Books

Print books and audiobooks.

2024

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien (2001)7.8/10. If you think the Bible's Old Testament is dense, try reading the Ainulindalë and Valaquenta and memorizing all the characters. This is exactly the kind of lore dump I wanted. It actually makes me appreciate the Lord of the Rings as a franchise much more. I think I also judged the Hobbit and Rings of Power unfairly after this. I also kept notes of the book if you'd like to read a summary of the important points of the book. It's very good at the start and the end but the middle of Quenta Silmarillion gets very dry.
Favorite quotes:
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Thus it was in Gondolin; and amid all the bliss of that realm, while its glory lasted, a dark seed of evil was sown.
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And thus it came to pass that the Silmarils found their long homes: one in the airs of the heavens, and one in the fires of the heart of the world, and one in the deep waters.
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Yet the lies of Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.
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Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (2022)8.4/10. Narrated by Jennifer Kim and Julian Cihi. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a heart-wrenching tale of souls bound by friendship and love throughout trials and tribulations and healing. The main characters are intricately and wonderfully written. When you think it can't get any more tragic, it somehow gets more tragic. I also appreciate its strange metacommentary on video games.

Favorite quotes:

Sam looked at Sadie, and he thought, this is what time travel is. It's looking at a person, and seeing them in the present and the past, concurrently. And that mode of transport only worked with those one had known for a significant time.

"Always remember, mine Sadie: life is very long... unless it is not."

"No," Marx said. "I loved being a student actor. I was fully devoted to it. And now, I'm not. I think if I had become a professional I would likely have fallen out of love with it anyway. It isn't a sadness, but a joy, that we don't do the same things for the length of our lives."

The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong (2019)8.0/10. Ocean Vuong is a phenomenal poet and writer with such a powerfully distinct voice. The words are beautifully written for his mother as a sort of memorial to remember her life and legacy. It starts out a bit slow but gains speed and focuses on generational trauma, racial and sexual discrimintation, and recovery. I recommend this book if you love poetry and love his poems. It crushes me to find out that his mother likely never got to read (or hear) his book before she passed away.

Favorite quotes:

In the nail salon, sorry is a tool one uses to pander until the word itself becomes currency. It no longer merely apologizes, but insists, reminds: I'm here, right here, beneath you. It is the lowering of oneself so that the client feels right, superior, and charitable. In the nail salon, one's definition of sorry is deranged into a new word entirely, one that's charged and reused as both power and defacement at once. Being sorry pays, being sorry even, or especially, when one has no fault, is worth every self-deprecating syllable the mouth allows. Because the mouth must eat.

The city throbbed, shimmered. Then, trying to snap himself out of it, he said, "Fuck Coca-Cola."
  "Yeah, Sprite for life, fuckers," I added, not knowing then what I know now: that Coca-Cola and Sprite were made by the same damn company. That no matter who you are or what you love or where you stand, it was always Coca-Cola in the end.