adam georgiou's blog

In summary: Viktor E. Frankl takes extraordinary psychological insight and applies it to (and beyond) his incredible experiences within several concentration camps. Are you still allowed to call Holocaust tragedies incredible? The scope and the extremity of the events are hard to believe from the perspective of the widespread peace and prosperity of a different generation and geography, and yet those horrors are also so widely discussed and broadly verified as to be undeniable. Truth is strange

I don't know. I'm about 50 pages into this book, and so far I've got mixed feelings. Australia seems so far boring even to the Author. Slow trains. Bad beer. Empty landscape. Idiot company. Tell me how you're coping in said environment. If you're going to drink beer, go full Bukowski. If you're going to describe the area, go full Bryson. If you're going to be bored, make me feel it because I'm there with you, not 'cause your book has me staring out of my own window. "Alice Springs is a quiet to

Going to try and write thoughts on this as I finish each essay, having learned from past compilations that I tend to lose my perspective of the earlier stuff as I move through the later stuff. Big Red Son Reminds me of a Hunter Thompson piece. I think that's what DFW is going for. It's like his version of Wearing and Tearing, Led Zeppelin's attempt to show they could be punk too, if they wanted. DFW seems to have less contempt for his contemporary than Robert Plant. You get the impression that

Originally got this and thought it was a coffee table book. Nothing more than eye candy. But I later found out that there were actual stories in there and read through 'em, nine in total. Each one is supposed to be about a different type of cabin build (e.g. reclaims, from scratch, geometric, treehouse) but the form ain't all that important. The stories are more about people deciding they're going to do a project and then following through with that project. In any case, they're more or less the

This chick is great. The fact that this was published in '78 is incredible. It's still appropriate, and given the atmosphere of nothing meaning anything and all trends being subjective and personal, it's refreshingly harshly and unapologetically opinionated. Plus it is hilarious. What more do you want? Taste exists and it means something. Who would've thought? Some of the chapters read back like shallow, played stereotypes, but you also get the opinion that Fran might've minted said perspecti

I'm a sucker for this kinda' stuff, but even beyond that this book is excellent. It's so refreshing to read something earthly and bounded, something with conviction, something that makes an attempt at saying here is a section of the world and here is how it works, measuring its success by the fact that there's a large audience of people who agree. A lot of what I read tends to be critical, nuanced, deconstructing, questioning. The latter kind of stuff feeds and grows my cynicism. London's kind

This took me forever to finish, it ending up as my in between book, the one I'd pick up and read a few pages of when I wasn't focused on something more interesting. As a (pretty common) rule I try not to put down a book until I've finished it, but every now and again one slips through, barring me not also damning it as worthless (which is rare). Is this a weird habit? To be in one way principled, to the point of dogma, about finishing what I've started, but then also to have a stack of books, mo

Originally got this and thought it was a coffee table book. Nothing more than eye candy. But I later found out that there were actual stories in there and read through 'em, nine in total. Each one is supposed to be about a different type of cabin build (e.g. reclaims, from scratch, geometric, treehouse) but the form ain't all that important. The stories are more about people deciding they're going to do a project and then following through with that project. In any case, they're more or less the

Another set of independent pieces behind a single cover. How do you review? I'll just react. I started reading this book after making it about 70 pages into Infinite Jest for the second time. I couldn't break past the static friction of the thing, which didn't quite make sense to me given (1) DFW is renowned by people I respect and (2) I've gotten sucked in by many of his in-person interviews and speeches (e.g. through digging holes in YouTube). He's smart, interesting, and capable. Why don't

Best metaphors and imagery in the business. Funny, sexy, fun, smart. Gets a little loose at the end, but interesting and worthwhile. Reminds me of American Gods.

What one thing can you say about a set of mostly independent essays? It seems you're obligated to either (1) give a general opinion on Orwell, himself; or (2) talk about the essays' independent points in succession, perhaps finding and commenting on common threads that join two or more of them. OK, so... Orwell is great. Moving on, here's a few things I found interesting: Firstly, a lot of these essays are criticisms of popular literature from Orwell's era: books I haven't read. And somehow,

I read this book back to back with Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential. I am a fan of Anthony Bourdain, and with his book I knew what I was getting into. Marco, however, I hadn't heard of before, but I came out of Kitchen Confidential hungry for more. Bourdain had nodded to White in his book, and Amazon had good reviews of The Devil in the Kitchen, so I rolled the dice and went in blind. I was excited to read another story of a interesting chef, specifically in what I presumed would be a f

This book is a kick to the stomach. It’s a contrast against the candy of pop culture and muzak and advertisement. And it’s also a contrast against the typically inspiring and relatable work of the proceeding Beatniks. Naked lunch is disgusting, but perhaps it’s not meant to be enjoyed. That might’ve been my mistake. This isn’t epiphany or interesting outskirt experience by way of drugs. This is chaos and delirium by way of drugs, described in somehow articulate, if not also chaotic, poetic deta

This isn't a comprehensive categorization and it might also be a tautology, but perhaps it's still useful or relatable: In my reading, there are novels that hypothesize about how the world could be, taking a culture you participate in, honing it down to something fundamental, and then showing how that world might run. And then there are novels that take you somewhere independent of your experience. Hypothetical exploration vs the distillation and clear articulation of what already exists. Lik

I'm embarrassed by and sorry for parts of what I initially wrote -- left unedited, below -- about At the Same Time.  Mainly, I'm sorry for having insinuated that Susan Sontag was intentionally terse or worse unintentionally terse, and I'm especially sorry for having implied that such a criticism was my, and presumably should be your, main take away from her writing, specifically in the noted collection of essays. What a dumb thing to say on my part. My bad. What I did say that I think remains c

The most satisfying answer I've read to the title question. Reading this is looking behind the curtain of life. Maybe that's what all good psychology does? Maybe that is psychology? In any case, The Righteous Mind makes a hell of a good case for why we act the ways we do, and how that then gets articulated as what we call 'politics'. It gives one of the best arguments I've heard for the divide among the left and the right. Or at least it's part of the story. If it is partial, then its tenants

This book was intense and obscure. I feel like there was more to it than I was able to take away. On one level of things, there's the novel and fantasy aspects of the book. The conflict between this guy Shadow, his world, and the gods and schemes that inhabit it. That part of things is interesting, but it drags and it's a bit simplistic. The whole main plot, with Wednesday recruiting people and his devious plan to cause chaos for his own sake, probably could've been done just as immersively in

An intense set of ideas, perhaps not entirely scientific but maybe an extremely useful and elegant explanation of what makes humans and their will to do things important. Felt a little forced into the ender universe, both plot wise and stylistically. If you're looking for a continuation of the adventure of the first book, this isn't it.

A great ethos-based argument for independence, and the value that individual hard work contributes, from the bottom up, to the integrity of the whole. A lot of practical advice, without a lot of political pandering or button-pushing that might rile up the partisan ramblers.

After having read the first two books, I'm frustrated; and having invested my time, I feel I've earned the right to rant a bit. The series began well. It's established a pursuit-worthy concept: strip away some of the juvenile aspects of a typical magic-on-earth type setting, and see how someone might actually, practically come to terms with it. It doesn't build its own universe so much as add on to reality. Relationships exist through believable circumstances. There was no caricatured connect

I got the point: war is absurd and bureaucracy multiplies the immorality and ineffectiveness of fighting to solve a problem. And for what it's worth, to me the book get's the point out there in a really witty way. The entire Milo subplot is hysterical and relatable, and Colonel Cathcart's completely superficial appreciation of his authority and warped sense of responsibility resonates with anyone that's had a shitty manager in their life. Apply it all to war, and then go on to realize that wars