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Latest posts

A Physical Education | Casey Johnston

👎 Skippable lesson In this memoir, Casey Johnston describes her journey from a cardio influencer to a strength-training one. Her personal story of overcoming trauma and finding joy in working out is supplemented with scientific information about health, dieting, and fitness. While this book aims to be educational and to make a compelling case for strength training, it remains a personal memoir…

Jul 26, 2026 · Optional

Lent Cooking Challenge

I'm not religious, so I wasn't going to do anything for Lent this year—I didn't even know it was happening! But a friend reminded me and convinced me that even if I don't want to fast or give up sugar or alcohol, like many people do, this 40-day period can still be an opportunity for change. It couldn't hurt to try, so I set myself a challenge to try two completely new…

Apr 24, 2026 · Optional

Stein und Flöte | Hans Bemmann

👎 Steiniger Weg mit einigen verlockenden Flötenklängen Als der Protagonist dieses Buches ganz still und lauschend auf die Welt kommt, wird er direkt Lauscher getauft. Auch wenn er älter wird, behält er dieses Gemüt bei und zweifelt, ob er in die Fußstapfen seines Vaters, des Großen Brüllers, treten kann. Also macht er sich auf zu seinem Großvater, dem Sanften Flöter, um etwas für – und über! –…

Apr 14, 2026 · Optional

Sand Talk | Tyson Yunkaporta

👎 Sand Shut Up In nonfiction, a writer's credentials are often used to assure readers of their expertise and are meant to lend legitimacy to the text. Books on health, for example, often guarantee us that the author is a medical doctor. Writers of business books use dust jackets to brag about their own successful businesses. And the author's photo inside a gardening book depicts them…

Mar 18, 2026 · Optional

Über Menschen | Juli Zeh

👎 Dieses Buch am besten über gehen Robert ist mit seinem eifernden Aktivismus fürs Klima und für stärkere Corona-Maßnahmen unausstehlich geworden. Also flüchtet seine Freundin Dora Anfang 2020 aus ihrer gemeinsamen Berliner Wohnung in den fiktiven Vorort Bracken. Ihrem Job als Texterin einer Hashtag-Öko Werbeagentur kann sie auch von dort aus nachgehen. Und beim Anlegen des eigenen Gemüsegartens…

Feb 16, 2026 · Optional

Poor Things | Alasdair Gray

👍 Bountiful treasure Individuals are shaped by the society around them in a process sociologists call "socialization." An individual internalizes ideas and learns behaviours from the society. These are rarely explicitly taught but rather soaked up by osmosis. However, the process and its results differ from person to person. The way an individual internalizes the implicit "lessons" is one factor.…

Feb 7, 2026 · Optional

All Systems Red | Martha Wells

👍 That's a green light from me A cyborg calling itself "murderbot" is rented out to accompany a research team on a survey mission on a foreign planet. Its job is security, but thanks to a hacked governor module it spends most of its time streaming entertainment programmes directly into its brain. Soon members of the survey team fall victim to strange happenings that appear less and less like mere…

Jan 21, 2026 · Optional

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket | Hilma Wolitzer

👍 Today a woman fell madly in love with this book We all are living in our routines. They are not static routines. They are changing slowly, often without us noticing. I don't know when I started taking a different route to work. And I used to spend more time reading—where did that go? But every once in a while, we experience a disruption. Something throws us off—a metaphorical curveball…

Jan 8, 2026 · Optional

Der Belgische Konsul (orig. Premier sang) | Amélie Nothomb

👎 Ein diplomatisches Schulterzucken Wer durch meine Rezensionen scrollt, kann leicht feststellen, dass ich Amélie Nothomb sehr gerne lese. Ihre Bücher sind kurz, haben einen schlauen Humor, ein rasantes Tempo und schildern oft grenzüberschreitende Situationen, die uns Wahrheiten des Menschseins enthüllen. Die besondere Herausforderung, all das mit einer Biografie zu verbinden, meistert sie hier…

Dec 14, 2025 · Optional

The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics | Olivia Waite

👎 Stellar in its genre, dim around the edges Let's get this out of the way first: this is a lesbian romance novel set in the Regency era. It's what comes up if you search for "Bridgerton, but gay." And it succeeds perfectly at that, making it a really good book. At the same time, it does not reach beyond the genre, leading me to classify it as mere entertainment and not recommend it.…

Dec 13, 2025 · Optional

Das Meer der Aswang | Allan N. Derain

👎 Lasse dich im philippinischen Meer ertränken Nachdem Luklaks Mutter für ihr Fremdgehen hingerichtet worden ist, verspeist das 15-jährige philippinische Mädchen ihren Bruder. Dass dieser ein Aal ist und vorher bereits tot war, macht die Sache nur bedingt besser, denn in den nächsten Tagen beginnt Luklak, sich in einen Aswang, ein krokodilartiges Wesen, zu verwandeln. Wie aus der Prämisse…

Nov 23, 2025 · Optional

BLAME! | written and illustrated by Tsutomu Nihei

👎 More like LAME! To this day, the manga series BLAME! is celebrated for its world building. It takes place in the far future where humans have built autonomous robots called Builders. These Builders have, in turn, built The City, a construct billions of kilometers in diameter, made of metal and concrete. Its inhabitants are a variety of creatures, humans, and artificial life forms, ranging from…

Nov 17, 2025 · Optional

Audition | Katie Kitamura

👎 You won't get a call back My dad used to tell me a joke. I nodded and waited for him to continue. He said that he had a friend who was no longer in love with his wife, no longer took joy in his children, but who nonetheless did not want to leave his family. He only wanted to feel the way he used to feel. He asked his therapist what to do. She told him to pretend he was in love with his wife. To…

Nov 3, 2025 · Optional

Awkwardness: A Theory | Alexandra Plakias

👍 Well, this is awkward. No, wait. "Awkward," this is well. While awkwardness has always been around, the past 20 years especially have seen consistent popularity of awkwardness in media, specifically "awkward comedies." 1 Examples include shows like The Office, Fleabag, I Think You Should Leave, or anything Nathan Fielder touches. In real life, on the other hand, people are looking to avoid…

Oct 31, 2025 · Optional

"AI" is like…

In August I spent 30 days (and my own hard-earned money) testing the "premium" AI models offered by Anthropic, namely Claude Opus 4 (and later 4.1). Previously, the invention of LLMs has been compared to that of the printing press, the smartphone, etc. My experience has revealed a much better analogy, at least from a user perspective: The humble Pedalo . You know "Pedalo?" Not the kind of boat,…

Oct 3, 2025 · Optional

Obsidian Bases Tips and Tricks

After a weekend tinkering with the new Bases feature of Obsidian , I want to share some cool formulas I came up with, that will hopefully power up your bases as much as they did mine. I'm assuming you already know: What Bases are How to create a base How to create views If you're unsure about any of this, you can watch Nick Milo's video to catch up. Filters, Properties, Sorting and…

Sep 4, 2025 · Optional

Permutation City | Greg Egan

👍 Thought-provoking arrangement of letters on the page In 2050, Paul runs some experiments on a simulated Copy of himself to probe the nature of consciousness and reality itself. He slows the computation of the Copy to a crawl. He assigns different steps to different computers around the world. He splits the computation into parts, which he distributes globally to be computed at different speeds.…

Aug 17, 2025 · Optional