i never knew whether it was supposed to be "sans'" or "sans's"
you pronounce it like the second though so that's what i'm doing
this page will be updated as i try to read more so keep an eye out
ok now for the actual book reviews i'm going to write properly, i think that's a tone more befitting the topic
I'm really scared to say what I think a book is about, because my reading comprehension is dog and someone might flame me for it.
Well, you only live once. Here goes!
nicholas pileggi
This was the first book of Pileggi's that I read. I watched Goodfellas a couple years ago and actually didn't care much for the characters, but I remembered one day that it was based on this book and placed a hold on it. I think this might've been the first book where I immediately knew it was peak just by reading the first couple of sentences.
Pileggi does this thing where he uses a metric f-ton of dialogue to tell his stories, so at a certain point it feels like a first-person book. It's pulled off very well, even though all the mafia terminology got a bit confusing for a dumba** like me sometimes.
also nicholas pileggi
Unlike with Goodfellas, I didn't watch Casino before reading this one. I remember hearind somewhere that the movie ran upwards of three hours long and that was just a massive turn off for me.
Told in much the same way as Wiseguy, this book follows the rise and fall of the mafia in Vegas (at least I think so), and does a bit of parallel storytelling with both Frank Rosenthal and Tony Spilotro. I'm realizing as I write this that once you've read one you've basically read the other, but hey! Two cakes, amirite?
yes, i read all three of this guy pileggi's books
It's really unfortunate he only wrote these three. I probably could've devoured at least like five more of this guy's books.
This book follows a private detective and uses a bit more third person than the other two books. It's still peak regardless. He gives a ton of mini storylines throughout the book that are all neatly tied up at the end, even though according to Pileggi rarely any of the cases PIs are involved in have neat endings.
david grann
I somewhat wanted to watch the movie, but I didn't really have time and saw this in a Shanghai bookstore I was browsing one day and so decided to read it on a whim. Boy was I glad.
This was actually the book that got me to google more nonfiction books that were written like fiction. There's a good amount of photos throughout, and I found myself silently rooting for the investigators as the book wound on.
erik larson
This book is really two in one. Half the chapters tell the building of the Chicago World's Fair, while the other half tell the story of H. H. Holmes, one of the 19th century's most notorious serial killers.
Larson does this thing where he won't reveal the name of an entity until later in the book for spoiler reasons, and I think it's a pretty cool thing to do in a nonfiction book. The foreshadowing does get a bit too obvious, sometimes. I predicted one of the major plot points like a whole half of the book before it actually happened, and I spent way too long just waiting for it to get to the actual point.
Also some Reddit thread says that half the H. H. Holmes story is, like, fabricated, so read this at your own risk? I guess? Nevertheless, this book is still peak.
susan orlean
I read the synopsis thinking it was gonna be about the actual court case, but no, like 80% of it is just the author dicking around Florida and yapping with others about orchids. It's fun yapping, no doubt, but I can't lie- I felt a bit cheated after seeing the conflict the cover flaps advertised resolved in such a simpler manner.
There's not even a proper ending. Maybe there's a reason for that which English teachers could make their kids write a whole essay on, but it kinda left a bad taste in my mouth.
So yeah, not the best book, but it's still fine. I don't really regret reading it.
miguel cervantes
After seeing a bunch of fanart of Limbus Company's DQ, I really wanted to like this book. (I read this before knowing of the character I think.)
It's a fine book, but there's just way too many tangents. Certain segments were pretty amusing though! The humor holds up surprisngly well after a couple centuries. I can't say I laughed, but I certainly wasn't bored.
Actually, there was one part where I busted my ass laughing. I'll leave it to y'all to guess which one it was.
The way the book works is that it's kinda-sorta split into segments that are basically independent of each other besides a couple of callbacks. If all you knew was the premise and I flipped you to the random start of a segment, you'd have basically no problem reading on.
douglas adams
The only good thing about this book is that you get to see where all the references in The Impossible Quiz and the occassional Reddit comment come from.
This series tries so hard to be funny, and yet, I think I only laughed once throughout the entire 700-odd pages of the book. The main mechanism it uses to try to get a laugh is sheer absurdism, but nearly all of it falls flat. After most of the jokes, I just sat there, like, "ok".
So yeah. Don't waste your time.
joseph heller
Imagine reading a mathematical proof, but all the paragraphs are out of order.
I think one of the cover quotes was something like "This is the only war novel that makes any sense." What the hell was that person on?