“So that’s my life—or my life before I stopped sleeping—each day pretty much a repetition of the one before. I used to keep a diary, but if I forgot two or three days, I’d lose track of what had happened on which day. Yesterday could have been the day before yesterday, or vice versa. I’d sometimes wonder what kind of life this was. Which is not to say I found it empty. I was—very simply—amazed. At the lack of demarcation between the days. At the fact that I was part of such a life, a life that had swallowed me up so completely. At the fact that my footprints were being blown away before I even had the chance to turn and look at them.”

Haruki Murakami, “Sleep” in The Elephant Vanishes

The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami

Read: November 2018

Rating: 17 puzzle pieces with undefined edges. They look like they’re all part of the same puzzle, but maybe not?

TL;DR Recommendation: “Barn Burning” by Haruki Murakami

Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs

Read: October 2018

Review: I think I got the film adaptation of this mixed up with The Royal Tenenbaums… this was a lot different.

TL;DR Recommendation: “Losing a ‘Boyfriend,‘ the Best Way Possible” by Augusten Burroughs

Podcasts? Podcasts.

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts recently (and by a lot I mean I listen to maybe five hours worth of podcasts a day), so I thought I’d give a breakdown of some of my favorites. I wanted to make this post super cool and embed my favorite episodes, but WordPress doesn’t let you embed audiofiles (I think for copyright reasons) so I’ve just attached them as links! Please note that the descriptions are not explicitly stated to be about me, but they aren’t not about me.

For the person who always overshares when they get a little bit drunk…

Risk!

For the person who can never decide between Bob’s Burgers and Blue Planet…

Ologies

For the person who has been told “you’re the most jaded person in their 20s I have ever met” on a first date…

S-Town

For the person who needs to be reminded that good journalism still exists…

Serial

For the person who sometimes enjoys having their mind casually blown… 

Radiolab Presents: Gonads

For the person who needs to be reminded that good journalism still exists again (it’s a tough climate for news, ok?)…

Caliphate

For the person who’s kind of angsty but also wants to be financially stable…

Bad With Money

For the person who says they’re “above” the drama and the rumor mill…

Gossip

For the person who is secretly terrified of getting “gotcha’d” by one of those on-the-street-type show segments and called a stupid millennial…

More Perfect

For the person who thinks the world would be a less shitty place if we took some time to realize how much common ground we have…

Rough Translation

“Some of the very peasants who had most disputed with him over the hay, those whom he had wronged, and those who had wanted to deceive him, those very peasants had bowed cheerfully to him, quite obviously not bearing, and indeed unable to bear, any grudge against him, or any remorse, or any recollection even of having intended to cheat him. All that had been dissolved in the sea of joyous common toil […] Who was the labor for? What would be its fruits? Those were irrelevant and idle questions.

Levin had often admired this kind of life, had often envied the people who lived this kind of life, but today, especially under the impression of what he had seen of the relations between Ivan Parmenov and his young wife, the idea occurred to him clearly for the first time that it depended on himself alone whether or not to change his wearisome, idle, and artificial personal life for the hard-working, pure, and delightful life.”

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Read: October 2018

Rating: Think Pride and Prejudice sequel, but set in Russia, with a lot more scandal, and 935 pages long.

TL;DR Recommendation: “Anna in Somalia” by Rough Translation

“Mama used to tell us a story about a cicada sitting high in a tree. It chirps and drinks in dew, oblivious to the praying mantis behind it. The mantis arches up its front leg to stab the cicada, but it doesn’t know an oriole perches behind it. The bird stretches out its neck to snap up the mantis for a midday meal, but its unaware of the boy who’s come into the garden with a net. Three creatures—the cicada, the mantis and the oriole—all coveted gains without being aware of the greater and inescapable danger that was coming.”

-Lisa See, Shanghai Girls

Shanghai Girls

Read: September 2018

Rating: Not as good as Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, but not bad.

TL;DR Recommendation: Dirty Pretty Things, directed by Stephen Frears

“In your own body, don’t all the different cells know what to do? When to grow and when to stop growing? When to form certain substance and when not to—and when they form them, just how much to form, neither more nor less? Each cell is, to a certain extent, an independent chemical factory, but all draw from a common fund of raw materials brought to it by a common transportation system, all deliver wastes into common channels, and all contribute to an overall group consciousness.”

-Isaac Asimov, Foundation’s Edge

Foundation’s Edge by Isaac Asimov

Read: September 2017

Rating: I read this because I heard Elon Musk really liked it? What does that say about me?

TL;DR Recommendation: The Last Question by Isaac Asimov