flexagoon's reviews
12 reviews

17776: What football will look like in the future by Graham MacAree, Jon Bois

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emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

wow.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers

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emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective relaxing medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

You know those books for little children where it seems like nothing is really happening but the kid reading it loves it for some reason? This book is just that, but for older people. And I mean it in a good way.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

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challenging funny informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

5.0

This book is simply incredible. The second part was a bit more boring for me - and seems to be a bit outdated - but I also haven't fully grasped the ideas presented in it. I assume I'll have to read "I Am A Strange Loop" for that. Everything else about this book was amazing and I've had a great pleasure reading it. 5 stars. 
59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot by Richard Wiseman

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informative fast-paced

3.75

Nice book, I really liked the quick pace in which the information was presented. However, I found most of those recommendations to be either trivial or inapplicable in my life.
Colours of Love: An Exploration of the Ways of Loving by John Alan Lee

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informative reflective slow-paced

3.0

The core idea of this book, the colour wheel theory of love itself, is really interesting. Of course, it is not an exhaustive taxonomy, but even the author acknowledges it, and it is still the best theory of love I've seen.

As for the book itself, though, it falls into the common pitfall of nonfiction books of being much longer than needed. The brief explanation of different love types in the first chapter is basically enough to understand the entire theory. Next chapters provide detailed explanations for every love type, which helped me understand them a bit more. Most of them were boring, some bits of information were interestint. The last chapter about love in the media was not interesting for me because it was basically a list of summaries of different romantic novels, so I had to skip it. 
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin

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informative fast-paced

2.5

This blog post perfectly summarizes my opinion on this book:

https://qntm.org/clean

The second part was sort of interesting, not because of the actual refactoring that was shown, but because I got to look at Martin's examples and think "hmm, how would've I done this?"

The rest of it was either obvious or bad advise, although I'll give credit where credit is due, the book is really well written.

The main lesson I learned is that Java sucks. 
All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Being a story about time travel, the plot twist (or, rather, all of the plot twists) of it is somewhat predictable, but a huge part of it is probably due to the "Seinfeld isn't funny" syndrome. Nevertheless, this is a great and quick short story which I highly recommend.

Also,
The fact that 41% of reviews picked "Diverse set of characters: No" is absolutely hilarious.
A Brief History Of Time by Stephen Hawking

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challenging informative inspiring slow-paced

3.75

This is a great book for anyone who wants to learn more about our universe and its history, however, the writing is a bit too scientific in some chapters and not very clear for someone who isn't into physics. The pace is also a bit too slow for my taste. 
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

The GTD method is incredible. The only issue with this book is that, as other people mentioned, it is simply too long. The entire second half of it just explains how great the system is, after you've already implemented the system.
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

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adventurous fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Great book. I'd absolutely recommend Snow Crash to anyone who is interested in cyberpunk, as this book is basically THE original cyberpunk book.

As others said, the ending is a bit lackluster and Deus Ex Machina, but it still didn't leave me disappointed after finishing the book.

The plot itself is confusing at times, but generally really interesting. People who like fast-paced action stories will probably love it. The book also has good worldbuilding.

I didn't really get the "metavirus" stuff but it was still interesting.
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