Dispatches by Michael Herr

This Vietnam war travelogue is so packed with anecdotes, stories, quotes, thoughts, and prose poems it’ll make your head spin, really just insightful, deep, and strong. 

Shogun by James Clavell

What a sprawling, gorgeous, unique, massive, engrossing, satisfying masterpiece - it revels in deeply involved chess-like strategic intricacies, but it also, separately from that, invokes an alien world effectively and completely, and the two feats in combination are exquisite. 

Barons by Austin Frerick

Frerick does a great, readable, well-cited job laying out the history and effects of corporate consolidation in US food systems, and a nice quick job at the end laying out possible remedies, but like everything else I’m always left wanting more investigation into who and what is actually preventing those obvious remedies from enactment. 

Invincible (Amazon Prime)

The first season of this animated adult superhero show was fun for its boldness and verve, even while ripping off elements of the MCU and other shows, but the second season introduced some pretty sloppy plot decisions and suffered as a result. 

Emily the Criminal (2022)

Aubrey Plaza as a serious actor is a little off-putting at first but it’s like sandler in uncut gems it turns out she can do it, and do it well, and altho this crime drama caper is stressful the whole way thru it’s also smart, and deep, and full of sharp social commentary. 

fast times at ridgemont high (1982)

Fun seeing all the young stars (especially my fav forest whitaker) and fun following along with their hijinks; early 80s representations of high schooler sex lives are fairly horrifying so be warned; overall was worth a revisit. 

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)

Considering how bad sequels usually are, I’m as surprised as everyone else to admit that this was a lot of fun - my one complaint is that a bunch of the dialogue from the first half was really obvious and throwaway, and more importantly my other complaint is that there are too many characters and they don’t get developed to any depth, so altho I do think that’s gonna be enough to keep this movie from achieving the cult status of its forebear, the practical effects and acting were really lovely. 

Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen

I really appreciated this lengthy history of Magellan for its no-nonsense attention to detail, its use of primary sources, and its great readability and the excitement of its story; I’m glad to have filled in my mental picture of the early 1500s and I enjoyed it the whole way. 

star trek beyond (2016)

Serviceable entertainment for non star trek fans, heavy on the VFX and crappy costumes, somehow pretty fun anyway. 

tinker tailor soldier spy (2011)

It’s probably just because I’m tired and faceblind, but this movie felt like a pastiche of barely-connected vignettes about spies, building up to a barely noticeable climax, which is funny because I loved the book and I think the movie faithfully captures le carré’s class and subtlety. 

Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold

Didn’t know much about this classic sci-fi series going into it, and at first I was asking myself if this book influenced star trek or vice versa, but about halfway thru it turns up the difficulty, intensity, and depth significantly and just never looks back, it honestly ends up being a very satisfying novel, transcends its genre with ease, really just an all-round winner. 

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Deeply conflicted about this film, it’s quite clever, the casting, acting, dialogue, music, cinematography all top notch, I just don’t think the setting ever really connects with any of the rest of it; rather than a beautiful dark comedy set in the end of ww2 in germany it ends up feeling like a movie about the end of ww2 in germany, and also whoops someone turned up the “dark comedy” and “sentimental” dial really high but we’re not sure why. 

Turn the ship around! by David Marquet

Like most leadership self help books, this one is repetitive and under-nuanced, but on the other hand it’s about a nuclear submarine which is cool, and the concept of leading by helping your organization lead themselves is fun. 

Gladiator (2000)

Decent action scenes, good casting, boring and obvious plot, real tear-jerker of an ending (I mean I didn’t actually cry but the vibe was there). 

the holdovers (2023)

This is a light + serious christmas movie that seems designed entirely to give paul giamatti room to have fun being mr super character actor, and while it wasn’t exactly interesting to me, i can’t fault the good folk music and chill vibes. 

Finish What We Started by Isaac Arnsdorf

This highly detailed, very contemporary account of the MAGA movement's takeover of the republican party will probably not retain its relevance as time passes, but at this moment it's super useful to see the machinations that lead to rising populism within a political party in piercing detail; I took away a few deep thoughts around people, intelligence, this country, its origins, but most entertaining from this read are descriptions of Georgia republicans fighting over how to vote in their own internal meetings so that they can elect new MAGA members so that they can fix voting at the national elections.