It was a year ago that I proposed, after discussions with Wayne that I had only 2000 more books to read in this life time. As a reminder, that was calculated by how many books per year, and how many years of life, with the idea being that I would read only, well, to be judgemental, good books.

This is not how things have turned out.

First, in the past year I’ve probably read around 150-160 books. A lot of them terrible books, the kind of books that I read with 3am insomnia and cripplingly stressful anxiety, first about the PhD, then about the country, now about my ailing parents with whom I am spending significant time in an attempt to align the last years–or less, of their lives with the best possible situations. My book addiction comes from my mother, and despite all that is going on, she does still read, and she does still acquire more books than she can read. At a more significant ratio than I have done so in my life.

I do find in trying times that I read more mysteries. I’ve picked back up the large stash of Mediterranean Noir that is on my shelf. These are largely published in English by Europa Noir/Europa World, or by Soho Noir. Most of the authors I read are either Italian or French, with Jean-Claude Izzo being my favorite of the francais. He can write — and his translators do a fine job of translating — and I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Marseilles, starting in the late 90s, when I lived in Paris then Lausanne, and when the brilliant Lift Conference hosted amazing sessions there. (Lift Geneve was also fantastic.)

Izzo is a favorite because I can be there with him. Not the lifestyle, but the locations, the sounds, the food. The exact wines, the Lagavulin, the foods, textures. In the late 90s and early 2000s when I lived between France and Switzerland, I loved Marseille. The mix, the music, the cultures, the food, the languages. Though I never did become fluent at understanding Marseilleuse French, still cannot. I would listen and listen and listen and ponder and process, and yet nothing would click in my mind. It was almost funny and I am certain many an interlocutor thought I must have had some type of disability, given the combination of my stillness and watching. But it usually ended with wine, and that was ok.

Particularly in the past three months in which I am not working on my Phd, I have completely accepted that I am going to read more than 2000 books before I die, unless I get about dying soon. I’ve probably read nearly 50 books already this year.

It may sound strange to ‘give up’ on only reading another 2000 books, however part of the impetus to such a statement was to focus on reading the best of all possible books. Though frankly–looks around — there are probably that many books in the house that I would like to re-read. And yet I do still find new books, or at least new to me books, that I want to read.

• Jean-Claude Izzo, Soleo
• Jean-Claude Izzo, Chourmo
• Jean-Claude Izzo, A Sun for the Dying
• Jean-Claude Izzo, The Lost Sailors
• Ashwn Sanghi, Keepers of the Kalachakra (did not enjoy)
• Benjamin Labatut, The MANIAC
• Jennette McCurdy, I’m Glad My Mom Died (I chased this with finally watching Adolescence. Not sure this is a recommended pairing for anyone.)
• Carlo Bonini and Giancarlo de Cataldo, The Night of Rome
• John Shen Yee Nee and SJ Rozan, The Murder of Mr. Ma
• Augusto Angelis, The Murdered Banker
• Gavin Francis, Island Dreams (no not recommend)
• Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road
• Mallock, The Cemetery of Swallows

That’s the past couple weeks.

Five or six years ago I stopped reading every peer reviewed article on anything that basically became LLMs, not to mention my penchant for reading all kinds of other scientific and literary materials. Having JSTOR access as a lifetime win post-Columbia Business School (since removed, thanks, i fascisti) has long given me the rabbit hole of all rabbit holes. Through UoL I have access to slightly lesser journals, but a gazillion really ought to be enough. I started reading The Economist, WSJ and FT again after a solid decade away, but the current world order is rather stress inducing. I also started picking up newsletters, alternate sources, and everything else I could swallow, as I started taking on strategy and research consulting work again, and part of what I offer is understanding, so I had to crawl out of the past and the anomalous, and start hoovering up everything that has happened in the past five years or so, what is happening now, and what all of those thinking about the future thinks will happen. I do want to read the five or six years of missed everythings on the LLMs, but that’s gonna be a lot of reading to catch up on, not to mention messing with the machines. I bought a new one, to sequester as a test machine, to load all the code and everythings on. I’ve been meaning to dev a test run SLM based on the Mongolian research I did for the past few years. Perhaps I could get to it?

What the heck, Eva, why all these words? It’s Sunday and I’m trying to sort out what to do next. More bad French policiers to keep up the language? On to the next book — what is the next book? Books, really.

I went to the Archives of the Impossible conference last weekend, and it was all about UAPs — I wasn’t expecting that, but there was so much interesting stuff that I ought to get some thoughts down about. Whole new slices of the world of humans that I didn’t know exist.