Roughly in chronological order. I've excluded the reads I didn't like. If a title is here, it doesn't mean I agree with it uncritically a hundred percent: just that it helped me see things from a new perspective. Applies especially to political reads.
| Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 5 | Masterpiece. An all-time great. This book changed my perspective and stays on my "forever" shelf. |
| 4.5 | Excellent. Life is meaningfully enriched by this book. |
| 4 | Great. A cut above the rest. I’m very happy I spent the time on this. If the premise interests you, read this. |
| 3.5 | Very Good. Actively happy I read it. It added value to my life and was a worthwhile use of my time. |
| 3 | Good. A solid read. I’m glad I finished it, but it wouldn’t be a serious mistake if you missed out on it. |
| 2.5 | Okay. Reading this felt like a bit of a mistake. I found myself checking the page count more than the plot. |
| 2 | Bad. I immediately regret the hours spent on this. A waste of time and paper. |
| 1.5 | Very Bad. If you wrote or published this, you should feel bad. There is a tiny spark of an idea here, but it’s buried in a disaster. |
| 1 | Atrocious. A total failure of craft. Morbid curiosity is the only reason I didn't DNF (Did Not Finish). |
| 0.5 | Crime Against Literature. Have you left no sense of decency, sir, at long last? This book should never have been printed. |
Sally Rooney Rating: 3.5
Slavoj Zizek Rating: 4
Yukio Mishima Rating: 5
Friedrich Nietzche Rating: 5
Albert Camus Rating: 3
I still don't understand why Meursault had to be made so unrelatable. Was it to get the point of existentialism across in some way that bounced off of my head?
Peter Wessel Zapffe Rating 4
Han Kang Rating: 3.5
Highlights from The Vegetarian
Byung-Chul Han Rating: 4.5
i highlighted 10% of book (and kindle won't let me export that much)
Mark Fisher Rating: 4.5
Highlights from Capitalist Realism
James D.G. Dunn Rating: 4
Nick Land Rating: 4.5
I rated this so highly because it was my first time engaging with seemingly-intelligent right-wing perspectives.
Highlights from The Dark Enlightenment
Friedrich Nietzsche Rating: 5
got me back the 20 years of life expectancy stolen from reading Cioran
Highlights from Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Sally Rooney Rating: 3.5
it was almost creepy to read at times: the way she gets inside of the heads of characters, and understands them so well. it's impossible for me to imagine something more vicarious than that. I think I like Sally Rooney even more than her books. and needless to say, she does not dumb down the complications of human relationships. the kind of book which leaves you with more questions than answers. and I think I like that.
Fyodor Dostoevsky Rating: 3
Haruki Murakami Rating: 3.5
I entered the book expecting a easy, entertaining read (which it was), but I was not expecting to like it too much. That changed when I read the first chapter of the book which painted a picture so vivid yet cozy that I was hooked throughout.
Highlights from Norwegian Wood
Alan Watts Rating: 3.5
Highlights from The Way of Zen
Emil M. Cioran Rating: 5
dropped my life expectancy by a solid 20 years.
Highlights from A Short History of Decay
Kafka, Franz Rating: 3
Richo, David Rating: 4.5
Don't judge the book by its shitty title reminiscent of trashy fake deep self-help books that masturbate to the ego of the reader in the disguise of transcendence and self-improvement. This one's quite the opposite really. I can't really give you a very objective opinion of this book because I formed a certain kind of attachment to it (I was genuinely sad when I finished this book). This book does try to cradle the reader at times with its rather heightened emotionality, but be assured those seemingly repetitive passages are always grounded in profound truths. Could it have been written more succinctly? Yes, but that would lose the prose of the book that I surprisingly came to like.
Dazai, Osamu Rating: 4
So morbid. Loved it.
Highlights from No Longer Human
Nassim Nicholas Taleb Rating: 3.5
Stephen Hawking Rating: 4
a lot of nostalgia associated since I read it in middle school when I filled with awe about the universe. I still think this is the best "pop" science book there is: very accessible without excessively dumbing down things. could even be read as a pragmatic introduction to philosophy of science (but that's just me getting ahead of myself).