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smart_as_paint's reviews
172 reviews
Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing by Ben Blatt
informative
medium-paced
4.0
Really inspirational. Pushes me to do more data journalism
An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong
informative
medium-paced
5.0
There's a troubling trend in animal non-fiction where the last chapter includes a devastating description of how all the wonderous creatures in the previous 300 pages are being systematically eliminated by our species' desire for more profit and this book is no different
Spanking Shakespeare by Jake Wizner
4.0
Too Long; Didn't Read (TL; DR): Give this book as a Christmass gift to your teenage nephew. Read the first chapter before you wrap it. You might have to buy another copy. Then again, you might not.
Do you know what it's like to be a socially outcast teenage boy? Jake Wizner sure does. Spanking Shakespeare is filled to the brim with musings and conversations that feel plagiarized from my own awkward High School experience. Wizner brilliantly crafts a high School life so chalk full of awkwardness and flawed logic; it's painful. The pain makes me smile
"I remember what it was like to feel like that"
Another painful aspect of the book is the humor. I say painful because It permeates every section and is basically inescapable. Most of the jokes fall into the stereotypical male, age 13-26 category of humor. Often dark and self-deprecating, if you laugh at Your Mother jokes or when someone says the word 'Scrotum' out loud, you'll probably like this book.
If you find that type of humor, juvenile, gross, and/or misogynistic, you'll probably NOT like this book.
Spanking Shakespeare is a very divisive text. I'm not surprised some people don't like it. But if you're looking for a book to recommend to a high school boy who claims
"I just don't like reading"
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Do you know what it's like to be a socially outcast teenage boy? Jake Wizner sure does. Spanking Shakespeare is filled to the brim with musings and conversations that feel plagiarized from my own awkward High School experience. Wizner brilliantly crafts a high School life so chalk full of awkwardness and flawed logic; it's painful. The pain makes me smile
"I remember what it was like to feel like that"
Another painful aspect of the book is the humor. I say painful because It permeates every section and is basically inescapable. Most of the jokes fall into the stereotypical male, age 13-26 category of humor. Often dark and self-deprecating, if you laugh at Your Mother jokes or when someone says the word 'Scrotum' out loud, you'll probably like this book.
If you find that type of humor, juvenile, gross, and/or misogynistic, you'll probably NOT like this book.
Spanking Shakespeare is a very divisive text. I'm not surprised some people don't like it. But if you're looking for a book to recommend to a high school boy who claims
"I just don't like reading"
I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card
1.0
This is like Taming of a Shrew written by a bigoted washed-up Mormon Incel.
What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe
4.0
If you like XKCD and Randall Munroe's What if Column (found here https://what-if.xkcd.com/) then you will like this book.
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach
4.0
Mary Roach is at her strongest when she reveals hitherto unknown stories of science. The more she gets stuck in the technical details, the harder it is to keep reading.
Grunt does a decent job of focusing on stories, especially scatological stories that often go untold. I found the chapter on food poisoning particularly entertaining.
What keeps grunt from 5-star is a consistent dance around the consequences of war. Roach explains that she doesn't want to include anything about killing. This pacifist approach sacrifices more substantive analysis to keep the light-hearted tone. This makes the entire book feel incomplete.
Grunt provides a wealth of factoids to bring up at less fancy parties. Which is always a good thing.
Grunt does a decent job of focusing on stories, especially scatological stories that often go untold. I found the chapter on food poisoning particularly entertaining.
What keeps grunt from 5-star is a consistent dance around the consequences of war. Roach explains that she doesn't want to include anything about killing. This pacifist approach sacrifices more substantive analysis to keep the light-hearted tone. This makes the entire book feel incomplete.
Grunt provides a wealth of factoids to bring up at less fancy parties. Which is always a good thing.
The Topeka School by Ben Lerner
5.0
The Topeka School is a book. That's undeniably true.
The Topeka school isn't for everyone. While less incontrovertible than my previous contention, it is nevertheless still valid.
The Topeka School is deeply poetic and occasionally Freudian dive into one man's childhood. This is beautiful and engaging but often straddles the pretentiousness line. While I found it the lengthy explorations of one's internal psyche fascinating, others will undoubtedly find it infuriating.
Amazon's handy 'Look Inside!' feature allows you to read the first chapter. If you are considering reading this book, start there. You'll soon learn if you want to keep reading.
Also: If you did competitive forensics (Speech and Debate) in high school, just read the book. It's far and away the best fictionalized description of that environment.
The Topeka school isn't for everyone. While less incontrovertible than my previous contention, it is nevertheless still valid.
The Topeka School is deeply poetic and occasionally Freudian dive into one man's childhood. This is beautiful and engaging but often straddles the pretentiousness line. While I found it the lengthy explorations of one's internal psyche fascinating, others will undoubtedly find it infuriating.
Amazon's handy 'Look Inside!' feature allows you to read the first chapter. If you are considering reading this book, start there. You'll soon learn if you want to keep reading.
Also: If you did competitive forensics (Speech and Debate) in high school, just read the book. It's far and away the best fictionalized description of that environment.