ok im on two books rn. its good to alternate fiction and nonfic tbh

#1: Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

• just finished "book 1" about halfway thru the collection
• it's a series of farces about a being that has experienced every stage of the universe from the creation of matter
• a fun little way to wake up your brain in the morning
• my favorites are the ones about family/groups, like his grandmother who thought the universe was going to go back to being soup, and his cousin who fell in love with the moon
• worst are any where he is in love with a woman. i don't think this man has ever interacted with a woman irl the way he talks about them is just absurd but it can be funny when he has a romantic rival
• you will become infuriated by the way he talks about binary gender in an almost pathological way
• but he is quite imaginative and whimsical at times which ends up redeeming it
• curious to see what part 2 holds, kind of hoping we can keep talking about astrophysics

#2: The Great Chicago Fire by ____

• i love a book about a well documented non-military historical event
• probably full of lies but oh well
• the sense of inevitable, escalating chaos is extremely compelling and he's a good storyteller
• raises hundreds of questions, like why are the fire engines kind of cute, how hot would my brick building have to get to melt the mortar, how many possessions did most people own back then, etc
• hard to avoid thinking about the folly of mankind it's just staring you right in the face daring you to think about it
• but the author doesn't do preachy shit like that which is nice. Overall focuses much more on the minute to minute action than any kind of analysis which is very refreshing (I already over analyze everything anyway)
• would be interesting to read along with nature's metropolis by william cronon (a drier read but traces the development of the structures that made chicago possible)
• still only a little over halfway through. feels like we're reaching the climax of the fire's destruction but honestly it just keeps going. have reached the point where there was absolutely nothing that could be done to save the city after the destruction of the waterworks.

-highly recommend!!