The Reads of 2026, First Half Review

 I started another blog post.  I've been down this week.  Busy week.  Tired.  Crabby.  Started a fight with Shyam yesterday, so I feel like shit.   The post felt like whining, so I've tabled it for now.  May return to it, may not.  

So, instead, I'll do the first half reading review, if'n you're interested.  Just a quick look though what I've read or listened to in 2026.   

January

The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne   by Ron Currie

This one was tight.  Popped up as a recommendation from Anthony Jeselnik's favorite reads of 2025.

It's brutal.  Not quite the revenge story I'd expected from a couple of reviews....indeed, after reading, I wonder if they actually read the book in question.  But yeah.  Brutal.  Violent.  With some tremendous dark humor.  And a touch of the supernatural, which I loved, to be honest:  it's simply a plot point that Babs' oldest daughter (and right hand) can see ghosts.  I just like that touch.

All in all, a well-told crime story, and a nice pondering on poverty, clannishness, culture and legacy.  

I liked this one a lot.  It's also one of two (possible 3) books that wander in and around Waterville, Maine, this year.

Transformers, volume 1    by Daniel Warren Johnson

We had some snow this January, so I sat to read Daniel Warren Johnson's run on the book, which I'd read via single issue, but not in one sitting.  Extremely violent, but an original take on the origin story, which seems to get retold with a new camera lens every relaunch of the title.  Johnson's the best since Furman was writing the original Marvel book, 35 years ago.

100 Places to See After you Die     by Ken Jennings

Kindle read.  Quick chapters, looking at myths and fictional takes on the Afterlife through history.  Quick reads, filled with facts.

Transformers, volume 2:  Transport to Oblivion    by Daniel Warren Johnson

Second Volume of Johnson's run, which might already be topping Furman's runs in my mind.

Enjoyed the variance and nuance in the thinking of characters on the two sides of the conflict, but especially among the Decepticons, with players looking to fill the power vacuum left by the missing Megatron.

The potential parallels between Jetfire and Astrotrain were interesting, especially with Prime being left to use Jetfire as a packhorse.  Don't know the exact nature of Astrotrain's beef, but it makes you wonder.

Especially enjoyed Soundwave's & Thundercracker's mutual disquiet at the methods and intentions of the warlord Shockwave.

Transformers, volume 3:  Combiner Chaos

Third volume of Johnson's impressive run, and it turns into an interesting study of what happens to a authoritarian movement when it loses it Cult of Personality leader.....

The Getaway   by Jim Thompson

2026 is going to be a year of Anthony Jeselnik, whose new Youtube book club has given 4 or 5 solid reads this year.

Crime novels aren't always my thing, but there's an oomph in Doc that's easy to dig.  And this one triggered my claustrophobia pretty well with a sequence in underwater coffin caves.

And that last chapter in El Rey is a friggin' dark-assed trip, man.....

Transformers, volume 4: Conquer and Control   by Daniel Warren Johnson

Finishing Johnson's run.  It's turned into a helluva good story about why some go along with authoritarian movments, and the best ways to fight them...

Skull x Bones   edited by David B. Coe & Josh Palmentier

A gift from my buddy John, who conspired with Alex Bledsoe to include me in Alex's story "No Prey, No Pay."  SF/Fantasy with a pirate leaning.  Fun collection.  I liked Alex's tale, and though I thought I'd left Cyberpunk in the gutter years ago, I really enjoyed E.J. Delaney's  "Of Scourge and Skullduggery."

February

Doctor Sleep  by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project.  As an older cat, I enjoyed this one a little more in 2026 than I did in 2014 or whenever I last read it, but I still feel like it misses the mark a little.  At no point in either of my two readings do I feel like Dan and Abra won't succeed in their mission.  Even with Crow Daddy kidnapping her....King has Abra overpowered with The Shine.

I feel like this might have been helped by giving us even more of Rose the Hat's perspective.  Maybe underline the desperation of her spot as Head of the Cult that is leaning right on the edge of obvlivion and (perhaps even more sadly) obsolescence.....

That said, it's an enjoyable ride.  Part of the fun thing reading King chronologically is seeing which themes ebb, which ones flow, and which ones remain constant.  This one struck me as sad....a lot of his books look at family life, but this one really stands out because a lot of it is looking at family from the outside.  Almost like a grandfather looking in at his kids' families......

Batman: the White Knight    by Sean Murphy & Matt Hollingsworth

This one surprised the hell out of me.  I really dig it.  A grown up Batman: the Animated Series vibe, with some nudges here and there from Christopher Nolan and Grant Morrison

Curling Rocks! Chronicles of the Roaring Game by John Cullen.

Probably my favorite winter Olympic sport behind Hockey.   Cullen presents a good history,  with cultural insights.   Good read

While the City Never Sleeps    by Alex Bledsoe

New from my buddy Alex.  Strong stuff.  A fun SF story with a classic superhero original leaning.  Lots of thought here on the role police and politics play in our lives, with a heavy consideration about the dangers of gutting the press, and not protecting it in the judiciary.

Paradais   by Fernanda Melchoir

Beautiful writing about angry, desperate people making bad decisions and doing horrible things.

It made me wish I had a stronger reading grasp of Spanish was stronger, because I would have liked to read Melchoir's words in her own language....I'm sure some of the music, poetry and impact is lost in translation.  That said, the translated prose is strong and effective.  Brutal, even.  And some of the music manages to make it through that filter.....Sophie Hughes' translation is quite effective.

An Obvious Fact    by Craig Johnson

Needed to cleanse the palate a little bit after Paradais.  Johnson always turns a good phrase and here writes an effective mystery.  And on the soap opera front, it seems we're leaving Vic's pregnancy unremarked for the time being....

March

Football    by Chuck Klosterman

It was the late great Steve Krodman (Elisson, his own self) that gave me my first sociological musing by Klosterman, 9 or 10 years ago.  I just like the way the man's mind works, and Steve did too.

I'd run into Klosterman's fiction a few years before when I was finishing up a Tom Robbins kick, and somehow went a while before realizing that that writer and the guy STeve was introducing me to were one and the same.  

This one, about Klosterman's favorite sport, examines why it takes up such an outsized place in our sports and cultural worlds.  Examines 9and attemps to debunk) a couple of the mian reasons for its ubiquity, and offers a couple Klostermanesque counterintuitive arguments for its dominance.

The examination of "best player of all time" was probably my favorite piece in the book, why comparing Jim Thorpe to Jim Brown to Derrick Henry is impossible yet unavoidable.  It reminded me of Hall of Fame discussions I'd had with my buddies Jason Russell, Steven West & Ray Wilson.

Also very much enjoyed the discussion on the Canadian Football League, and why its slight variance in the rules underlines the balance American Football maintains between speed and power.

This was a good one.

The Night Stalker   by Jeff Rice

Found the TV movie tie-in at an antique store along my route, and paid $2 for it, and its sequel.  Boring trivia:  Jeff Rice wrote this novel, and Richard Matheson wrote the TV adaptation for the first Kolchak TV movie.  The sequel, the Night Strangler, was written by Matheson, with Jeff Rice writing the novelization of Matheson's story.

This one is surprisingly pulpy.  Suitably Hard Boiled.   Fun Vampire Story.

Kolchak: the Night Strangler     by Richard Matheson & Jeff Rice

Just rolled right into the next one.  Fun.  The backwards stretches to include characters from the first novel/movie are....interesting, and Kolchak commenting on the cabbie showing up like it was part of the plot amused me perhaps more than it should have.  

Heartwood   by Amity Gaige

For a lot of 2025, Shyam, our friend Jill and I were doing a small book club.  When Jill had a particularly busy fall semester, we put it on hiatus.  This was our first book back.

Between this and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, I'm not venturing off any trails in Maine.

Solid read.  Hiker goes missing near the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.   Told from her point of view, that of the ranger leading her search and that of a retiree whose connection to the story turned rather pleasing, actually....

There is a plot point that continues to bother me, even 4 months later.  It gave all 3 of us in the group a moment's pause.  It is a decision made by the protagonist that seems questionable from a character standpoint....and it's a decision that seems familiar only if you've watched a horror movie or 3 dozen in your life.

Dust Frontier    by Graydon Colbaugh

Read in one day while my Mom had a heart cath procedure.  Fun read from our friend Graydon.  A Deputy out of a Southern Tennessee County that bears an eery resemblance to Polk County is drafted into some interplanetary intrigue.  It's a trip.  

Mr. Mercedes    by Stephen King

Continuing Project, blah blah blah.

Fun.  I like the Bill Hodges character a lot, even if we are jumping headlong into the phase of King's work where he is overly concerned into the Power and Lack Thereof of Older White Men.  I don't know why, unless it was being neck deep in Better Call Saul when I first read this, that I've seen Jonathan Banks as Bill in my head since 2015 or so.

Brady still gets at me.  One of King's better villains, in my opinion.  Jerome....is a choice.....

Hatchet Girls    by Joe R. Lansdale

I read this shortly after Joe announced on social media that the next Hap & Leonard book would be their last....the boys will get to retire.

I wasn't surprised to hear it, as Sugar on the Bones had a real Last Ride feel, and a lot of the characters who'd existed in the Hap & Leonardverse came together Justice League (or Magnificent Seven) style for one last jam....and it was mean very much to honor the late Andrew Vachss, as his avatar Veil figures heavily in the tale.

This one, a story filled unsurprisingly with people getting chopped up with hatchets, is more introspective, and had even  more callbacks to their previous novels than Sugar did.

This one was a rough one to go to immediately after Mr. Mercedes, as this one, Hap is overtly wondering, dwelling even, on his diminishing abilities on the back end of his 50s.

April

Katrina;  a History, 1915-2015

A look at the meteorological, physical, historical, political and fiscal reasons for the catastrophic days following Hurrican Katrina's landfall in 2005, as well as the response in the ensuing decade.....

Empire of Silence   by Christopher Ruocchio

Came recommended by a couple people.  There are shades of Dune and The Name of the Wind in there, but somehow it kept me going back to Piers Anthony's Bio of a Space Tyrant, which I devoured somewhere around 1991 or 1992.

The alien races, especially the Umandh were interesting, and both they and the Cielcin have a lot of potential for storytelling, and that might get me back for a second book.

I did have some issues with the storytelling, inasmuch as I couldn't tell if the bloated prose was Ruocchio's or of Hadrian, who's telling the story.  From the couple of reviews I've read, it seems like it may improve in the subsequent books.

Dept. of Speculation   by Jenny Offill

Read with Jeselnik Book Club....this wasn't at all what I was expecting....not even sure what I was expecting.  Plenty dark with a surprising bit of levity.   It didn't end like I was expecting.  An occasionally lyrical piece of being an adult, a spouse and a parent, in a difficult marriage.

This made me want to look into become an Art Monster.

Revival   by Stephen King.

Project and whatnot.

This was a banger.  Up there with 11.22.63 as King's best since nearly losing his life.

Continues the theme of the utility and futility of being an older white man  in the 2010's.  This one is very concerned with death and dying.  Makes me wonder how many friends and acquaintances King had seen die leading up to the writing of this.

This is fun.  Crackles with energy, and contains a sadness you don't find in a lot of King's work.....

G.I. Joe:  The Cobra Strikes    by Joshua Williamson & Tom Reilly

Didn't care for it.  As far as I'm concerned, Larry Hama's the only guy who writes Joe worth reading.

May

Monsters in the Archive:  My Year of Fear with Stephen King    by Caroline Bicks

This one was a pleasant surprise.  Bicks holds the Stephen King Chair in the English Department at his alma mater, the University of Maine at Orono.  She received access to King's personal archives, and did analysis of five of his early works, using the original manuscripts King worked with.  She went in looking for themes and motifs.  Digs in a bit to his early life, and examines bits from childhood to college and impact his novels and short stories.

As stated, I'm up to 2016 or so with his works myself, and seeing themes in play has been the interesting part of my project.  I'm not looking right now to go back to any of it, but Bicks' book made me want to go back and give Pet Sematary, Night Shift and Carried closer looks.

King's comments about not having revisisted Carrie were interesting, stating that the man who wrote that book was young, and didn't know what he thought he did about the world.

(The grouse in me says it didn't stop him from revising and stealing some of the charm from The Gunslinger....but I digress....)

Good read, and would serve as a nice companion piece to King's On Writing.

Harlan Ellison's Watching by Harlan Ellison

I'd been wanting to go through this volume front to back, and then Audible made it like $2 in its cash sale.  How could I not?

The downside of audiobooks is that I can't underline, and when I bookmark using Audible's app, sometimes I've lost the grain of whatever caught my ear and can't remember the thought that I'd had when I bookmarked it.  It's a little easier to regain when I can see something I've underlined or highlighted in an actual text.

That said, the list of shit I want to watch or rewatch after hearing Harlan yell and scream about it (and he yells and screams about both things he loves and hates), is long.

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake   by Breece Pancake

Steven West gifted me a copy.  Good stuff.  Short stories.  Pancake's prose reminds me of Hemingway and McCarthy, but his ear and use of irony remind me more of Flannery O'Connor than anybody I've run across.  All of that wrapped up in a vall and raised in the Appalachian hills of West Virginia.

He also reminds me very much of Tristan Egolf, another immensely talented writer with ties to Appalachia who also took his own life.

I See You've Called in Dead    by John Kenney

I don't dislike it, but in the couple months since I've read it, I've grown increasingly irritated that it's a well-to-do guy with incredibly fortunate circumstances and his friends who make time to undergo a philosophical learning experience.

Still, it's funny, and it is touching.  And I even agree with the philosophic lessons herein.

I'm just annoyed that I don't have more money than I do.  I'd just like to take the wife on vacation again some time.....

The Reformatory   by Tananarive Due

I'm not sure how often it happens that you read your new favorite book by one of your favorite writers.  Due is fantastic, and has been near the top of my list for a while, but it's largely been her short fiction that earned her a place in my heart.  I think she's the only writer out there whose name will make me pick up a collection, or a magazine with a story in it.  She's just got a remarkable talent for that medium.

Her novels are good.  The Good House and Joplin's Ghost are particularly effective.  But this?!?! 

This is fantastic.  I loved every page of it.

(And I say that with the caveat of having started it and only made it 40 pages in back in 2023).

I went back to this one as I'd read a couple of truly excellent pieces about it.  And even though I get my hopes up.....I loved it.

Equal parts ghost story, history lesson and prison break story.  This might be my favorite thing I've read this year....

Supergirl:  Woman of Tomorrow    by Tom King & Bilquis Evely

I may not like Tom King very much.  I hate to say that, because I know a lot of people hold him in high esteem.  It might just be that I've read or watched a lot of the source material he seems to be inspired by.

I've seen and read both True Grit and John Wick, though, and just didn't get as much out of this as a lot of people did.....

Three Miles Past  by Stephen Graham Jones

The ease with which Jones switches between goofy fun to very real disquiet is perhaps the most startling thing about his writing.  It's remarkable.  His Angel Lake Trilogy is a magnificent fever dream, and his books Mongrels and the Only Good Indians are stellar, and quite sad.

This is three tales...novellas, really.   Two of them really, really weird and the third tremendously sad.

I liked this collection.

June

Finders Keepers   by Stephen King

I don't dislike this one, but Bill, Holly and Jerome feel superfluous.  Almost unnecessary.  Almost like they're an afterthought....a way to get out of a story King might have originally tried to write for the Hard Case Crime series.

Mother Night    by Kurt Vonnegut.

One of the Vonneguts I hadn't read.  Read with Shyam & Jill.  Not the oddball romp I often associate with Vonnegut.  It's still looking to frame the absurd.  And some of the sadness seems to come from realizing how stupid we, it, and everybody is.  In this case, Howard Clark is an American who works for Germany in the Second World War as a spy for America, but creates some of the most damaging pro-Germany propaganda that the world sees.

Howard is The Dude Lebowski.  Impotent.  Unable to make his own way.  This made me uncomfortable.  

And it probably should

Cathedral of the Drowned    by Nathan Ballingrud

The second part of his Lunar Gothic trilogy, Ballingrud continues to really weird me out.  Especially at 2 in the morning, when I read this because our aging Siamese cat decided to do parkour on me in the middle of the night.

Don't read this if you also own a wobbly cat, who skitters as her main form of ambulation.

A Children's Bible by Lydia Millet

I have a problem with this one, and it's similar to I See You Called in Dead.  I guess I'm less and less interested in the tribulations of the well-to-do.

The Western Star   by Craig Johnson

It's fun, Johnson's western tribute to Murder on the Orient Express.  This one just felt messy, though.....

Harlan Ellison's Endlessly Watching     by Harlan Ellison

Collected for a Kickstarter, finishing up Harlan's columns with Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine.  Lots of good stuff, but it felt like either I'd read too much Ellison, or Harlan was getting bored with the column towards its end.....

Random Thoughts, This June 28, 2026, AD

 Hey!  I still have a blogamathing.

What's been going on in the life of Tommy?

Work.  Workworkwork.  We're doing it for ourselves, and not the behest of some faceless name on an email, like at the grocery store.   Shyam and I own a fishing bait delivery company.  We deliver all over Southeast Tennessee, going as far west as Jasper and South Pittsburgh, and as far North as Knoxville and Crossville.  Business has been good.  

And spare time?  It's more than I had with Food Lion.  I just haven't been using it to write like I should.

There's a lot of windshield time.  And story ideas.  Hell, I had most of a Twilight Zone episode written surrounding a bus with the name BJ Tours on it. 

----

I have wandered out to see a couple movies.  The nephew and I took in Disclosure Day on Father's Day weekend.  I like it.  I dig the optimism, though the realist in me says Stevey's overestimating A.) the General Public and B.) How much a meteorologist and a journeyman musician pull in, incomewise.

Shyam and I went to the Swingin' Midway Drive-In to catch Masters of the Universe, which we both enjoyed for the silly nostalgia of it.

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I haven't cared for a lot of what I've been reading lately:

I read A Children's Bible, by Lydia Millett along with Anthony Jeselnik's book club.  Have mostly enjoyed what he's presented with the Club....but this one just didn't do much for me.  I had, interestingly, the same problem with it that I ended up having with I See You Called in Dead, by John Kenney (not read with the book club):  the trevails of well-to-do white people aren't interesting trevails, sometimes.

The Western Star, by Craig Johnson, wasn't bad, but it's ending wasn't satisfying.  Came out of nowhere, if we're being honest, and that's not really Johnson's modus operandi with Longmire.  

Harlan Ellison's Endlessly Watching....a continuation of what was started in Harlan Ellison's watching, published via Kickstarter.  It's still fun, but Harlan loses interest in the column somewhere about 6 columns from the end.  And it works a lot like this blog from 2014-2026.

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Cubs?  If they hit, they'll make the playoffs.  Not because the hitting's that good, but we have about 19 teams in the Majors that will finish the season somewhere between 78 and 83 wins.  Not good, not bad.  But we only have about 7 in the leage that will finish above that, and the Cubs should be one of them.  But only if they keep hitting.  If they slump like they did in late May and early June?  They're sunk.  

Which is not to say they'll win anything this year.  There are 3 or 4 really good teams this year.  Dodgers, Yankees....and probably the Braves, assuming they wander out of this slump they've been in for a couple weeks.  And maybe the Brewers, though I'm loathe to say so.

Saw today that Hoby Milner is out with appendix troubles.

At least I can't blame that on the Cubs training/conditioning staff....

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Looking back at the past several paragraphs, I seem fairly negatively aimed.  But that's not how I feel, really.   

I don't think.....

Colbert

From Robert Reich on Facebook:

Friends,

Stephen Colbert’s last show is tonight.

CBS refused to renew his contract, and you know exactly why: He mocked and criticized Trump.

CBS says it’s ending “The Late Show” because the show was costing CBS some $40 million a year. That’s utter bullsh*t. Colbert enabled CBS to charge higher fees to local affiliates, because he attracted millions of viewers to those affiliates’ 11 p.m. news programs in anticipation of his “The Late Show” airing right after. The show was also a promotional gold mine for CBS, whose series stars were often interviewed by Colbert. No wonder CBS was “feverish” to lock Colbert into a new contract only three years ago.

What really happened couldn’t be clearer. Führer Trump was furious at Colbert’s mocking, and publicly called for CBS to cancel him (or “put him to sleep NOW” as Trump wrote in one social media post). At the same time, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, was on the verge of a lucrative merger deal that Trump could interfere with.

Paramount had already sucked up to Trump by offering him $16 million to settle a lawsuit he brought against CBS News’s “60 Minutes,” although he had almost no chance of prevailing in court.

In a monologue, Colbert called the settlement a “big fat bribe,” which it was. Days later he got word he’d been canceled. About a week after that, the deal was approved.

Before Colbert started at CBS, he hosted Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” where he played a right-wing, blowhard, curmudgeonly TV host.

I was often a guest, presumably because I was a good foil for the blowhard that Colbert was acting. (I’ve also been a guest on his “The Late Show.”)

The first time I came to do “The Colbert Report,” I was nervous. I didn’t know how to respond to someone who’d be acting as a conservative asshole but wasn’t one in real life.

I was sitting alone in the greenroom when Colbert popped in. He introduced himself, sat down, and then, smiling, said, “Just wanted to warn you that I play a real jerk out there.”

“Oh, I know,” I said. “I’ve watched the show.”

“Good. Don’t argue with me. Just play along,” he counseled.

“I’ll try not to argue,” I said. “But I go on so many of these combative shows that I may automatically start arguing.”

Colbert laughed. “That’s fine. Just let me do the heavy lifting. I’ll be so obnoxious that viewers will see the wisdom in your argument!”

“Sounds good,” I said, still nervous.

“Just have fun!” Colbert advised, before vanishing to his set.

Colbert was anything but a right-wing jerk. In fact, as I’ve come to know him over the years, he’s remarkably self-effacing and wicked smart. He’s progressive in his politics, of course, but never dogmatic. Even when he skewers Trump on his “The Late Show,” he does it with gentle humor and no trace of anger or bitterness.

I’ve done many thousands of interviews over my adult life. Some interviewers, like the late Bill Moyers, have been so thoughtful and well-prepared that I’ve barely had to think; I just fall into a natural conversation with them. Others are so stilted or slick that they hardly listen to what I say, and the interview has the tortuous feel of gears grinding from one topic to another.

Colbert is like Moyers in being well-prepared and listening intently. But he adds a rapid-fire wit that can make a serious point while putting an audience in stitches.

When Colbert interviewed me last August about my latest book, CBS had just announced that his contract wouldn’t be renewed and that by late May the show would be off the air for good.

A stagehand met me at the side door to the old Ed Sullivan Theater. As he led me to the greenroom, I asked him how everyone there was taking the news.

“Not well,” he said. After a pause he said, “We’re like a family here.”

Some time later, Stephen came by the greenroom. I asked him how he was doing. “Oh, I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll find something else to do. But there are about a hundred people here who will be out of jobs, and frankly I’m worried about them.”

They are like a family — Stephen Colbert, his executive producer, the segment producers and directors, showrunners, writers, cameramen, gaffers, grips, lighters, stagehands, custodians, musicians. Stephen has treated them like a family. His respect and concern for them is unusual in the business but consistent with the courtesy and kindness I discovered the first time I met him.

In sharp contrast is the way CBS and Paramount’s new owners, Larry and David Ellison, have treated Colbert and all those who have made “The Late Show” such an important part of our entertainment and political firmament.

Behind the Ellisons lurks Trump, who treats everyone like shit except strongmen he can’t control such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.

After tonight's show, the Ed Sullivan Theater will go dark, and we’ll lose one of the nation’s funniest and most courageous, truthful, and gentlemanly critics of Trump and his lawless regime. Our society and democracy will be the worse for it.

Farewell, and thank you, Stephen.

imperative

Well.  If you insist.....

blargh

SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA SCREAM

Dirty Pool

That's cheating!  You guys are cheating!

Thoughts at the End of March

 A couple or three weeks ago, we went from slightly busy to ridiculously busy at our business.  My wife and I own a small fishing bait/supply delivery business that runs routes from Knoxville to Chattanooga, over towards Crossville and down to the opposite side of Nickajack Lake.  It keeps us busy enough, but the period from December to February is pretty slow...usually there's a ramp up in business in late February and March, but somewhere around the 10th, it was like a switch flipped and everybody in East Tennessee decided they were going fishing.

It's not a complaint.  Idle hands and whatnot.  

It's still a novelty to me, some 39 months into doing this, that I like my job.

My whole working career, I've done jobs that I've tolerated.  But I really like what I do.  

The downside is this.  I had a couple projects that I wanted to get done over the slow period.  I wanted to finish replacing the boards on our deck, and I wanted to get our spare room (the green room, due to it's green carpet) cleaned out so I could get new bookshelves installed in there.

Neither got done to any satisfaction.  And now we're busy.

Going to make time to get them done before it gets hot, though.

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Add to our general annoyance:  we think the heat element of the dryer is done.  We've been able to sun-dry the bulk of our clothes, but at some point we're going to have to make time to either get the dryer fixed, or replaced.

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Baseball season is back.  Hemmed and Hawed about whether I was going to resubscribe to MLB.TV, since my rate was going up.  Decided to go ahead, but then had to run headlong through the wall of trying to subscribe through ESPN.  I'm pretty firmly in the camp that MLB is shooting itself in the foot by making its product too difficult to see.  There's a meme out there about a game having each inning broadcast by a different provider...and it's funny because something something.....

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Took the Jeopardy Anytime test back in February, and again just now,  since you can take it again on the anniversary of Jeopardy's first broadcast.  General theories are that "passing" is 35 out of 50.  I didn't keep count today, but I felt like I was somewhere around 42.

I got to do the second online test in the fall of 2024, but didn't get to move forward to the Zoom interviews.  

Maybe this time.....

sunset

Sunset tonight,  at the vats

The Bride!

 Wandered out the Athens Movie Palace today to catch The Bride!, the new flick from Maggie Gyllenhaal (which I spelled correctly on the first try), starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale.

It's fun.  A bit of a mess, but it's got tremendous energy, and a helluva fun performance from Jessie Buckley (who was already high on my list, but who might have bought benefit of the doubt for the rest of her career).  

A couple of nice throwbacks to earlier Frankenstein flicks, including a couple of references Young Frankenstein.....

One of the notable things to me was Jake Gyllenhaal (which I spelled correctly on the first try) performing.  Now, I don't want to tell anybody, least of all a film director, how to run their lives, but if it's me and I'm directing my sibling?  I order that sibling to do a lot of extensive training (i.e. dance, fencing, boating, etc).  I then costume them as uncomfortably as possible.  I also give them extensive, time-consuming makeup and prosthetics.  And then, I Stanley Kubrick the shit out directing their scenes with take upon take upon take.....

All of which ends up on the cutting room floor.

But then, that's probably why I'm not a film director......

Random March Musings

 Welp.  It seems I'm doing just so well keeping up with the blogamathing.

Can't blame being terribly busy for February, because while we were able to keep ourselves from going stir crazy, it won't be like it will be in four weeks, where I'll be on the road six or seven days out of the week.

I'll blame the Olympics, which were in February.

Also, birthdays.  My birthday, Shyam's and my mother's are all in February, and we each celebrate it with ritual combat, and I'm going to tell you that at 49, that takes longer and longer to recover from.

Olympics?  It's nice having a job that lets you enjoy something, from time to time.  

Enjoyed this year's Olympiad from Milan/Cortina.  Men's and women's Ice Hockey were my main focus, but caught a good deal of curling, and was mesmerized almost daily for a few minutes by everything doing on the ice slide....luge, skeleton, bobsled....all look like means to certain injury.  And now that we're past the Winter Olympics, will somebody please finally just admit that two man luge is a drinking game that just got out of hand?

I didn't lose any family relations over this Olympics, which is a small relief.  A cousin popped off after the Last Supper depiction at the beginning of the Paris Olympics in 2024, calling it an attack, and that Christians needed to fight back.  I responded with about a dozen pop culture depictions of the Last Supper, and mentioned that philosophical attacks are one of the biggest arrows in Christianity's quiver over the years, so that glass house is nearly windowless at this point....

And I lost contact with that cousin.  Blocked across all social media.  

Which sucks.

But no familial relations destroyed by this Olympiad.

-----

Tangentially related to the Olympics is a book I read:

Cullen co-hosts What is a Jeopardy Podcast? which is a weekly listen, and also hosted a mini-series on a scandal in the Curling Community called Broomgate, which I really recommend if you're looking for a good listen.  I also recommend his book, which is easily the best book on Curling I've ever read.  Considering I've read two, I guess it mean's in the better book on Curling I've ever read.

Funny, and a bit self-deprecating, it's not lacking for passion for the game.  

The book occasionally gets granular with personalities and events, but it just underlines how much Cullen appreciates the game and the people who've played it, and worked to bring it to the prominence its achieved.

Early in the book, he mentions a curling venue, Tee Line,  in Nashville, and I might be tempted to wander out to Middle Tennessee to give the game a try, even though I'm possibly nearly as athletic as one of the stones ....

-----

Your old pal Tommy just looked at the prices of the aforementioned Tee Line in Nashville.  And it's not prohibitive, but it's still more than my mind, which is stuck in about 2009 when it comes to expenditures, wants to pay for things.

I guess everybody needs to make money.  And Curling Venues aren't free to build.  So I get it.  

Excuse me while I grumble to myself that sometimes it just feels like there's somebody on every corner looking to charge you $39.95 just for existing.

-----

A little bit more Teevee that Shyam and I have watched.  We wandered into the world of Taskmaster a couple years back, and from Taskmaster I've wandered to Eight out of 10 Cats, and even more into Eight Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown in the mornings, while she gets ready for work.

Prime recommended this one, a variant on a game show that apparently has iterations from a couple dozen countries....from Norway to Thailand to Argentina to Poland.

Simple enough concept.  10 comedians, actors or personalities are locked together in a room, and the main rule is that you are not allowed to laugh.  Using soccer rules, one laugh warrants you a yellow card, and a second in the 6-hour period gets you ejected from the game.

No prize is mentioned that I can recall in this British variation, so the whole shebang may have been just for pride, shits and giggles.  Considering that most of these actors and comedians have been cross-pollinating on each other's panel shows for years, many of them knew that there were buttons to be pushed among their competitors.  It was also interesting to see how difficult they thought it might be to get Bob Mortimer, Judi Gold and Richard Ayoade to break.  (Spoilers:  Indeed, it was Mortimer & Ayoade who came down to the last, and Judi Gold essentially being taken out by an accidental creak of a chair more than any attempt to get her to laugh).

It turned into an interesting psychological game to watch, watching people essentially torture themselves by not giving in to the urge to laugh.  A couple players kept themselves in a dark mindset.  A couple disassociated:  watching Harriet Kemsley maintain a 1000-yard stare for much of the show was somehow the highlight of it for me.

We've moved on to the Canadian version, which doesn't seem to have the same chemistry:  not sure how many of the 10 comedians knew each other beforehand.  It's fun, and it's an interesting mix to have Tom Green, Dave Foley, Caroline Rhea and Colin Mochrie rubbing elbows with K. Trevor Wilson and Mae Martin (another Taskmaster favorite).  

We give high marks to the first season of the UK version, and look forward to the second season, that airs on Prime later this month......

imperative

Well.  If you insist.....

shit

New Movies seen in 2025

 My New Year's resolution from 2024 into 2025 was to not go 7 days without watching a new movie.  Part of it was I was watching the same stuff over and over.  I wanted to get back into watching a little more stuff.

I made it (though I think there was a 9 day stretch in September where I started a movie, but didn't finish until a couple days later....but I'll give myself a break with it....)

These movies could be new releases, or movies that I just hadn't caught yet.

The new to me flicks I saw in 2025:

January:

Music by John Williams  (2024)

Nice documentary about the guy whose music is imprinted on my DNA, between Star Wars, Superman, Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park.....

Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim   (2024)

This was actually really cool to see on the big screen.   My nephew and I had the theater to ourselves for an 11AM showing, after it had been out a few weeks.  Really cool animation....

Nosferatu   (2024)

It's pretty.  I couldn't stop thinking how Count ORlok looked like an undead Soda Popinski.  

America as Seen by a Frenchman   (1960)

Shyam got this for Christmas.  Interesting documentary.  Funny, at times.

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace   (1962)

This wasn't very good.  In their comedy album, the State has a bit  with Ken Marino as  Holmes, and Joe Lo Truglio as Watson.  Holmes carries a stoner vibe throughout, and Watson is a bumbling fool.  I'd like the State to redub the movie.....

The Dead Don't Die    (2019)

Despite enjoying Jarmusch, and a despite an interesting cast, I skipped this one when it came out.  Zombie burnout, brought on largely by The Walking Dead's endless pessimism and cruelty.  This was fun, though.  Nice and dry.

World Trade Center    (2006)

Passed this one up way back when.  Shouldn't have.  It's pretty solid, with some really good work from both Cage and Pena.  Watched after reading a book on Cage's career.....

Dream Scenario    (2023)

I need to sit with this one again, as I've thought about it a lot.  Nice weird horror concept......

The Hound of the Baskervilles   (2000)

Maybe the worst thing I watched all year.....

February

Volunteers   (1985)

Read director Meyer's memoir, and hunted this one up.  It made me not hunt up any more of his stuff.  

The Wild Robot    (2024)

This was fantastic.  It eventually made my top 10 for 2024.

Wicked Little Letters    (2023)

We'd meant to see this one in theaters, but never made it out.  Olivia Colman is one of our favorites.  And she's quite good in this.....

Love Hurts   (2025)

Dumb and fun.  I think I had more fun watching Marshawn Lynch have fun than anything.....

Captain America: Brave New World    (2025)

I think I liked this better than most people.  It's uneven, I admit.  Feels heavily reshot.  I wish they'd given Tim Blake Nelson's Leader more to do.  But I still think it's fun.

A Midsummer Night's Dream    (1935)

Surprisingly fun....

Elevation    (2024)

It actually takes a lot for me not to just run with the concept.  But the world looks way too clean for 3 years of everybody living in the mountain wilderness.

The Monkey    (2025)

This was great fun.  I don't think I've laughed this hard in a movie theater in a long time.

Flow    (2025)

One of 2 5 star first time watches this year.  This is magic.  

March

AfrAId    (2024)

Good concept.   Meh execution.

Wallace & Gromit:  Vengeance Most Fowl    (2024)

This is just a lot of fun.  Like everything Wallace & Gromit.

The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire   (2002)

Better than the Frewer Hound of the Baskervilles.  But then it would almost have to be.....

The Navigator    (1924)

Can't go wrong with Buster Keaton

Perry Mason:  the Case of the Musical Murder   (1989) 

Our internet was out for 3 or 4 days in March after a transfer truck snagged the line off the pole, after a storm.  We made do with Shyam's Perry Mason TV movie collection.   Not great, but not bad, either.

Perry Mason:  the Case of the All-Star Assassin   (1989)

Less good.....

April

Death of a Unicorn   (2025)

Not great.....

Twister: Caught in the Storm    (2025)

Really is kinda amazing that we carry movie grade cameras and computers in our pockets.  This was pretty interesting.

Spartan    (2004)

We'd missed this one.   It came recommended upon the passing of Kilmer.  It's solid as hell.

G20    (2025)

I mean, it's Viola Davis pissed off with a machine gun.  Plus, it had Girl Twin from Blackish.

Talk to Me    (2022)

This was better than it had any right to be.  High energy.  Maintains a spooky vibe.  Couple or three visuals that really caught me offguard.  I liked this one.

Wolf Man   (2025)

It's not horrible, but it's really, really clunky.  I don't like how Julia Garner got used, at all, and I typically like her in everything she does.....

May

Sinners    (2025)

My other 5-star first time view.  This was amazing.  An absolute hoot to see on the big screen.

Thunderbolts*   (2025)

Maybe the best thing the MCU has put into a theater since Endgame.  I enjoyed this one a lot.  

Companion   (2025)

I only gave this one 3 stars on my Letterboxd review, but I've thought about it a couple of times since, and I think it may rise higher with another viewing.....

Y2K    (2024)

 I was really rooting for this one, but it doesn't hit its marks.

The Hobbit   (1977)

I'd never actually watched this all the way through.  Not bad....I can see why Tolkien fans dig it.....

Final Destination    (2000)

Couple of good visuals, but it's pretty rough.....

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning     (2023)

This is a long, long movie.   Good.   But it takes a while to get where it's going...

June

Sleepaway Camp   (1983)

I'm glad we got past the guys wearing Belly shirts.   I never really got a grasp on that bit of zeitgeist.  I hope that doesn't roll around again.

Pee-Wee's Big Holiday    (2016

Went back to watch this after watching the really excellent Paul Reubens mini series on Max.   This really wasn't bad.  Alia Shawkat and Joe Mangianello get the vibe.

Predator: Killer of Killers    (2025)

It's good.  I just don't think I liked it as much as most Predator fans did. . 

The Phoenician Scheme    (2025)

A little too busy, but still fun.  I actually would like a movie with Tom Hanks and Bryan Cranston as brothers at each other's throats......

The Day the Earth Blew Up:  a Looney Tunes Movie    (2024)

This was a lot of fun.  Why Warner would rather have taken a tax credit than release this is quite beyond me.  Seeing this makes me think Warner missed the boat entirely, and should have been pumping one of these out every couple of years since the 50's.

Fire Birds   (1990)

Not great.  Top Gun in Helicopters.  Cage and Jones didn't have much to work with.....

28 Years Later    (2025)

This was magnificent.  A dark fairy tale.  I really dig how misleading the advertising campaign was leading up to this.....

1922   (2017)

Re-Read the Full Dark, No Stars collection this spring.  This and Big Driver are the two stars of that collection.  This movie?  Somebody should have told Thomas Jane to pump them brakes.....

July

Big Driver    (2014)

Actually, this may be the worst thing I saw all year.   Completely guts the original story.  But then, it was for Hallmark, or Lifetime.....

A Working Man   (2025)

This was pretty bad.  Nothing fits together properly.   Very crowded cast.  Nobody has time to breathe.  Plenty shooty and stabby.  Very Crowded

Jurassic World: Rebirth   (2025)

I'm part of the problem.  I just wanted to see dinosaur/monster hybrids chasing, biting and fighting.  And I got it.  I kinda like it.  I can't tell you it's good.  But I felt like it was a good use of my $10, to sit in air conditioning.  I will say:  I really dig the river sequence, which was cut nearly whole cloth from Crichton's original book.

The Woman in the Yard    (2025)

Pretty good, I thought.  Danielle Deadwyler is one of those who seems to just understand her assignments, time after time.

Superman    (2025)

God bless James Gunn.  This is a movie I really needed to see.  And I really needed my nephew to see.  We've got so many fucked up ideas about what being a man in the United States.  This was a good response.

Chasing Chasing Amy    (2023)

Good documentary about the impact of media, for those of us who don't find the path leads from A to B to C all the time.

Pieces of Aprill (2003)

Somehow, we wandered through the Best Supporting Actress Nominees for that year's Oscars, and I commented that I'd never seen this one.  I liked it, and the ending made me cry, because shit like this does.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps    (2025)

I really, really like that it didn't look like every Marvel movie since 2020.  Loved the look of The Thing, and the vibe of the city.  Liked Giacchino's score, liked Ineson as Galactus.  And Vanessa Kirby just kills it.  

I also like how technology from the FF bleeds over into regular society.  Meanwhile, in "our" MCU, they have heads up holographic displays for Tony and the Avengers, but we're still playing with thumb drives and Macs in the rest of the world....

(I didn't like Pedro Pascal in this, but I don't know if it's Pascal burnout or something else....)

August

She Rides Shotgun   (2025)

Not bad.  Good performances from Heger, Egerton and Lynch, who might be the Best Actor on Earth.

Just not a great adaptation of a really good novel.....

Doomed! the Untold Story of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four   (2015)

After watching this, I think that everybody involved with this movie was a Lot.

Dressed to Kill    (1946)

Pretty decent Holmes flick.

The Naked Gun    (2025)

It's not the same vibe as ZAZ, but I still liked it.  The Chili Dog scene, and the Snowman Threesome were inspired bits.

In the Heat of the Night    (1967)

I'm including this because I'm not sure if I'd ever seen it all the way through.  Strong flick.  After watching this in the midst of a lot of Coen Brothers flicks, it's a pity that Warren Oates passed before being able to be cast by them in anything.....

Weapons    (2025)

This was a good year for horror.  And this was another fine entry.  A lot of fun.  (Looks at Wolf Man....and it uses Julia Garner correctly!!!!)

Yankees-Dodgers: an Uncivil War    (2022)

This wasn't fun.  Felt slapped together.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles    (1990)

Including this one because it's another I hadn't seen all the way through from start to finish.  Saw it on the big screen.  It's a fun flick.....

Julius Caesar   (1953)

Don't quote me on this, but I think that Brando kid could go places......

Now You See Me   (2013)

It tries hard to go for that Ocean's Eleven heist energy.  But it misses.  

September

Woman of the Year    (1942)

Dig that Kitchen scene, man.  That's comedy gold.

Final Destination 2   (2003)

Somebody told me to give this one a chance, after I didn't much like the first flick.  And they were right.  That opening sequence is fire, man.

The Long Walk    (2025)

I liked it.  A lot of people gave it a lot of shit for not being the book.  As if they've never watched an adaptation before.  I kinda dug this one.

Final Destination 3    (2006)

This one is.....less good than 2.

The Final Destination    (2009)

This one is....less good than 3.....

Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths part 3   (2024)

DC animation has been on point the last several years, but they turned Crisis into a slog.....

October

Play Dirty   (2025)

Haven't seen somebody completely miss the vibe of their own project so completely like Wahlberg in a long, long time.....

The Mummy    (1957)

This is a beautifully shot flick.  I'd like to see it on a big screen

Halloween II    (1981)

It's not bad, and it seems unfair to punish it for not being Halloween.  But I will.

The Substance   (2024)

I knew that it would bodyslam you with the body horror going in.  But I still got my ass whooped.

I'm a little weird, but I didn't love Qualley in this.

Trick r. Treat   (2007)

It's a mixed bag, but I liked the swings.  This was fun.

A House of dynamite   (2025)

It's a disjointed mess.  But I really like Rebecca Ferguson and Gabriel Basso in it.  

Who Killed the Montreal Expos   (2025)

Didn't need a whole documentary to know that Jeffrey Loria is a piece of trash, but we got it.  Actually underlines a lot of the problems with modern sports.

November

Blue Moon    (2025)

Ethan Hawke is great.  Just great.  My favorite performance of the year.  I really dig the bar, too.  I could practically smell it.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof   (1958)

I'd never seen it.  I saw a play of it in college, and in one performance, one of the actresses fell face first into the back wall of the set.  And in that respect, this movie really lacked a certain element of comedy.....

Frankenstein    (2025)

This looked exactly like I wanted it to.  Didn't love Oscar Isaac in it, but I don't typically love him in much.  

Predator: Badlands    (2025)

Really, really liked this.  Very fun.

Amarcord   (1973)

Fucking fascists.

Going Berserk   (1983)

A bit of a miss.  A bit of a mess.   I do miss John Candy, very much.

The Running Man    (2025)

Satisfying, but that third act is so drastically different in tone that it screams studio meddling.

It's different than Arnold's flick, but I have the same complaint about this that I did with the 1987 version:  there's no way that the government doesn't level that building with a missile strike as soon as they see what's up....

December

The Banger Sisters    (2002)

Goldie Hawn is a national comic treasure.   

Kill Bill: the Whole Bloody Affair    (2006)

Satisfying.  Tarantino makes me appreciate Michael Madsen, who always seemed a like a good Big Picture guy.  Another one who understood his assignments.

Eddington   (2025)

Another one that's going to warrant a second watch.  I liked this one a lot.

Christmas Eve in Miller's Point    (2024)

I haven't been to a family Christmas gathering in close to 30 years.  Or hung out with random friends in the woods in almost as long.  Didn't realize how much I'd missed doing both.

Wake Up Dead Man     (2025)

And the third bowl was just right.  Knives Out was fun, but misused its supporting players.  Glass Onion uses its cast well, but its story just doesn't hold up.  They found a fine balance here.  Plus, I kinda dig the take on the role of religion in today's world.

The Roses    (2025)

Doesn't hit its marks, but Olivia Colman is fantastic, as always.

The Ugly Stepsister   (2025)

Needles and Eyeballs and Buttholes.

A quick (possible wrong count) says that's 89 new to me movies last year.  Sinners and Flow were both amazing.

As an addendum, my top 5 of 2025 that I've seen:

1.  Sinners

2.  Weapons

3.  Blue Moon

4.  28 Years Later

5.  Superman.......

In which I am put into fiction....

Well.  My name got added to some fiction.  It seems my buddy Dino conspired with my other buddy Alex to get my name included as a character in Alex's story "No Prey, No Pay" found in the new anthology from Zombies Need Brains, Skull X Bones.

I was tickled.

January is a weird month.  Facebooke memories shows that it can be a heavy month.  A couple of Dad's surgeries, including his bypass.  My truck got stolen in early January 2014.  My friends Steve and Marty, and my Aunt Annette all died in early January.  I got fired from the old jobplace in early January.  Add that to the Post-Christmas low, generally bleh weather....I can say that the first few weeks of the year are generally my least favorite.

I was feeling that pretty hard when Dino gave me that.  It gave me a lift......

The story's not half bad.

If you'd like to purchase a copy of the anthology, you can use this link to do so.....

Pic Dump

Sunrise this morning....

A picture at the park the other day

Itsabit resting on me

Riceville,  from our ridge

Ripley,  my writing buddy

A picture of Earth's moon that's i took with my pocket computer

Thesaurus,  locked in....

Christmas

 For Christmas, Shyam got me a little 5-year thought journal.  Just something to play with.  A subject a day to write a line or two of thought, with space set aside for 5 years.  To follow your growth (or lack thereof, one supposes) over a period.

One of the inevitable questions was what would you like to be different in the New Year.

And since were just a couple weeks past it....I'd like to do Christmas differently next year.

Christmas 2023 was the first I really got to appreciate, after leaving Food Lion.

And I really enjoyed it.  Not having to work 60 or 70 hours in the week leading up to it.  Getting to take it easy, and just enjoy the season.  And I succeeded!

2024 and then 2025?  I dunno.  I think I was struggling a bit for both years.

The one thing I remember about 2024 is out of the blue missing the hell out of my Dad.  After 7 years, it hit me that I still missed him most at Christmas.

I made some peace with it, but then 2025 Christmas came, and I just wasn't feeling it.

Maybe it's just like that some years.

But money was a little tight.  And I had my ablation procedure a couple weeks before Christmas, so that was on my mind.

Shyam suggests that some of it might have to do with my nephew Thomas getting older.  He's 15 now, so not a kid.  There's no Santa or Stockings.  She might be right with that, and if that's the case, I'm not sure there's anything I can do.

I dunno.  I don't have any definitive plan.  Just a thought that I'd like to make that a minor goal.  Save up money a little bit, so that it's not as tight next December.  Think about gifts a little more (and not lose them...I've still got a book meant for my Brother-in-Law floating around my house somewhere--I Griswolded it somewhere around the house.....)

Just a thought, on this 14th day of Christmas or so.  

The Reads of 2025

 Here's my annual rundown of what I read the previous year.  

I had a small note of panic when I started my post....usually I do one of these at mid-year, if only to save myself a few minutes of time when making this bigass post.  But I went to look, and it wasn't there near the first of July.

Ye Gods!

But I was merely dilatory.  I posted it around July 20.  So, unless I find something to edit in the next few minutes, there will be very little change from what I posted in July to now, for the first six months of the year.

I tried to do better recording my comic reading, but I know there are about a half dozen collections I read, but haven't recorded here.  I'll try to do better in 2026.

Anyway:  Here goes:

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 varied 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.......

July

DCeased by Tom Taylor, et al.

DCeased came out at the wrong time for me.  The market, and my mental capacity for zombie stories had reached saturation point.  Plus, I read the Marvel Zombie stories first, and just didn't need another Superhero undead tale.  But among Walking Dead and my own wander through the Romero movies, I'd burned myself out on zombie tales.

This one's fun, if not all that novel.  I did like the use of Darkseid's quest for Anti-Life being the source of the zombie plague.  Good art.  And, for the first time for me, I enjoyed the use of the next generation of heroes DC has been cultivating for the last 20 years.  Gives opportunity for these youngsters to actually replace the heroes....

I will say I like to advocate for the DC Compact format that they've leaned into.  I wouldn't have read this story had it not been for the $9.99 price tag that comes with these books.  I'd like to see DC try to reach beyond the bookstores and local comic shops with this format.  It would be interesting to find a shipper of them in a Wal-Mart, or a CVS, or something similar.....

The Lost Village by Camilla Sten

1950's Swedish forensic science and policework aside, mostly because I don't know enough about to comment on.  This was a fun little mystery horror.  Spooky.  Very, very heavy on atmosphere.   And the dynamic between characters remained admirably taut.

Andy & Don: The Making of a Friendship and a Classic American TV Show  by Daniel de Vise

I probably shouldn't have been surprised at how strong a read this one was:  de Vise's book on Aykroyd and Belushi was quite good.

Good look at the backgrounds of both men, and their respective careers, apart and together.  Very strong look at why the formula for the Andy Griffity Show worked to the point it remains a mainstay on cable & syndication today.

It confirmed a few things I'd heard in other readings about Griffith....inasmuch as he was loyal (occasionally to a fault) to friends, but could turn into a Class A Son of a Bitch when he felt wronged.  Sometimes, even being questioned counted as a betrayal for Andy.....

Helene in Appalachia   by Mila Roeder

Shyam picked up some art from Roeder, whom she's followed online for a while.  She also ordrered her journal of her experiences with Hurricane Helene, in the fall of 2024, in the tiny mountain community of Celo, North Carolina.  There's lots of raw emotion in these writings.  Anger....isolation and fear.  There is alos just as much wonder and love for her community.

I Cheerfully Refuse   by Leif Enger

A reading group book.  I saw that my friend Julie had read it, and suggested it for our group.  It's a little offputting at first, reading dystopia when there are days that that feel we are wandering headlong towards a future that seems sadly possible.  I liked this one for its quiet optimism.....

The Other Glass Teat   by Harlan Ellison

There ain't nothing new under the Sun, Children.  The things Harlan rails against in 1970, we rail against today....

August

1984 by George Orwell

Thomas was reading this as part of his summer reading for school, so I read it for the first time (I think) since college.

This go around, the lack of empathy...indeed, the humor, early on in the book, when Winston describes the community reaction to the movie, and people being shot in the water, kicks my ass.  Feels a lot like what we're living....

A lot of this felt too fucking familiar.

When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists and How America Cracked up in the Early 1990's.  by John Ganz

One of my favorite things I read this year.  I ran across Ganz in a podcast with Jamelle Bouie (Unclear and Present Danger).  I recommend the podcast as a fun, informative look at movies & policy.  I also recommend Bouie as one of my favorite well-thought commentators of our time.

Good read.  Served as a fine companion piece to Chuck Klosterman's The Nineties, both of which are something of a response to Francis Fukuyama's End of History & The Last Man....

Looks specifically at the rise in lower and middle class discontent and the political/media rise of folks like David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Sister Souljah, Ross Perot and even Bill Clinton.  Examines the causes and lang-reaching political fallout of various events, but largely the L.A. Riots of the early 90's.  and Gives valuable perspective on how today's political movers and shakers found their roots in this era....

The Last Good Queen of these United States   by Adam Owenby.

Fun read.  Nice bit of alternate history/speculation.  American loses its bid for independence in the 1770s, and England maintains its place as the greatest power in the world into the 2050s.  It does bog down a bit in tactical discussion, but I had fun with it.

September

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand  edited by Christopher Golden & Brian Keene.

I was really looking forward to this one.  It paid off for me.  The Stand is my favorite King book, which puts its in the running for my favorite book, period.  It's a small thing, but I always enjoy finding somebody else expresses how much they like it, and it's even more exciting when a writer I enjoy expresses a love for it.  I daresay that there are a couple of writers or more in this collection who appreciate the book more than I do.  I tend to re-read the book every few years....editor Christopher Golden wanders through it annually....

Favorite stories:  "The Trips" by Wrath James White...a different take on The Dark Man, but I liked how bleak this felt.

"Lockdown" by Bev Vincent.  This one seemed to polarize on the King subreddit.  I found it uniquely sad, and liked it very much.

"In a Pig's Eye" by Joe R. Lansdale.  Damn, Joe.

"Lenora" by Jonathan Janz....such an oddly sweet tale

"The Hope Boat" by Gabino Iglesias....oof...this one killed me

"Wrong Fucking People. Wrong Fucking Time" by C. Robert Cargill....probably my favorite story in the book, and a reason to look up more Cargill

"The African Painted Dog"   by Catriona Wand.  Another possible favorite:  a couple zoo animals ride out the madness

"the Boat Man" by Tananarive Due & Steven Barnes.  Maybe the best meld of an author's style and King's vibe.  Unless I miss my mark, Due & Barnes really, really dig the novel....

"The Mosque at the End of the World" Usman T. Malik.  6 or 7 of the stories delve into what the superflu does outside the contiguous US, and this is probably the best of that bunch.

There are a couple clunkers in the lot, which I won't name, except to say I'm rarely a fan of writing dialects, and even less so if you're not writing a dialect of an area you're from....

There are also a couple in here that felt very much like they were written with other goals in mind, but hammered somewhat into shape to fit into this anthology.....

The Soul of Baseball:  A Road Trip Trhough Buck O'Neil's America   by Joe Posnanski

This was marvelous.   It was an injustice that O'Neil was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame after he died.  He was one of the great ambassadors for the game, and one of the few bridges we had to the Negro Leagues.  The two groups that sour baseball are the businessmen and the stat-bros, neither of whom enjoy the game for its intricate poetry, in small couplets or great epics.  O'Neil was one of the few who could be involved in the game at its highest levels, and still elucidate on the evolving work of art that the game is.

And he died before he could be adequately thanked.  

But one of the many beauties about the man is that he probably wouldn't have been greatly bothered by all that.

The book started as O'Neil wanting his friend Posnanski to write about the Negro Leagues, and while there are large swaths of history related by O'Neil and others in the book, it's more an exploration of O'Neil, who kept a hectic schedule well into old age.  It's an exploration into what made him one of the game's great representatives.

Posnanski has moved near the top of my list of baseball writers.

Woo....Mercy, Daddy! The Jimmy Valiant Story    by Jimmy & Angel Valiant

I bought this from the Boogie Woogie Man his own self at Angela's in Athens, TN.  

It's a mess of a book, but there are some funny stories in there.

11/22/63   by Stephen King

Part of the continuing project.  And maybe the one I was most looking forward to, when I started this project back in 2017.

This is a hell of a ride.  A tale of obsession, with that Tales from the Crypt morality thrown in for good measure.

This time around, it hit me (somewhat at somebody else's suggestion, though I couldn't shake it when they mentioned it) that its weakest aspect is exactly why Jake takes on Al's mission.  I realize that he doesn't have a whole lot holding him in 2011, but it's also not a bad life he's got.  I've taken the stance, also largely at somebody else's suggestion, that it's simply the adventure, and then he gets snagged by the obsession.

All of that's a minor quibble.  It's a roller coaster ride.

I started this one with the audiobook, but the narrator was wearing me out.  So I pulled my copy down from the shelf.  August and September were weird for me, though.  My attention span wasn't strong.  So it took a minute....

The Art of Prophecy   by Wesley Chu

Gifted a copy by my friend Dino.  I like the Kung Fu take on the hero's journey.  Chu turns a good phrase,  I think I'll continue the series down the road.....

October

Holy Cow!  by Harry Caray with Bob Verdi

I've run across some rough ghostwriting....makes me wonder just how much Verdi had to work with, because this had roughly zero of Harry's charm.....

The Case of the Velvet Claws  by Erle Stanley Gardner

Shyam is a big Perry Mason fan.  She reads the books.  She watches the TV shows.  I'd never read a Gardner.  This was fun.  I think Gardner might have been getting paid by the word, for as many times as he referred to characters by first and last name......

No Country for Old Men   by Cormac McCarthy

A re-read.  Blank Check went through the Coens' filmographies (combined, and solo) this year, and that was a fun listen and watch.  Re-read this after watching the flick....which is the reverse of how it went when the flick was released.

I wish I could write a third as well as McCarthy.  He does so much with so little language.  Meanwhile, I babble on aimlessly.....

The Haar   by David Sodergren

I really enjoyed this one, which had been floating around my recommendations probably since it was published.

Had to confer with my friend Fiona, a Scot herself, whether The Haar, a thick, coastal fog, was indeed a real phenomenon, or a writer's fabrication....

This book, dedicated to Sodergren's grandmother, who helped raise Sodergren, features one of my favorite heroines of the year.  She reminds me of my own mother.....

November

The Baseball 100    Joe Posnanski

Took a while to get through, but it's worth it.....

Kingdom Come   by Mark Waid & Alex Ross

I didn't do well keeping up with my comic reading, but I did re-read this.  It's still good.  The fascism in both Superman's and Batman's camp is interesting....

The Dark Tower: the Wind Through the Keyhole   by Stephen King

I don't care for this one.  The framed story within a framed story doesn't do much for me, nor does the minor bit of character advancement for Roland....though I wonder if this story is part of King's therapy, forgiving himself for forgetting the face of his father

December

The Color Purple   by Alice Walker

The best thing I read in 2025.  I'd never read it.  Excruciating.  Brutal.  Oddly funny, at times.  Just a beautiful book.

The Bible Says So:  What We Get Right (and Wrong) about Scripture's Most Controversial Issues  by Dan McClellan

I've followed McClellan on social media for quite a while.  He's got a meticulous nature and a dry wit that appeal to me.  His Data over Dogma approach also appeals to me, and his willingness to break things down as etymologically and with as much granularity as possible serves toward the valuable goal of greatest possible context.

I will say that in his longer form, I abandoned the audiobook in favor of text, as he does run deep into a few lines of thought that I wanted to be able to trace with a finger, if needed.

Joyland by Stephen King

I really, really like this one.  Maybe more than most.

I started with my King read through a month or two after Dad died in 2017.  I didn't think it would take this long, but there's always tons of other stuff to read....plus I found that I liked giving each book room to breathe, and stand on its own.

This was a romp.   I thought so when I read it back in 2013, and I think it now.  I think King had a lot of fun with this one.  I appreciated his telling a story simply, and not giving into his more loquacious tendencies.  That tendency, combined with his tendency towards nostalgia often tends toward creating a treacly consistency....but he avoids that here.

I dig this one....

A Christmas Carol   by Charles Dickens

Annual read.  Go find Tim Curry's rendition and give yourself a couple or three hours to listen to it.  It's one of the best things out there.

Project: Hail Mary   by Andy Weir

Thomas wanted to read this one, in advance of the movie coming out this spring.  I'd had it floating around my Audible library for a while, and listened when I had to make a couple longer trips this December.  

It still leans a bit heavily into Geek humor, but I guess I'm fine with it.

I like the improvisational science.

I dig even more that Weir calls out his first person narrator late in the book.  It was needed.

This was fun.

Destiny of the Republic:  a Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President  by Candice Miller

Shyam and I watched Death by Lightning on Netflix late in 2025, and it was one of the best things on teevee this year.  Great character work, nice period piece, great performances from McFadyen & Offerman especially....and it was based on Miller's book.

Great read.  Definitely in my top 5 this year.

Star Trek: the Lost Years   by J.M. Dillard

I probably read 50 or 60 Star Trek and Star Trek: the Next Generation books from 1988 to 1992 or 1993.  They were cheap, quick reads.  Sometimes you could find a couple of them for a dollar at Book Mart or the Sweetwater Flea Market.  This one, published in hardback in 1989, was a big one.   At least, I convinced myself it was.  I mean, it was supposed to finally tell the story of what happened between the end of the series and Star Trek: the Motion Picture.

I got it, then, from the library.  I blew through it in a day or so.  

I ran across a paperback copy in a Little Free Library along my route (that I found, 2 days ago, is no longer there--it's near a customer that I only hit once a month during the winter, and some time between the first Friday in December, and the first Friday in January, it was removed...).  I pulled this out back in November, and have been thumbing through it a few pages at a time.

It's fun.  Kirk has the time of his life, and McCoy has the worst adventure you could ask for.  Typical.

After reading it, I ended up grabbing a couple more novels at a used book store, just to stick in the armrest of the truck, for traffic troubles........