⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Pachinko by Lee
| Full Title | Pachinko |
|---|---|
| Authors | Min Jin Lee |
| Year Published | 2017 |
| Date Read | January 09, 2024 |
| Rating | 5/5 stars |
Great read. A reminder to add more fiction into my diet. I read this right after KotFM, and it was interesting to notice the casual and sometimes aggressive racism parallels — Japanese vs. Koreans as with KotFM’s US whites vs. Indians. we’ve all got some skeletons in our respective closets.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Killers of the Flower Moon by Grann
| Full Title | Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Grann |
| Year Published | 2017 |
| Date Read | December 27, 2023 |
| Rating | 4/5 stars |
Solid read. Probably could have done without the final third, but even with it the story moves fast and keeps you engaged. For people into detective novels, an easy recommendation. And it’s short enough that those wanting to read it before the movie aren’t signing up for anything too hard.
⭐ Labor of Love by Weigel
| Full Title | Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating |
|---|---|
| Authors | Moira Weigel |
| Year Published | 2016 |
| Date Read | November 24, 2023 |
| Rating | 1/5 stars |
The topic of how dating and courtship has changed across the decades and centuries is an extremely interesting one. Unfortunately Weigel bungles her chance at telling this story, opting instead to focus much more on woke traps like why mainstream feminism (especially first- and second-wave) wasn’t inclusive enough or how the dominant dating approach (during any period, really) is anti-women.
Not serious enough to be a good text about feminism; not curious enough to be a good treatment of “the invention of dating.” Not recommended.
⭐⭐ Going Infinite by Lewis
| Full Title | Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Lewis |
| Year Published | 2023 |
| Date Read | November 20, 2023 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
The first ~20% of this book was nearly insufferable and I almost put it down then. Perhaps that was the proper decision, because while it got a bit better, overall I came away quite disappointed.
As others have said, I think Lewis was far too credulous of SBF’s claims and towards the end of the book it is clear the time the author spent with the subject tied Lewis too much to SBF’s version of events. That’s one of the big issues here — there isn’t really a multi-faceted view of what happened, mostly one from SBF himself and then only towards the last chapter one from the incoming FTX CEO (John Ray).
My other big issue with the book is that we get no more clarity on how the fall happened or where the creditor money actually went. It’s really hard to parse here but it seems like it was a combination of hackers, extremely poor internal controls, and a complete lack of concern for investment risk on the part of SBF. Perhaps the profits from Alameda and the
investigations of Ray will ultimately be able to recover most of the funds, but it’s still insane to think that there wasn’t even completely rudimentary tracking of assets and liabilities.
I think the best part of the book is the middle third, where Lewis focuses on Jane Street and the mechanics of firms like it — if you’ve got recommendations for a text on this, I’d be interested. However, overall I think this is quite a poor showing for Lewis and the way that the subject is treated makes me start to question his competence on his previous reporting on finance, like Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt or The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
⭐⭐⭐ The Comfort Crisis by Easter
| Full Title | The Comfort Crisis: Embrace Discomfort To Reclaim Your Wild, Happy, Healthy Self |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Easter |
| Year Published | 2021 |
| Date Read | November 16, 2023 |
| Rating | 3/5 stars |
Not bad. Gets stuck in the classic non-fiction pitfall of pushing too many references to why you should do something without weaving a story.
⭐⭐ Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Zevin
| Full Title | Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gabrielle Zevin |
| Year Published | 2022 |
| Date Read | November 08, 2023 |
| Rating | 2/5 stars |
The story was just not compelling enough. Two of the primary non-protagonist characters (Marx and Dove) come off as caricatures, lacking much depth. I found it hard to really root for Sam or Sadie, and especially had difficulty seeing the linkage between stories about Sam’s early life and the current timeline. Perhaps that would have been tied together in the latter part of the book, but I stopped about half-way.
I wonder if I’m just not the target audience for this book; in retrospect, it reads more like a young-adult novel.