#david epstein | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ofliterarynature · 10 months

Text

JUNE 2023 WRAP UP

loved liked okay no thanks (reread) bookclub*

Let’s just say I was feeling a bit unhinged this month…

I don't know what was up with my brain this month (it was stress, probably. ugh.), but it was comfort-reads-only central. Which spun out of control a little with the KJ Charles, but we'll get to that.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World started things off with a great non-fic pick. It spoke so deeply to me that it made me very angry at the world while also being very comforting. Would highly recommend.

Dust and Shadow is Sherlock Holmes solves Jack the Ripper, but hewing much closer to canon than say, that other one I fell in love with last year (The Angel of the Crows). I couldn't help comparing the two, and while it was interesting seeing each author's interpretations of the Ripper case, this one did not come out on top for me.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street is a sort-of sequel memoir to the author's collection of letters published as 84 Charing Cross Road that I read last month and loved. A little different but still a delight, and I've got another one of her related memoirs waiting for me on my desk right now.

The Goblin Emperor... what can I say, my brain needed comfort, I caught up on the AO3 tag, and thought why not. It was amazing to go back and see all the little bits of Maia I'd forgotten.

Sorcery & Cecelia I picked up partially as a consequence of my KJ Charles/historical romance rampage that fully put me off of the other audiobooks I already had checked out. I've been meaning to reread them for a while (it's probably been a decade) because I wanted to explore my mixed memories of the two sequels. And I don't blame younger me! The original book is a delight sort of in the vein of Diana Wynne Jones and The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, with adventures and almost a comedy of manners element to it. The much later sequels lose a lot of the whimsy and brightness, are much more serious and adult, and are much more explicitly mystery novels. Now I love a mystery novel, and I think if you distance them from the original book they're not too bad! The Grand Tour is the worst, I think, both because of the unexpected shift in style and because I don't think the epistolary format they chose works well (I really would have loved to see some letters they wrote to other people, imo, rather than diary entries). The Mislaid Magician brings things back around much closer to the original novel's format both literally and narratively, if not in style, and I liked it a great deal.

This next one goes out to Lauren, who will probably never read this but - I finally read The Age of Innocence! Not the copy you gave me, but I did it. It wasn't quite to my taste, but it absolutely fits with what I know of your other favorite things. Sorry this was like 8 years too late.

Bloom I've had on my shelf for years and it's totally my doing that we read it for book club - it was a nice read, I love the art style, but ultimately it was a bit forgettable. Maybe if it'd focused on resolving the non-romantic conflicts as well, idk.

It took me MUCH longer to get to Winter of the Witch than I had planned, but I did! It felt a little clunky trying to get all the ends tied up, but overall I liked it, I was very glad to get away from the politics of the second book. This was such a well written series, I definitely recommend it, but it also made me feel angry and anxious enough while reading it that I can't see myself ever revisting it. (I'll definitely keep an eye out for more of the author's work though).

AND NOW FOR THE KJ CHARLES!!!

I started off the month finishing up the Will Darling/English books, which, do not follow my example, you should absolutely read in chronological order (and pay attention to character names!). These were not books I fell immediately in love with, but exposure and persistence, not to mention some great side characters, won me over. I also cannot BELIEVE that KJ waited until the very very end to introduce the "proteges" concept, and it's the best thing I've ever heard I am emotionally devastated (and cackling, lmao).

I've mentioned elsewhere my accidental discovery (too late) that the next 3 series were related, but I did manage at least to start with the correct one. Society of Gentlemen was...okay. The first one might actually be the worst KJ Charles I've read so far, but the other two were definitely better, if not exactly to my taste. I like the mystery/action/adventure plots more, I suppose, rather than...politics? I think? and respectability is boring anyways.

I managed to accidentally skip over Sins of the Cities directly into the Lilywhite Boys, which is a pity, because they're much more closely related to each other than Society (which honestly you don't need to read beforehand). Even without the more detailed background from Sins, I LOVED the Lilywhite novels and novellas. Thieves and shady characters who are extremely competent, excellent lovers, a little violent, and with their own moral codes are catnip for me, I could not have resisted.

I then went back to Sins of the Cities, which were also good! The leads in the first book were sweet but a little bland, the love/hate thing going on the second book was fantastic, and I loved that the third book had a genderqueer/nb lead. I appreciated getting all the background to events hinted at in the Lilywhite books, but I also admit I spent less time focused on the murders and more on "ok but HOW does X become the Earl???????" I had so many theories lol, none of them right. I just wonder if these would have hit a little harder if I'd read them first.

As I write this in July, I'm still working my way through the rest of KJ's catalogue but I think the worst of my brain fever is over, and I'm hoping to soon have the mental capacity to read the new Victoria Goddard I've been ignoring for a couple of months. Wish me luck, and happy reading!

#book log #2023 #wrap up 2023 #bec posts #kj charles #david epstein #Helene Hanff #the age of innocence #bloom #sorcery & cecelia #winternight trilogy #dust and shadow #booklr #books

22 notes · View notes

neuro-coach-counselling · 8 days

Text

"... the most effective learning looks inefficient; it looks like falling behind."

#david epstein #quote #generalism #specialism #learning #slow learning

0 notes

middleofrow · 4 months

Text

Best Podcasts of 2023

Continue reading Untitled

View On WordPress

0 notes

alicefredrickson · 11 months

Text

One of my favorite examples of this "action above all" principle is something Jeff Tweedy, the frontman of [rock band] Wilco and a writer, explained about his own process. Like most creatives, he's felt stuck from time to time. His solution, as he describes it, is to "pour out" the bad ideas as though they're scum sitting atop a pond of fresh water. When he feels he can't write or compose, he'll actively try to write or compose bad songs or sentences, metaphorically pouring out the bad ideas to make way for the good. Sometimes those bad songs and sentences turn out to better than he expects, which is an added bonus, but even when they're not useful products themselves, they seem to liberate other ideas that sit beneath the surface of these inferior or unoriginal ideas.

#stuck #work aversion #Adam Adler #David Epstein #creativity #creative process

0 notes

pecuniaetbellum · 1 year

Text

Papyrus Review of Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

📜 If I had to rewrite the whole book on a singe papyrus scroll, which parts would I keep? By Alexandros Sainidis

📜 If I had to rewrite the whole book on a singe papyrus scroll, which parts would I keep? By Alexandros Sainidis Why is this book beneficial for those interested in International Relations? Because by nature we are generalists. We study the biggest social actors, states and international organisations, which cover enormous parts of Earth’s geography and include every possible activity. Plus,…

View On WordPress

#Consulting #David Epstein #Generalist #international affairs #International Relations #Journalism #Range #Specialisation #Thinking Fast and Slow

0 notes

aeltri · 8 months

Text

So basically, transwitch Marina Abramovic (Michael Maxwell) sponsored Conrad Shawcross and Cunter under the pretext that they were both exhibiting work at her NYC gallery. Did she also help them get work Visas? Now, Shawcross may be a nepobaby but at least he's a legit artist. Cunter only got a pass because she was an Epstein honeypot hoe and fellow divine androgyne cultist. These people don't do anything for free though, so Cunter was promptly sent to the Hamptons to work with/for Harvey Weinstein. Uncle Harvey was BFFs with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, remember? Meaning that Cunter connects to their trafficking ring 4X. Their upline manager Les Wexner is part of the Cleveland Mafia. He in turn has links to the Bronfmans up in Toronto, Cafritz' in DC and the Florida ratlines. Isn't it interesting how Cunter, Heard and Markle were all recruited by the same people? That explains why they use the same playbook, important because HCA owns Portland Hospital. Sara Latham is connected to both their VP and Killary who is a high-ranking witch. Sara Latham works in PR and even repped Markle for a time. It's an incestuous clusterfuck of epic proportions.

45 notes · View notes

nofatclips · 6 months

Text

youtube

"Year of the Hot Dog by Burger Gang" by BRNDA from the album Do you Like Salt? - Directed by David Combs and Ben Epstein

#music #brnda #dave lesser #leah gage #torrey sanders #christian whittle #justin moyer #white oak studio #jonathan schenke #indie #video #music video #baby pony food #david combs #ben epstein #crafted sounds #hot dog #burger #Youtube

20 notes · View notes

mrepstein · 2 years

Photo

Brian Epstein & George Martin on the set of Ready Steady Go! (photos by David Magnus, 1965)

#Brian Epstein #George Martin #Ready Steady Go!#David Magnus #1965 #60s

262 notes · View notes

get-back-homeward · 10 months

Text

David Jacobs, the suave and arrogant showbiz lawyer whose clients included The Beatles, Marlene Dietrich, Liberace and Judy Garland and who introduced Epstein to the gay scene in the capital was also a key player. Bullock calls it a “support network for the entertainment industry”. They needed it. While success brought money, attention and a certain freedom from the mores of contemporary society, it also caused problems.

Until the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 legalised homosexual acts between consenting adults over the age of 21, gay men had been confined to a crepuscular demi-monde and were confronted with a rise in prosecutions and several ‘sensational’ court cases well into the 1960s that had served to keep them in the closet rather than face misguided public opprobrium, the attention of the police and, frequently, blackmail.

The business uniform of single-breasted sharp suit and thin tie might have still ruled the roost but as the 1960s started to get underway, the author points out, “We really see people starting to come out of their shells and being a bit more flamboyant and less guarded in what they’re doing. People are kind of realising that within entertainment, and particularly rock and pop, you can probably get away with a little bit more”.

In other words, there was lots of sex and drugs to go with the rock n roll for successful gay men in the business and that necessarily meant existing within a network of people you could trust. “Certainly, there were parties at Brian Epstein’s house where he would just invite anyone around who he thought would be interesting and fun and just let them carry on while he would pick out who he fancied and take them off to another room,” says Bullock. “There was a certain amount of you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours in business terms but there was also a feeling that it was also much easier to play in that way, to host parties for this kind of network and for the people this network knew in a place where you were not likely to be arrested, not going to get busted or have the press hammering at your door.

“David Jacobs was always being asked to come and get people out of sticky situations,” explains Bullock. “Brian was blackmailed several times, often by the same ex-boyfriend… including on one occasion when this guy made off with some of the takings from the Beatles’ Candlestick Park gig in San Francisco and some pills, private papers and photographs before demanding $10,000 for their safe return. Blackmail was going on so often, they got used to having to pay-off people to shut them up but when you have so much money lying around I guess it’s not that much of an issue and certainly paying off the occasional blackmailer has got to be better than going to a club and being caught out and having your name splashed all over the newspapers.”

From “The Network of Gay Men at the Heart of Britain’s Pop Culture Revolution” by Bill Barrows on the release of Darryl W. Bullock’s The Velvet Mafia book | photo credit: Scott K. Runyen [x]

#brian epstein #blackmail #i wonder a lot how much fixing was happening bts #lawyers and the beatles #david jacobs #hes the guy who did the bad merchandising deal #yikes jacobs has a grizzly end too found hanged in 1968 #the number of high profiled gay men in london found dead and ruled a suicide in 67-68 #no wonder why theres so much conspiracies theories afoot #bug book list #the velvet mafia #darryl w bullock #mine

41 notes · View notes

rolloroberson · 2 years

Text

The Beatles on Our World / Recording : 'All You Need Is Love' / Location: EMI Studios, Abbey Road - Studio One. The first live worldwide satellite telecast in history and the Beatles along with some Rolling Stones, Graham Nash, Keith Moon, and Donovan amongst many other friends, including Brian Epstein who would only share this realm with a few more weeks, were there to be a part of a live performance. Photography by © David Magnus, circa June 25, 1967.