Just finished The Mortality Thief by one of our fellow actuaries (FSA, so literally), Mark Griffin
[I got a review copy]
It’s a thriller set in London (I actually opened up Google Maps at a few points, not that it was necessary for understanding) – main character Luke Smith is an actuary on the run, with a laptop containing a death claims file intended for due diligence review and a hitman after him… but why?
It’s fast-paced and was a fun read. There’s actuarial content, but that’s more a MacGuffin than anything - it’s really about the chase.
When I was in graduate school, my first roomie in the dorm was working on her Master’s degree in Spanish. One semester, Don Quixote was one of her required readings. She b****ed about that book the whole semester.
A few years ago, I decided to read it. I actually enjoyed it, maybe because I read it for fun and not for a class.
I found a book in the garage, “The Confessions of a Hoaxer” by Alan Abel, written in 1970, that I have read before. I will read it one more time before depositing it in a “Give One, Take One” book box at my local Brewpub.
I was just at the used bookstore and picked up Stephen King’s Pet Sematary for a spooky October read. Also grabbed Faulken’s As I Lay Dying. Got them both for a grand total of $12.13 after tax.
i am about 1/3 of the way in. it is a HARD read for me. sure the content is unbelievably violent and gory. and the behavior of people is awful. but the writing style is hard for me to follow at my usual pre-bedtime reading hour. like I’m too tired to follow the sentence structure and infinite new people who show up in each chapter as they move around. maybe its just me. maybe not.
Just finished Timbuktu by Paul Auster.
The narrator is the dog of a dying tramp. Quite good. Reminds me of an adult version of Charlotte’s Web where the character is quasi-human with a doglike personality, in a difficult life, and drawn with a lot of love and sympathy.
I also finished the Goblin Emperor, which is a vaguely fantasy novel, but has no action and all cozy court intrigue, about a nice guy trying to make it in a mean court. It’s long and full of 5 syllable names but still a light read really.
Currently reading Murder Bot with my wife, which is fun and reminds me a little of the Wild Robot.
Finished “The Clocks.” No reason to intertwine two separate plots, but, eh, checked the copyright date, and one of those plots was the fad at the time.
P.T. Barnum made a fortune feeding his customers one sort of humbug or another. Although we think of ourselves as much more sophisticated and learned than our ancestors, I am convinced that we are nonetheless gullible in the faced of the Big Lies and are just as vulnerable to being taken The preposterous the story, the more we want it to be true.
I can’t say I blame people for becoming brainwashed, passive cogs in an increasingly technical age. For we are constantly barraged by and glutted with so much advertising that our senses have grown dull to it. But we are consumers. And the function of the consumer is to consume and throw away. Our economy depends on it,
Finished second Locke Lamora book. Enjoyed it. Deep into 3rd. Interesting writing style with the interludes. Not sure what to do after this one. I’m not paying $20 for most recent Stormlight
Semi-recently finished The God of the Woods by Liz Moore. Really well written, but a number of the characters are so unpleasant as to make the book uncomfortable that I felt that it needed a really good ending to justify its existence. Ending 100% delivered.
Pet Sematary was just what I was looking for. Felt more creepy than scary.
I’m halfway through the first Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobook. Genre is LitRPG, so basically video game leveling / mechanics but in a story. It’s a fun ride so far and the narrator is fantastic.
Just finished Technofeudalism - What Killed Capitalism by the well-known Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis.
Nothing new in his book regarding how we are experiencing an epochal change but hoped he would propose a viable way to combat how technology is being used. His solution was impractical at best.