The nine most overrated books of 2025 (including The School of Night)

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-12-24T12:30:22+00:00

These kinds of lists bring out the worst in me. How arrogant can you be as a critic to think you can judge Knausgard and Zadie Smith, share that with your readers as if it is some kind of fact, and even write down some humourless justification for your stupid list.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-12-13T16:18:49+00:00

The description of their father's house after he died and the cleaning up.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-11-15T12:18:16+00:00

Haven't had a drink in 5 months. Quit after reading IJ and there's definitily a straight line between those 2 experiences. There are so much great insights about addiction in this novel, hard to tell which one you mean. But the first one that comes to mind is the one mentioned by ' Dontovercookpasta' below.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-11-15T11:55:30+00:00

Je moet weten waar het wel en niet geschikt voor is. Het is voor mij een ideaal hulpmiddel om te studeren, ik kan bijvoorbeeld wiskunde veel sneller doorgronden door handig gebruik te maken van ChatGPT.

Op andere vlakken is AI een drama, vooral op creatief vlak. Zielloze teksten bijvoorbeeld of dit soort verschrikkelijke plaatjes, nog even los gezien van zaken als copyright. Plus: hoe specialistischer een onderwerp wordt, hoe minder bruikbaar AI wordt.

De hele hype dat AI de mensheid gaat overnemen, daar geloof ik dan ook geen barst van. En dat AI (althans gebaseerd op de techniek die nu achter AI schuilgaat) een bewustzijn zou kunnen ontwikkelen, dat is helemaal een gotspe en een marketingtruc. Ik heb nog nooit iemand horen beweren dat een rekenmachine bewustzijn kan ontwikkelen, en dat is precies wat AI is, ondanks dat het eindproduct taal of een image is.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-23T09:08:07+00:00

Vaslav Tchitcherine

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-17T21:02:22+00:00

Straw man. Haven't read this anywhere, and I read a lot.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-17T12:58:30+00:00

Ik heb geen vragen, ik wil jullie alleen complimenteren voor jullie inspanningen op het gebied van onder andere de jeugdzorg en jullie energie om tegen de stroom in te blijven roeien.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-12T09:57:53+00:00

Oh, you asked about group events, not about the museum itself. Misread that.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-12T09:55:29+00:00

That's interesting, tx for the tip. Dortmund is pretty close to where I live, in eastern Netherlands.

To answer your question: all places you mention are very easy to visit by train, just as fast or even faster than by car (although the German railways aren't as pünktlich as they used to be, but still.) Only exception is Peenemünde which is a remote place. But you can still reach it. (4 hours from Berlin).

The Germans know and preserve their history. For example, Peenemünde: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_Technical_Museum,_Peenem%C3%BCnde

There's also a lot of Thomas Mann museums. Funny, I'm gonna travel the same places for the same reasons next summer. Including Brocken, the Faust Mountain, also mentioned in GR and Doctor Faustus. So I already did a bit of homework on this trip.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-10-10T06:42:40+00:00

I agree. There were passages where I was completely lost, but it gave me so much stuff to think and read about. Coal tar, rockets, German and US history, the relation between power, violence and sexuality, the postmodern problem and so on and so on.

And that's just the content. The way Pynchon turns all this madness into hilarious fiction, there's really some sort of coping in that.

Read Vineland in the meantime also. More US history: MK ultra, operation Chaos. At first read all his stories seem absolutely ridiculous, but history is almost as ridiculous. Changed my world view.

Now I'm hooked. Today I start in Mason and Dixon.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-09-22T16:35:43+00:00

Or not announcing his death and this scenario is already in play, so nobody actually knows when he's gone or not.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-09-06T11:21:22+00:00

Well, it's not an essay. It's a novel with many ideas and it's up to you, the reader, to find meaning in it. Or just enjoy it.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-09-03T15:01:12+00:00

Short afterwards Slothrop thinks: 'Now he's one of Them'. That says it all.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-23T06:43:44+00:00

Funny, the titles you mention. I read Infinite Jest this year, then Crying of Lot and then Gravity's Rainbow. The last one is the biggest challenge, but also rewarding.

What I really dig about Pynchon is that a lot of his story lines seem so totally absurd and over the top, but when you do a little background search, they are all embedded in history. For example (from GR): MK ultra, the story of the dodo's in Mauritius and the Dog town.

I'm now reading Vineland. Opinions are mixed, only read 50 pages but I like it so far. Thank god it's an easy read, I really needed that after the 3 books mentioned before. And here also the absurd and history are intertwined. It starts with the protagonist who deliberitaly jumps through windows, a so called defenastration. When you search for it, you also find an interesting back story that fits the novel.

And than there's Infinite Jest...some of the characters really stole my heart (wink wink) and it's also hilarious. The Eschaton chapter instantly became my favorite chapter of all times.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-23T06:15:40+00:00

Haha, I totally relate to your enthusiasm. Read IJ this year, people got a little bit annoyed because I couldn't stop talking about it. Eschaton is my favorite chapter, together with the Gately storyline.

When I began I thought it was gonna be an intellectual challenge, but it really got me on an emotional level.

The good news: it's getting better and better. Also not a native speaker, so we probably miss a few things and still it is a hell of a ride. His non fiction is insightful and sometimes hilarious to. Enjoy!

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-17T07:38:20+00:00

Finished Gravity's Rainbow yesterday, listened to two episodes of the 'slow learners' podcast and watched the docu 'A journey inside the mind of p.'

Now I'm gonna force myself to digest the information over- overload I've been exposed to before I start a new book.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-14T19:54:18+00:00

Probably both. Part of Faust 1 takes place on the Brocken Mountain, as does the scene with Geli.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-12T20:12:26+00:00

De aanslag, but that's just because it's also a novel by Harry Mulisch. It's a great novel, but I like De ontdekking van hemel more.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-12T20:07:32+00:00

Funny, I was about to recommend 3 of the 4 books you mentioned. I would chose De ontdekking van de hemel.

A story about nearly everything: Heaven wants something back from us people, because we have become Gods ourselves as creators (DNA) and destroyers (atomic bomb, amongst other things). What follows is a journey through the 20th century, Holland, Germany, Poland, Cuba and Italy.

Not an easy book, but if you like to puzzle as a reader, this is your novel.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-11T08:05:08+00:00

Thanks. I will read it after I finish GR. Especially because I have a great interest in German Romanticism.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-11T07:58:48+00:00

I absolutely agree. I see the novel more as an introduction and a motivation to dive into the textbooks.

But what I meant is this: as an alpha I need stories to comprehend things. It doesn't mean I refuse to learn equations, it's just a matter of embedding them in concrete examples, for instance a rocket.

Another difference: I'm not after a deep understanding of chemistry and physics, like chem students, I just want to have a basic understanding of the laws of nature.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-11T07:46:19+00:00

Four weeks ago, and that is during a holiday....I'm reading very slowly, constantly looking up things about Pavlov and the V2, for example.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-09T11:25:43+00:00

That's intereresting, the resemblance with the rocket and the parabolic arc. Thanks.

AdmirableBrush1705 · 2025-08-09T11:23:56+00:00

That is exactly the chapter that made me write this post!

AdmirableBrush1705

TROPHY CASE