This will be my last upload on my old blog while I’m migrating everything to Substack. I’m happy I’ve taken time to reflect on my reads these past few years. It serves as a good reminder of what I’ve read in the past. However, I’ve been doing my writing too late for them to serve as useful reminders of my initial reactions to the content. I don’t think I read enough to increase the cadence so I just need to make a point of getting in my reviews fresh after reading.

Books I read this year:

• James by Percival Everett: Most of the story is pretty sad but the ending is satisfying.
• The message by Ta-Nehisi Coates: I don’t remember this book being particularly bad but I don’t think I got much out of it.
• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy: A good read. I’ve unfortunately sat down to write these notes too late to remember my feelings in detail. I felt ambivalent about most characters. I also felt there were some pretty boring sections.
• The autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley: The story got pretty boring after he gets out of prison. I figure he had to be more sensative about how he described his actions and relationships from that point onwards but less of his personality shines through. Overall a good read though.
• The Mind-Body problem and Metaphysics by Ralph Stefan Weir: This is one I’ll have to return to and read more carefully. In addition to becoming more interested in religion again, I’m also more interested in the philosophy of consciousness. I found the argument convincing but dense.
• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams: I find the book entertaining though I guess I didn’t find the main character very compelling.
• That all shall be saved by David Bently Hart: I agreed with the conclusion but I find the author’s writing pretty hard to read. I felt at some point I was basically just skimming. I’ll need to revisit this.
• Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis: This is my second time reading it. Enjoyable but I found it less compelling this time around.
• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride: The writing style is a pleasure to read and the way the author describes the Jewish community of the opening character is very vivid. It makes me interested to know more about Jewish American culture.
• A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis: An interesting short read. I’d love to revisit it sometime soon.
• The poppy war by R.F. Kuang: The battle scenes weren’t particularly good. The way it transitions from their education to the war is pretty abrupt. I also can’t see how people would be skeptical of magic when it’s so important to the war. There are also so many characters and they’re pretty poorly characterized.
• Screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis: The format was pretty interesting but it was starting to get pretty stale by the end. In Screwtape Proposes a Toast he’s mostly complaining about politics and just sounds grumpy.
• 15 dogs by André Alexis: An amazing read. The ending was pretty sad though. I think it tried to end on a half-optimistic note but if so, it doesn’t succeed.
• All the sinners bleed by S.A. Cosby: A nice detective story. Good writing and interesting characters. I may check out the authors other books next.
• Christianity: The first 3000 years by Diarmaid MacCulloch: This was a great read. It’s long though. I put over 80 hours either reading or taking notes. It was great for me to study deeply. Jumping straight into theology is often so difficult. Having the historical context makes things more comprehensible.
• Modern Poetry by Diane Seuss: I’m not generally a fan of poetry and this unfortunately wasn’t an exception. I struggled with this one even though there was a poem here and there I really enjoyed.
• Vatican II: A short introduction by Shaun Blanchard and Stephen Bullivant: A nice short intro. I’ve heard many of the documents that came out of the council referenced before but Wikipedia wasn’t very useful for picking up the context behind them.
• The Catechism of the Catholic Church: This was a long read but it was worth it. It actually tends to repetitiveness I think but it’s a good reference resource.
• Why Not Socialism by G. A. Cohen: Easy to digest if not convincing.
• Giovanni’s room by James Baldwin: Really good and very sad. It does a great job of giving you a sense of impending doom.
• Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: I found the stories of the women very compelling. The authors charicatures of leftist students was obnoxious.
• A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy by Becky Chambers: Very corny. Would not recommend.
• Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner: A bit slow at the start but once it settled in I found it very engaging.
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang: My second time reading it. I still don’t know quite what to make of it.
• Animal Liberation by Peter Singer: Very compelling read. I’ve gone vegetarian this year so I was already on board with his argument. I was surprised how bad and useless animal testing is. The chapter on the history of animal rights is really interesting.
• Washington Black by Esi Edugyan: Good but a bit boring in some parts near the middle. I found the ending very unsatisfying.
• Provoked and Enough Already by Scott Horton: Very, very detailed books.
• The Other End of the Leash by Patricia B. McConnell, Decoding Your Dog by the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists, Perfect Puppy in 7 Days by Dr. Sophia Yin, The Culture Clash by Jean Donaldson: I’m summarizing these all together because I read them back to back and sometimes at the ame time so the content blended together for me. I found some of the content elucidating but not as much as directly working with dogs. I want to revisit these later.
• The Scammer by Tiffany D. Jackson: I found the ending pretty unsatisfying. I wanted to know what happened to the other students. The twist at the end was pretty interesting though.
• The Stupidity of War by John Mueller: Very compelling.
• The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett: Solid fantasy.
• Churchill, Hitler, and “The Unnecessary War” by Patrick J. Buchanan: This is my first book on WW2. I found it interesting though not particulary convincing. He only has a few pages near the end on the Holocaust. At most it shows Churchill seriously blundered at various points but there was certainly a point at which entering the war against Hitler was better than surrender.
• Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker: I’m semi-convinced that FDR wanted war with Japan though in hind sight that was clearly the right move.
• A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin: I loved this whole series but the second is definitely my favorite. It saddens me that we won’t ever see and ending for the series.

Movies I watched this year:

I’m throwing this into reading reflection. I’m not sure if I should make this a more general media reflection. This year I will skip reviewing manga. I wish I had written reviews for the Broadway shows I watched back when I still lived in NYC. Like with the later half of the readings for this year I’m writing reviews long after watching so I’m only going to bother with a general summary of my reaction. While the books are ordered on when I read them this will be ordered by best to worst.

• The Secret Agent: My favorite movie of the year. Both funny and engaging and sad.
• Brokeback Mountain: Very good and sad.
• Sentimental Value: I enjoyed.
• Eddington: Funny though I don’t know what to make of the ending. I was surprised to see how negative the reviews were.
• Highest 2 Lowest: Pretty good.
• No Other Choice: Nice.
• Together: Body horror. Nice.
• Superman: Nice and feel-good.
• The Phoenician Scheme: I hate to out myself as so uncultured by I think this was my first Wes Anderson. I liked it visually but I struggled go follow what was going on.
• Rental Family: Interesting setup. I enjoyed.
• 28 Years Later: I never watched the original. I liked it. Not as scary as I worried it would be.
• Hamnet: Not bad but I didn’t particularly enjoy it.
• Wicked: For Good: Not as good as the first half but I felt the same way about the second half of the Broadway show.
• Bugonia: Okay but I didn’t like the ending.
• Jurassic World Rebirth: Okay.
• Avatar Fire and Ash: Mediocre but I wasn’t expecting much going in.

Looking forward to next year:

I had originally hoped to read more Eastern history but I’m going to have to spend a lot more time reading about AI. In fact, I’m going to spend a lot less time reading for simple pleasure which saddens me.