What Book Are You Currently Reading? (2.0.)

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Just finished that, found it surprisingly modern and genuinely quite good. Anyway i'm reading.

Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Started reading Freakonomics again, mostly to reply to the podcast If Books Could Kill.

What got me about the 10 minutes of their podcast on Freakonomics that I've listened to so far was that they claimed to be against 'airplane books' that are meant to seem academic and smart but that really just promote lazy thinking or anti intellectualism, but in the 10 minutes, they did nothing but make sophomoric comments and referred to the book as 'neoliberal' which could not be more lazy in thinking or anti intellectual.

Yeah that podcast realy rubbed me the wrong way, they don't realy make too many strong points against the books they argue. It's a real shame because I love podcasts and articles that take down pesudo-intellecutalism.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Finished Notes from Underground, an excellent novel that I found timeless and disturbing. The unnamed main character is uncanny in how much he resembles people you might not know or even elements of yourself.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Highlights of q1 were:

The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng
Shadows At Noon by Joya Chatterji
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe

Honorable mentions to The Leavers by Lisa Ko, The Quiet American by Graham Greene, and All This Could be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews.

I don't think it was a great book, but s/o to Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian for uncannily depicting the world that I live in better than anything else I've seen.

(Fwiw I do read stuff which isn't related to Asia in some way or form.)

Rachel Heng is an interesting choice, Singaporean authors don't get read much outside of Singapore. I've actually met her and had my copy of the book signed by her, but haven't been able to find the time to sit down and actually read it. Her previous was a bit of a dissapointment that wasted it's premise.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Highlights of q1 were:

The Great Reclamation by Rachel Heng
Shadows At Noon by Joya Chatterji
The Snakehead: An Epic Tale of the Chinatown Underworld and the American Dream by Patrick Radden Keefe

Honorable mentions to The Leavers by Lisa Ko, The Quiet American by Graham Greene, and All This Could be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews.

I don't think it was a great book, but s/o to Gold Diggers by Sanjena Sathian for uncannily depicting the world that I live in better than anything else I've seen.

(Fwiw I do read stuff which isn't related to Asia in some way or form.)

Rachel Heng is an interesting choice, Singaporean authors don't get read much outside of Singapore. I've actually met her and had my copy of the book signed by her, but haven't been able to find the time to sit down and actually read it. Her previous was a bit of a dissapointment that wasted it's premise.

Yeah, I heard about it on a Japan Times podcast out of all places and picked it up bc the premise was right up my alley. Had never heard of before. This was actually my second Singaporean book - I read The Inlet by Claire Tham last year and liked it also.

Interesting glad you enjoy Singaporean literature; was there anything specific about it that you enjoyed ?. I'm in the process of setting up my local literary magazine so hopefully it'll have some global appeal

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Not written by a native of the city, of course, but The Singapore Grip is always a good read.

Hmm maybe old Singapore; there's something very alienating about reading those books given how divorced the environment is from the one I live in.



Recently finished Nazi Literature in the Americas and The Last Evening on Earth