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I’ll be surprised if this book covers much nee ground for me, but I feel like I should give it a read anyways to see if it’s something to recommend to folks.

This is a book I wish I wrote, and also I long for more depth in this analysis. A good companion to Dan McQuillan’s book.

I went to an AI conference in Silicon Valley so I need to balance out my soul.

#8 on the Modern Library list. Relevant for today, but also fuck Stalinism

Onto #8 of the Modern Library list. This book may be the most relevant piece of fiction I’ll read given our current times.

I forgot how fast this book goes. First I’m taking off on a plane. Then I’m falling asleep. Next I know another 100 pages are behind me. That seems fitting. ML #18 done.

On to #18 on the Modern Library list. I read this book many years ago, but I made a mistake and I read it and Catch 22 back to back, which is a bad idea. Almost as bad an idea as when I watched Donnie Darko and Requiem for a Dream on the same weekend.

I learned a few things here, it made me think a bit. I’m also glad the book directly addresses attachment theory as explicitly not an identity model.

Maybe I’ll figure out what everyone younger than 35 means when they get very upset about attachment styles.

Anarchism intensified, in actuality

Communism intensifies

The first half of this book is a great overview of most of the basic questions about trans identity. The second half is a bit spottier—I think a lot of my grievance stems from a misread of, or engaging with those who misread, Butler. As someone desperately hoping to break the discursive cycles around trans identity, I’m not sure the book helps this, despite clearly trying to. It gives me a lot to think about.

More transgender theory!

I did not expect this book to be a GPS guides missile aimed directly at me, an American expat in Europe going through mid-life crisis, but it is, and maybe that’s why my first thought is that it’s a masterpiece. But that would be unfair to some of the prose, which is sublime.

Up to #28 on the Modern Library list. I am looking forward to the break from English novelists.