2018: The Reads
January
Death Without Company by Craig Johnson
Johnson turns a good phrase. This is the second Longmire book, and I've got an itch to go ahead and read the third....
Reading Stephen King edited by Bryan James Freeman
A collection of Essays from Cemetery Dance. I'd bought an autographed copy in 2017, and later in the year, had bought a grab bag from the specialty publisher, and another copy was included in that grab bag....
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
I did not like this one. Seems like a few vignettes imagined by del Toro pieced together by Hogan. Apologies if that's unfair. This one was a mess.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
I have other favorites by Moore (Lust Lizard, Coyote Blue), but this one likely shows the most heart, and is probably his strongest novel. I would call this one recommended reading....
Night Shift by Stephen King
I'd had a New Year's Resolution to try to read a short story a day in 2018. That fell apart pretty quickly, but I did read through Night Shift in the early part of the year. Also part of my attempt to read through King's work in roughly chronological order of publication. Lots of good stuff in Night Shift.
February
Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B-Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell, Craig Sanborn
Light reading, but Fun. Campbell's my kind of weird.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff
I didn't include this one in my Facebook list, mainly because I didn't feel like policing shitty comments. Fact is, it's not a good book. I agree with much of what was written, but was surprised by very little. Wolff seems to be looking to build a Brand, which is unfortunate, since it's the prevailing criticism of the grifter sitting in the Oval Office. I read wishing for a stronger read, perhaps from Bob Woodward....
The Long Walk by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
Continuing my project. Still one of my favorites. Bleak as hell. Though much about this one, as the week I read it, I was working a ridiculous 70-hour week.
The Civil War: A Narrative, volume I: Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote
Good read, even if it adheres a bit too strongly to the "Lost Cause" narrative for the South.
Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh
..As much as anything I've read this year, this one keeps popping back. Bleak. Sad, and funny. Manages to hide what was a pretty simple curveball quite efficiently in the narrator's narcissism. Kudos. Well played. I'll be looking for more from Ms. Moshfegh
The Man Without a Face: the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
I'd been wanting to read this one for a while, as it had popped up recommended on a couple sites, Sheila's among them. Interesting, frightening read about Putin's taking power. Something to take notice of, especially this: you may believe in the demagogue, but the demagogue does not believe in you.
March
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
A re-read, following the death of LeGuin. I went through a six- or nine-month phase when I was about 20 reading just about everything I could get my hands on by LeGuin, and then maybe a book or two since. Just a special writer. And deserving of mention among this country's greatest.
Whale Season by N.M. Kelby
Goofy fun. A Christmas gift from my buddy Micah. Reminds me of early Carl Hiassen, with a mix of Christopher Moore thrown in.....
The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard by David Goodman
The Kindle lunchtime read. I wanted something I could put down without feeling too bad about having to leave it when I got called away. Not bad, even if it stretches a little too often to reach out to some famous stories not specifically involving Picard in the mentioned canon of the show....
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Great read. I'd read maybe all of this over the course of my life, but never from front to back.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I wanted to re-read (or re-listen, in this case) to in advance of Spielberg's flick this past spring. Pure dorky escapism. The criticisms leveled of its being derivative (it's a grail quest, guys), nihilist (yeah, a bit, but that may be why I like it) and sexist (yeah, it is, and there's not a lot of defending it) are valid. I like it anyway. To this point, I consider Cline a one-hit-wonder. His follow up Armada? That's one you can really hate on....
April
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
I loved this one. Amazing period horror piece. Unfairly compared to Dan Simmons' The Terror. This one is vastly superior, if only becasue it doesn't slobber over its wordcount. It manages to keep you off balance, uncertain for the cause of events nicely through most of the book. It's not often that a book's atmosphere and isolation suck me in so completely. Well done.
Deadwood by Pete Dexter
I started this once in December of last year, and because it was the busiest time of the year, I didn't make it far. I tried again in April, and I dug this one. Great turns of phrase.
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Continuing the project. This was one of the first King books I went through in the early 1990's, after I initially read The Shining. I'd forgotten vast chunks of the book, but remembered odd things with startling clarity...the kicking of the dog; the wooden toys; the sawed-off pool cues Stillson's thugs carried in their pockets; the way Stillson's rallies were molded....the last one rang especially true with how Trump's rallies still proceed.....
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
An odd epistolary novel. It made me smile, though it hasn't popped to mind once since I read it, I'm sorry to say.
The Fairies of Sadieville by Alex Bledsoe
The last of the Tufa books. Alex's books have heart, and they write about a South that I know very well, and they do so without a wry smile. I came to enjoy the sense of community in the Tufa books most, and this one is the strongest of the bunch. Laugh out loud moment: a favorite character rants about getting horrible cell service in his own driveway (preach!!!!), but getting five bars at the lip of a magical land.....
Jack-Rabbit Smile by Joe R. Lansdale
You know, Joe's got my loyalty. If he hadn't, I'd be back again on the strength of likening a truck collision to heaven blowing a bean fart. Hap and Leonard back at it. This one might be some of my favorite Leonard Pine since Savage Season.....
May
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
A gift from Shyam. I enjoyed this one, even though I'm feeling very real zombie fatigue. Surprisingly sweet.
The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels by Jon Meacham
A Commute listen. A good read, even if it is Meacham's most mission-oriented book. A look at the Presidency as the Conscience of our nation. Focuses largely on the administrations of Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, with looks at Lincoln, Eisenhower, JFK and Reagan who all had periods where facing down Populism, Fascism and Terrorism, and not always in ways associated with the philosophies of their persons, or political leanings....
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar
Another commute listen. I'd had this one on my periphery for a while. The old Coast-to-Coast listener in me was familiar with the story, and with a few of the theories. I was pleased with the theory presented as a cause for the "madness" by the author.
Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill
Four novellas, presented with something of a Tales from the Crypt vibe. Fun. Hill's response to having just published two word-heavy tomes (N0s4A2, which I liked; and The Fireman, which I did not). He wanted to streamline, keep it lean. I dug a couple of the stories very much, especially Loaded, which had me leaning into an okeydoke pretty far, and left me swearing at the end....
June
Noir by Christopher Moore
I've read a lot of Moore, and enjoyed nearly all of it. This one made me feel very much like the first couple of his I read (Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and Island of the Sequined Love Nun). Funny. Silly, in a time when we need a little silly.
Circe by Madeline Miller
An extremely well put together book. I tend to dig stories about people (or immortals, as it were) finding themselves.
More than that I'm a sucker for an ancient period piece. This book, more than any other I read, just makes me happy.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
I'd owned a copy of this for a while, and never read it. Bourdain passed. I went through it. I think my favorite bit is the entire chapter Bourdain devotes to contradicting everything he's said to this point...a literary "so what the fuck do I know?"
Rowdy: The Roddy Piper Story by Ariel Teal Toombs and Colt Baird Toombs
A Kindle read, and one I'd been wanting to get to for a while. Piper's own autobiography, a weird, skitty read that seemed just like a worker wanting to keep working the crowd, was apparently disappointing even to Piper. In the last years of his life, he'd been compiling notes to do a better job, but was limited by a life lived hard, and perhaps a little bit of head trauma. His kids put together a fun, infinitely readable tribute. I dug this one a lot.
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
I read this one once upon a time, a couple decades ago, borrowing my roommate's copy. It was interesting then, and gave me a couple things I'd carried with me since then (especially my stance that we, the richest nation in the world, have the ability to spend a literal fortune on every kid in this country in the name of education, but choose instead to spend the money on missiles). Reading it this time around hit me a little harder, and scared me a little. Especially since I've spent much of the last 2 decades working with the public, and seen the lack of functional literacy in a great many of our folks, as well as the lack of critical thinking skills and skepticism in even more of our population. It also disappointed me in myself, a bit, for my own gullibility a handful of times.....
Tales of the Callamo Mountains by Larry Blamire
This had popped up on somebody's feed. Short stories. Bleak. Isolated. A wilderness containing more than the wild. I enjoyed this collection.....
July
Firestarter by Stephen King
Continuing the project of reading through King's works. This was one of the first King books I read after I read The Shining, way back in the early 90's. I'd had fond memories of this one, but somehow, it didn't age well, and it didn't sit well with me this time around. I'm not even really sure why, except that The Shop and all its trappings really wandered a little too far out into the paranoid, a little too sure that The Man was out to get everybody....
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Another re-read, after my friend Jillian and read it. In the time since I first read it, I've spend the last 15 years working around teenagers, and it shone a new light on John Grady Cole and Rawlins. Seeing these kids do the shit that Rawlins does is easy. Cole, not so much. And it make the book that much more effective, in my mind. I didn't care as much for the book the first time I read it as I did this time. McCarthy keeps himself at the top of my personal list....
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer,
The movie is one of my favorites of this year. The book had been floating around the periphery of everything I like for years. The book's tight. A nice intersection between Lovecraftian Horror and Carl Sagan's writing....
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
Tremblay just keeps putting out stuff that pushes the right buttons. I don't know that anything will ever be as effective, for my money, as A Head Full of Ghosts. And while I keep chasing that initial high, I realize I might never find it again. I don't mean to damn a work in that manner. This one was good, and it kept me rapt the entire time. I just haven't given it much thought since then, I'm sorry to say.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Heavy on atmosphere, and kinda fun, but really, it never really goes anywhere. I enjoyed the ride, but it just didn't float my boat by the end....
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick
Philbrick just writes good stuff. A lot of fun. Puts Washington and Arnold into three dimensions. I dug this one a lot.
August
Roadwork by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
This one was one of the few of King's that I'd never gone all the way through. I'd tried it a couple times, but it just didn't bite. It starts as a slog....it's really badly paced. It comes alive, though, when Bart actually opens up a bit about his dead son. The last half of Roadwork I'd call some of King's finest work.
A lot of King's early works are concerned with fatherhood, usually in counterpoint to being a good son as well. The Bachman books don't seem to have the counterpoint...and I've wondered if Bachman is a counterpoint to King's missing a father. Where King wonders how to be a good son, Bachman just doesn't give a shit. Rage is about a child without that answering adult voice. The Long Walk is very much about a man growing up alone. Roadwork is about a father who's had that role stolen out from underneath him, who finds himself without a compass without that child.
Sad. Oddly funny. But terribly sad. I've often thought about what I might ask Stephen King if ever I met him, and I think after reading Roadwork, I'd like to talk to him about where he might see his life if he hadn't had children.
I read this one during one of the most distasteful, difficult weeks I've gone through in my life. Mindset has a lot to do with my memories of a book. I might revisit this one in a couple years, on a better week, just to see if I react differently. This one, though, was suitably apocalyptic. And I loved it.
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
The commute listen. As much as I enjoyed Roadwork, this was a nice change of pace. A fun listen, with a couple Super tight stories. The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper was a lot of fun, and it made me love Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick all that much more. Also effective: Yoda's melancholy tale. And the handful of stories dealing with the pilots who flew the Death Star mission.
The rhyming Palpatine thing? What the fuck was that? And "Of MSE-6 and Men" was difficult to listen to on multiple levels....
Scattered, Smothered and Chunked: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1 by John Hartness
My buddy John had recommended Hartness a while back. He was right. I had fun with this one. Funny, with a hell of an ear for dialog. I rarely laugh out loud at what I'm reading, but this one hit me hard a couple or three times.
A collection of episodic stories, it hit me right in my wheelhouse of Evil Dead and Pro Wrestling fandom.
Of note: at one point, Bubba goes hunting a nest of vampires about an hour north of Chattanooga, which puts it somewhere in my concentric circle of bullshit, geographically speaking.
Chasing the Light, edited by Emily Lavin Leverett
I bought this one because my friend Janet had a story included. She puts up with the tomfoolery that her husband and I get into. It's a story I enjoyed very much. In a bit of synchronicity, it featured a story from John Hartness that I enjoyed, as well....
People Only Die of Love in the Movies by Jim Ridley
Jim Ridley was a friend of a friend of a surprising number of people. I met him once or twice, and carried on a couple of online conversations with him. I was sorry to hear it when he passed. He seemed like a good dude. I picked through this one for about a month....
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: a New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte
An extremely accessible book on the subject, and one that worked well as an aural experience (this one was a commute listen). I often have issues with history or science books that rely on graphs, maps or other visual aids, if I try to listen. Abstract concepts I can visualize, but charts? Not so much.
This was one of the best written books on the subject I've ever run across. I ended up giving a copy of it to my sister for Christmas.
September
King of Strong Style: 1980-2014 by Shinsuke Nakamura
A vacation read. I enjoyed it, but the interview format wore on me a bit. Could have used a little more editing.....
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Dryly funny. I enjoyed young Nathaniel's adventures with The Darter immensely. Taking place in post WW2 England, it concerns itself very much with the shifting borders, and how we struggle to define them.
In a nutshell, Warlight is a musing on the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of chaos, to force things into an orderly narration, where none truly exists.
Birds. Lots and lots of mention of birds throughout. Still musing a bit on that, actually.
At the end of the day, I don't trust Nathaniel, the narrator, who learned early on to spin tales out of a grain of sand.....
Cujo by Stephen King
Death Without Company by Craig Johnson
Johnson turns a good phrase. This is the second Longmire book, and I've got an itch to go ahead and read the third....
Reading Stephen King edited by Bryan James Freeman
A collection of Essays from Cemetery Dance. I'd bought an autographed copy in 2017, and later in the year, had bought a grab bag from the specialty publisher, and another copy was included in that grab bag....
The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan
I did not like this one. Seems like a few vignettes imagined by del Toro pieced together by Hogan. Apologies if that's unfair. This one was a mess.
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
I have other favorites by Moore (Lust Lizard, Coyote Blue), but this one likely shows the most heart, and is probably his strongest novel. I would call this one recommended reading....
Night Shift by Stephen King
I'd had a New Year's Resolution to try to read a short story a day in 2018. That fell apart pretty quickly, but I did read through Night Shift in the early part of the year. Also part of my attempt to read through King's work in roughly chronological order of publication. Lots of good stuff in Night Shift.
February
Hail to the Chin: Further Confessions of a B-Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell, Craig Sanborn
Light reading, but Fun. Campbell's my kind of weird.
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff
I didn't include this one in my Facebook list, mainly because I didn't feel like policing shitty comments. Fact is, it's not a good book. I agree with much of what was written, but was surprised by very little. Wolff seems to be looking to build a Brand, which is unfortunate, since it's the prevailing criticism of the grifter sitting in the Oval Office. I read wishing for a stronger read, perhaps from Bob Woodward....
The Long Walk by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
Continuing my project. Still one of my favorites. Bleak as hell. Though much about this one, as the week I read it, I was working a ridiculous 70-hour week.
The Civil War: A Narrative, volume I: Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote
Good read, even if it adheres a bit too strongly to the "Lost Cause" narrative for the South.
Eileen by Otessa Moshfegh
..As much as anything I've read this year, this one keeps popping back. Bleak. Sad, and funny. Manages to hide what was a pretty simple curveball quite efficiently in the narrator's narcissism. Kudos. Well played. I'll be looking for more from Ms. Moshfegh
The Man Without a Face: the Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
I'd been wanting to read this one for a while, as it had popped up recommended on a couple sites, Sheila's among them. Interesting, frightening read about Putin's taking power. Something to take notice of, especially this: you may believe in the demagogue, but the demagogue does not believe in you.
March
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
A re-read, following the death of LeGuin. I went through a six- or nine-month phase when I was about 20 reading just about everything I could get my hands on by LeGuin, and then maybe a book or two since. Just a special writer. And deserving of mention among this country's greatest.
Whale Season by N.M. Kelby
Goofy fun. A Christmas gift from my buddy Micah. Reminds me of early Carl Hiassen, with a mix of Christopher Moore thrown in.....
The Autobiography of Jean-Luc Picard by David Goodman
The Kindle lunchtime read. I wanted something I could put down without feeling too bad about having to leave it when I got called away. Not bad, even if it stretches a little too often to reach out to some famous stories not specifically involving Picard in the mentioned canon of the show....
The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe
Great read. I'd read maybe all of this over the course of my life, but never from front to back.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
I wanted to re-read (or re-listen, in this case) to in advance of Spielberg's flick this past spring. Pure dorky escapism. The criticisms leveled of its being derivative (it's a grail quest, guys), nihilist (yeah, a bit, but that may be why I like it) and sexist (yeah, it is, and there's not a lot of defending it) are valid. I like it anyway. To this point, I consider Cline a one-hit-wonder. His follow up Armada? That's one you can really hate on....
April
The Hunger by Alma Katsu
I loved this one. Amazing period horror piece. Unfairly compared to Dan Simmons' The Terror. This one is vastly superior, if only becasue it doesn't slobber over its wordcount. It manages to keep you off balance, uncertain for the cause of events nicely through most of the book. It's not often that a book's atmosphere and isolation suck me in so completely. Well done.
Deadwood by Pete Dexter
I started this once in December of last year, and because it was the busiest time of the year, I didn't make it far. I tried again in April, and I dug this one. Great turns of phrase.
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
Continuing the project. This was one of the first King books I went through in the early 1990's, after I initially read The Shining. I'd forgotten vast chunks of the book, but remembered odd things with startling clarity...the kicking of the dog; the wooden toys; the sawed-off pool cues Stillson's thugs carried in their pockets; the way Stillson's rallies were molded....the last one rang especially true with how Trump's rallies still proceed.....
Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
An odd epistolary novel. It made me smile, though it hasn't popped to mind once since I read it, I'm sorry to say.
The Fairies of Sadieville by Alex Bledsoe
The last of the Tufa books. Alex's books have heart, and they write about a South that I know very well, and they do so without a wry smile. I came to enjoy the sense of community in the Tufa books most, and this one is the strongest of the bunch. Laugh out loud moment: a favorite character rants about getting horrible cell service in his own driveway (preach!!!!), but getting five bars at the lip of a magical land.....
Jack-Rabbit Smile by Joe R. Lansdale
You know, Joe's got my loyalty. If he hadn't, I'd be back again on the strength of likening a truck collision to heaven blowing a bean fart. Hap and Leonard back at it. This one might be some of my favorite Leonard Pine since Savage Season.....
May
The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
A gift from Shyam. I enjoyed this one, even though I'm feeling very real zombie fatigue. Surprisingly sweet.
The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels by Jon Meacham
A Commute listen. A good read, even if it is Meacham's most mission-oriented book. A look at the Presidency as the Conscience of our nation. Focuses largely on the administrations of Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson, with looks at Lincoln, Eisenhower, JFK and Reagan who all had periods where facing down Populism, Fascism and Terrorism, and not always in ways associated with the philosophies of their persons, or political leanings....
Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar
Another commute listen. I'd had this one on my periphery for a while. The old Coast-to-Coast listener in me was familiar with the story, and with a few of the theories. I was pleased with the theory presented as a cause for the "madness" by the author.
Strange Weather: Four Short Novels by Joe Hill
Four novellas, presented with something of a Tales from the Crypt vibe. Fun. Hill's response to having just published two word-heavy tomes (N0s4A2, which I liked; and The Fireman, which I did not). He wanted to streamline, keep it lean. I dug a couple of the stories very much, especially Loaded, which had me leaning into an okeydoke pretty far, and left me swearing at the end....
June
Noir by Christopher Moore
I've read a lot of Moore, and enjoyed nearly all of it. This one made me feel very much like the first couple of his I read (Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and Island of the Sequined Love Nun). Funny. Silly, in a time when we need a little silly.
Circe by Madeline Miller
An extremely well put together book. I tend to dig stories about people (or immortals, as it were) finding themselves.
More than that I'm a sucker for an ancient period piece. This book, more than any other I read, just makes me happy.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain
I'd owned a copy of this for a while, and never read it. Bourdain passed. I went through it. I think my favorite bit is the entire chapter Bourdain devotes to contradicting everything he's said to this point...a literary "so what the fuck do I know?"
Rowdy: The Roddy Piper Story by Ariel Teal Toombs and Colt Baird Toombs
A Kindle read, and one I'd been wanting to get to for a while. Piper's own autobiography, a weird, skitty read that seemed just like a worker wanting to keep working the crowd, was apparently disappointing even to Piper. In the last years of his life, he'd been compiling notes to do a better job, but was limited by a life lived hard, and perhaps a little bit of head trauma. His kids put together a fun, infinitely readable tribute. I dug this one a lot.
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
I read this one once upon a time, a couple decades ago, borrowing my roommate's copy. It was interesting then, and gave me a couple things I'd carried with me since then (especially my stance that we, the richest nation in the world, have the ability to spend a literal fortune on every kid in this country in the name of education, but choose instead to spend the money on missiles). Reading it this time around hit me a little harder, and scared me a little. Especially since I've spent much of the last 2 decades working with the public, and seen the lack of functional literacy in a great many of our folks, as well as the lack of critical thinking skills and skepticism in even more of our population. It also disappointed me in myself, a bit, for my own gullibility a handful of times.....
Tales of the Callamo Mountains by Larry Blamire
This had popped up on somebody's feed. Short stories. Bleak. Isolated. A wilderness containing more than the wild. I enjoyed this collection.....
July
Firestarter by Stephen King
Continuing the project of reading through King's works. This was one of the first King books I read after I read The Shining, way back in the early 90's. I'd had fond memories of this one, but somehow, it didn't age well, and it didn't sit well with me this time around. I'm not even really sure why, except that The Shop and all its trappings really wandered a little too far out into the paranoid, a little too sure that The Man was out to get everybody....
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
Another re-read, after my friend Jillian and read it. In the time since I first read it, I've spend the last 15 years working around teenagers, and it shone a new light on John Grady Cole and Rawlins. Seeing these kids do the shit that Rawlins does is easy. Cole, not so much. And it make the book that much more effective, in my mind. I didn't care as much for the book the first time I read it as I did this time. McCarthy keeps himself at the top of my personal list....
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer,
The movie is one of my favorites of this year. The book had been floating around the periphery of everything I like for years. The book's tight. A nice intersection between Lovecraftian Horror and Carl Sagan's writing....
The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay
Tremblay just keeps putting out stuff that pushes the right buttons. I don't know that anything will ever be as effective, for my money, as A Head Full of Ghosts. And while I keep chasing that initial high, I realize I might never find it again. I don't mean to damn a work in that manner. This one was good, and it kept me rapt the entire time. I just haven't given it much thought since then, I'm sorry to say.
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Heavy on atmosphere, and kinda fun, but really, it never really goes anywhere. I enjoyed the ride, but it just didn't float my boat by the end....
Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold and the Fate of the American Revolution by Nathaniel Philbrick
Philbrick just writes good stuff. A lot of fun. Puts Washington and Arnold into three dimensions. I dug this one a lot.
August
Roadwork by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
This one was one of the few of King's that I'd never gone all the way through. I'd tried it a couple times, but it just didn't bite. It starts as a slog....it's really badly paced. It comes alive, though, when Bart actually opens up a bit about his dead son. The last half of Roadwork I'd call some of King's finest work.
A lot of King's early works are concerned with fatherhood, usually in counterpoint to being a good son as well. The Bachman books don't seem to have the counterpoint...and I've wondered if Bachman is a counterpoint to King's missing a father. Where King wonders how to be a good son, Bachman just doesn't give a shit. Rage is about a child without that answering adult voice. The Long Walk is very much about a man growing up alone. Roadwork is about a father who's had that role stolen out from underneath him, who finds himself without a compass without that child.
Sad. Oddly funny. But terribly sad. I've often thought about what I might ask Stephen King if ever I met him, and I think after reading Roadwork, I'd like to talk to him about where he might see his life if he hadn't had children.
I read this one during one of the most distasteful, difficult weeks I've gone through in my life. Mindset has a lot to do with my memories of a book. I might revisit this one in a couple years, on a better week, just to see if I react differently. This one, though, was suitably apocalyptic. And I loved it.
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View
The commute listen. As much as I enjoyed Roadwork, this was a nice change of pace. A fun listen, with a couple Super tight stories. The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper was a lot of fun, and it made me love Matt Fraction and Kelly Sue DeConnick all that much more. Also effective: Yoda's melancholy tale. And the handful of stories dealing with the pilots who flew the Death Star mission.
The rhyming Palpatine thing? What the fuck was that? And "Of MSE-6 and Men" was difficult to listen to on multiple levels....
Scattered, Smothered and Chunked: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 1 by John Hartness
My buddy John had recommended Hartness a while back. He was right. I had fun with this one. Funny, with a hell of an ear for dialog. I rarely laugh out loud at what I'm reading, but this one hit me hard a couple or three times.
A collection of episodic stories, it hit me right in my wheelhouse of Evil Dead and Pro Wrestling fandom.
Of note: at one point, Bubba goes hunting a nest of vampires about an hour north of Chattanooga, which puts it somewhere in my concentric circle of bullshit, geographically speaking.
Chasing the Light, edited by Emily Lavin Leverett
I bought this one because my friend Janet had a story included. She puts up with the tomfoolery that her husband and I get into. It's a story I enjoyed very much. In a bit of synchronicity, it featured a story from John Hartness that I enjoyed, as well....
People Only Die of Love in the Movies by Jim Ridley
Jim Ridley was a friend of a friend of a surprising number of people. I met him once or twice, and carried on a couple of online conversations with him. I was sorry to hear it when he passed. He seemed like a good dude. I picked through this one for about a month....
The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: a New History of a Lost World by Steve Brusatte
An extremely accessible book on the subject, and one that worked well as an aural experience (this one was a commute listen). I often have issues with history or science books that rely on graphs, maps or other visual aids, if I try to listen. Abstract concepts I can visualize, but charts? Not so much.
This was one of the best written books on the subject I've ever run across. I ended up giving a copy of it to my sister for Christmas.
September
King of Strong Style: 1980-2014 by Shinsuke Nakamura
A vacation read. I enjoyed it, but the interview format wore on me a bit. Could have used a little more editing.....
Warlight by Michael Ondaatje
Dryly funny. I enjoyed young Nathaniel's adventures with The Darter immensely. Taking place in post WW2 England, it concerns itself very much with the shifting borders, and how we struggle to define them.
In a nutshell, Warlight is a musing on the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of chaos, to force things into an orderly narration, where none truly exists.
Birds. Lots and lots of mention of birds throughout. Still musing a bit on that, actually.
At the end of the day, I don't trust Nathaniel, the narrator, who learned early on to spin tales out of a grain of sand.....
Cujo by Stephen King
The commute listen. Continuing a project working my way through his works. A re read....this was one of the handful I read in that first year after I started reading King, so it's been 27 or 28 years since I read.
Not a bad read, though there are a couple things that stand out. A perfectly tense work, King NEEDS to work in the ghost of Frank Dodd somehow. And I suppose if that's coming from Tad's point of view, but I didn't feel like the swinging closet door with the bad smell helped.
Also, the last chapter has such a jarringly different feel (and verbage) than the rest of the book that I wonder if it was written (or re-written) significantly after the rest of the book. King's stated in a couple places that he was mostly high when he wrote this one, and doesn't remember the largest portions of it. Having heard that, it makes me feel like a publisher or some other entity demanded a change, and recapturing the lightning wasn't possible.
I dug it alright, and the adult/child dynamics work a lot better here than in Firestarter.....
Not a bad read, though there are a couple things that stand out. A perfectly tense work, King NEEDS to work in the ghost of Frank Dodd somehow. And I suppose if that's coming from Tad's point of view, but I didn't feel like the swinging closet door with the bad smell helped.
Also, the last chapter has such a jarringly different feel (and verbage) than the rest of the book that I wonder if it was written (or re-written) significantly after the rest of the book. King's stated in a couple places that he was mostly high when he wrote this one, and doesn't remember the largest portions of it. Having heard that, it makes me feel like a publisher or some other entity demanded a change, and recapturing the lightning wasn't possible.
I dug it alright, and the adult/child dynamics work a lot better here than in Firestarter.....
It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis
This one's been on my to-read list since somewhere around college. Definitely worth it, given the orange clown in the White House and the cronies who buddy up to him. Definitely worth it, if only for the message to stay skeptical.
The Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton
I just love this book. The way it's put together, as a scholarly look at legend-building. So much fun.
Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward
I read Michael Wolff's book early in the year, and didn't care for it. I didn't disagree much with what he'd written, but nor had I been surprised or informed by much of it. It felt very much like Wolff was trying to build a brand, which was largely the complaint of Trump himself. I also wasn't comfortable with Wolff's reconstruction of conversations. Woodward's approach, at least, had the benefit of attribution.
Still, given the media hurricane we all weather, it felt like simply another voice in the cacophony. And it brought me no new conclusions toward the man we've installed in the White House, one who's largely a symptom of a larger problem....
October
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury
I'd started this one a couple of times in my life, and didn't finish it for whatever reason. I got it as an audiobook, and ended up digging it very much. It's got a lot of soul, but more than that, it's just Bradbury riffing on a semiautobiographical look at his own life.
It's very much a cousin to Stephen King's books set in small towns, but I found it a larger relative to Alan Moore's gigantic Jerusalem, which was a cross-dimensional love letter to his hometown of Northampton.
Apropos of nothing, perhaps, I once met a bartender, once upon a time, who had this passage tattooed on her forearm:
"Crossing the lawn that morning, Douglas Spaulding broke a spider web with his face. A single invisible line on the air touched his brow and snapped without a sound."
I went back to that bar a couple of times in hopes of seeing her again, but never did....
Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
Equal parts police procedural and horror story. I ended up liking this one quite a bit.
Different Seasons by Stephen King
I'd read three of the four stories in this one before (The Breathing Method being new to me). The Body is masterful, even if Reiner's movie still manages to improve it still. Just a fun collection.
In the Hurricane's Eye: The Genius of George Washington and the Victory at Yorktown by Nathaniel Philbrick
An excellent companion piece to Valiant Ambition....
November
American Dialogue: The Founders and Us by Joseph J. Ellis.
Ellis is one of my favorites. His books on the Founding Fathers are recommended reading, especially his stuff about Adams. This one's a look at Jefferson, Adams, Madison and Washington and how their personal beliefs helped forge and (in cases) conflicted with the messages of the Declaration and Constitution. Further, it ties those beliefs and conflicts to crises we've faced since the days of the founders, up to and including the present day.
The discussion of the near-legend status the Founding Fathers have gained (even in their own times) takes an interesting turn in Ellis's discussion of the role of the Supreme Court, especially this century
Agony House by Cherie Priest
A quick read. I like a nice ghost story. I ended up really enjoying this one. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of the Comics Code Authority's gutting of the comics industry as a plot point.
Niceville by Carsten Stroud
This one had come highly recommended, but it just didn't work for me.
Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson
For somebody who doesn't like getting involved with series, I've now found myself three books deep in the Longmire series. Johnson still turns a good phrase. This one doesn't hold together as well as the first two books in the series, though....
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
A re-read. A commute listen, actually. Thanksgiving really kicked my ass, and I needed something that wouldn't further wear me out.
Jim Dale's narration made me remember just how much I despised Michael Gambon's portrayal of Dumbledore in the Harry Potter flicks, after the death of Richard Harris
December
Jesus Crawdad Death by Betsy Phillips
Interweb pal Betsy Phillips put this collection of stories out this fall. I ran through them in one night. Beautifully macabre. Goofy and morbid. Perfectly southern. And containing almost definitely the best pro wrestling short story I've ever read....
The Running Man by Stephen King, writing as Richard Bachman
I went a couple weeks without reading anything, or listening to anything, catching up on podcasts and whatnot. I had to do an overnight shift at work for a computer install, and I listened to this when I stayed. Very pulpy. All the Bachman books are pulpy, but this one trumps them all. The economy of language, the streamlined plot. I dig it.
Danse Macabre by Stephen King
I hadn't intended to read this one as part of my King readthrough, wanting to concentrate on the fiction. But, in October, I picked it up to look for something he'd written about The Haunting of Hill House, and ended up picking through the whole thing over the course of a couple months.
I'd like to see a followup volume. The updated preface was even more interesting than the text of the book itself....
The Boy on the Bridge, by M.R. Carey
A followup and prequel of sorts to Carey's Girl with All the Gifts. Fills in a couple gaps from that book. Starts slowly, but picks up nicely.....
Shorts in a Wad by Steve Krodman
My friend Steve put this out a few years back. It's an extension of his blogging, a mutual hobby that's led to a great friendship.
His stories are an exercise in the all the brilliant goofiness that I've come to love about the man. And exercise is the right word, as a writing prompt. As a writer who suffers from diarrhea of the fingers a little too often, Steve's ability to pack as much punch into 100 words as he does is an object of no small wonder to me.
This Christmas, I passed a few copies out to a few friends, to let them know that they are a bright spot in my life.
Steve was diagnosed with ALS this year. And it's been damned quick about its job.
A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens
I used to re-read this one every couple of years, but hadn't picked it up in a while. The transition from Ghost of Christmas Present to Future is as spooky as they come, if you asked me....
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
Just a beautiful book. With one of the best openings ever put to paper.....
posted by Tommy at
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