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nhborg's reviews
378 reviews
Chess: A Novel by Stefan Zweig
4.0
4.5
I loved this! I became completely spellbound and finished it in one sitting. So many interesting existential concepts within such a short story, with the absurdity and genius of chess at its focal point. Will definitely read again (and maybe bump it up to 5 stars)!
«I have always been interested in any kind of monomaniac obsessed by a single idea, for the more a man restricted himself the closer he is, conversely, to infinity; characters like this, apparently remote from reality, are like termites using their own material to build a remarkable and unique small-scale version of the world.»
I loved this! I became completely spellbound and finished it in one sitting. So many interesting existential concepts within such a short story, with the absurdity and genius of chess at its focal point. Will definitely read again (and maybe bump it up to 5 stars)!
«I have always been interested in any kind of monomaniac obsessed by a single idea, for the more a man restricted himself the closer he is, conversely, to infinity; characters like this, apparently remote from reality, are like termites using their own material to build a remarkable and unique small-scale version of the world.»
Outline by Rachel Cusk
4.0
This book intrigues me! I spent a while reading it through, but the extra time felt worth it. I’ve been lowkey slumpy all summer, yet I’m enjoying all the books I’ve been reading, so I’m just going at a slow and comfortable pace.
How to begin describing this book? The writing style is a sort of stream of consciousness, except it’s not the consciousness of the narrator as much as all the people she meets telling about their lives and experiences. While reading, you flow seamlessly from one moment, one topic, to the next, but I also got the feeling I couldn’t take in too much at once. I needed breaks in between each reading session to process it, passively, in a quiet hind-corner of my mind. I feel like I already don’t remember a lot of the details, but the experience in itself was rewarding.
Reading this reminded me of dreaming; you become engulfed in the story then and there and feel an urge to keep going and reach the conclusion, but afterwards the story strikes you as strange or unreasonably distant from your real life, and you struggle to maintain it in your grasp. Instead you move on with your day and forget about it. However, through the dream, your brain has been working hard trying to connect the dots between all your thoughts, trying to make an curious, unconscious sense of the life you’re living and the strange world you find yourself in.
I loved the feeling of drifting from one thought to the next, and the no-strings-attached yet all-strings-attached approach to the characters. They are all just random people, yet they are the main characters and indeed the fundament for this book. There is no plot in the usual sense; the plot is the stories of these random people’s lives. Of course it varied how engaged I became in each individual story, but in general I found myself readily diving into a new scenario and trying to wrap my head around it somehow. I like how the book is ambitious in it’s non-ambition - I think it’s hard to succeed with a project that only features fragmented, day-to-day accounts of unknown characters without a real, red thread moving you forwards.
When I reached this paragraph, I experienced it as a pretty good summary of the experience of the narrator (and also us, the readers) throughout the book:
«He was describing, she realised, a distinction that seemed to grow clearer and clearer the more he talked, a distinction he stood on one side of while she, it became increasingly apparent, stood on the other. He was describing, in other words, what she herself was not: in everything he said about himself, she found in her own nature a corresponding negative. This anti-description, for want of a better way of putting it, had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition: while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline, with all the detail filled in around it while the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was.»
So to wrap it up, I don’t think people should pick this one up thinking it’s gonna be a quick, short read, but I’d definitely recommend it if you find the premise intriguing and feel ready for a tiny bit of extra effort!
How to begin describing this book? The writing style is a sort of stream of consciousness, except it’s not the consciousness of the narrator as much as all the people she meets telling about their lives and experiences. While reading, you flow seamlessly from one moment, one topic, to the next, but I also got the feeling I couldn’t take in too much at once. I needed breaks in between each reading session to process it, passively, in a quiet hind-corner of my mind. I feel like I already don’t remember a lot of the details, but the experience in itself was rewarding.
Reading this reminded me of dreaming; you become engulfed in the story then and there and feel an urge to keep going and reach the conclusion, but afterwards the story strikes you as strange or unreasonably distant from your real life, and you struggle to maintain it in your grasp. Instead you move on with your day and forget about it. However, through the dream, your brain has been working hard trying to connect the dots between all your thoughts, trying to make an curious, unconscious sense of the life you’re living and the strange world you find yourself in.
I loved the feeling of drifting from one thought to the next, and the no-strings-attached yet all-strings-attached approach to the characters. They are all just random people, yet they are the main characters and indeed the fundament for this book. There is no plot in the usual sense; the plot is the stories of these random people’s lives. Of course it varied how engaged I became in each individual story, but in general I found myself readily diving into a new scenario and trying to wrap my head around it somehow. I like how the book is ambitious in it’s non-ambition - I think it’s hard to succeed with a project that only features fragmented, day-to-day accounts of unknown characters without a real, red thread moving you forwards.
When I reached this paragraph, I experienced it as a pretty good summary of the experience of the narrator (and also us, the readers) throughout the book:
«He was describing, she realised, a distinction that seemed to grow clearer and clearer the more he talked, a distinction he stood on one side of while she, it became increasingly apparent, stood on the other. He was describing, in other words, what she herself was not: in everything he said about himself, she found in her own nature a corresponding negative. This anti-description, for want of a better way of putting it, had made something clear to her by a reverse kind of exposition: while he talked she began to see herself as a shape, an outline, with all the detail filled in around it while the shape itself remained blank. Yet this shape, even while its content remained unknown, gave her for the first time since the incident a sense of who she now was.»
So to wrap it up, I don’t think people should pick this one up thinking it’s gonna be a quick, short read, but I’d definitely recommend it if you find the premise intriguing and feel ready for a tiny bit of extra effort!
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
5.0
«I believe that virtual worlds can help people solve problems in the real one.»
This was GREAT. Simply put, this is a book about people coming together to make video games. Other reviewers have mentioned that you don’t need to be into video games to enjoy the story, which I believe in. The writing style is solid; it is precise, endearing, clever and entertaining. The characters are so multilayered that I forget that they’re not actually real. The story is gripping with all its broad and narrow storylines, from globally successful companies to the inner core of individual characters. There are also some really interesting thematics being explored: cultural appropriation, creative ownership and collaboration, disabilities, Jewish & Asian heritage, politics in art, just to mention a few.
With that being said, I can’t deny that the video game aspect greatly contributed to how much I loved the book. I wouldn’t call myself a very big gamer, but I’ve always loved video games as a medium for storytelling and roleplay. In my dream-prone periods, I normally describe half of my dreams as being «video game-like». To me it is a synonym for the potentially surrealistic, creative and open-ended, which doesn’t feel realistic once you compare it to your actual life, but that you fully embrace as your truth while you’re living through it. Anyway, I loved how the book’s characters made references to game logic and metaphors to help them process what they were going through IRL; «life reflecting art reflecting life», as I call it. I somehow felt seen by the book, because although I experienced the characters as distinct from myself, I could relate to the tendency of having messages from fictional/virtual works influence how I view the world.
There’s so much more that could be said about this book and since this was a buddy read, I literally have notes for every single chapter. But to conclude, I had a wonderful time reading «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow». It’s endearing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and so very HUMAN. I can’t wait to do a reread in the future<3
(Minor spoiler:)
«For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.»
This is making me tear up..!! :’’)
This was GREAT. Simply put, this is a book about people coming together to make video games. Other reviewers have mentioned that you don’t need to be into video games to enjoy the story, which I believe in. The writing style is solid; it is precise, endearing, clever and entertaining. The characters are so multilayered that I forget that they’re not actually real. The story is gripping with all its broad and narrow storylines, from globally successful companies to the inner core of individual characters. There are also some really interesting thematics being explored: cultural appropriation, creative ownership and collaboration, disabilities, Jewish & Asian heritage, politics in art, just to mention a few.
With that being said, I can’t deny that the video game aspect greatly contributed to how much I loved the book. I wouldn’t call myself a very big gamer, but I’ve always loved video games as a medium for storytelling and roleplay. In my dream-prone periods, I normally describe half of my dreams as being «video game-like». To me it is a synonym for the potentially surrealistic, creative and open-ended, which doesn’t feel realistic once you compare it to your actual life, but that you fully embrace as your truth while you’re living through it. Anyway, I loved how the book’s characters made references to game logic and metaphors to help them process what they were going through IRL; «life reflecting art reflecting life», as I call it. I somehow felt seen by the book, because although I experienced the characters as distinct from myself, I could relate to the tendency of having messages from fictional/virtual works influence how I view the world.
There’s so much more that could be said about this book and since this was a buddy read, I literally have notes for every single chapter. But to conclude, I had a wonderful time reading «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow». It’s endearing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and so very HUMAN. I can’t wait to do a reread in the future<3
(Minor spoiler:)
«For most of his life, Sam had found it difficult to say I love you. It was superior, he believed, to show love to those one loved. But now, it seemed like one of the easiest things in the world Sam could do. Why wouldn’t you tell someone you loved them? Once you loved someone, you repeated it until they were tired of hearing it. You said it until it ceased to have meaning. Why not? Of course, you goddamn did.»
This is making me tear up..!! :’’)
The Promised Neverland, Vol. 16 by Posuka Demizu, Kaiu Shirai
4.0
This volume reminded me of AOT lore, although on a milder scale. Wolf girl Ayshe is pretty cool
If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio
3.0
3.5
«Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true»
This was a gripping read that I could easily fly through in a couple of days; it was fast-paced, thrilling and dramatic. There were no words wasted on anything inessential, but that might also be why I noticed a limit to how much I could fall in love with the story. I tried my best not to compare it too much to «The Secret History», but it was difficult due to their inherent similarities, and this ended up feeling too bony next to Tartt’s masterpiece. I just honestly think the book wasn’t that well written, however I still think the M. L. Rio did a good job considering this is her debut!
In addition to its readability, the strength of this story was the concept of having the Shakespearan archerypicality yet complexity reflected in the characters - I found that really cool! I just wish that it all felt more real, including the characters and the dramatical storyline. I also think I hyped myself a bit too much up for the plot twist ending (my face remained blank).
My final discussion point: am I the only one feeling surprised that this was written by a female author? I found it curious how she chose to write about the female characters. The line «You haven’t seen this girl. You don’t understand how unlikely.», as a response to this guy and girl supposedly only «talking» in her room, made me feel icky when coming from a completely average, adult (not-supposed-to-be-creepy) character. Are these the attitudes that we should enforce?
«Wherein I am false I am honest; not true, to be true»
This was a gripping read that I could easily fly through in a couple of days; it was fast-paced, thrilling and dramatic. There were no words wasted on anything inessential, but that might also be why I noticed a limit to how much I could fall in love with the story. I tried my best not to compare it too much to «The Secret History», but it was difficult due to their inherent similarities, and this ended up feeling too bony next to Tartt’s masterpiece. I just honestly think the book wasn’t that well written, however I still think the M. L. Rio did a good job considering this is her debut!
In addition to its readability, the strength of this story was the concept of having the Shakespearan archerypicality yet complexity reflected in the characters - I found that really cool! I just wish that it all felt more real, including the characters and the dramatical storyline. I also think I hyped myself a bit too much up for the plot twist ending (my face remained blank).
My final discussion point: am I the only one feeling surprised that this was written by a female author? I found it curious how she chose to write about the female characters. The line «You haven’t seen this girl. You don’t understand how unlikely.», as a response to this guy and girl supposedly only «talking» in her room, made me feel icky when coming from a completely average, adult (not-supposed-to-be-creepy) character. Are these the attitudes that we should enforce?
Macbeth: The New Oxford Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
5.0
4.5
«I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.»
I’m so happy I finally read «Macbeth», my first of Shakespeare’s tragedies! It doesn’t come as a huge surprise that it is my favorite play of his so far. Gotta love the drama, the guilt, the creepy witches, and the bloodshed. I was intrigued from the very beginning and became an excited and aghast witness to Macbeth’s descent into tyranny and paranoia. His entire future is sacrificed in exchange for a brutal and haunting present.
Since it was «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow» by Gabrielle Zevin that finally pushed me to read this, I obviously have to include the iconic quote to go with it:
«Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.»
No one can describe the futility of life like Shakeyboy can
«I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o’er.»
I’m so happy I finally read «Macbeth», my first of Shakespeare’s tragedies! It doesn’t come as a huge surprise that it is my favorite play of his so far. Gotta love the drama, the guilt, the creepy witches, and the bloodshed. I was intrigued from the very beginning and became an excited and aghast witness to Macbeth’s descent into tyranny and paranoia. His entire future is sacrificed in exchange for a brutal and haunting present.
Since it was «Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow» by Gabrielle Zevin that finally pushed me to read this, I obviously have to include the iconic quote to go with it:
«Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.»
No one can describe the futility of life like Shakeyboy can
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
4.0
«The course of true love never did run smooth»
This was a fun and very quick read! With a soap opera-like love square at the focal point, we get the duality of dreamy fairy vibes and gorgeous nature descriptions against the chaos induced by mischiveous fae and messy entertainers. And oh so much irony. Could I expect any less from Shakespeare?
This was a fun and very quick read! With a soap opera-like love square at the focal point, we get the duality of dreamy fairy vibes and gorgeous nature descriptions against the chaos induced by mischiveous fae and messy entertainers. And oh so much irony. Could I expect any less from Shakespeare?
Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
2.0
2.5
This was a miss for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ll admit that I was sceptical about this even before I started, because although Brandon Sanderson has written some of my favorite books, I know that he’s not a guaranteed win (at least for me).
The way I see it, it seems like he doesn’t write as well for books that are not part of a series that he’s committed to continuing. In Tress, I found that he put a lot less effort into the atmosphere and characters, making most of the book feel superficial. I usually found it difficult to imagine myself in the current setting because of the meagre descriptions and dialogue-based progression. The characters mostly felt like cardboard characters, and although it makes sense since this is a short, fairy-tale like book, I couldn’t properly connect to or care about any of them except for Tress. If I’m being really harsh, the book all in all felt like a random jumble of ideas and Cosmere references with an underdeveloped plot and only the spore ocean-world to ground it as something unique.
One thing I got tired of was the quasi-philosophical intermissons showing up in basically every chapter. While most of them were just cliché and uninspiring, some downright didn’t make sense (like the one about humans not being able to make matter or life, only light…?). I guess it comes down to me not enjoying the narration by Hoid (who I know from another Brandon Sanderson book), and I know it is my personal preference to hate the combination of a goofy/witty/unserious style and the presentation of moral lessons. I’m unable to take any of the «deeper content» seriously when I’ve just been exposed to jokes falling completely flat and my expression is set to
This was a miss for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’ll admit that I was sceptical about this even before I started, because although Brandon Sanderson has written some of my favorite books, I know that he’s not a guaranteed win (at least for me).
The way I see it, it seems like he doesn’t write as well for books that are not part of a series that he’s committed to continuing. In Tress, I found that he put a lot less effort into the atmosphere and characters, making most of the book feel superficial. I usually found it difficult to imagine myself in the current setting because of the meagre descriptions and dialogue-based progression. The characters mostly felt like cardboard characters, and although it makes sense since this is a short, fairy-tale like book, I couldn’t properly connect to or care about any of them except for Tress. If I’m being really harsh, the book all in all felt like a random jumble of ideas and Cosmere references with an underdeveloped plot and only the spore ocean-world to ground it as something unique.
One thing I got tired of was the quasi-philosophical intermissons showing up in basically every chapter. While most of them were just cliché and uninspiring, some downright didn’t make sense (like the one about humans not being able to make matter or life, only light…?). I guess it comes down to me not enjoying the narration by Hoid (who I know from another Brandon Sanderson book), and I know it is my personal preference to hate the combination of a goofy/witty/unserious style and the presentation of moral lessons. I’m unable to take any of the «deeper content» seriously when I’ve just been exposed to jokes falling completely flat and my expression is set to
What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds by Jennifer Ackerman
3.0
3.5
I haven’t had a lot of time for audiobooks lately, but this was a recent random pick from Libby. I enjoyed it! It was like an easily digestible summary of various scientific articles about owls. I wouldn’t say that it was anything special, but nice if you want to learn some cool owls facts.
I haven’t had a lot of time for audiobooks lately, but this was a recent random pick from Libby. I enjoyed it! It was like an easily digestible summary of various scientific articles about owls. I wouldn’t say that it was anything special, but nice if you want to learn some cool owls facts.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
3.0
3.5
I’m a fan of Kazuo Ishiguro’s underlying biological philosophy themes viewed through the lens of human fragility and strength. «Never let me go» still stands as my favorite of his, but I was happy to get lost in «Klara and the Sun»’s wistful and gentle tone. Nevertheless, I wish it would’ve tugged at my emotions and brain cells even more, and the dialogue (even between the human characters, mind you) had a tendency to come off as artificial.
Curious to see how the movie adaptation (2025) will turn out!
I’m a fan of Kazuo Ishiguro’s underlying biological philosophy themes viewed through the lens of human fragility and strength. «Never let me go» still stands as my favorite of his, but I was happy to get lost in «Klara and the Sun»’s wistful and gentle tone. Nevertheless, I wish it would’ve tugged at my emotions and brain cells even more, and the dialogue (even between the human characters, mind you) had a tendency to come off as artificial.
Curious to see how the movie adaptation (2025) will turn out!