Read Strays of Ruined Springs

 All the books I read this fall and what I thought of them I would like to assure the readers of my blog that, although I was too busy this fall being an academic weapon and being insulted by various individuals, my book blog will never die, so long as men can breathe or eyes can see.  In August, I read 5 books. I read The Narrow Corridor by Daron Acemoğlu and James Robinson so I could review it for my job, and then I did review it, but they didn't put it up anywhere, but I still got paid to read it. I have since tried to convince my academic advisor who also directs the organization I work for to pay me to read other books, but I don't think they would put up those reviews either. This book was fine and I pretended to have sophisticated opinions on it. It is trying really hard for an academic book to not be boring; they almost succeed. I read Engine Summer by John Crowley because (and again I am very embarrassed to admit this) the AI robot recommended it to me because I wante...

  All the books I read in July and what I thought of them In July, I read 5 books and I liked all of them, and I also went to the Rita's in Walpole with Kate, and I had the passionfruit flavor, and it was very good, which was shocking because the only good Italian ice flavor is lemon. I also attended a crossword tournament and went to the beach. But I didn't listen to the July Hozier song even once so I didn't get anything out of this month and it was all vanity. First, I read The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien; the author of this book is clearly a lot of fun, but I didn't understand what anything was leading up to or what the point was. Hozier wrote two whole songs about this book. In retrospect, I guess I am pretty ambivalent about it, but I also probably should have been paying closer attention, and then I might have understood better.  Then, I read Vladimir Nabokov's translation and commentary of Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin. I liked that it was ve...

 All the books I read in June and what I thought of them There's no update on my life or anything like that this month because I have nothing pleasant to say and I think it gets old. I read 7 books in June. First, I reread The Rachel Incident  which is about two young Irish people who live together and have an entanglement with one of their professors which makes everyone feel sort of dumb. There's a really good line where Rachel, whose best friend (the other protagonist) is named James, meets another person named James at a party, and she tells him, "sorry, I already have one of those." I thought when I first read it, that's clever, I'm going to steal it, AND I'M PLEASED TO REPORT THAT BETWEEN THEN AND NOW I HAVE HAD THAT EXACT CONVERSATION except my friend is PJ not James. This book is really a lot of fun.  Then, I read the new Haruki Murakami book The City and its Uncertain Walls ,   which I realized while reading it steals the plot from Hardboiled Wond...

 All the books I read in May and what I thought of them I read 5 books!! I am once again suffering on account of the time of year. People ask me, Clara, how are you? but this is actually just the same question as, Clara, what month is it, and what's the weather like? First, I read The Story of a New Name again, and I enjoyed it (again), and I just wish the characters treated each other well instead of poorly, but I think the next book features Enzo being a nice guy, so that's something to look forward to. Then, I read The Cat Who Saved Books . I think it may have been a mistake to acquire this book permanently before I read it because it is not really that good. When I explain my problem with it, I sound very pretentious (this is just a warning). I read an article for my ancient Greek class called "The Hand of God Artfully Placed" by which the author means that Xenophon shows how the gods are influencing events and decisions in a way that is apparently sophisticated....

 All the books I read in March and April and what I thought of them I actually cannot read (I could read in March) and I think it might be bad for my mental well being. I can't believe that now is the time that I am inexplicably overcome with a burning desire to blog (I have to do so many finals). I don't want to do any kind of formatting of the books and you are all just going to have to live with that.  In February, the only book I read was Lolita , but I can't talk too much on the internet about how much I love Lolita because I think that makes me look bad. I just really like the setting; I'm not kidding.  In March I only read books that were vaguely classical, except for Ada or Ardor which is another Vladimir Nabokov book about cousins who like each other way too much and also they find out that they're siblings. This book is so aggressively Nabokovian and bro really ignored everything his editor told him, so the book is too long and really weird even though no...

This blog post is my final project for my philosophy class I hope my readership will forgive this departure from the sort of thing I usually write about. I read two books about animal rights and animal welfare, Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer and The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan, and I am going to compare them because Peter Singer is a utilitarian and Tom Regan was, as far as I can tell, not really a Kantian but at least a deontologist.  Animal Liberation Now by Peter Singer ⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Case for Animal Rights by Tom Regan ⭐⭐ I can see that The Case for Animal Rights has a purpose and I'm not upset that it exists, but Animal Liberation Now is definitely a better book from every perspective unless you are very erudite. I think Peter Singer's book is really successful in presenting the subject matter to an audience that might not have thought about it very much (or might have some subconscious resistance to veganism because no one likes being made to feel guilty about th...