Mark鈥檚 Year in Books

What did you read this year?

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2024

848

pages read

books read

Mark Rice

Shortest Book

149

pages

Love and Lust, Laughter and Loss by Marian Rhys

Longest Book

443

pages

Average book length in 2024

282

pages

Most Shelved

1,730

people also shelved

Least Shelved

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Mark鈥檚 average rating for 2024

4.7

Highest Rated on 欧宝娱乐

3.91 average

Mark鈥檚 first review of the year

it was amazing

When I was in my mid teens I saw Judy Carr, aka Juliet Anderson, aka Aunt Peg, for the first time. Not in the flesh, but on video, thanks to an old VHS cassette that someone had copied from someone else who had copied it from someone who had copied it from another someone... and so on down the line all the way to the person who had actually bought the original video tape (one of the Aunt Peg films), many incarnations ago. As a result of all this When I was in my mid teens I saw Judy Carr, aka Juliet Anderson, aka Aunt Peg, for the first time. Not in the flesh, but on video, thanks to an old VHS cassette that someone had copied from someone else who had copied it from someone who had copied it from another someone... and so on down the line all the way to the person who had actually bought the original video tape (one of the Aunt Peg films), many incarnations ago. As a result of all this tape-to-tape action, the video and audio quality had declined a bit but despite that, I saw in Juliet something I'd never previously seen in anyone on screen (in porn/erotica films or in regular television shows/movies): authenticity. This set her apart from all the other performers and made her utterly compelling to watch. It was clear that she wasn't going through the motions or spouting generic contrived phrases (you know the ones: "Oh my god!", "Yes, just like that!", "Oooh, harder!", "Oh, it's so big!", etc.), but, rather, was expressing her true self in every touch, every caress, every movement, every sound and every uttered word. And she wasn't all about the wham-bam. She could do that, if and when she chose to, but she was as much about sensuality as she was sexuality. To see this was an awakening of sorts. I knew that she was the real deal, worlds apart from all the others in her field. In modern parlance, she was the GoAT (Greatest of All Time). So when I saw Marian Rhys's biography of Juliet, I had to read it. There was a risk involved, though: my opinion of Juliet might change as I delved into the deeper minutiae of her life, and I really didn't want my hazy dreamy teenage memories to be shattered by a reality that didn't tally with my intuited version of the person I believed Juliet to be. As it turns out, she was exactly the woman I had inferred her to be: uncompromising, sensitive, kind to animals, sensuous, tactile, intelligent, creative and soulful.

Juliet planned to write her own autobiography but never got around to compiling it. She did, however, keep meticulous diaries in which were recorded not just the explicit details of pretty much everything she did, but also how she felt about the events, people, places, animals, smells, tastes and feelings she encountered - every significant experience, detailed. Most of Juliet's diaries were written in standard prose, but they also included some beautiful poetry, which she crafted when she felt particularly moved and/or inspired (usually by a man... there were many). Most of these men soon came crashing down off the pedestals she'd put them on, though, and when this happened Juliet wrote about it in heartfelt detail. She didn't pull punches and she never held back. It's maybe ironic that despite being considered a goddess of the so-called Golden Age of Porn, Juliet was always on the hunt for true, abiding, immersive love, a quest that saw her living in many countries, on multiple continents, and going through highs and lows, many of them financial, that would have wrecked anyone with less gumption.

Thanks largely to Juliet's journals, Marian Rhys was able to write a seriously thorough biography which explores every nook and cranny (and crevice!) of this legend's life. That Rhys managed to do so in a coherent way, and in such phenomenal detail, is a monumental achievement. It's not the best-written book I've ever read but it is one of the best-researched ones. The latter quality more than makes up for the occasional weaknesses of the former.

A life fully lived. And a book that does justice to that unique life. ...more

惭础搁碍鈥橲 2024 BOOKS

it was amazing

Your Happiness Was Hacked by Vivek Wadhwa

Mark鈥檚 last review of the year

it was amazing

An important book for just about everyone. Why? Because all the evidence shows that more technology does not equal more happiness, fulfilment, compassion, empathy or spirituality - in fact, the opposite is true. The relationship is an inverse one. More technology has brought on increased levels of narcissism, anxiety, emotional disconnection, mental issues, chronic laziness and suicide. As Vivek Wadhwa sums up in one of his subheadings in this bo An important book for just about everyone. Why? Because all the evidence shows that more technology does not equal more happiness, fulfilment, compassion, empathy or spirituality - in fact, the opposite is true. The relationship is an inverse one. More technology has brought on increased levels of narcissism, anxiety, emotional disconnection, mental issues, chronic laziness and suicide. As Vivek Wadhwa sums up in one of his subheadings in this book, "Technology is making us lonelier and sadder". Why is this so? Largely because many people have allowed technology to become their master rather than their slave - they pander to "notifications" on multiple media channels, they clamour for "likes" and "followers", they feel powerless if they lose a mobile phone signal or home WiFi signal for even a few minutes, and they spend more time staring at screens than they do looking at actual organic living beings. None of that is healthy. I suspect that most people already know this instinctively, yet most do nothing about it. That's what I'd describe as cognitive dissonance: knowing that something is bad for you, yet continuing to do it anyway. In this book, Vivek and his co-writers present a wealth of information on why spending more time on the Internet is bad for you in myriad ways. They also suggest many commonsense ways of reversing this, in order to regain your autonomy and become master of your tech, not slave to it. All the book's contributors have decades of experience in the Big Tech realm and so are in an ideal position to examine the vastly increasing use of, for example, social media, from the perspective of both the providers and the consumers. One telling fact is that all the major social media platforms, and many of the dating ones too (Tinder, for example) deliberately incorporated the same psychological "hooking" tools used in the gambling industry, particularly slot machines, with great effect. Think about it. You're on Facebook and a little red bell lights up - ding ding, notification! Just like the slot machines. At first, this gives a little dopamine buzz, just as happens when playing the slots. But over time, due to the mind's adaptation and the law of diminishing returns, that dopamine hit doesn't happen like it used to. Rather, anxiety takes over, but by that time the behaviour is Pavlovian and the consumer, more often than not, hooked. So if you've ever been deluded enough to believe that the operators behind social media sites actually give a shit about your mental health, emotional connectedness or overall well-being, think again. Just remember, Ding ding, notification! Ding ding, insert another quarter into the slot machine! That's all you are to them: a mug to be manipulated and exploited, regardless of the cost to you. This will come as a wake-up call to many people, but it's a necessary and long-overdue one.

A recommended read. In case you don't have time to read the book (maybe because you're too busy checking all your notifications!), I'll summarise it for you: spend less time on the Internet, spend more time away from mobile phones, laptops and other devices, spend more time in Nature, walking in the woods, hanging out with animals, or even spending time with actual human beings, talking face to face, you know... the old-fashioned way folk used to talk to each other in the days before they started looking at pixelated versions of each other instead, staring mindlessly at mobile phone screens or laptops. This, as Mando would say, is the way. ...more

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