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August

The Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead (2026) 368 pages

the conclusion of Whitehead’s The Harlem Trilogy. this novel is split into three parts that tell the story of part time criminals dabbling in crime while fighting for what's theirs in 1980s New York City. I liked Part 2 the best and it was interesting seeing how both the main characters and city have grown over the decades. sharp writing that tackled themes like conflicts in identity, gentrification, corruption, and aging, but all three of these books were lacking something in my opinion. maybe it was the structure of dividing each novel into novellas that made the stories too predictable and not fully fleshed out. feel like Whitehead is a bit overrated but I still like his books enough to check em out, and will be interested to see what direction he goes in next. it was recently announced that Apple TV will do an adaptation of this trilogy which I'll definitely watch

7.4/10

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (1967) 189 pages

novel set in 1900 Australia about a boarding school for girls that takes a field trip to Hanging Rock and tragedy strikes. interesting plot with a memorable beginning and ending but the middle part was so inconsequential and frustrating that it kind of ruined the reading experience for me. wasn’t expecting a mystery novel but there were far too many unimportant characters and storylines for a short novel and the ending didn’t really hit as hard as it should’ve because of narrative choices. still want to check out the 1975 film but this book and Lindsay’s writing really didn’t work for me

6.0/10

The Big Nowhere by James Ellroy (1988) 472 pages

the second book in James Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet and though the stories and characters aren’t connected with The Black Dahlia, the depravity, corruption, and moral decay of post WWII L.A. continues to make for unique and hard hitting noir. this novel tells the story of an investigation of both a string of gruesome murders as well and communism's influence on Hollywood. it’s textbook Ellroy with sharp writing, three perspectives, and a complex and dark police procedural that pulls you in. towards the middle it felt a bit convoluted but the last third was very strong and Ellroy is really in a league of his own when it comes to noir and character development. enjoyed this more than The Black Dahlia, and though I need a break from the series, I look forward to reading L.A. Confidential and White Jazz sometime next year

8.4/10

Nocturno de Chile / By Night in Chile by Roberto Bolaño (2000) 152 pages

short novel about a Chilean priest and poet on his deathbed looking back on his life and the people he met during the political turmoil of 20th century Chile. Bolaño is one of my favorite authors and I love The Savage Detectives, 2666, and his short story collections, but this book was everything I personally dislike in literature; stream-of-consciousness writing with no chapters or even paragraphs. it had some memorable storylines and dealt with the typical Bolaño topics like literature, wanderlust, Latin American politics, etc. in a sometimes poetic way. but I found especially the first half a chore to get through and though I liked the second half more and respect the book for what it is, this kind of novel is just not for me. still gonna work through the rest of his bibliography the next two years and hope his other work is more up my alley

6.3/10

page 100 lets goooo fellas the literary man does not die on ktt2

You want paragraphs of prose and sentences so long you lose the plot but it's so good you just want more? You want mescal? You want the absolutely soul crushing pain of love lost due to no fault but your own you degenerate alcoholic? You want it all in one day under the volcano? Read this s***

4/5

and how alike are the groans of love, to those of dying

The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K Le Guin

After loving Wizard of Earthsea I thought I would try another Le Guin. This one is pretty gruesome, it's obvious she was drawing a pretty direct parallel to apartheid South Africa (and various indigenous genocides) and when the cauldron finally bubbles over into civil war, none of the brutality is spared. There's a messianic thread running through it all a lá Dune which lends some pathos and character to the book. But as it wraps up it becomes so didactic that it's kind of boring to read. 3/5

Who Killed Palomino Molero? by Mario Vargas Lisa

This would be my dream season of True Detective. Two local cops (underfunded, under-armed, even underfed) attempt to investigate the murder and disembowelment of an Air Force Colonel on a remote Peruvian Air Force Base. They continually find themselves against forces bigger than them that intentionally obscure the mystery. Great dialogue, interesting questions about the role of police in society, and a fascinating portrait of how power is meted out in countries caught between the poles of the American-Soviet cold war. 5/5

The Unifying Force by James Luceno

I finally finished all 19 books in the Star Wars New Jedi Order series! It wasn't worth it. It's all extremely predictable, and so the attempts to artificially lengthen the series become so rote and frustrating that it's almost funny. The series as a whole tries to present a new threat on the level of the Empire in the original movies so that Luke can finally determine how best to raise Jedi going forward, but by the end it's slowly hammered and forced into an Islamaphobic retelling of the American invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. And the two major character deaths are ineffective. Skip! 2/5

Black Wings is incredible. Love that book

Baldwin pulled that out of his head fully formed. Read a lot of it out loud and really got a feel for his sentence structure. Kind of a bridge between Albert Camus and Patricia Highsmith. The alienation the protagonist feels for his own suffering is devastating. As if experiencing any would be an admission. I need to read Ellison's Invisible Man again.

Moorecock is clearly ahead of George RR Martin when it comes to engaging with the genre's expectations for itself. The foundational work of Robert E Howard and Tolkien is decades decades old by this point. You can see a lot of the Targaryen Doom of Valyria here. Love that he tells this story with novellas. Can tell he's a contemporary of Jack Vance as well. I probably will read one or two more. Fun stuff.

Sylvia Warner-Townsend is aspirational to me. Only gets flowery when the moment calls for it. Never feels indebted to an audience. The epitomy of taste and ability. She's an early feminist writer, but it's all built into the framework and experienced viscerally. This one connects to her earlier novel Lolly Willowes in a super interesting way with that being a fantasist liberation and this being a captive reckoning with mortality. The difference between being in your 30s and 50s. God and the Devil.

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Always enjoy seeing you guys knock out books. Add so many to my list which I'll never get through. It's the journey not the destination. Reading is a mindful exercise. It's like getting out for a jog in someone else's shoes. Maintenance and fresh air. 100 more otw

Kinda blown away at how anxious this made me. Dialogue so natural it had me looking around in public. 4/5