Dave

This needed an editor. It was super long to describe the arc from brave posturing to caving in. If I hear the word haircut again to describe reducing loans owed I might scream.

There are some good points given here about the failings of the American school system. The suggestions given here to fix it are radically unfair to anyone not living a charmed life. He ends up coming across as an entitled jackass.

This was kind of a repeat for me, since I listened to the podcast when it was originally made. I like the recounting of how the empire started to lose its way and how the stage was set for Julius Caesar to make his run at being first amongst equals. The author makes the history very approachable, and hints at some parallels to our current times even as he discounts that the comparisons can be really made.

I thought it was easy reading, a spooky story with a good twist. It's not 5 stars because the ending felt like it want even there. So I'm a little torn.

For such a small book, I found it a bit hard to get through. It was trying to show things to be mindful of in this modern flavor of autocratic rule in the U.S., but I found it similar to a in-depth web article.

While I really liked the mood of the house and the terror of the haunting I was put off by the pseudoscience around mediums that was being thrown around. This has been made into at least a movie, the one I've seen is with Roddy McDowall.

This one has a married couple (scientists) and 2 mediums trying to get to the root of a very haunted house. They act as if it's just shenanigans that are going on, but then people are getting injured enough from the ‘ghosts' sexually assaulting them that they really should go to the hospital but they say nah. Then things get serious and there's a showdown with the supernatural. Who wins? You can read it and find out for yourself.

The book comes across as a bit dated to me and it's hard to engage otherwise. When I read Sherlock Holmes stories I notice the same thing, technology and ideas that were cutting edge at the time just don't have the shock value in modern age. There is a lot of imagining of what living a sub would be like and I feel like a lot of it is plain wrong. Romantic and probably interesting for the time, but wrong and in this day and age noticeably so.

It was shortish, so I appreciate that. I feel like this could get a re-write given the robber barons of today. Jeff Bezos declares a burning hatred of humanity and retreats to the sea. Maybe I'll go write that book....

On the plus side, this book's opening is a great hook and draws you in. It has some really interesting ideas about time travel and how navigating a multiverse would be. The ideas aren't just clones of other popular ideas floating around that I've seen, it's something different and the actors in the story seem to be richly described and thought through a bit.

On the negative side I thought there was too much description of action/adventure which I'm not a huge fan of. There are only so many times I can read about the hero barely dodging laser death or almost perishing before I just don't care anymore and want to advance the story. The hero is a bit of the white guy savior cliche but it's an old story so I give it a little forgiveness.

A solid weird story that went in a totally unexpected direction for me that was somewhere between alright and good. The opening really was the best part though...

The story was a bit on the simpler side, and the character's rationals seemed off. And not because it's how people are in the future, or maybe it is but it made the story kind of suck for me.

I'd give it 2 stars but I like the story's setting. It's pretty much a straight forward crime novel, almost boring, but the theme and flavor gives it a little bump.

I've read worse, but it was a pretty rambling reflection of what he had done with his kids and how he thought they'd turned out pretty sweet so you might want to absorb his wise ways.

It was hard to formulate a call to action in my life based on this meandering collection of stories. I do agree with a few of the more core principles, letting our kids fail more and try to do big adult things more so they learn how to operate independently is a recurring point to his anecdotes.

I did feel like the spinning of early U.S. history was a bit “good ol' days” leaning, but I wasn't as offended too much by that.

Pretty quick moving, rough little tale about a guy being pushed around and how he enlists others to help. There is a twist so I'll keep it vague. It's short, sweet, to the point and I liked it. I can't say anything else.

Clive Barker writes stories on a really grand scale when he's going for a novel. There is an enormous amount of world building that goes into it and it's fantasy at scale hard to conceive of. This isn't an exception, detailing the pursuit of mystical power by a lone man unsuited for it. The arc of his rise and fall is pretty great.

I don't like the coda setting it up for the ongoing saga of Trello battling evil, so I dock it a star.

It was a fun book, and I liked the double mystery.

I'd give it somewhere between 2 and 3 stars. I find the characters a bit odd to believe in and I especially find it tough to believe that people would be convicted and hanged on some of the chain of reasonings supplied. In this one, the final bit to force a confession was more plausible than some of the other ones I've seen.

The story is about a student boarding house, and the various shenanigans that students engage in. Poirot gets a person killed by poking around and then it goes downhill from there. :)

This is pretty wild. For probably like the first half, I thought this book was something like “The Secret” but with a whole bunch of old-timey name dropping. But every once in a while some serious capitalist fellating would happen for a few pages and then it would go back to telling you how to will yourself to success.

In the end though, I found it contradictory and a bit too much like pro-capital propaganda. In one passage, the author predicts that the future will be moving towards a place where people are working in a partnership and there everyone shares in the profits of business. In other passages, he chastises organized labor for grasping for more than an honest wage for honest work. Still in other places, he like spent a chapter going over the mythology of the American revolution and how a group of people organized to not just take the scraps they were given but to strive for more.

Maybe I didn't grasp the overall message of the book. The author did warn me that unless I was ready to receive the divine message of how to gain wealth it would be hidden from me. But honestly, he said a lot of stuff.

I give it more than the minimum because there are some good ideas, some even radical ideas in there. I can't give it more though, it is way too in the pocket of robber barons.

This came across as a boomer complaining with data about why things aren't as cool as they were when he was a kid. Towards the end of the book, he gets to the main point “Once people are successful and comfortable, they are less driven to achieve”

I have seen this replay throughout history and the idea that you need to push yourself to stay hungry isn't a particularly new insight. Unless you want a ton of factual analysis about why it's a good idea as a nation to stay hungry, you don't need to read this book.

This is a story where some sheltered kids discover that ACAB (a timeless lesson indeed) and how breaking laws enacted in a democratic society sometimes is necessary to obtain justice.

I give it one star because I've never seen some kids simp so hard for business owners since Rittenhouse murdered some people. It was pretty awful, and it's definitely not something you want to be teaching your kids.

Also those kids charged that lady full price for some lemon water and she gave them food for free. Disgraceful.

Even as short as it was, I had trouble slogging through it. Lot's of dramatic statements that were dreams recalled or crazy threats not realized. I am coming it seriously late into the series but I feel like Patterson (or his ghost writers) have the same pattern where they like to contrast a happy home life interrupted by the awful murderous people that are being handled.

Read Dec 2023. Sometimes belabored the point, but overall decently interesting.

I've read this one a couple times. I really loved when the story was in our world, especially the last door but the trip along the coast and the handling hostile Ms.Walker was not the greatest of story-time for me. Overall, still in the ‘very good' category.

JD's meemaw has a seriously filthy mouth.

I have read about half this book, and I'm pretty sure I'm done with it. It is very heavy on the mindset that you should take if you want to pursue being wealthy and it is incredibly light on the details of how to accomplish the not insignificant task of actually building wealth. Instead, it seems to encourage you to believe in a the secret like idea that if you believe in a thing it will actualize in the world.

I give it 2 stars instead of 1 because I think the mindset thing is important but these days lots of people think they are worth more than they really are so I don't know if the advice is too timely.

This book documents the difficulties someone trying to look for a job in the corporate world will experience. It shows how impenetrable just getting recognition that you applied for a job, job fairs that are thin covers for religious conversion or MLM hard sells or hawking services in helping you find a job. The author tries for 6 months to get a job, spends thousands paying for seminars, resume counseling and all kinds of services that claim they will help her get a good professional job and are all BS.

I feel like this author really likes uncovering America's various flavors of utter bullshit that we hawk to one another. It's kinda depressing.

This was an interesting idea, and fairly well told. I thought it really dragged out a lot in parts, especially as the detective folks were catching up to what was going on. I found this especially funny as there is a quote in the book that says when writing stories you need to trim out unnecessary fluff. I still think King excels at the short story format, he has great ideas and writes well but this was full of extra baggage that I didn't think needed to be in there at all.

This book was very meandering and there was a lot of focus on the author's personal experiences that I don't know if they helped. Also, the author is super condescending to all other people, he thinks he is the lone visionary that can see the world as it is. Maybe it's true, who knows.

I give this some stars because it was very interesting to think about different kinds of events and how we don't have the capacity to reason about the impact or chances of rare but catastrophic things happening.