Interesting ACX 2024 Book Review Entries

jenn

I have finally got around to updating codex cc with all the book reviews from 2024!

Here are some interesting books/reviews that I’ve found that did not make the shortlist.

A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband (1917) (Goodreads, Review)

No, you cannot live on kisses,
Though the honeymoon is sweet,
Harken, brides, a true word this is —
Even lovers have to eat.
This charming vintage cookbook, with its innocently suggestive title, reads like a novel as it follows the fictional lives of a pair of newlyweds. Join Bettina and Bob as they eat their way through their first year of marriage, from the bride’s first real dinner and a Sunday evening tea to baking day, a rainy night meal, and Thanksgiving festivities. Menus for all occasions are seasoned with anecdotes about family life, friendships, household hints, and budgetary concerns.
Originally published in 1917, this volume offers a delightful look at homemaking before the advent of sophisticated appliances and fast food as well as the modern reality of women’s work outside the home. Unintentionally funny and historically revealing, the whimsically illustrated narrative abounds in simple and surprisingly relevant recipes.

Choosing Elites (1985) (Goodreads, Review)

A former special assistant to Harvard’s president analyzes how top universities handle admissions, suggests criteria for evaluating the success of those policies and discusses issues such as the use and misuse of standardized tests and the costs and benefits of affirmative action.

Collected Poems by C.P. Cavafy (1934) (Goodreads, Review)

All my homies love C.P. Cavafy! I feel like I’m hearing about him a lot more in rat-adj circles recently, was even jumpscared by him on a recent Dwarkesh podcast. Unsurprised because his poems are great, kinda surprised bc rats dont generally read poetry.

Don’t Make No Waves…Don’t Back No Losers: An Insiders’ Analysis of the Daley Machine (1975) (Goodreads, Review)

This is simply the best book that has been written about politics in Chicago. In the words of Andrew M. Greeley, “It is a very astute and dispassionate analysis of Chicago political life — far and away the best I have ever seen. Rakove is without illusions about either the right or the left.” Rakove brings to his study an intimate knowledge of Chicago and the Daley machine, a practitioner’s understanding of street-level politics, and a scholar’s background in political theory. Blending anecdote with theory and description in a lively style, Rakove has bridged the gap between scholar and layman in a work that will appeal to both.

Fundamentals of Marxism-Leninism (1960) (Goodreads, Review)

From the jacket of the first edition: “This book provides the most complete and authoritative account yet published of the theory and practice of world Communism. It presents a lucid summary of the fundamental ideas of Marxism, applying and developing them in relation to the present world situation. Its scope is indicated by the five parts into which it is divided – the philosophical foundations of Marxism, the materialist conception of history, the economics of capitalism, the transition from capitalism to socialism, and the problems of building socialism and communism. Written by a group of Soviet authors and edited by well-known ‘Old Bolshevik’ Otto Kuusinen, it was first published in the U.S.S.R. in 1960. The English translation follows exactly the text of the original Russian edition.”

Making the Corps (1997) (Goodreads, Review)

The bestselling, compelling insider’s account of the Marine Corps from the lives of the men of Platoon 3086—their training at Parris Island, their fierce camaraderie, and the unique code of honor that defines them.

The United States Marine Corps, with its proud tradition of excellence in combat, its hallowed rituals, and its unbending code of honor, is part of the fabric of American myth. Making the Corps visits the front lines of boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina. Here, old values are stripped away and new Marine Corps values are forged. Bestselling author Thomas E. Ricks follows these men from their hometowns, through boot camp, and into their first year as Marines. As three fierce drill instructors fight a battle for the hearts and minds of this unforgettable group of young men, a larger picture emerges, brilliantly painted, of the growing gulf that divides the military from the rest of America.

Metamorphosis (2013) (Goodreads, Review)

Metamorphosis has fan fiction. Metamorphosis has fan art. Metamorphosis has a fan-made 10 page fully-illustrated alternative ending, “I’m Gonna Fix That Girl”, with it’s own 6 digit code, 265918.
But, I think most tellingly, Metamorphosis has cosplay. It’s common these days for fans to dress up as characters from their favorite comics or TV shows. It is rather less common for fans to dress up as characters from their favorite pornographic work.
Metamorphosis is the only hentai I’m aware of with multiple fans cosplaying as the main character.
As implausible as this sounds, I think Metamorphosis is culturally significant. Beyond the explicit illustrations and shocking story content, it captures a deep fear present in the modern world. Stumble off the socially accepted path of high school to college to gainful employment, and it’s easy to be targeted by a predator and/or turn to drugs to try to escape. Metamorphosis may be “a tragic and preachy story”⁴, but the elements of the story are all too real.

Road of the King (2016) (Goodreads, Review)

Computer, generate a book that will teach me how to maximize my chances of winning tournaments for the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game. The contents must be written by one of the most prolific players of all time. Disable safety protocols.
Road of The King by Patrick Hoban is a fascinating read that promises to improve your performance in competitive games but at the risk of becoming a villain in the process.

Savage Money: The Anthropology and Politics of Commodity Exchange (1997) (Goodreads, Review)

This volume is not simply another general theory of world system. It is a theoretically and ethnographically informed collection of essays which opens up new questions through an examination of concrete cases, covering global and local questions of political economy.

Ethongraphic studies on various types of white guys my beloved

Review of The Divine Comedy

I’m Italian. I’ve translated for fun about one sixth of the Divine Comedy into English (not my first language, so there might be the kind of weird mistakes second language speakers make).I’ll shamelessly quote my own translation throughout this review. Some of it is in tercets, some of it is in couplets.It’s not online, and very, very few people have seen it, so I might as well have written it specifically for this review.

I just think this is very cool and I liked the rambly nature of the review. Relatedly, the most high-effort book review I’ve found in this contest so far is a 2022 review of Very Important People by Ashley Mears, also available on her Substack. Mears wrote an ethnography of the high-end NYC clubbing scene in the 2010s, the reviewer went clubbing a bunch to figure out what’s changed now that it’s the 2020s.

[-]Viliam1mo50

Choosing Elites (1985)
With other variables held constant, a measure of “academic ability” that combined high-school records and SAT test scores was about ten times as important as a measure of “student effort” (study time and so forth), in terms of how much was learned.
Other things equal, a hundred point increase in both the SAT verbal and math scores made a slightly greater difference as to how much more students learned than did the difference between the best and worst instructors in the course.
Students’ ratings of the competence and personability of their teachers had absolutely no relationship with how much the students learned. But the teachers’ grades in graduate school did.

Yep. When we deny the IQ differences, we have to attribute the difference in the outcomes to something else... and schools and teachers seem like a natural choice. Therefore we overestimate the impact of education.

Don’t Make No Waves…Don’t Back No Losers: An Insiders’ Analysis of the Daley Machine (1975)

I couldn't choose a specific quote, it is all very interesting.

Making the Corps (1997)

The review is interesting, but the part I liked most was this thought at the end:

In fact, ["From each according to his ability, to each according to his need"] sounds pretty nice when taken at face value. For example, this is how families operate: from the parents according to their ability, to the children according to their need. Many insular, highly religious communities also operate this way. In Amish, Mennonite, and Hasidic communities, charitable giving (“alms”) often provides a social safety net for members in need. Some egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribes also functioned like this. And to be honest, it does seem like it would be pretty nice to live in this kind of a community, where everyone looks out for each other.
So what’s going on? Is this kind of “communism” good actually? Libertarians have an easy answer for this – communes are fine if they’re voluntary. As long as nobody’s being violently coerced and people are allowed to leave if they want to, then it’s fine. Alright, so that’s easy but also unsatisfying. Why do people voluntarily participate in these communes, even when it means a net-loss for the most capable and productive members? Why doesn’t the Laffer curve apply to the most productive Amish farmer who has his wealth redistributed to the neediest in the community? Why didn’t the Margaret Thatcher quote about socialists “running out of other people’s money” apply to the most capable hunters in egalitarian hunter-gatherer tribes?
I think the reason why some redistributive systems work and some don’t is related to the psychology of tribalism. A redistributive economic system where everyone views themselves as part of the same tribe and a system in which they view themselves as two tribes [...] are completely different in terms of the psychology of the participants and the ultimate sustainability of the system. The usual critique of wealth redistribution is that it disincentivizes economic production (Laffer curve, Margareth Thatcher quote, etc). But I think this criticism only applies to redistributive systems where the people taking a net-loss and the people taking a net-gain view themselves as two different groups. When they view themselves as part of the same group, as with the Amish or egalitarian hunter-gatherers, then the criticism seems to fall flat, as the most productive members aren’t deterred from working by the net-loss they’re taking.
Explicitly accounting for the one-tribe / two-tribe distinction also helps clear up a lot of debates in political philosophy. [...] The one-tribe democracy is the ideal: a society where people view themselves as all part of the same group, evaluate policies based on what’s best for society as a whole, and then vote based on their individual judgment of what’s best for the group, with this hopefully leading to policies converging on the correct answer. Of course people might disagree about which policies are the best and have heated debates about them, but ultimately the goal is the betterment of the society, and the debate is just over what policies best achieve that goal. On the other hand, in the two-tribe democracy, the goal is simply to vote to take away power, resources, and status from the Out-Group and give them to the In-Group.

This sounds correct to me. I think that an important part is how much I expect other people to reciprocate: not necessarily in this reality, but at least counterfactually (in a hypothetical reality where our roles are reversed). I am okay with doing things for my kids, because I expect them to grow up and do things... not necessarily for me, but further along the line. On the other hand, it would create a tension between me and my partner if we didn't split our domestic duties in a way that seems fair to both. In other words, I need to see that "each according to one's abilities" also applies to the others, even if their abilities are different from mine.

The part about needs is trickier, because the needs are potentially unlimited. Also, everyone needs to take a break and relax sometimes, but that means they are not working according to their abilities at the moment. So this all is not necessarily philosophically coherent, but it is still psychologically easier for me to work harder when I believe that everyone else does (even if they are at a different level of ability).

When I see people not doing things, or doing things in a way that makes sure that I will get none of it (for example a clique of people, perhaps hard-working, but making sure they only do things for the other people in the clique), that pisses me off, and then I am also not in the mood to share with them.

I guess, in small groups people punish the ones who don't do their share (e.g. by refusing to share with them), but in large groups it is difficult to track everyone's contribution and also to control how the tax money is used. Also, in small groups, if the group pisses you off too much, you can leave and join another group; this is more difficult when the "group" is a country, and leaving means selling your house, learning another language, adapting to a different culture, and there are only a few dozen choices available on the entire planet, and most of them either refuse to accept you or are quite dysfunctional.