Books

Excellent Advice for Living

Kevin Kelly, the Wired guy, writes a series of extremely brief pieces of guidance ranging from practical to profound.

He admits up front that it’s not all brand new, but it’s all clearly stated and it’s a masterful aggregation. 

There’s no fluff and no filler. It’s got a negligible degree of pretentiousness, despite the title. It grew out of a series of letters to his kids. That love, joy, and skin in the game comes through.

I don’t think any adult could read it without finding something already internalized, nor do I think that anyone could go through it without finding something worth adding to his or her internal rule book. 

I’m going to read it again with my kids this weekend.

Recommended for everyone.

Madame Bovary

Bored, grasping, delusional wife acts out in various ways.

Not good. Not fun. Not interesting. 

Emma Bovary is supposed to be complicated and unsympathetic, I suppose. I often enjoy stories with characters like that. But I need some compensations in the form of morally ambiguous scenes, or compelling plot twists that result from the character’s choices, or consequences for sympathetic characters. Not much of that showed up here. 

I couldn’t get invested in anyone there’s no plot to speak of. You’re just passing time in the company of unpleasant people. 

Not recommended.