All the Books I read in January and a little bit of February

I am five weeks, and six books, into the new year. I was going to only talk about the books I read in January, but I was so close to finishing the book I started at the end of the month and I was kind of busy at the end of the week, so a little bit of February reading is squeaking in.

First, I read Noah Cicero's Go To Work and Do Your Job. Care for Your Children. Pay Your Bills. Obey the Law. Buy Products., which was recommended by my friend Todd, and which led to a kind of hilarious recommendation from Amazon in my inbox:



The title of the book is the same as the five guiding principles at NEOTAP, the government run prison where Mike gets a job. Mike doesn't really want to work at NEOTAP, but he needs a job and health insurance, and he has to pay his student loans, so he tries not to notice how weird it is to work there. You're not allowed to ask any questions, but no one will tell you the rules. The prisoners and the staff are watched by a surveillance system at all times, and are constantly called in to discuss their numerous infractions of the rules that no one is allowed to ask about. Mike eventually befriends and starts dating Monica, another NEOTAP employee, but then Mike disappears. To find him, Monica will have to find out the truth about NEOTAP and the vast conspiracy behind it. She'll also have to learn how to shoot a gun.

I gave this three out of five stars. It was sort of interesting, but also moved very quickly, and didn't quite hang together at the end.

After that I breezed through Kevin Kwan's China Rich Girlfriend, the sequel to "Crazy Rich Asians". It was entertaining, just like the first book, and I gave it four out of five stars just because it held my interest, had some educational footnotes, and kept me occupied until my next book arrived in the mail.

The next book was Fire and Fury, which I've already talked about. I gave it three out of five stars, and I think it's interesting how the controversy has already died off. It's been a month, and nobody is talking about this book anymore. It'll be interesting to see how the paperback sales go, since probably everyone who wants to read this already has.

After I finished that, it turned out that "Crazy Rich Asians" had a third sequel, Rich People Problems, which concludes the "Crazy Rich Asians" trilogy. It was also entertaining, but I didn't think it was as good as the first two, and only gave it three out of five stars. Basically, if you want to read "Dynasty" or "Dallas", but starring Asians in Singapore, then these are the books for you.

I switched from novels to short stories for the next book, Gilbert Allen's The Final Days of Great American Shopping. This set of interlocking short stories documents the shopping lives, past, present, and near future, of the residents of Belladonna, a gated community in South Carolina. They buy storm windows that destroy their lawns, houses with helicopters hidden in the garage, shoes that change their lives, and cars that become their coffins. I gave it three out of five stars, but now that I'm thinking about it later I'm wondering if it maybe needed four.

I definitely gave four stars to the last book of the month, Daniel O'Brien's How To Fight Presidents. This hilarious guide (I laughed out loud for real a couple of times) goes from president to president, chapter by chapter, giving a brief biography and then explaining what you'd have to do to beat them in a fight. It doesn't include any presidents who were alive at the time of publication, presumably to avoid inciting violence against a current or former president, but it was really funny.

And it includes a bonus chapter on Zombie Teddy Roosevelt to make up for the absences.