Book Reviews

** 79th book of 2020: Rhythm of ‘body keeps score’, followed by the rhythm of bore. ** Too often in fantasy, the hero’s journey consumes so much available bandwidth that, that the difficulties of high stakes situations are lost in the compression algorithm of novel writing. Elements like individual trauma or coalition politics are ignored entirely , leaving readers with conversation chess robots who plan every social interaction 4 moves in advance and stare at defeat and carnage unfazed in and deftness that mere mortals cannot dream of. ...

49th book of 2020: Millenia of bad emperors Quoted as a primary source often enough to warrant a read. For a work nearly 2000 years old, it remains eminently readable, and in english translation surprisingly similar in style to more modern works like Gibbon or Keay’s history of China. I enjoyed the tone and commentary as much as or more so that the content, as Suetonius does little to create a narrative connecting different emperors and periods. Alas such mnemonic devices are a modern invention. Here’s mine: ...

** 76th book of 2020: Class struggle isn’t new ** “What was it about these steep, western, water-locked cities, Seattle, Spokane, San Francisco? All three I’d visited, and in all three, the money flowed straight uphill.” The book exudes a bitterness about class society, where at the end of the belle-epoch, “all people, except this rich cream, living and scraping and fighting and dying, and for what, nothing, the cold millions with no chance in this world.” Our protagonists gawk at riding in rather than on the train car, or eating “gnocchi that might have been pinched from the ass of an Italian angel.” Yet beyond the cardboard cutout villain and our protagonist who mainly a narrative camera lens, it felt like the book didn’t have much to say. Even the title is a rehash of old concepts. The 8th century Tang poem comes to mind: 朱门酒肉臭，路有冻死骨: ‘While the poor masses freeze to death outside, the rich let wine and meat putrefy from excess.’ ...

** 77th book of 2020: 5 Dysfunctions of a Framework ** A good framework in business literature can simplify an otherwise complex space, provide predictive power, or shed light on previous experiences from a new perspective. In my 2020 business-lit odyssey (https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/6023167-jonathan-mckay?shelf=leadership), I’ve been surprised at just how many frameworks turn out to be useful. Yet despite participating in and supporting many dysfunctional teams, 5 Dysfunctions leaves me struggling to match its rules to reality. ...

75th book of 2020: Lost in Calculations Read through this in one sitting, which was about as long as I think I would be able to suspend my disbelief. The world itself held promise, like a rotary calculator working through a math problem. Every obvious crack in the worldbuilding is addressed by some expository aside. Yet characters are part of worldbuilding, and that’s where things fell apart. The main character was consistently mean, sarcastic and indefatigable. While this is a bold character choice, it strained credulity. The entire school, and premise of the book, is that everybody is playing Queen’s Gambit worthy mental chess with one-another in order to stay alive. There are themes about inequality, but the plot makes me think it should be a book about trauma. If only 50% of the students survive, there are no teachers in order to serve as emotional role models, it feels like the place would turn into hunger games faster than the hunger games themselves.

74th book of 2020: Marches of Folly. The 14th century in Western Europe really drives home the way other civilizations can look down upon western culture. Kingdoms were little more than bickering nobility that scarcely had power outside their own castles. Military campaigns were little more than extended farces, achieving no military objectives. Such campaigns, however, did succeed in pillaging the countryside. Plague was a recurring and devastating phenomenon. Religion was dogmatic and an everyday source of strife. Chivalry was rarely followed, and even when followed, led to disastrous results. Peasants rose up, and were cut down by knights. Military campaigns were planned, only to be blown off course by bickering nobility, poor winds, or the end of the season. ...

** 73rd book of 2020 - 同床异梦 - Same Bed, Different Dreams ** ‘It’s easier to hire an employee than to find a partner.’ Partners in business are a dicey proposition. If you were to ask me to hire employees I couldn’t fire, or bosses that I couldn’t leave, I would simply say ‘no thanks’ and look for the next opportunity. There’s just too much that could go wrong, and I’d prefer to take either complete accountability, or none at all. ...

72nd book of 2020 - Nice Escape. It’s November 3rd, as the American republic follows perilously close to last days of the Roman republic: a contested election, extreme partisanship, and cries of criminality. I’m having flashbacks to 2016 when my candidate didn’t get elected and my girlfriend at the time left without warning. But wait! What is that coming in outside of the object of Jupiter? Surely, just because we can’t explain the strange trajectory or lack of spin that doesn’t mean life… but when the photos come back the evidence is clear. ...

71st book of 2020. ** Tidy History of an Important Story, Perhaps Too Tidy ** The story of Genghis Khan is of course amazing. If I could start over with history, this might be the first story I’d want to learn. Genghis Khan (Temüjin) started as an orphan and a slave, eventually won over his rivals, unified the steppe, then launched a dynasty that over the course of the next 100 years conquered more of humanity than any other. Mongolian steppe culture may be alien, but seems like the nomadic version of many modern successful companies: “they did not find honor in fighting, found honor in winning.” ...

** 70th book of 2020: Generational echoes of neglect. ** Born to parents of the greatest generation, childhood for both my parents was an alternating gauntlet of neglect and criticism. My maternal grandmother suffered severe complications giving birth to my mom, and my paternal grandmother seemed to have an ambivalent view towards child rearing, with both families exhibiting the typical greatest-generation authoritarian parenting style with sporadic criticism, a workaholic patriarch, and a willful ignorance of children’s emotional lives. ...