I’m not sure whether this was actually the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but I can’t think of any specific movies that were worse.

The book was recommended to me by a friend who said it dealt with the moral conflict between being part of an organization within which you know you can be helpful, and knowing that the goals of the organization are ethically wrong. I was intrigued, but 80 pages in, I realized I was just flipping pages.

I read all but about the last 50 pages. Decided I didn’t need to know about every single gay bird. It’s a formidable book.

I finally got around to checking this out of the library. It looked dopey. I returned it.

I don’t think I’ll ever do enough drugs to understand this book.

Now maybe it’s just the circumstances under which I read it, but Notes from a Small Island was the first and best Bryson book I’ve read and ever since then I’ve been reading his other books in a futile attempt to find one that’s as good. The Lost Continent had occasional brilliant spots and longer passages that were as featureless as the terrain through which he describes travelling, and there’s really no excuse for the fatphobia (especially since Bryson describes himself as “overweight” in the book — but only fat women really deserve scorn for their size, I guess) and the racism. He captures the despair of realizing that America all looks pretty much the same (good), but then ends on an update “well, isn’t it such a nice country?” note (wtf?)

Unless you’re a true fan, read Blue Highways instead.

There doesn’t seem to be much here for people who already know something about the Internet. I threw down the book in disgust when I came to the phrase “in a netshell”.

I was most of the way through it, but then I realized I didn’t give a shit about the plot or any of the characters, so I stopped.

I wouldn’t have guessed that a movie of such emotional depth would have been made about Donkey Kong.

I’m not sure whether this book is brilliant or reactionary. Towards the end Kipnis asks, about Andrea Dworkin, “Is she making a political argument, or describing the eternal female condition?” The same question could be posed about her. It’s hard to tell which statements are meant as statements of eternal truths and which are meant to mock the conventional wisdom. When you think it’s meant one way, she’ll turn around and tell you it’s the other. Sometimes the mocking tone works, other times it comes off as watered-down David Foster Wallace.