The First Six Months in Books, 2025

 I looked at my Superman post, and realized that I'd not done the only regular posting I've done on the blogamathing for the past several years.  July's rushing by, and we're three weeks in without my look at what I've been reading in 2025.

So, here we go:  

January

Age of Cage:  Four Decades in Hollywood Through One Singular Career  by Keith Phipps

Decent read.  Good overview of what I admit is one helluva career.  I enjoyed reading it, but with the conscious decision not to pursue Cage for a voice in the overview made this feel a lot of Google Journalism.....

The Immortal Hulk Omnibus by Al Ewing, et al.

I'm trying to keep better track of my comic reading in 2025 (with mixed results, Tommy in July says).  I'd picked up the digital copy of the gigantor omnibus and picked my way through it.  And ye gods, these omnibus editions can pack in 50 or 60 issues of story, so there's a lot there.  What's good is good.   Very good.  Perhaps some of the best Hulk stuff to cross my eyeline in a few years.   The book tends to trail off, or lose energy when it includes a story not specifically written as part of "Immortal Hulk."  Still, quite good, on the whole.....

Duma Key,   by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project to read through all of King's work in publication order.  I tapped out of King for a lot of the mid 2000's forward.  I'd tried Duma Key, but it never caught, for some reason.  I liked this, though, when I finally finished.  There's a lot of King still working through getting run down by the van, and the injuries and handicaps that may come with.  This one's also a look at the role of art in healing.  I felt like there was a lot of Duma Key that is King forgiving himself.....

Strong Female Character    by Fern Brady

I think I may have developed a little crush on Fern Brady during her series of the excellent teevee program Taskmaster.  Even after 7 months of having watched her season, I still get her hastily composed "I'm Fern Brady" song bouncing around in my head.  This isn't quite what I was expecting.  To be honest, I was thinking this was going to be one of those hastily published books that simply transcribe some of the comic's best bits.  Instead, it's a well spoken examination and memoir of Brady growing up Autistic, a diagnosis she received late in life.  Funny, yes, but her advocacy for those on the Spectrum is admirable.

Far Sector,  by NK Jemisen & Jamal Campbell

DC, last year, reintroduced a compact/manga sized series of several stories.  They've called this series "Compact" and they have a really nice $9.99 price point.  I say that because as a mostly casual comics fan over the last 2 decades now, I do a lot of my reading in trade paperbacks.  As the single issue price creeps up, it just becomes more economical to read the trade, which are largely inevitable nowadays.

The problem with that is that the price of trades has crept up, and if it's not a character I'm normally interested in, I may not shell out 20 or 30 bucks to read a story.  10?  That's a little more doable.

Far Sector is what made me love the Compact line.  This is a lot of fun.  Nerfs the Green Lantern concept a bit, but it makes for a better detective story.  Nice SF concept.  Good mystery.  I like Jemisen's work a lot, but this is the first comic work of hers I've read.  I recommend.

Crypt of the Moon Spider by Nathan Ballingrud

I read this initially in December of 2024.  I found myself unexpectedly sitting at the car shop for one of the route trucks, and digging through the Kindle app on my phone,  instead of reading something new, I decided to do this one again.  It's truly excellent.  Ballingrud's fiction instills a distinct sort of disquiet in me.  His collection Wounds is one of my favorite short story collections, and The Strange is one of my favorite SF/Western/Weird books ever.  This one is extremely good, as well.

The Drowning House  by Cherie Priest

Suitably creepy, which is Priest's Stock in Trade.  I enjoyed very much the aspect of a couple childless 40-year-olds having to search for a third.  Halfway expected the missing friend to just show up at the end saying "Oh, I went camping for a few days to clear my head" as one of my friends did once, worrying us all.....

February

Why We Love Football: a History in 100 Moments  by Joe Posnanski

Posnanski's book "Why We Love Baseball" was amazing.  A shining bit of positivity that I needed in November 2024.  Mom got me this for Christmas.

It's a good read, though I couldn't tell if my own enthusiasm for baseball over football or Posnanski's paints the thing.  It's a good read....Posnanski just doesn't seem to have the same exuberance in this as he did for baseball.....

The Boys of Summer   by Roger Kahn.

A re-read.  Read it in the 90s.  Probably during the offseason, when I was missing baseball.  The first third of the book, which is largely a memoir of growing up near Ebbets Field made me jealous all over again of those folks who lived close enough to a Major League Stadium to partake, even irregularly.  The second section is very much a love letter to the sports-writing beats and newspapermen of the 1950's. The book's last section hits a lot harder at age 47 or 48 than it did at age 18.  In this section, Kahn interviews those members of the Dodgers after their careers....when they're managing a factory, or a grocery store, or working construction.  I found myself close to tears a couple of times.  Marvelous book.....

The History of Sound, by Ben Shattuck

This year, Shyam and I at the suggestion of our friend Jillian have started a small reading group.  As of this writing, I think we've just finished our fifth book together.  This one, a collection of short stories, was the first.

And of everything we've read as a group, this is what my mind keeps bouncing back to, 5 or 6 months later.  Good collection of interconnected stories that bounce and play off each other.  I liked it.  There's a wry fatalism that I appreciated very much.....

Just After Sunset   by Stephen King

Continuing project, and whatnot.  I'd read a couple or three of theses stories in other anthologies, or in whatever they'd originally been published.  The rest were new to me.

Twins are a recurring theme for King.  Much the basis of The Talisman and Black House.  A major point of The Wolves of the Calla.  There are stories that are resonant Twins.  Dark Half and Secret Window, Secret Garden both seem to grow out of the same paranoia of fame and artistry.   There's a bit of it in Just After Sunset.  A couple of stories "Gingerbread Lady" and "Stationary Bike" share a lot of the same energy as Duma Key.

Many of the stories were written in close enough temporal proximity to September 11th that you can feel King unpacking those feelings for that event.  And there are another set of twin stories that are musings on what the Afterlife, especially the immediate Afterlife, will look like.  Toward that end, I really enjoyed "Willa" and thought it one of the better stories of his career.  And the best of this Volume.

Good collection with arguably only one turd.

March

Einstein's Cosmos   by Michio Kaku

Kaku's vibe reminds me very much of Carl Sagan's.  His enthusiasm for his subject is contagious.  I learned a lot in this one, even if it is an examination of Albert Einstein's career and teachings....

Horrorstor   by Grady Hendrix

First Hendrix I've read.  Not bad, especially the retail stuff which made me think Hendrix probably toiled in the big box store salt mines for a stretch.  But in the end, it didn't do a whole lot for me.

Don't Know Tough by Eli Cranor

Another one we read for the group.  It's not without its charms, but the small town southern football culture doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual thing......

Redcoat, volume 1   by Geoff Johns, Bryan Hitch et al.

I like Johns.  I like Hitch.  I just didn't get much out of this.  It never really comes together, nor leaves me interested in pursuing the story to see if it does come together.  Feels like it borrows concepts from a dozen different sources without saying much on its own....

Everything is Tuberculosis: the History and Persistence of our Deadliest Infection  by John Green

A pre-order that I surprised myself with.  Strong, accessible look at one of the formative illnesses for humanity.  Interesting look at its role in in U.S. and World Events (we may not have had a first World War without it).  Even more interesting:  its role in forming modern ideals of beauty (rosey cheeks, porcelain skin....)

Focuses even more strongly on advocacy for those in impoverished areas in the planet where the disease thrives, where drug resistant strains are likely to emerge.  Much of the book follows the story of Henry Reider, a young man in Sierra Leone whose treatment (and lack of it) is an exampble of how this beast persists in the 21sth century.

Dry Bones  by Craig Johnson.

Minor Spoilers, here:  It's weird getting attached to fictional people.  So apologies to the people of western North Carolina as I cussed myself silly.  In my want of something light to read, I wandered here.  And not far over the border from Tennessee to North Carolina, one of the characters loses a new husband in the line of duty.  And I cussed a blue streak from nearly Murphy to Andrews.

Good read.

April

2020: One City, Seven People and the Year Everything Changed   by Eric Klinenberg

Tough to read.  Not because of Klinenberg, but the subject matter.  Hadn't realized how raw 2020 still ran for me.  Took me a couple months to get through this one.  

The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King   by J.R.R. Tolkien

Pippin and Merry have more reunions than Hobbits have meals.

Under the Dome  by Stephen King

King's Lord of the Flies.  A prescient look at the rise of Christian Nationalism.  After the van accident, King was a different cat.  The road back was long.  There's a lot of experiementation.  There's a headlong rush to finish The Dark Tower.  A move from supernatural horrors to the more tangible monsters and traumas we faced in the early part of this century.  A lot of it doesn't feel exactly right.  A lot of it....didn't work for me at the time.  A lot of what I read as part of this project in the last year was new, because I tapped out.  This was the first thing I read back in 2011 after being away for a while (and after Dad lent me his CD copy of the novella collection Full Dark, No Stars).

The book itself is a bit bloated, and kinda scrambles for an end.  The cast is a little too crowded, even if King likes a crowded cast.  Besides Barbie, Julia and a handful of others, they all feel interchangeable, and regardless they're dead by the book's end.

But on the whole, it's a lot of fun.  I'd forgotten just how much Big Jim's fascist playbook comes into play, especially the "Punish Those who didn't Vote for Me" aspect.  It's a little chilling.

First time around, I'd completely missed the odd Jack Reacher crossover....after looking that up, King just likes the Reacher books.....

May

The Antidote  by Karen Russell

Discussion Group.  So far in her career, I've enjoyed everything of Russell's.  I'd initially thought this one quite a bit darker and less prone to sarcastic whimsy, but then I looked at my notes on Swamplandia, and I'd forgotten a couple of the dark bits of that book.  Yeesh, Tommy...... 

Two other thoughts:  this one reminded me a lot of Katherine Dunn's Geek Love for some reason.  Similar spirits?  Definitely not similar execution.  I do think this had much more mission behind it than much of Russell's previous work.

The Blessing Way  by Tony Hillerman

Shyam and I started watching (and finished, actually) the really excellent Dark Winds, which adapts some of Hillerman's work.  I'd never read any of his stuff.  I enjoyed it.  Light on mystery, heavy on action.  I'll read another.....

True Grit by Charles Portis

I'm gonna be honest.  It's in the running for my favorite book.  Favorite line this time around:  "he went there from time to time to pay attention to a lewd woman...."

The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama

One of those that I've seen cited from time to time.  Found a cheap copy.  Written not long after teh dissolution of the Soviet Union, it supposes that a Democracy of the informed and involved is the pinnacle of human governmental achievement.  And that personal recognition and glory are bigger drivers than economics.   Hindsight makes for easier criticism.  There a pile of writing looking to counter Fukuyama's supposition, and an even bigger contingent that wants to point and laugh.  At the end of the day, I don't feel justified joining that group except to say that even in my meager reading, the fall of Soviet communism wasn't That Big of a surprise, and the rise of groupings not necessarily nationalistic in nature that grow out of the increased access to fringe ideas afforded by the Information Age turn a few of his ideas on their ear.  Radicalized people taking out Oklahoma City or the World Trade Center, or political movements driven by near baseless propaganda, isn't new, and probably should have been given more thought, especially with the shortening of communication lines.  Not enough credit is given to the role of the Super Rich or the ideation of personhood being given to corporate entities....

Still....interesting read....and there is a healthy dose of "I could be wrong" in Fukuyuma's writing....

Anima Rising  by Christopher Moore

I play Trivia.  A lot.  And one of my weak areas is art and art history.  But I will tell you that what little I know?  I know because of a couple of Moore's books.  This one centers around Gustav Klimt, and the gathering of geniuses in Vienna near the beginning of this century.  And then there's the Bride of Frankenstein......

I liked this one a lot.

Blockade Billy by Stephen King

Fun in a Penny Dreadful kind of way.  Made me think that King had probably read or re-read Boys of Summer before writing this one.....

I will also note that I intensely dislike the accompanying story "Morality."  Never sure of the point King's looking to make, or even if there is one.  Just a sour, sour story.

June

The Three-Body Problem  by Cixin Liu

I've had this one kicking around my Audible library for a while.  Finally used it as a route listen.  Reading this reminded me some of reading Heinlein and especially Clarke.

I read one ridiculous review that bashed the book saying that Science Fiction has moved past this sort of storytelling.  My reply is that modern commercial science fiction has gotten away too long writing space opera and action stories disguised as science fiction, and some modern fans wouldn't know good SF it it were injected into their eyes.

I did have the problem I have with a lot of translated fiction:  I feel like it probably loses some of the poetry in the translation.  The prose does feel flat, from time to time.....

Mice 1961   by Stacey Levine

One year, about 15 years ago, I got invited to a New Years Eve party.  I knew no one except the host and a couple co workers.  I went at the invite of the host, with whom I'd carried on one of the few successful flirtations of my life.  I went to the party in hopes of maybe doing "the sex."  That didn't happen because the love of her life was there despite my thinking they were on the outs.  So, I wandered around this party with people I barely knew.  I left before midnight.

That party is how this book felt.  

It's an odd motherfucker of a book.

We read it for our discussion group, and Jillian and Shyam both agree.

The Glass Teat  by Harlan Ellison

This one feels like required reading.  The tricks that the conman in the White House uses aren't new.  Ellison was dealing with the same with Reagan in California, and Agnew & Nixon in Washington, in 1969 and 1970.  Good stuff.   Very good stuff.  Finding a copy for my nephew.

The Comfort of Strangers   by Ian McEwan

Strong horror vibes in this one.  And for good reason.

Full Dark, No Stars   by Stephen King

The one that brought me back to King after a 3 or 4 year hiatus on the new stuff.

1922 and Big Driver are Strong.  (Parenthetically, the movie adaptations of each are quite disappointing).  I enjoyed the collection, though.  Might be King attempting to exorcise his feelings and vengeance and retribution after his accident.

This one made me think of Dad.  And also of my late friend Gina Fann, who you may find in comments as far back as 2004 under the name "grandefille."  She unexpectedly passed a couple summers ago, but she was likewise a big King fan, and she also enjoyed this one.......