How to Win Friends and Influence People[non-fiction]
TL;DR: The author shares tactics for persuading people. Only problem is that most of the tactics, pending implementation, seem to lead to disingenuous untrustworthy behavior.
2026-02-20
books you truly regret reading
complete with TL;DRs (too long don't read)
Rest[non-fiction]
TL;DR: the title is pretty good. Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less. there you go. you've gained 80% of the benefit of reading the book.
2026-02-19
Four Thousand Weeks[non-fiction]
TL;DR: you're never going to get everything done. stop trying to optimize so much. there will always be more to do. stop cramming tasks. focus on what's most important and just relax. you do not need a full book to learn this, imo.
2026-02-19
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous[fiction]
TL;DR: Clumsy sentences, hackneyed plot, self-important prose, and ultimately soporific. This is one of those books which evades criticism simply because of the author's DEI credentials which is ultimately damaging to authors of color. Ocean Vuong isn't the worst thing Oprah has given us--after all, she did start Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil's careers--but it's up there.
2026-02-24
The Secret History[fiction]
TL;DR: This is a book about boring/pompous/uninteresting people doing mostly uninteresting things. Any interesting bits the book does have are dwarfed by pages of vague, shallow philosophizing. The book also seems to have launched the "dark academia" aesthetic, another point off for it.
2026-02-25
Ethan Frome[fiction]
TL;DR: some classics are great. with others you have to wonder: maybe they just didn't have much good stuff to read? this is a book with a rather boring love triangle; it ends with the couple in love trying to kill themselves by sledding into a tree. we have invented better love stories and better tragedies since Ethan Frome, i promise.
2026-02-19
Mistborn[fiction]
TL;DR: It is bewildering to me that a book this poorly-written on the sentence level has a 4.49 out of 5 on Goodreads. The story is quite YA and quite predictable (it doesn't really fit into adult fantasy, imo) but the prose and dialogue are unreadable if you care about that stuff. Read his newer work!
2026-02-25
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