A Review of Self-Help as a Genre, and Atomic Habits in Particular

I enjoyed reading Atomic Habits, which was recommended to me by my therapist. I found this blog post basically finished in my attic folder while sorting through things, and I found it up to posting, even though my records show I read Atomic Habits way back in … October 2022. Self-Help in General Atomic Habits is pretty fundamentally a “self help book.” This is a pretty controversial genre in my experience.

Review: One Billion Americans, by Matthew Yglesias

This was a great read about how the United States should reframe many of its basic political assumptions. It is tempting to think of life as a zero-sum game. Having more for me, even enough for me, means less or even not enough for others. Usually, we have the open-mindedness to feel like we can cooperate with some few – our family, our community, or perhaps our nation or religion or even (problematically) our ethnic group.

Fiction Review: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet

I already enjoyed the Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers (A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy). It’s now one of my favorite books. so I was excited to also read her earlier work, the Wayfarer series, starting with The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, and it did not disappoint me. Both these series are science fiction. While Monk and Robot is solarpunk, a relatively new sub-genre focused on imagining a world with major environmental (and economic) problems solved, the Wayfarer series much more reminds me of the kind of science fiction I used to read as a kid.

First Impressions of Asahi Linux

I bought my M1 Mac over a year ago with the intention of installing Asahi Linux on it, but I never got around to it until now. I am still thrilled to be using an ARM workstation made by a major computer manufacturer, and it’s good to be able to run the operating system of my choice on it (though macOS is acceptable for entertainment and video calls, Linux is what I work and do my organization in).

Fiction Review: Plain Truth

I enjoyed Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult. I finished it a couple of months ago, when I was feeling very restless and impatient about everything going on in my life. At the time, I desperately needed fun books to read, but I was simultaneously having a lot of trouble finishing books. This book pulled me the whole way through when other books were failing to: It was in a setting, the Amish communities, that had always interested me.

Reviews and Reactions: 2022 Short Story Hugo Nominees

We decided to write up our thoughts on each of the short stories nominated for the 2022 Hugo awards. Of course, here be spoilers, spoilers galore. If you don’t want these stories spoiled, go read them, and then come back here. This is the same concept as Jimmy’s review of the 2021 nominees, and so we shall adapt the explanation from that post: As an exercise, we read each of these stories and told each other what we thought the themes were, and I reference that throughout these reflections.

Reviews and Reactions: 2021 Short Story Hugo Nominees

NB: These are for the 2021 Hugo awards, not the recently-announced 2022 Hugo awards. That one is coming soon. I decided to write up my thoughts on each of the short stories nominated for the 2021 Hugo awards. Of course, here be spoilers, spoilers galore. If you don’t want these stories spoiled, go read them, and then come back here. As an exercise, a friend and I read each of these stories and told each other what we thought the themes were, and I reference that throughout these reflections.

Review: The Comic Book Story of Beer

I like beer, and I like comic books, so I was excited to read The Comic Book Story of Beer. And it was overall quite a fun read! It contextualized how important beer was in antiquity – including theories that beer catalyzed the agricultural revolution – and how important it’s been in society ever since, taking a social approach to the entire history, while also explaining a lot of the science alongside the primarily social narrative.