2019, book 8: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline

80s nostalgia and nothing more.

Is this great? No.
Is this good, at least? No.
Is it...mediocre? No, not even that.
But is this kind of fun? Yes.
Is it full of plot holes? Also yes.
But do I wish it were Dickensian in length? Absolutely.

You read this to go "oh right, I loved that game/movie/show!" every four pages, and I found myself wishing for many more sets of four pages. Preferably with some of the dialogue removed, because it's absolutely awful. Let's get snappy with those references, people! In fact, just give me a list of references, and I'll enjoy it as much as this novel.

Was the movie better or worse? Probably better, but it was still schmaltzy and mostly mediocre. It was different, at least, and that is good: it meant an additional set of nostalgic references.

2019, book 7: Skunk Works, Ben R. Rich & Leo Janos

Graham was listening to this, and it'd been sitting on my shelf.

It's written extremely simplistically. Both the language and the thoughts are third rate. Most of the anecdotes are "look at us hard-working brilliant engineers defeating the idiot bureaucrats and also blowing shit up". It's like two jocks sat down and really, really tried to do well on their freshman history paper. Even many of the technical details are wrong—just simple numbers that don't add up, or are blown up to make things sound more impressive. Very disappointing for such a "brilliant engineer".

Absolutely devoid of any form of self-criticism past "I am awesome, and Kelly was even more awesome". Zero understanding that perhaps building weapons isn't the most noble thing to do with one's life.

(Oh: they built some planes. And rolled a ball bearing across a table to demonstrate how small the radar cross section of the F-117 was going to be. That's half the book right there: that particular anecdote is milked nearly half a dozen times.)

2019, book 6: New Lanchester Strategy, Shinichi Yano

Curiosity more than anything. And it's manga, so it takes half an hour to read.

"Nag your potential customers" appears to be the tenet here.

2019, book 5: Foucault for beginners, Lydia Alix Fillingham and Moshe Süsser

I read this after talking to Viv. It's of course very superficial, but it does not make me want to read Foucault.

Foucault appears to mostly be navel-gazing word drivel of the worst kind. "The Clinic" is taking a set of naive observations and stretching hemt to fit other phenomena in society—except there is no fit: it's just square pegs in round observations. This is Malcolm-Gladwell-ism avant la lettre.

2019, book 4: Gouden jaren: Hoe ons dagelijks leven in een halve eeuw onvoorstelbaar is veranderd, Annegreet van Bergen

Though I have my doubts about the amount of scholarship involved, this is a fascinating book.

Two things that stood out: how much the washing machine changed (women's) lives, and the apparent reason for the tradition of spring cleaning (no more coals to the stove, and so finally no more dust, for six months).

It's hard to read this book and not try to guess at what will appear quaint fifty years from now. Internet providers that aren't a government-controlled utility? Gas stations? Credit cards? Laptops? Private automobiles? People crammed in airplanes? ISS?

2019, book 3: Naamah's Curse, Jacqueline Carey

Second to last book in the series. I had to struggle to finally finish it.

2019, book 2: The Story of My Life, Helen Keller

Surprisingly, I had never read this in its (very short!) entirety before.

The plagiarism charges ("The Frost King") were heart-wrenching and new to me.