Murderland and The Fort Bragg Cartel coming out in the same year is like the pop nonfiction equivalent of Barbenheimer; down to their prospective gender demographics lol

Both f***ing awesome btw, very easy to read while at the same time making you feel smart instead of pandered-to; I really do suggest reading them back to back as their timelines intertwine nicely. Recommended if you find veterans annoying and ever wondered where your debilitating foot fetish came from (maybe lead exposure? 😃)

The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste

2/5

This is supposedly about the women who assisted in resisting the Italian invasion into Ethiopia in 1935. It stops focusing on the women intensely about a third in and sprawls across the storytelling canvas.

I got this at 50% off and I'd still feel robbed if I got it for free. An egregious misuse of freewill. But look at the authors glazing this:

The Toni Morrison comparison is especially crazy because I might have actually gotten into the story were it not for the MFA-core style getting in the way. This was more on par with Rupi Kaur doing a bad Cormac McCarthy impression. Look at this:

I'm not suffering alone nigga, look:

One more

It's a 2/5 because I did learn some things about Ethiopian history. It's just bogged down by the prose, it's so bad. Holds you at a distance, florid even during action which became mind numbingly boring. I wanna give this one away but I love everyone in my life rn so I'm stuck with it for a bit.

Bro I'm so fed up with Booker Prize books. I'm reading Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo (another Booker Prize shortlist) and it's EXHAUSTING. It's so heavy on style and so devoid of substance that it feels endless to read, and the central conceit (Animal Farm but in the Zimbabwean coup of 2017) is just boring and underbaked. I'm shocked it even got published, there's no way anyone could have made it through all 400 pages

Infinite jest

Gonna reread it

If you like science fiction in the Blake Crouch / Jeff Vandermeer vein, this is for you. It was written as a series of shorts concerning the same event/idea. High concept but still very pulpy. Plays like a Patrick Somerville television show (showrunner for Station Eleven and Maniac) with the nonlinear timeline and altered perception. Can't recommend it enough.

It's nice to read something that speaks to the conspiratorial moment, the fascist resurgence, modern alienation, time dilation, and the cultural apocalypse without wanting to groan.

Hopefully someone like Ari Aster gets those Seth Harp film rights. Even if it should really be Todd Solondz.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (2005) 546 pages

novel set in the late 1950s about a US family of evangelists that move to a small village in the Congo to spread their gospel. told mostly from the perspective of the 4 young daughters, this was a well written look at religious dogma, family dynamics, and the white savior complex. the pillage of Africa and corrupt meddling to overthrow governments is more in the background seen through the ignorant perspective of white Americans. really liked the literary devices Kingsolver used, and tho I thought the last third lost a bit of steam, I still enjoyed this one a lot and will definitely read Demon Copperhead

8.2/10

Fat City by Leonard Gardner (1969) 183 pages

novel set in mid 20th century California about down and out boxers and trainers trying to make their way in this world. I wanted to like this one more than I did and although I enjoyed the prose, I just found the main characters to be too one dimensional and similar and tho this book spoke to the hopelessness and ennui of lower/middle class men, I just never really found myself all that invested in the story. can see why some people would love this, and a Denis Johnson intro is fitting, but didn't hit for me like a book that covered similar themes in Hard Rain Falling

6.8/10

Insensatez / Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya (2004) 160 pages

ngl the cover might have sold me on this one lol. shorter novel by an El Salvadorean author about a young man in an unnamed Central American country tasked by a church to proofread and edit a 1,400 page report about torture and atrocities carried out by the previous military regime. very stream of thought type prose that I don't usually love and the story was less about the atrocities and more about the man slowly starting to lose his sanity as he reads the report and tries to stay grounded in the town where he's staying. some subplots felt unnecessary but I loved the ending

7.3/10

my goodreads review:

4.5

an interesting story of revenge, friendship, and racial brotherhood. at first i was disappointed that the book was as short as it was. it felt like just as it for got really situated with itself it was about to end. but it’s really not about the convict killings. it’s about a black man and a native american man proving a point to a bunch of racist overconfident white men that tried to play them against each other. its about missionaries and their supposed good intentions backfiring. it’s about racial self esteem. i loved it.

Finished The Blade Itself by Joe Ambercrombie. Dnf’d this book 4 separate times. I can say I’m glad I read it to completion. It’s my first Ambercrombie book. Heard a lot of good things going in. I think it was kinda overhyped to be blunt. The story was just above average overall for me. Kinda your typical fantasy in some regards. I heard a lot about Joe’s prose coming in, and I can’t say I’m truly impressed by it. It to me is on the same standard as Sanderson’s earlier works like Mistborn Era 1.
Idk if I’ll continue the series immediately. The ending of this book was very… “oh that’s it?” Been eyeing the Malazan series for a while mow, might jump to that finally.

We need more negative reviews in here, they're always the best.

This tendency for people to compare any black female writer with Morrison, it has to stop

Decided to get back into reading, I was a very avid reader as a kid/teen, devouring Harry Potter, Tolkien, etc. as a kid, and then the classics that you read in high school, like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc. Then, social media took over, got a full time job, became a dad and it just dropped out of my life completely and I haven’t read a book in 10 years, honestly. Wanted to get back into it to “cheat” the algorithm of our modern living, to devote my intention to something that actually takes days to consume, not something you mindlessly scroll through in seconds.

So, I bought three books from this hip bookstore downtown that seemed interesting and had decent reviews - Ernest van der Kwast “Ilyas”, Francesca Melandri “Higher Than the Sea” and Ben Lerner “Leaving the Atocha Station”.

Just finished Ilyas last night, thought it was pretty solid, devoured it in like three days. It was a bit on the nose on some things, some of the statements that it tries to make are a bit too black-and-white & cliched, but the pyschological world of the characters, especially of Peter and Kee was nicely explored and some of their modern neurosis def felt very relatable.

Solid 3/5 if I were rating it.

On to Atocha Station next.

Post Office by Charles Bukowski

Never seen anything quite like it, was bored at times but always picked up. What else of his is good?

Blake Crouch's Dark Matter was aight. Just a quickie multiverse road not taken scifi thriller. Reminded me of that Ben Affleck movie Paycheck tbh. Also the movie Coherence.

Figuring out my next read. Read some of John Sayles' new book and am a little frustrated with this being his antisemitism novel and it coming out right now. Just feels a little iffy to run with that atm. Read some of Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun which is a beautiful and bittersweet Palestinian novel as a reaction. Read some of Peter Heller's The Dog Stars which is an environmentally focused post apocalyptic thing.

Do you guys ever just bounce around until something sticks?

🤔
I'm just happy Kanye section is back

The Buk gets alotta s*** these days but he's always been entertaining to me haha He's not trying to do too much. I'd take Ham on Rye and Women over Post Office imo

4.5/5

4/5

You know apple tv picked up dark matter and made a series

I eventually figure that and watch an episode or two. There's a second season coming apparently. Found it pretty straight forward. Didn't hold my interest tbh.

He was originally planning to make a movie with Sony and my editing of the book makes not of that in the acknowledgements

Man, I know this book is basically the personification of the "artsy privileged white guy on his year off in Europe" trope...
But, I enjoyed this book so, so much, man.
I always had a special connection with Madrid, on account of a week long vacation I took there with my friends when we were 18/19 years old. Some of the best days of my life.
But, just the way this is written in general, so beautifully chaotic and verbose. I just loved it.
The political situation of the moment Lerner writes about, still resonates today, as well. The relationships he had remind me so much of my own in my early 20s.
10 out of 10, for me.

In the worst reading slump this year I think I read half a book 😭

3 stars … this dude is insane

Mystic River by Dennis LeHane (2001) 416 pages

novel about three childhood friends in Boston who grow apart and later in adulthood are brought together by a murder. second time I've read Lehane and he's a talented crime fiction author who writes engaging narratives with emotional depth. didn't realize he was an acclaimed TV writer as well, who worked on a few seasons of The Wire. this story was not only a police procedural with twists, but also depicted grief and trauma well. a few choices I didn't like but I was entertained throughout and impressed with the ending. watched the movie afterwards for the first time, one of the most faithful adaptations I've ever seen, they basically lifted all of the dialogue

8.0/10

Aura by Carlos Fuentes (1962) 118 pages

novella by a Mexican author based in Mexico City that tells the story of a young man hired by an older lady to edit her late husband's writings. while living in the lady's house, the man meets her young and beautiful niece. written entirely in the second person which was interesting, this story looked at the battle of aging vs. the vitality of youth. I liked it and it had a great setting but like many novellas, I felt like I didn't get enough time to sit with the characters or story which made everything seem a bit rushed or underwhelming. still recommend tho

7.3/10

Contempt by Alberto Moravia (1954) 251 pages

Italian novel about an aspiring writer whose wife has fallen out of love with him. really liked this one and although the main character was annoying at times, Moravia's prose and psychological exploration of abandonment and despair were excellent. the change in settings worked wonderfully as well and the subplot was a nice literary device to serve as a metaphor for the main story. highly recommend, gonna watch the Godard adaptation soon

8.6/10