literature
Geek literature from the New York Times or the recesses of online. Our favorite stories showcase geeks.
The Big Book Review: "Thinking, Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman (Pt.3)
Read Parts 1 and 2 here: Welcome back to this series on Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman, part of the 'Big Book Review' in which we look at sections of a book every month in extreme detail, focusing on what they have to teach us about their topics. Part 3, entitled Overconfidence looks at what businesses, experts and individuals may overlook or misread due to their own faith in themselves. A more extreme and intricate form of the 'Dunning-Kruger Effect'. If you haven't read parts 1 and 2 then I suggest you read those before continuing, of course these articles will cross-reference each other and ideas from previous chapters are not going to be re-explained unfortunately (for the sake of length and word count).
By Annie Kapurabout 19 hours ago in Geeks
Book Review: "The Details" by Ia Genberg
This is one of those books where I browsed the bookshelves for about a minute before landing on something that felt more Virginia Woolf than linear narrative. The Details is a story about love and grief, a family that isn't liked and a family that is quite literally chosen. It's about sickness and emotional destruction, it has a main character who is constantly trying to make sense of their past. Like the book I Wished by Dennis Cooper, this book feels like a stream-of-consciousness where we are invited into the world of the main character, we are pulled into their thoughts and even though we have only just met them, we are sitting and holding their hand as they speak to us from a sickbed, from a bedroom or even from a reel of photographs representing each important memory.
By Annie Kapura day ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Best Woman" by Rose Dommu
If you're looking around a bookshop and can't find anything you like then go to the 'trending' shelf and just pick a random thing without thinking about it, take it to a chair and start reading. If you read more than ten pages in one sitting, get the book. That's a rule that I think is quite good to follow. This is how I managed to find Best Woman by Rose Dommu. I wasn't looking for anything, I couldn't find anything I was meant to be looking for and so, I went to the 'trending' shelf and picked up the first thing I saw. I regret nothing.
By Annie Kapur2 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "I Wished" by Dennis Cooper
I have to tell you about this: I walked into the bookshop and sat down with the first book I found, it was titled I Wished by Dennis Cooper and told the story of George Miles - the addiction, the love, the rock and roll and everything in between. You guys know how much I adore the literature of the 2SLGBTQIA++ community and well, this is no exception. I Wished is a severely emotional, heartbreaking stream-of-consciousness narrative that I have no idea why more people haven't read. Queer Lit, Manchester - I love you for without you I would never have found this beautiful and earth-shattering novella.
By Annie Kapur3 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Anne Boleyn: 500 Years of Lies" by Hayley Nolan
When I first started this book and read some of the cutesy side-notes (such as, and I shit you not, the use of hashtags in the introduction), I sat back in my chair, covered my face and thought "oh, here the f- we go..." The final boss of the millennial quirkdom 3rd-wave-feminist social-media-brained pseudo-historical pop-culture middle-class putrid quippy bullshit. Here the f- we go, indeed. Then I realised that I am pretty much the same and though this took me a while I also realised: that is basically what I do here. Atop of this, Hayley Nolan isn't exactly wrong. Anne Boleyn's records are written mostly by sociopathic men both past and present who were either so regarded with religion that they didn't know where the sun went at night (and they didn't care, but they definitely pretended it was a flex) OR, they are so concerned with her appearance, they forget she was a person - typical of the soft-brained male-dominated academic world.
By Annie Kapur4 days ago in Geeks
The Face of Another by Kōbō Abe
The Face of Another was first published in 1964 and hearkens back to the themes and ideas once presented by Franz Kafka, especially when it comes to the book's theories of identity and the self. Samuel Beckett is another writer the author is often compared to since the novel blends absurdity and existentialism with these strange and sideways explorations of human nature and how we become slowly alienated from our true purpose.
By Annie Kapur5 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Parade's End" by Ford Madox Ford (Pt. 4)
Rating: 5/5 - what a fitting end to such a heartfelt novel of war! *** This volume is set on a single June day in the years after the First World War. While the earlier volumes charted the approach to and experience of war, this instalment turns to its aftermath. Here is Ford commenting on a society stripped of its old certainties and confronting the psychological and moral wreckage left behind. It feels more like the ideas presented by an Evelyn Waugh novel. Is it really time to let go of the past? Yes, yes it is.
By Annie Kapur5 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Parade's End" by Ford Madox Ford (Pt. 2)
Rating: 4/5 - Not as great as the opening volume, but definitely not worth less than a 4 overall... *** Volume 2, No More Parades goes deeper into the psychological state that war inflicts upon the characters, especially our main character. Tietjens struggles to move nearly 3,000 troops from Rouen to the front, obstructed by strange orders, corrupt supply officers, a French railway strike, and harassment from British Garrison Police targeting Canadian volunteers. Of course, Ford's presentation of war here is that difficulty will always be horrific when people's lives are on the line and yes, people's lives are definitely on the line. As amid administrative chaos and German shelling, a Welsh soldier bleeds to death in Tietjens’ arms. Tietjens has tons of guilt over previously denying him leave to confront his wife’s infidelity. This is reflective of his own position - he too has a wife who has been unfaithful but he cannot confront her because he too has been unfaithful. He didn't know this man's position and he was needlessly harsh to him, denying him one last possibility to make amends or break it off with her. He broods the anger towards his own marriage.
By Annie Kapur7 days ago in Geeks
Response to 'The Count of Monte Cristo' (Dumas)
There is one main question Alexandre Dumas asks the reader in the book: Are you rich, or is your life rich? Dumas even uses Edmond Dantes to illustrate this. At the beginning of the book, Edmond is poor, but he has his father, Mercedes, and a promotion in a company in which he works for someone who's like a second father to him. When he's rich, he doesn't feel himself enriched.
By Alexandra F7 days ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Parade's End" by Ford Madox Ford (Pt. 1)
Rating: 5/5 - A depressed masterpiece of love, loss and wartime terror... *** This is how it happened: Tweet by Me This was exactly how it happened. For my Why It's a Masterpiece series I took a quick reread of my copy of The Good Soldier, which is great because it's short and easy to read. (It's also incredibly depressing but you've read the article on it, you should know). I then thought to myself 'this can't be right...I never got around to reading Parade's End which is considered to be Ford's best work...' and quickly ordered it (it was only a couple of £ and so, nice and cheap). I didn't bother to look it up in any way, shape or form but seemed to assume it would be of similar length to The Good Soldier which can't be more than 150 pages.
By Annie Kapur8 days ago in Geeks
