As I noted right here in this feed, this past Saturday was Towel Day. That inspired me to check out The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy from the library to re-read it for the first time since 2000. It still holds up! What a delightful classic.
Also worth noting: Douglas Adams basically described an e-reader device almost 30 years before Kindle came on the market.
For no particular reason, I had The Rooster Bar by John Grisham on my TBR and started reading it this week. I don't normally go for "airport books," but this one is a ton of fun. Now I remember why I read over a dozen of Grisham's books in the 90s and early 2000s. It's been a while since I picked him up... almost a couple decades, but I'm glad I did again.
FTR, The Rooster Bar has nothing to do with chickens. 😉
This week I'm wrapping up the audio of Let The Great World Spin by Colum McCann. This is the second audiobook in a row for me with truly raw depictions of people just scraping by and trying to make the best of their situation. Tillie's narration is heartbreaking. Next audio read needs to be something not so heavy.
Related: now I feel like I should watch "The Walk" starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt. (not a bad thing)
This is turning out to be a book I'm not terribly excited about: The Dog Of The South by Charles Portis. The tone sort of reminds me of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but set in Texas and Mexico and without the hardcore drugs. Parts are funny, but mostly it kind of drags and I'm not sure what the point is. If I wasn't already more than halfway through, I'd probably add it to the DNF pile. #FridayReads#AmReading#Books#Fiction#Bookstodon@bookstodon
Listening to the audio of This Is Your Brain On Sports by L. Jon Wertheim and Sam Sommers.
I wish I had read it closer to its 2016 pub date. 8 years later, parts are a little outdated. Example: in a list of active QBs at the time, several had yet to reach their peak. Now they're seasoned veterans or retired.
Amusingly, when quoting PK Subban, the narrator gave him a French accent. Subban grew up in Toronto.
This week I finished Nieuwe namen which was really interesting and I'm happy I read stories from elderly Trans people.
I'm not currently reading anything but I want to. My normal things are not hitting the mark and I'm not sure what to try next. Any suggestions? #boeken#books#bookstodon@bookstodon@boeken#fridayreads
I really need to start keeping notes on how/why I put a book to my TBR pile. The East Indian by Brinda Charry was added about a year ago, and I don't remember how I found out about it. A truly unique tale about an Indian boy winding up first in England and then Virginia during the 17th century efforts at colonization, for me this book is historical fiction at its absolute best. It might be one of the best books I pick up in 2024. #FridayReads#Fiction#AmReading#Books#Bookstodon@bookstodon
Not sure what attracted me to This Is Where I Leave You by Jonathan Tropper. It's not what my wife would call a "David Book" - I don't read a lot of family dramedies. I liked it enough, though, to add One Last Thing Before I Go to my TBR. Finally got to it 12 years later, and am almost done. Not as great as TIWILY, but still good and very funny.
The movie adaptation of TIWILY featuring Jason Bateman and Jane Fonda is also quite good.
The Coincidence Makers by Yoan Blum started slow and I was seriously thinking about putting in the DNF pile, but about a quarter of the way in it picked up with some beautiful beats. I think at some point I had an "aha" moment. Oh, I see what you're trying to do here! I'm glad I stuck with it, because this is a book that tugs on the heartstrings.
The premise reminded me at first of The Incrementalists, a book I didn't love. This is much better.
Just finished Mr. g: A Novel about the Creation by Alan Lightman. It was... fine. Not bad, but not great. Ok for a quick diversion. I'm glad it wasn't longer than it was.
I thought it would be funnier, but it turned out to be more philosophical than humorous. There were funny moments, but if I needed to categorize this book, I think I would file it under "metaphysics" and not humor or fiction.
Neil Gaiman ( @neilhimself when he's posting here - which isn't often) is one of my favorite authors, and I'm usually in awe of just about everything he does. It was a cinch, then, that I picked up Unnatural Creatures, an arrangement of short stories that he picked out. So far, all of the stories are good. Surprisingly, I would say that Gaiman's own contribution is the weakest of the bunch, but still entertaining. #FridayReads#AmReading#Books#ShortStories#Bookstodon@bookstodon
Working my way through The Bank by Bentley Little. I remember adding it to my TBR in 2020 because I read somewhere that Stephen King recommended it. I'm not sure if I find that surprising or fitting: The Bank is basically Needful Things, 30 years later. If I were King, I might frown at the obvious overlap, but it didn't seem to bother him. He even added a blurb.
Needful Things is MUCH better and it's not even close.
Back in the day my love for movies and my trivia knowledge combined to make me a walking IMDb. My movie watching has declined drastically since March 2013 (when Kid 1 entered the world) and it's hard for me to stay current. That won't stop me from enjoying Oscar Wars: A History of Hollywood in Gold, Sweat, and Tears by Michael Schulman. I'm only on Chapter 2, but already loving the old-school Tinseltown intrigue. #Books#Movies#Oscars#Hollywood#FridayReads#AmReading#Bookstodon@bookstodon
This week for #FridayReads I am just on the cusp of finishing 'The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles' by @older
It is so delightful to return to the world of Giant and the lives of Mossa and Pleiti. Come for the cozy mystery, stay for the wonderful world and characters.
The blurb on the Barnes & Noble website states "Taut, propulsive, and impossible to look away from, Emma Cline’s The Guest is a spellbinding literary achievement." I'm not sure I'd go that far. It's good, but I'm almost 2/3 of the way through and still waiting to see how the protagonist got in the situation she's in. I'm sure (I hope) there's a big reveal coming, but I don't get why Cline felt the need to be coy. Seems unnecessary. #Books#FridayReads#Bookstodon#Fiction@bookstodon
Pitchers and catchers report next week, and it's around this time of year that, if I can, I try to read something baseball-related. Yesterday I picked up a book that I read when I was a teen and remember enjoying it very much: If I Never Get Back by Darryl Brock. It's sort of like if Field of Dreams and Back To The Future had a baby, and it's great. #Books#Baseball#Bookstodon#AmReading#Fiction#Sports#MLB#FridayReads@bookstodon
Two books I loved, part 1: Honeybees and Distant Thunder by Riku Onda, which is about four entrants in a classical piano competition in Tokyo, and the characters are all interesting and charming but best of all it just has wonderful writing about music -- like the title itself as a description of how a particular player makes a particular piece sound. It's beautiful, and unlike many books with multiple POVs, I loved all the protagonists equally and was never annoyed by a switch at the wrong time. Just beautiful stuff.
2024 Book 1: Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman.
Insightful but ultimately depressing because, despite #UBI seeming particularly realistic, it feels like we're even farther away from it ever happening at scale than when this first published in 2014. ☹️
2024 Book 10: Xenos (Eisenhorn: The Omnibus) by Dan Abnett
A brisk, surprisingly accessible read. It surely helped that I spent a few months exploring the setting before starting to read this, but Abnett deserves props for his storytelling skills. I'm looking forward to the rest of this brick, but will read something else between each novel.