I read some books in September!

  • 🎧 Odyssey The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry
  • 🎧 10 Rules for Raising Kids in a High-Tech World How Parents Can Stop Smartphones, Social Media, and Gaming from Taking Over Their Children’s Lives by Jean Twenge
  • 🎧 Nowhere for Very Long The Unexpected Road to an Unconventional Life by Brianna Madia
  • 🎧 Shroud by Adrian Tchaikovsky
  • 📚 Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
  • 🎧 The Circle by Dave Eggers
  • 🎧 The Every by Dave Eggers
  • 🎧 Ghost Work How to Stop Silicon Valley from Building a New Global Underclass by Mary L. Gray, Siddharth Suri

I finally finished reading Infinite Jest in non-audio form. I started it last December, though I did take a few breaks to read other non-audiobooks between then and now. Plus I only ever read it in 10-20 minute chunks right before bed. Plus I took the time to highlight 1,699 passages in the process. This is by far the hardest, yet most rewarding, book I’ve ever read. The audiobook is much more approachable, an absolute masterpiece. I’ve never enjoyed any book as much as I enjoy this one. It’s smart, funny, and weird as hell.

Here’s a random representative sample of snippets that make me grin:

it is often more fun to want something than to have it.

My dad used to bowl, too, when he still had a thumb.

tastes like skim with a brown crayon melted into it.

his handbag, which failed to complement his shoes.

it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person.

secloistered

I am kilometers ahead of you.

logical validity is not a guarantee of truth.

My father was whispering to himself in brief expletive phrases

The string of mucus from Kevin’s nose trembles and swings.

‘The son described his father as quote “genre-dysphoric.”

Gately lay there, overhanging all four sides of his bunk,

He said ‘Fuck it’ again, and I remember not being clear about what he was referring to.

DeLint described winter sports as practically getting down on one knee and begging for an injury.

his weekend binges with the glass pipe caused them no end of Financial Insecurity, which he mispronounces.

A direct assault upon the Academy of Tennis itself was impossible.

I’d heard the term projectile vomiting but I never thought that I—you could aim, the pressure was such that you could aim.

their classes are usually fascinating the way plane-crash footage is fascinating.

He killed himself less than ninety days later. Fewer than ninety days?

no single, individual moment is in and of itself unendurable.

With iOS/watchOS 26 my runs are all 0.1-0.2 miles longer than they used to be, and my VO2 max estimates are 2.0 mL/kg/min higher than they used to be. Or maybe I just experienced a discontinuity in my fitness this week…

I read some books in August!

  • 🎧 Isles of the Emberdark A Cosmere Novel by Brandon Sanderson
  • 🎧 Mythos The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry
  • 🎧 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  • 🎧 Heroes The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry
  • 🎧 Troy The Greek Myths Reimagined by Stephen Fry

I read some books in July!

  • 🎧 Apple in China The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company by Patrick McGee
  • 🎧 Everything and More A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace
  • 🎧 Fahrenheit-182 A Memoir by Mark Hoppus, Dan Ozzi
  • 🎧 README.txt A Memoir by Chelsea Manning
  • 🎧 The Lives of the Caesars Translated by Tom Holland by Suetonius

I read some books in June!

  • 🎧 Six Days of the Condor by James Grady
  • 🎧 One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  • 🎧 Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 Things Become Other Things by Craig Mod
  • 🎧 No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy
  • 🎧 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins