What I'm Reading, May 2021 Edition

You can find the April 2021 Edition here.

Books

The Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell. 25% finished; has held my interest so far.

I'm picking up some other books to complement this one: The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age, A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (written by Johnson), The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (written by Johnson).

Also continued reading Agatha Christie: finished the whole Miss Marple series. I'd recommend Murder at the Vicarage, The Thirteen Problems, The Moving Finger, and They Do It with Mirrors.

Book Reviews

Lots of people have written great book reviews lately. Calling the ones I've linked to below 'reviews' doesn't do them justice, think of them more as 'rich, detailed summaries'.

Astral Codex Ten is running a book review contest that will keep going for the next few months. Three reviews I found most interesting:

• On the Natural Faculties.
• Why Buddhism Is True.
• Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are?

Also Applied Divinity Studies has written a great review of The Making of Prince of Persia. Here's one bit:

It's not so much romantic as absurd. In the course of making Prince of Persia, Mechner:

- Takes 6 months off to write a screenplay.

- Drives out to Skywalker Ranch, meets George Lucas, fails to get his script acquired.

- Applies to NYU film school, gets rejected.

It would be crazy enough if this was a backwater origin story, but it’s happening in parallel with all of his greatest technical accomplishments. It’s like if Brian Armstrong took a year off from founding Coinbase to pursue acting, while Coinbase was already taking off.

Also Fantastic Anachronism has written a great review of The Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire.