book review

Recent Reads: Broken Foot Edition

Daniel 1 Comment

A broken foot begets a lot of free time. My climbing accident gave me the most spare time I’ve had since Covid – at least the most spare time with no athletic activity to fill it. At first I read a couple climbing books – since I’ve been buying and selling this genre, I have a tremendous amount on hand. But most climbers aren’t great writers, and the genre does not excite when you can’t actively dream. I turned to fantasy.

The Witcher is a Polish fantasy series, although it really reach an international audience through the video game adaptations, especially The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, which was a worldwide hit. Indeed, playing The Witcher 3 during Covid quarantine is what got me interested in the world.

Embarrassed after such cheap fare, I finished up my recent reads with a more nutritious Roberto Bolano novel, in Spanish.

A bit more on each of these, below.

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Recent Reads for February 2024

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Books reviewed: “The General in His Labyrinth” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Kiss or Kill” by Mark Twight, “Everest: The West Ridge” (Abridged) by Thomas Hornbein.

They say you can learn a lot about a person by browsing their bookshelf. The trouble with this approach is most voracious readers move through books at a faster rate than they can accumulate them. None of these three will end up on my bookshelf. That says something too, I suppose.

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Book Reviews: Two Epics

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I write you from the Moab public library – a remarkably good library for such a small town. Town is for resupply: ice cream, burgers, wifi. The rest of the Fall season we spend in the desert — the true desert: long drives, hot days, cold nights, far from service. A good book is essential. A long and involved one, ideally.

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Recent Reads

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Hey frends. Just wanted to drop by a few thoughts on some books I’ve read recently. Three nonfiction books, which is rare for me! I usually gravitate towards fiction. Anyways, enjoy these short reviews of Joni Mitchell: Reckless Daughter, Black Wall Street, Men Without Women, Wool, White Noise, Pnin, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, below:

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Book Review: To Touch the Top of the World by Erik Weihenmayer

Daniel 9 Comments

My sister gave me “To Touch the Top of the World” as a gift, maybe ten, twelve years ago. “It’s about a blind guy that climbed Mount Everest,” she said. “Super inspiring.”

Cool, I replied, probably with a roll of my eyes, and set it aside. The book sat in my bookcase for the next decade, patiently waiting.

I picked it up the other day, in a moment of boredom, and found myself tearing through it. It is, as my sister said all those years ago, super inspiring.

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