“If you can’t understand it without an explanation, you can’t understand it with an explanation." - 1Q84 What most surprised me about 1Q84 is that I actually liked reading it! I have read enough Murakami that as I was reading the book I knew that he was not going to explain an . . . Read more

With every Camus book there are two major problems: The writing is purposefully contrived, possibly lost in translation from French. The meaning is purposefully contrived, possibly lost in translation from French. In spite of this, I just cannot get enough of his books. He is the most enlightened pe . . . Read more

“What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds?” Crime and Punishment is Dostoevsky’s criticism of naive rationalism, utilitarianism, and armchair philosophizing. For such a boring topic, this is a surprisingly fun read. Adhering to his own cri . . . Read more

HBO is bringing out a remixed version of the Watchmen and it brings back some very fond memories. When I first saw Zack Snyder’s Watchmen I had never heard of Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman. I had seen Snyder’s flashy, extreme slo-moed, over the top 300 which, if nothing else, was an enjoyabl . . . Read more

Sherlock Holmes was perhaps one of the first non-school books I have ever read. My first books were goosebumps, nancy drew, hardy boys and then I graduated to Sherlock Holmes and LOTR. I mostly read Sherlock in the summer, when I would have a lot of free time and would often be traveling to see my e . . . Read more

"As I approached my fiftieth birthday, I had become more and more enraged and mystified by the idiot decisions made by my countrymen. And then I had come suddenly to pity them, for I understood how innocent and natural it was for them to behave so abominably, and with such abominable results: They w . . . Read more

“One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.” - Sophocles Oh man, what do I say about this novel? It was excruciating to keep reading it, perhaps for something like 90% of the novel my mental state was somewhere between mildly frustrated and benignly annoyed. But I’m . . . Read more

Survival is insufficient, is what it says on the lead caravan of the Traveling Symphony, a group of actors and musicians traversing the treacherous post-Georgian-Flu world which has wiped out most of humanity and destroyed the human civilization leaving behind scattered towns and technological relic . . . Read more

“I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it’s just too much. The current’s too strong. They’ve got to let go, drift apart.& . . . Read more

“What happens when people open their hearts?" “They get better.” - Norwegian Wood Norwegian Wood is a teenage love story/coming of age story set mainly in Tokyo and the mountains of Kyoto. The name derives from the eponymous song by the Beatles. I have very mixed feelings about the . . . Read more