.

Salinger's dialogue is perfect. Of course it is.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is …

jesus

3 stars

disdain for the rich and empty. brands, GQ, unrelenting violence, unreality, misogyny, brands, designer, restaurant, more expensive restaurant, donald trump, brands, hair, cocaine, huey lewis and the news, thinner, bulkier, taller, hatred, hatred, aimless empty prejudice, everything empty even violence

Ultimately successful in its aims as a hatred-induced breakdown of a particular kind of insufferable person but so unbearably gruesome that my honest feelings are mostly just disgust. I appreciate its rage but want nothing to do with the result. This has messed with my dreams on several separate days.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed Wise blood. by Flannery O'Connor

Wise blood. (Paperback, 1962, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy)

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. …

I wish I could connect

3 stars

Much as I love O'Connor, I always felt like the short stories that Wise Blood was made up of were so loose and dissociative that they fall through my fingers, and reading their modified forms strung together doesn't really change that. Her portrayal of the south is as compellingly rancid and distant as ever. Everyone talks past each other, rambling in ways that only have meaning to themselves. They're all dirty, hell-bound, and know it. This is of course O'Connor's strength, but I have a harder time connecting with her earlier work which feels so directionless in comparison to the much more pointed The Violent Bear It Away.

Ultimately I think faith in any real sense is too foreign to me for any of this to really strike a chord.

Whom@bookwyrm.social reviewed Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises (2004, Arrow Books)

24th edition

oof

1 star

Truly makes one wonder if Hemingway has any thoughts on anything at all.