Sara Reviews: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

This book teaches that good is bad and bad is good. How do you review a book like that?

I rate it Buddha/Flower.

Word Count: 41,000

Sara's Total Points: 200,275

Sara Reviews: The Enchiridion by Epicetetus!

It seems that no matter the time period or cultural context, "self-help" genre texts tend to boil down to the same basic principle: stop dreading and desiring things you have little control over and maybe you won't be so damn miserable.

A few bits of the Enchiridion read a little like Eastern philosophy except way more centered on self (Westerners, am I right?). Some of its points could perhaps be better contextualized.

"If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies."

Damn, that's cold, Epictetus. I swear like half of this thing just talks about how you should chill if your family dies.

"If a horse should be prideful and say, 'I am handsome,' it would be supportable."

"Supportable" seems like an understatement for describing a talking horse.

"You must drink no cold water, nor sometimes even wine."

This is describing what you should do if you are training to win the Olympics. Am I reading wrong or is this insinuating that wine is a more appropriate beverage for an athlete than cold water?

"Don't allow your laughter be much, nor on many occasions, nor profuse."

Straight up terrible advice.

"If anyone tells you that such a person speaks ill of you, don't make excuses about what is said of you, but answer: 'He does not know my other faults, else he would not have mentioned only these.'"

I think this is supposed to mean you should be humble, but it kind of reads as trolling idk.

"Women from fourteen years old are flattered with the title of 'mistresses' by the men. Therefore, perceiving that they are regarded only as qualified to give the men pleasure, they begin to adorn themselves, and in that to place ill their hopes. We should, therefore, fix our attention on making them sensible that they are valued for the appearance of decent, modest and discreet behavior."

wat

"It is a mark of want of genius to spend much time in things relating to the body, as to be long in our exercises, in eating and drinking, and in the discharge of other animal functions."

Is he seriously saying that only dumbasses take a long time to poop? We're done here. 1/10 stars.

Word Count: 7,392 (I feel like this blog is a testament to my short attention span.)
Sara's Total Points: 166,667

Sara Reviews: Around the World in 80 Days!

I honestly hated this book. A guy goes around the world in 80 days. The end. Who cares? I'm surprised this book holds its appeal to so many people today, because it just doesn't feel relevant. This story would have been interesting at the time of its writing when people hadn't really traveled and didn't have the internet and didn't know about the world, because it does a pretty good job of putting the reader in exotic places. However, reading it now, it's just like 'oh this guy goes all over the place and has lots of obstacles and then he overcomes them.' The attitude is also extremely Eurocentric, and I can hardly blame the author given the time period, but it just seems dated now. It's very 'lol foreigners, they're so uncivilized!' Aouda is described as basically white with her European education and she's super hot so it's chill to like her even though she's Indian. That all said, the characters are at least sympathetic and compelling, and even though it's a pretty straightforward story, you are somewhat caught up in whether or not the protagonists will be successful (spoiler alert: they are).

I think my resentment was partially based upon self-loathing that I almost couldn't power through a 60,000 word book. And guess how many hot air balloons there were?

ZERO. 2/10 stars.

Word count: 62,465 
Sara's total points: 159,275

Sara Reviews Audio Programming: Doug Loves Movies!

Man, I sure suck at book club. But you know what, I spend most days listening to at least some audio programming or other, and that's a lot of hours of my life (so many hours... so many wasted, wasted hours). So, screw all of you.

Doug Loves Movies was the first comedy podcast I really listened to. My exact recollection fails me now, but I'm pretty sure that I saw somebody post online a link to the episode with Adam Scott and Jon Hamm, and being me, I was like "I should probably listen to this." My first job included lots and lots of boring, boring BIM modeling of big box stores, so my brain wasn't exactly too occupied most of the time, and this show really spoke to me at that particular moment of my life. I ended up listening to all of the (free) back episodes within a relatively short amount of time, the appeal of which was, primarily, the games.

There are a lot of mediocre podcasts out there, and other than the relatively high caliber of guests, Doug Loves Movies really isn't anything extraordinarily above the rest. But the games! Oh, the games! I think they're the reason I never really tire of this show. Even though the laughs per minute are a lot lower than on superior shows like Who Charted?, I still find myself able to chug through more episodes of this than almost anything else. Generally speaking, even the duds have plenty of games. I'm even terrible at Leonard Maltin, yet I still listen with rapt attention.

I cannot remember specific episodes to recommend, but my favorite guests include: Paul F. Tompkins (the episodes where he shows up as Cake Boss, Ice-T and Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber to play the Leonard Maltin game against himself are a delight), Scott Aukerman, Adam Scott, Samm Levine (okay, this is just a list of people who get overly enthusiastic about the Leonard Maltin game), Leonard Maltin himself (who constantly apologizes for being terrible at his own game), Anna Kendrick, Garfunkel and/or Oates, T.J. Miller (especially earlier episodes before he got sort of replaced with Pete Holmes, whose popularity I do not understand). Generally speaking, I'd listen according to who you already like.

Overall, 8/10 stars!!!!!!! Honestly, on the enjoyment scale I'd put it closer to 6/10, but 10/10 for endurability (not a word, but let's make it one).

Points or whatever: NONE GAINED! Because this is not a book and if it were, it would be a really terrible book.

Sara Reviews: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka!

Mitch really is not embracing this book club I mean I invited him to post and it's been like 12 hours, no response, what is this? In what will most assuredly be a failed attempt to annoy him into participating, I am reviewing Metamorphosis because I know that it was the first thing he read for "book club."

I most related to this part:

"If they were startled, then Gregor had no more responsibility and could be calm. But if they accepted everything quietly, then he would have no reason to get excited and, if he got a move on, could really be at the station around eight o’clock."

Let's be honest, if I woke up as a bug, I'd probably be like 'oh maybe I won't have to go to work since I'm a bug!' Dick move on the part of the family though to not accept Gregor's new identity of a bug. Oh god, do you think "otherkins" use this book as like evidence that it's important to accept non-human identities? I'm not sure I like this book anymore.

Overall, it was short, so... 7/10 stars!!!!!!!!!

Word count: 21,810 (or something around there, I'm not sure for this particular translation)
Sara's total points: 96,810

Sara (Prematurely) Reviews: On the Map: A Mind-Expanding Exploration of the Way the World Looks by Simon Garfield!

I just bought this book and I'm already put off by the foreword author, who on the first page tells us, "Even at odd moments, say while clearing spam from the junk folders of my email accounts, it occurs to me that 'spam' is 'maps' backward, and how maps, the true opposite of spam, do not arrive unbidden, but only beckon." Wow, you're like the Zooey Deschanel of map-likers. I don't know what I expected from a popular book about maps that calls itself a "A Mind-Expanding Exploration," written by an author celebrated for his previous work on fonts.

But I do love maps, so. Okay.

Sara Reviews: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell!

You know when a dude on the bus or maybe a weird uncle starts talking to you and he's going on and on with very specific anecdotal stories and drawing tenuous conclusions from them and you're just like "calm down"? This book is kinda like that. It's called "Outliers," which implies that the author has some sort of grasp of statistics, but he then oxymoronically proceeds to generalize, oversimplify and draw sweeping conclusions from his hand-picked group of "outliers." There's no reason for the reader to believe that it's anything more than a collection of anecdotes. It's interesting, sure, but what's the point?

The first part of the book posits the wild idea that success is a a product of hard work, circumstance and being in the right place at the right time. You know, I had been wondering why my grandmother wasn't the creator of Microsoft, but this book really spells out why Bill Gates was in a slightly more advantageous position to found a pioneering, multi-billion dollar software corporation. I guess I should cut grandma some slack.

The rest of the book kind of devolves from there, with some interesting stories that lack the full picture to really convince you of the author's conclusions aside from the most generic and obvious ones. Cultural differences can affect communication styles? Really. I'm already bored of reviewing this.

I did learn a few things I guess so 3/10 stars!!!!!!!!!

Word count: ~75,000 was the closest I could find on the internet. Sounds about right.
Sara's point total: 75,000