Social Justice Fallacies by Thomas Sowell. I admit, I got super hyped for this one because I wondered what Sowell thought about everything that’s been going on in the last several years. It touched on far fewer specific instances than I thought it would, but perhaps that is for the best. The book feels like a distillation of Basic Economics, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, and Knowledge and Decisions, arguably three of his best works. If you don't have time for all three of those, this is a reasonable boiling down of them into a more concise argument.
Bibi by Benjamin Netanyahu. Fun timing. I started this shortly before the war began… I’ve never read an autobiography before, but I heard it mentioned in an interview between Jordan Peterson and Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Prime Minister mentioned that it clarified many historical situations in Israel, so I dove in on that basis. It is definitely informative. I had no idea the Prime Minister used to be the equivalent of Jack Bauer from 21. A good puzzle piece to absorb, as I dive into the topic…
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Here's a disturbing little contemporary to 1984. It’s a dystopia more complete and ingrained than 1984 and it’s a fascinating story to be sure, but I admit to feeling very uncomfortable about the writer’s racial descriptions. In that vein, I feel like the writer missed an important literary opportunity (yeah, yeah, I know, unpublished me criticizing Huxley. Still). The dystopian cleanliness of “civilization” is contrasted with a visit to the “Savage reservation”. Everything on the reservation is depicted as squalid and horrifying and dirty and degraded, people are diseased and old and performing incomprehensible rituals. Given that the author clearly wants to show us the horrifying end result of a socialist-type ideology with the drugged-up hypersexualized portrait of “Civilization” I’m chagrined that he missed the chance to make what he calls the “Savage reservation” the literary counterpoint to which we the reader should be drawn. Where’s the dignity of a life lived as it should be? Where are the quiet moments of joy? Where’s the tenderness shown between two people who own only each other, instead of being owned by everyone around them? Instead, I end up repulsed by everything depicted on this planet and all acts under the sun. Perhaps that was the intent? It’s an interesting read, but I think it missed a great opportunity, possibly due to stereotypes of the time period (1932).
Defending Israel: The Story of My Relationship With My Most Challenging Client by Alan Dershowitz. My first pick while trying to mine information on Israel's history wasn't quite what I expected. Probably because I didn't take the time to read the subtitle. Even so, this semi-autobiography tracks the changes in public sentiment toward Israel over roughly 70 years and it does cover several important historical moments. I'm starting to recognize titles of some of the wars as I hear them repeated across titles. This was a good read, and I'll keep digging.
Fablehaven Series (Fablehaven, Rise of the Evening Star, Grip of the Shadow Plague, Secrets of the Dragon Sanctuary, and Keys to the Demon Prison) by Brandon Mull. Oh man, this was fun. I picked up Fablehaven from the library AAAAAGES ago, but it's rough trying to get the second book when you're a scatterbrained teen who doesn't know how to place holds and would prefer to grab books off the shelf that she doesn't have to work too hard to get. This time, I booked them all through my e-reader and plowed through. Fablehaven weaves a scenario where magical creatures have survived in our modern day and living in carefully negotiated sanctuaries all over the world. There are, however, forces that would very much like to unleash every locked-up demon in existence, and it is a game of cat-and-mouse to see if they will succeed in their mission. I felt like it dragged on sometimes, that there was a little TOO much back-and-forth, but despite that feeling it's an excellent story. Highly imaginative. Tons of fun. Great characters.
Introvert Book Club Reads
Private Moscow by James Patterson & Adam Hamdy. There seem to be a lot of novels about private detective/espionage/information brokerages in the action/thriller genre. This is another one, pretty well written and fun to read, but they are starting to blend together a bit to me. Especially Patterson ones. I'm finding I'm not that fond of Patterson books.
Dead Fall by Brad Thor. Ho. Well. This one was brutal to read and isn’t afraid to look the worst acts of humanity dead on, that’s for sure. Don’t read if brutality triggers you. That being said, this one kept me turning pages all the way to the end. Set in Ukraine during the current war, a Russian mercenary unit goes rogue and begins… there’s no other way of saying it, raping, pillaging, and looting wantonly. A private Jack Bauer type operative from the US is sent in to rescue an American citizen taken in one of the attacks and to put this rogue unit down. If half the things alleged in this novel happen, what it says about Russia disturbs me. If it isn’t, what this novel’s existence says about us in the US and the way we portray countries we're at odds with disturbs me.
The Last Sinner by Lisa Jackson. Murder mystery with religious-posing serial killers. It's written pretty well and had me turning the pages at a decent clip. Could have cut some of the character angsting and nailbiting, it felt like filler sometimes, but only a bit.
19 Minutes To Live: Helicopter Combat in Vietnam by Lew Jennings. Not my cup of cocoa but it gave me new information and some perspective on a war I know... next to nothing about. The author gives his story as well as loads of anecdotes from veteran friends who were with him about being helicopter operators in what was known as "The Helicopter War."
TV Shows
Star Trek: Enterprise. This was a fascinating one to watch, and I’m glad I didn’t watch it until later in my Star Trek phase. This is a prequel series, one that follows Captain Archer, captain of the first warp 5 ship. My one major complaint about this series is they amped up the fan-service factor unnecessarily. My favorite thing about this series is watching the technological hurdles this crew had to face. Transporters hadn’t really been approved for people, universal translators were not available, and doors had to be (gasp) manually opened! You watch “tactical alert” get designed and you see why future captains are rarely (if ever) allowed to go on Away Teams. I rank Star Trek captains after observing them for a whole series, and my ranking now stands at Sisco > Archer > Picard > Janeway. “Heresy!” I hear the screeching. How could I drop Picard further down the ranking? Well, because Archer was the one who wrote Picard’s playbook. He’s the one that had to smack face first into all the walls while Picard gets to know about all the mistakes that were made by his predecessors. Archer was very much a cowboy captain in that sense, though he also had ideals he had to let go of for the greater good, much like Sisco. For these reasons, Archer has my #2 slot in the captain rankings.
Movies
Nimona. A knight order that lasts for a thousand years looks very different in a futuristic setting. A new member is framed for murdering the queen and takes up with a shapeshifter to prove his innocence. The animation is stunning and, as a story, it’s funny and poignant and the dialogue is snappy and well written and made me alternately laugh out loud and take a somber pause at appropriate moments. However, as an allegory, I am bothered. Partly I am bothered because it comes at a time when we are very confused about if there even is any right or wrong at all. So confused, that if a real and actual monster walks up and gives clear and present evidence of being so, we refuse to believe it because we’re no longer sure what good and evil are. In this story, a shapeshifter was misunderstood. In real life, sometimes people actually are evil and counting on the “misunderstood” narrative, and it is actually important to understand that exists. Hearing “But what if we’re wrong?” is starting to get under my skin, because I used to believe it 110%. This belief has been unwarranted in my life. Yet somehow this is the moral gong being hammered ten thousand times.
New Gods: Nezha Reborn. Dang. That animation. That animation is crazy real while still being obviously cartoony. This is incredible to watch. Hard for me to describe the plot, and anyone who doesn’t have a background in Chinese mythology is going to have to context-mine like mad to keep up, but if you can, this is loads of fun to watch.
The Greatest Lie Ever Sold. This is definitely marked as one of those pieces of media I was afraid to watch, because I was afraid that a) just watching it would get me slammed and b) it might give me information that causes me to be at odds with friends over this incredibly sensitive topic. But those are lousy reasons to run from information, so I did finally sit down and watch it. This is a documentary by Candace Owens about a) the death of George Floyd and b) the rise of the Black Lives Matter organization and what was done with the $90+ million they raised in the aftermath of his death. The information presented certainly disturbed me. I had other reasons of being strongly leery of the BLM organization before this, but seeing where the donations went put it all the way over the edge for me. Morbidly curious, I googled the documentary title because I knew there would be rebuttals, and I found a rebuttal “debunked” video by someone called The Amazing Lucas to watch. To me, the first 25 minutes of “debunking” felt like they came out of left field, came off as skewed, or hyperfocused on the wrong thing. HOWEVER. Specifically when it came to the evidence presented in the Chauvin case versus what Candace Owens omitted (timestamp 24:23-42:09) he gave me a lot to think about and hang on the other side of the scales. After that, the rest of his points were hit and miss for me, but he made enough reasonable arguments that I now have a grain of salt regarding Candace’s take on the Floyd trial… but NOT about her take on BLM.
Black Widow. I keep telling myself I'm done with the Avengers movies, that they're all the same. But every now and then someone shoves another one at me and swears it's different. Well, Black Widow was. It was a throwback. It felt like some of the first Avengers movies for reasons I can't fully articulate and that was fantastic. Great humor, fantastic story, and action scenes that felt like they mattered and were plot-relevant... it was just excellent.
Games
Bioshock Infinite. I messed up on my first play-through and got some kind of DLC that super upgraded my gear from the get-go. Because of that the game was no fun at all with no challenge to speak of, and I dropped it within a couple hours. Once Sergey helped me uninstall the DLC and I had normal settings, the game was fun. Not as fun as Bioshock, but fun. The story also made less sense than Bioshock, but again, fun. Personally I thought it was great that they did a historically accurate representation of racism, including the Irish and Chinese as oppressed groups. Definitely a disturbing story, and once again the twist was one I didn’t see coming. A sadder story without the option of a hopeful ending, but it was fun to play through this other dystopia that ate itself alive—this time up in the air instead of at the bottom of the sea.
Gris. I'm starting to wonder if I haven't given platformers enough of a chance. Not all platformers require me to be twitchy or to perfectly time everything. Some build in juuuuust enough forgiveness that I can actually play them. Gris is breathtaking in its artistry, and while I did get frustrated a few times and utter words I probably ought not have, it was well worth playing. I didn't understand the story until the end, but when I did figure it out, it retroactively elevated the experience to the level of excellence. Well done.