Seeking Wisdom is one of the best books on cognitive biases I’ve read, and uses great examples from Charles Darwin all the way to Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger to show you the ways human beings trick themselves. All three give you a better understanding of the world we live in and why the way things are the way they are. I set out not to finish these books, but to get what I thought was interesting and useful from them, and in that I succeeded. These three were my favorite “intellectual” reads of the year. These two books have the same power and affection that Americanah, The Sympathizer, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao gave me the year before. ‘Immigrant’ and ‘minority’ is a word thrown around so often but so few of us who aren’t ones ever actually learn what the experience is like.
I learned more about Pakistan than I’d ever known and about a culture that was completely foreign to me, but at the same time Hamid expertly shows all of the striking similarities of desires and conflicts that they share with all people regardless of location. The first a novel, the second a collection of non-fiction essays, both show the incredible strength, intelligence, and versatility of the writer Moshin Hamid.
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How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia & Discontent and its Civilizations by Moshin Hamid But you’re not gonna go wrong picking up any of his essay collections, they’re all hilarious.) (My other favorite by Sedaris that I read this year was Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls. While the shitstorm of the last year has revealed how much more we still need to reckon with as a society, it’s important to recognize the ways life has gotten better, but even more importantly, that we’re always going to have to work to make it better and uphold the good, even if it is hard, often demoralizing fucking work. And this wasn’t the 1950’s, this was all happening in the decade or so before I was born. While we clearly still have a long way to go, the misogyny, racism, and homophobia all seemed to be so much more out in the open and blatant back then, ready to greet you at any street corner. Sedaris is a gay man growing up in these times and he routinely witnessed or was the victim of constant harassment, where you could get mugged, be called a faggot, or have something thrown at you from a car all in the same month. What struck me most about it though was the casual harshness he encountered throughout the late 70’s and 80’s. He’s one of the funniest writers I’ve ever read and seeing his raw diaries be that funny was both inspiring and exasperating. He released a large collection of his diaries in March and as an avid journaler I loved it.
I got into David Sedaris in 2016 and read even more of his books this year. Theft By Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 by David Sedaris His writing is beautiful, funny, and honest, and I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough. He also spends plenty of time talking about all the trouble he caused as a kid and it was vividly familiar. It’s essentially a memoir of his childhood with his single mother and eventually a step-father that did not treat him very well, to say the least. I picked this up and couldn’t put it down. I’d heard about Tobias Wolff before, from two incredible writers who are huge fans, George Saunders and David Sedaris, but based solely on the name I figured he was Old and Boring. As a Marvel nerd, this is really special. And I’m fully expecting Infinity War to blow them all out of the water. Winter Soldier and Guardians are two of my favorite movies period.
I’ve enjoyed all of the Marvel movies to some extent, except maybe the last 3 or 4. The fact that there’s 18 movies on it alone is incredible, and that 75% of them are at the very least, good, is just astounding. Here’s my stab at ranking all of the 18(!) Marvel movies up to this point. It also has a sense of humor and Andy Serkis is maniacally entertaining. The scenes in the ancestral plane are touching and tragic.
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It’s a real ass movie about deep, painful conflict that’s festered for generations. Killmonger’s the best villain Marvel has had yet. Boseman and Nyong’o are elegant and badass. God damn what a gorgeous, powerful movie.