Mario the lone bookwolf’s Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2023

9,347

pages read

books read

Mario the lone bookwolf

2 likes Like

Shortest Book

192

pages

Longest Book

702

pages

Average book length in 2023

424

pages

Most Shelved

3,560,353

people also shelved

Least Shelved

34,531

people also shelved

Mario the lone bookwolf’s average rating for 2023

4.3

Highest Rated on Goodreads

4.35 average

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain

Mario the lone bookwolf’s first review of the year

it was amazing

Forget Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, this is Twains´ greatest work.

And his unknown, shorter stories, all doing the only thing to make humankinds´ extreme stupidity and cruelty bearable, by satirizing them in a way no other classic author could or dared. Although some of it was released after his death, so he knew about the dynamite effect it would have on bigoted and hypocritical conservatives. It´s very meaningful that, even today, his grea Forget Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, this is Twains´ greatest work.

And his unknown, shorter stories, all doing the only thing to make humankinds´ extreme stupidity and cruelty bearable, by satirizing them in a way no other classic author could or dared. Although some of it was released after his death, so he knew about the dynamite effect it would have on bigoted and hypocritical conservatives. It´s very meaningful that, even today, his great social criticism is almost forgotten, or deliberately ignored, in contrast to his much more famous novels that had criticism in them too, but just showed the evil characters, not the evil system itself. Seems as if we still haven´t gone so far to be able to have open, mature discussions about history, politics, and faith.

(view spoiler)
Feudalism plus escalating faith was a match made in hell, costing humankind 1,5k years of potential earlier development, killing hundreds of millions or even more

Too big to fail?
I like the sci-fi trope of any great empire of the past, take whatever you prefer, may be influenced by culture, epigenetics, and tradition, but let´s roll with the great Chinese, Indian, Mongol, Arab, Egypt, Persian, Roman,… empire or the Aztecs, Inka, Maya, Khmer... See all those ruins? All were dictatorships with the well implemented seed of self destruction and just one time the coincidence and extreme improbability of an intelligent government would have been enough to change world history. They could have prospered, developed technology, democracy, become invincible by the way, possibly achieving world domination hundreds and thousands of years before, bringing the rest of the world peace and prosperity, and leading to a today that looks like what we imagine as something possible between 3000 to 3500 or something. Humans are amazing at destroying their own potential.

Noble knights and kings just in ones´ dreams
Hardly any novel opened my eyes more for the dark side of all the great stereotypes of Medieval times, knights, the often idealized, even romantic setting, than this ingenious diatribe against dictatorship, slavery, and feudalism, using the for the time revolutionary time travel scheme and culture clash tropes to let the reader understand what horrible persons many fictitious and real emperors were.

Strangely the ultra far away past was somewhat better
One can interpret so much in the long inner monologues of the main protagonist, who is thinking about improving the medieval world, and that it was written at a moment when democracy was (even more than nowadays) still a farce, makes it a culture study monument. Twain lived in a time we deem as extremely primitive and brutal and he looked back at even worse times. And before these times, there were more primitive, but fairer times, before the stupidity of some owning all and patriarchic, unsustainable inhumanity took control.

At least we´re backlashing hard
It makes one hopeful for the future, because we have already achieved so much, and because artists like Twain have the capability to make one cautious and alarmed to stay on the right path, as the demagogues and maniacs of extremism of all kinds won´t disappear overnight and we as humans haven´t really evolved that much in intelligence over the last few centuries to make utopia great again forever. Rudimentary reading and writing, more points on the IQ scales, more mass produced academics, but looking through the democratic world at this moment, 2020 (2023 when rereading), doesn´t make it seem as if enlightenment or any ideals of the great thinkers and movements of the 19th and 20th centuries are appreciated, practiced, debated, or lived anymore.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... ...more

MARIO THE LONE BOOKWOLF’S 2023 BOOKS

it was amazing

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

it was amazing

it was amazing

Mario the lone bookwolf’s last review of the year

really liked it

Unleash the dinosaur mania

Techno thrill me harder
This is one of Crichton's best novels, which varied widely in quality, and could be called part of the foundation of the Sci-Fi thriller, aka techno thriller, genre with mainstream media adaptions and many great, new authors following in his footsteps.

Seems fictional, but…
Until the first hybrids, most novels of this genre were pure fiction with fantasy or Sci-Fi elements and analysis and criticism ...more

What did you read this year?