Not reviews. Just notes to help me remember what I thought at the time.
The Brothers Karamazov — Dostoevsky
Finally finished it. Took three attempts across two years. The Grand Inquisitor chapter alone justifies the effort. Dmitri’s trial hit differently than I expected — I was rooting for the wrong brother.
Gödel, Escher, Bach — Hofstadter
Still in progress (chapter 14/20). Taking it slowly on purpose. Every chapter makes me feel simultaneously smarter and dumber. See notes.
The Stranger — Camus
Reread. See notes on rereading.
Siddhartha — Hesse
Beautiful and short. The river chapter is one of the best things I’ve read. Made me want to sit by water and think about nothing, which I then did for about four minutes before checking my phone.
Deep Learning — Goodfellow, Bengio, Courville
Reference book, not read cover-to-cover. The chapters on regularization and optimization are excellent. The math is dense but honest — it doesn’t pretend things are simpler than they are.
Sapiens — Harari
Entertaining, occasionally glib. The chapter on the agricultural revolution as “history’s biggest fraud” is provocative. The later chapters feel rushed. I understand why everyone recommends it and why some people push back.
One Hundred Years of Solitude — García Márquez
Reread (third time). Every reading surfaces new patterns. This time I noticed how the repetition of names across generations isn’t just a stylistic choice — it’s the book’s thesis: history is cyclical, we are our ancestors, the banana company always returns.
Thinking, Fast and Slow — Kahneman
Some of this hasn’t replicated well (priming effects, ego depletion). The core framework (System 1/System 2) is still useful as a mental model even if the specific experiments are shakier than the book admits.
The Design of Everyday Things — Norman
Should be required reading for anyone who builds interfaces. The concept of affordances changed how I think about UI. Also made me irrationally angry at every door that needs a “push/pull” sign.
Meditations — Marcus Aurelius
Read it in pieces over several months. Not philosophy in the academic sense — more like notes-to-self from a man trying very hard to be decent despite having absolute power. Some passages feel like they were written this morning.
Goal for 2025: fewer rereads, more books I’m afraid of.