Favourites Q4 2024

Happy Tuesday from Patacona. This Newsletter was supposed to go out on Sunday, but I experienced some technical difficulties. I haven’t been writing much for the newsletter over the last few months, but lately, I have gotten back to it, and I have some newsletters already in the editing phase that I’m really excited about. This really means nothing because what is exciting today may not be relevant in a couple of weeks, and it may not see the light of day. However, I’m back to writing outside of the topic of Russia and innovation economics. It feels great to experiment with new and old ideas after that topic consumed almost all of my writing.

With the holiday season upon us, I will be doing more of the traditional special newsletters so the favourites of the quarter will come a bit soon this time. Fortunately, the last months have been great with my change of work schedule, and I have been able to spend more time doing things that are important to me. This means I have lots of favourites since October.

What I’ve Been Reading

The Good

Impro by Keith Johnstone: ☆☆☆☆☆ This book is very popular amongst some circles of internet tech bros, and I never saw the appeal of a book from the 1970s teaching about theatre, but after I came across it twice in the same afternoon, I bit the bullet and read it. At times, it is a bit esoteric and dense, but it makes great observations of how people act in order to teach theatre students to act “naturally”. How abstract concepts are simplified makes the book one of the surprises of this year. The ideas about creativity, spontaneity and storytelling were groundbreaking to me; nowadays, it is very difficult for a nonfiction book to have such an effect on how I think.

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer: ☆☆☆☆ This one is more of a mainstream book. It is the first book in a sci-fi saga that was written in 2014. The concepts were interesting, and the storytelling and universe-building were good. I found many similarities with The 3 Body Problem but with less of the pseudo-science. I will pick up the next book in the saga soon.

Crypto Confidential by Nat Eliason: ☆☆☆☆☆ I talked about this one in a past newsletter. It is written by one of my favourite online writers. It talks about the last crypto gold rush and may serve as a cautionary tale for many today. The book is autobiographical, but because of the writing style, it reads like fiction. 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney: ☆☆☆☆1/2 I love how Sally Rooney writes and develops her characters, and this book is no exception. Using a brother relationship to explore current social and cultural affairs makes for a great story because it uses the tried and true drama as a springboard to ease into the secondary themes of the novel. It could easily be one of her best works, magnitudes better than her previous novel. This one will probably win the Goodreads Book of the Year.

Skunk Works by Ben Rich: ☆☆☆☆ This book was interesting as a memoir of an engineering manager at the forefront of American military innovation at the height of the Cold War. The book was part of the reading towards my thesis on innovation in Russia as a study of the enemy but I never got around to using it. The book is a great recommendation for aerospace enthusiasts.

Upstream by Mary Oliver: ☆☆☆☆☆ Mary Oliver is stylistically my favourite writer. This collection of essays is just beautiful. Every single word choice is precious. She invites the reader into her view of the natural world and shares it with them because she truly believes everyone should experience it. The sharing of her experience has shaped how I have experienced nature since. The introspective studies of literary influences and her takes on imagination and creativity are not only beautifully written but are also some of the most interesting and mind-shaping I have ever read. I recommend everything by Mary Oliver, but I know poetry is not everyone’s cup of tea. This essay book, at 200 pages, may serve as a great introduction to her unique vision of the world. At 200 pages, it feels too short, but I think this has been chosen by design to make it easy to reread, as I’m sure it has infinite rereadability potential.

The Bad

I started both books because I liked previous writing from the authors, but they felt empty. The content was good, but it felt like it could be turned into a long blog post. They added little original thought and were just a curation of ideas from other writers. My sensation was that both books were money grabs by established internet writers.

Mental Models by Shane Parrish: ☆☆☆ It is a good introduction, but it just felt like a rip-off of Nassim Taleb and Danny Khaneman. If you are interested in these ideas, you are better off reading the originals. It gets 3 stars instead of two because both authors are quoted multiple times throughout the book. I can’t understand why it has a 4-star average on Goodreads.

Slow Productivity by Cal Newport: ☆☆ I read it last month, and I can now say that very little new substance came out of the book and that I have no lasting memory of anything in it. I feel like there was no purpose behind this book other than fulfilling a book deal, which is sad because Newport is one of the most recognised non-fiction writers of the last 10 years.

Links

Movies & TV

I started watching Person of Interest after I found out it was written by Jonathan Nolan, who created my all-time favourite show, Westworld. I’m 5 episodes in and the premise is interesting, the nostalgia of 15 year old television is an added bonus.

Molly’s Game: ☆☆☆1/2 The story and character building is top-tier. I didn’t think they were able to put Molly Bloom in a good light as much as they tried to.

Memento ☆☆☆ Another thing written by Jonathan Nolan and, in this case, directed by his brother. I get how the Nolans were starting to play with time using storytelling, and I guess 20 years ago, this was groundbreaking, weird stuff. I see how it influenced their next work, but it didn’t do it for me.

American History X ☆☆☆☆ We were supposed to watch this movie in high school, but after some parents complained, we never watched it. I would have really liked to watch it at 16 because I get how this could be really impactful to a high school student. For me, it was just a good Saturday night movie. My fascism warning movie is still Die Welle because it was the one I watched when I was still impressionable. This movie may be better than Die Welle as a movie, but I would still give Die Welle ☆☆☆☆1/2.

End Note

In this newsletter I tried out a new star system for my favourites posts, what do you think of it? You will be hearing from me more frequently again. I am leaving you with pictures from last month.

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Have a great rest of the week!

Ricard

Retrieved at (website time).

Available at: peiroricard.com/?p=713