Yet Another Book Club

“The House of a Thousand Floors” by Jan Weiss

This is blatant anti-capitalist communist propaganda. I don’t even mean that as an insult, necessarily. It just is what it is. Something like “Icebreaker,” maybe, but way more absurd, way more symbolic, and much deeper into phantasmagoria. Rich people at the bottom, suffering people above, the whole structure as

“Generation P” by Victor Pelevin

I did not expect much from this book going in. I had seen the movie adaptation a while ago and understood basically nothing. Just vibes, ads, post-Soviet weirdness, and some mystical nonsense happening on top. Now I still only vaguely remember the movie, but at least I understand the plot

“Indigenous Writes” by Chelsea Vowel

First of all, what baffled me was that the author had to spend the beginning of the book basically apologizing before even starting. And I get why. I guess this is just the state of Canadian reality: even people who are on the receiving end of government oppression have to

“The Faith of Beasts” by James S. A. Corey

This was decent sci-fi, but I don’t know. It somehow moved both too slowly and too quickly. A lot happens, technically. Humanity is still trying to survive, still trying to understand what is going on, still trying to find some kind of leverage. But emotionally and strategically it also

"Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

For most of this book, I was kind of confused why everyone kept calling it one of the great anti-war novels. It was funny, yes. Silly, yes. Absurd, definitely. But for a long time it felt less like “war is hell” and more like “government structures are deranged machines run

"Clearing the Plains" by James Daschuk

I already knew the broad strokes here from other sources: Canada starved Indigenous people, broke promises, used disease and hunger as tools of policy, and then acted like this was all unfortunate but somehow natural. But seeing it laid out this broadly and this clinically hits differently. Daschuk does not

"Anathem" by Neal Stephenson

It was a long, windy book with so many philosophical concepts that make you go "hmmm" that I don't have the candor to review it properly. It is relatively long, yet I don't see how it could be smaller. I'm afraid of

"A Random Walk Down Wall Street" by Burton G. Malkiel

On the one hand, I think this book is too long; on the other hand, I think it couldn't be shorter because of how much data it contains. The gist of it is the following: * It's so improbable to beat the markets, any important savings are

"Dopamine Nation" by Dr. Anna Lembke

I've read many books on Dopamine, so I'm somewhat an armchair expert on the topic. However, the author has taught me a useful acronym to combat addiction: * D — data, gather data on the addiction * O — objectives, see why the addiction is in place * P — problems, see

"There Is No Antimemetics Division" by Sam Hughes

This book was an absolute gem hidden in plain sight. I first learned about it from a funny meme on the Internet, and then got fully immersed in the story. The premise is simple: there's an SCP-like foundation with a division that handles entities that mess with your

"A City on Mars" by Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

This book is a refreshing critique of insane plans to settle Mars. The authors outline the pros and cons of the settlement from multiple perspectives: psychology, sociology, politics, law, physics, and more. Overall, I feel like "A City on Mars" turned my perspective 180 degrees, and now I

"Mostly Harmless" by Douglas Adams

Welp, here goes another series that I've completed! Overall, the bleakest book in the trilogy (even though it's the fifth book). I wouldn't say there's much sci-fi added here besides parallel universes. Arthur has a daughter who is in a constant, raging

"Future Boy" by Michael J. Fox

I knew so little about Back to the Future and Michael before this book randomly popped up on my radar. It's a genuine story of how the author got the role and how Back to the Future was developed. I never knew they had to reshoot 6 weeks

"So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish" by Douglas Adams

I don't know if it's me or if the books in the series become less and less coherent with every consequent issue. This book was challenging to read because the plot was so complex to follow. I mean, no one reads Adams for the plot, but

"Life, the Universe and Everything" by Douglas Adams

OK, the third book in the series. Not going to lie, this would have killed as a video game; in the book medium, it reads, well, as anything that Adams has written publicly. It is full of unexpected turns of events that seem to have no relation to each other,

"The Land Trap" by Mike Bird

I picked up this book because the WealthSimple email newsletter recommended it, featuring the author in one of their latest issues. I don't know what I expected, but the book is profound in history and facts about how it came to have such high real estate prices. Essentially,

"The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" by Douglas Adams

I love reading Adams, in fact, so much that it looks like I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at least five times. Funny thing, though, I was going to write a review of the first book of the series when it struck me: I

"Founder vs Investor" by Elizabeth Joy Zalman and Jerry Neumann

I'm going to start recommending this book to anyone interested in raising money alongside "Fundraising" by Bryan Breslow. Both books together describe how exactly the fundraising world operates. Having gone through two rounds at my company, this book gets my seal of approval. It isn'

"The Shadow Factory" by James Bamford

What is surprising is that this book was published in 2008, 5 years before Snowden released documents that basically proved what the author was saying. Here's the gist without details: NSA was at risk of downsizing, then 9/11 happened, then NSA's budget and authority blew

"Ubik" by Philip K. Dick

Woah, this book was a journey! Even though the last quarter of the book is simple action, the ending is very on-brand for PKD. Just as we'll never know whether the bladerunner is an android himself, we won't ever know why the money is this way

"3001: The Final Odyssey" by Arthur C. Clarke

This book is basically the precursor or inspiration to "The Death's End" and "Expanse" novels. It opens up the world of 3001 on Earth, which, as read in 2025, is very redundant. E.g. space elevators and inertia-nullifiers are so prevalent in sci-fi today

"2061: Odyssey Three" by Arthur C. Clarke

I realized I had forgotten to write a review of the third installment of the Space Odyssey saga when I was supposed to write one for the fourth book. It might be the age of the book, but even though I didn't find it breathtaking or mysterious, it

"The Let Them Theory" by Mel Robbins

This is a compelling book, yet its concept is straightforward. All you need to do is: * Stop trying to control others and accept their behaviour as part of their personal story, shaped by experiences and fears * Say "Let Them" to stop trying to change other people or react

"The Sirens' Call" by Chris Hayes

I liked how the author explored the evolved attention economy. First, he outlined three types of attention: * Voluntary (conscious focus) * Involuntary (automatic response to stimuli) * Social (attention exchanged in relationships, also when your name is called) Then, he described how social media and most modern corporations exploit these modes of

"The Myth of Self-Esteem" by Albert Ellis

The main idea of the book revolves around the fact that self-esteem building doesn't quite work the way we want it to work. Even though Albert seems to have gone into a more critical examination of other psychologists, this work has a few useful bits. Basically, Ellis is