A reporter is assigned to investigate a string of recent suicides in the city to determine "why they did it", while the impending anniversary of his own father's suicide looms. Interspersed with religious and philosophical treatises on the morality of self-death, provided to the narrator by a research assistant as background for the story, the question soon shifts to "why not?" There's something impressive happening here. Di Benedetto's...?

NYRB comes through again 😸👍 I was not familiar with Monterroso before this and was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. A hilarious compendium of works by and about the fictional writer Eduardo Torres, the bard of San Blas, Mexico. Poet, critic, essayist, and inveterate blowhard, Torres is a fully realized comic creation, a perfect send-up of provincial literary pomposity.

A deep dive (no pun intended, I swear) into swimming's history - both its modern incarnation as a recreational activity during the early 19th-century, and the Classical era from which those 19th-century Romantics drew their inspiration, when swimming was infused with heroic, and even divine, qualities. I love to swim, and I also love books where an obsessive examines the subject of their passion in detail, so this one was perfect for me.

Soft pick for me. Not buying into the blurbs describing this one as "suspenseful" or a "mystery". It is, however, one of the better renderings I've encountered of the inner-monologue of someone stuck in a repetitive, monotonous, unappreciated job (of which I have personal experience, albeit not for as many years as the narrator or without a reasonable expectation of escape). Not something I'm likely to return to, but well-written and nicely paced.

I'm a sucker for stories that delve into the internal politics of relatively insignificant groups (town councils, offices, or in this case, the residents of the Emma Lazarus retirement home and their upcoming production of Hamlet) and elevate them to epic proportions. A witty, comic novel that transforms into something heavier and darker by the end, a meditation on trauma and guilt that chimes beautifully with the play at the center of the story.

After plodding through Balzac's discourse on the terrain of the Loire Valley, I thought I would change things up and tackle a book in which...the landscape factors heavily. 🤣 Stylistically, the two couldn't be more different, though. This one is pure kinesthetics, spare and propulsive. Two prisoners of war make a break from their captors, and we spend time ping-ponging between their POVs as they strategize how to evade recapture.

One of my issues with 19th-century novels is how many of them began life as serialized publications. When you get paid by the word, you're going to use a lot of words, and while I don't begrudge anyone trying to make a living, even a writer of Balzac's level can't make me care about the topography of the Indre River valley for four whole pages. The first 50-75 pages of this were like literary Ambien, but there were enough compelling parts...

"To explain society through a theory of individual happiness expressly sought at the expense of others is a lethal doctrine, the harsh connotations of which drive man to believe everything he secretly gains, without the legal system, society, or individuals perceiving the damage done, is properly and duly acquired."

This book may be a slog, but there are some great (and painfully relevant) quotes scattered throughout.

This book must have caused a sensation when it was published in 1915. A slow pulling back of layers to show the rot at the heart of Victorian/Edwardian social mores, it follows the disintegration of two couples - one American, one English - who on the surface are the picture of upper-class propriety. "There is about it none of the elevation that accompanies tragedy...Here were two noble natures, drifting down life, like fireships afloat on a ?

A fun, fizzy comedy of manners about a young, married woman in late-60s London and the two other men who are pursuing her. There's not much of a plot here, to be honest, but that's just fine. Sometimes a story is just a delivery vehicle for witty observations and dialogue, and this book has got both in spades. I shall forever more refer to gout as "one of the great horizontal diseases". ?

For years, I was nervous to try this one, as Deadwood is maybe my favorite TV series of all time. But having read Paris Trout and realizing what a great writer Pete Dexter is, I figured I was in safe hands (and after all, the book came first). David Milch may claim his series has nothing to do with the novel; I'm not sure I buy it, but there are major differences in the story structure and characters' personalities. Like with the show, 👇

One sign of a great writer is that they can violate all the so-called rules of good writing with impunity. This is the second Anita Brookner novel I've read now, and I'm hard-pressed to think of another writer who does so much telling (about her characters' personalities and thought processes) in relation to showing, but it's so nuanced and well-observed that I immediately feel like I know and sympathize with these lonely introverts.

A guided tour through London's burgeoning teenage scene and the beginnings of mod culture set against the backdrop of the 1958 Notting Hill race riots. I can't speak to the accuracy of his depiction, but I can say that he perfectly captures what it's like to be a teenager, waking up to the world around oneself and coming into one's own. It's a fast-paced book, crackling with energy. I buzzed right through it in two days.

#TLT @dabbe

55 out of 73. I didn't realize "pie crust" was a standalone item at some people's Thanksgiving dinners. ?

My three favorites have to be the classics:

? Turkey
? Stuffing
? Mashed potatoes

Of course, it's all down to how they're made and who's making them. My single favorite thing is probably my wife's roasted Brussels sprouts with bacon and maple glaze. ?

Like seemingly everyone else, I found out about this book through the (excellent) podcast, Backlisted. It was every bit as strange and compelling as they described it, like a walking tour of Kent directed by David Lynch, covering two centuries' worth of murder, depravity, and madness. In my experience there are few places with such sinister vibes as a decaying seaside town, and this book captures that feeling in spades.

The best book I've read all year. A second Book of Genesis cobbled together from scraps of Bible verse, western mythology, parables, art history, and pop culture left over after a nuclear holocaust sent human civilization back to the Stone Age some 2,400 years in the past. Profound, moving, funny, and utterly unique. I imagine I'll be re-reading this for years to come.

On the plus side, Stewart writes about plants and animals and the ever-shifting yet timeless nature of the landscape with a simple grace that's almost poetic at times. Unfortunately, such passages are immediately followed by characters and dialogue as wooden as anything you'd find in Highlights magazine. Would love to read some straightforward, nonfiction nature writing from him, but this one just didn't hold my attention.

Distracting myself from my increasing sense of doom by mixing in some reading with my election viewing. This is my first Percival Everett, and I love it just as much as I thought I would. If nothing else, maybe tonight has given me a new favorite author (a pretty thin silver lining, admittedly 😕).

A 170-page unbroken paragraph composed of a would-be piano virtuoso's obsessive, paranoid reflections on his former friends and fellow students - Wertheimer, now dead by suicide, and the great Glenn Gould, whose genius sent the others' lives into a tailspin (all three of whom are really different aspects of Bernhard himself). Venomous, funny, and formalistically daring, this was not an easy read by any means but well worth the effort.

#TLT @dabbe

Only 9 out of 100. There were a few authors I'd read, just not the listed book, and a few movie adaptations I've seen that could have boosted my score. Still, it included three of my favorite books of all time:

📘 Crime and Punishment
📕 The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
📗 The Long Good-Bye

A deceptively sophisticated book about unrequited love, self-sacrifice, and the seemingly impossible task of trying to be true to oneself while doing right by others and becoming part of a community. The protagonist is a smut writer dealing with the impending death of a beloved aunt on the one hand and birth of an unwanted child on the other. Full of fantastic dialogue and insightful observations that feel wholly organic, never forced or tacked-on

#TLT @dabbe

62 out of 100, way more than all my previous ones. So many of my favorite movies are on this list, too many to choose just three. I also see they've stretched the definition of "thriller" to the breaking point. So in that spirit, here are my top 3 movies that are absolutely NOT thrillers:

? Titanic
? The Wizard of Oz
? E.T.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @Ruthiella @IndoorDame

This book melted my brain. I can't claim I fully grasped everything Campo laid out in these essays, even after multiple readings. Attention is good, imagination bad. The Gospels, (true) poetry, and fairy tales are good, realist fiction and contemporary are bad. Virtue can only be found in an ascetic, hermetic lifestyle. I'm not sure I can wholeheartedly endorse a worldview that dismisses the Renaissance as a "universal disaster", but I have...?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

To accuse the French fabulists of frivolity because they adorned their fairies with a handful of ostrich feathers is to "have sight and not perception."

@TLT Thanks for the tag @dabbe !

33 out of 100. Given how many there were that I'd heard of but haven't yet watched, I think this time I'll go with my "Top 3 I was surprised to realize I haven't actually seen":

? Silkwood
? The Stepford Wives
? Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I rarely read nonfiction these days, but this was the perfect book to get me back into it - a popular history of everything, from the beginnings of the universe through Earth's formation and the appearance of life right up until the present day, told through a series of mind-boggling facts and statistics that had me following my poor family around saying, "Did you know...?" incessantly for the past two weeks. ?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

No matter how hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is a proton.

#TLT @dabbe

28 out of 100. That includes a few movies I've only seen part of, but I need to pad my numbers somehow. 😀

Three faves:

🎬 I'm not sure how anyone could classify The Karate Kid as a thriller, but I watched it so many times as a kid that I have it memorized beginning to end.
🎬 The Hustler
🎬 The Postman Always Rings Twice

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @Ruthiella @IndoorDame @Yuki_Onna

##TLT @dabbe

31 out of 100. Guess I don't have the most thrilling viewing habits.

Three from the list I've been meaning to watch but haven't yet:

🎬 Cat People
🎬 The Asphalt Jungle
🎬 The Big Clock

Tag: @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @Ruthiella @IndoorDame

An ex-salesman comes up with a creative solution for dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. The juxtaposition of using such banal business/self-improvement jargon to describe such an outlandish idea really worked for me. DeWitt is a funny writer and great at conveying the gap between how people see themselves and how they actually think and behave.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

One way of looking at it is that it was just an unfortunate by-product of Hurricane Edna.

#TLT @dabbe

Only got 12% (26 out of 211). I'd say that I need to start working on this list, but I'll probably just wait for a schoolboard to ban something I'm already reading. ?

Weirdest bans:

? The Bible: "Jesus was a commie!"
? Diary of Anne Frank/1984/Brave New World: "Let's give fascism a fair shake!"
? Nickel and Dimed: "How dare you besmirch the good name of the 1996 welfare reform act!"
? Where's Waldo: "He's not! It's a scam!"

A collection of Vonnegut's previously published short stories that were not included in Welcome to the Monkey House. Like most short story collections, the quality varies - a few were truly excellent, most good, and a few "meh". As a document of a writer in the process of finding himself, I would highly recommend it. It was cool to see so many of the elements of his later novels popping up here in fits and starts.

#TLT @dabbe

42 out of 50. Hard to choose three (though not as hard as the villains list), but here goes:

1. Rick Blaine (Casablanca)
2. Philip Marlowe (The Big Sleep)
3. Marge Gunderson (Fargo)

Honorable mention to Han Solo, George Bailey, and probably half a dozen others who just missed the cut.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @Yuki_Onna

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Thanks for the tag @Yuki_Onna ✋️

1. Not much competition given my current reading rate, but really enjoyed this one.

2. Paper!

3. Literary Fiction

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. I've been to my share of world-famous museums, but for my money none are as enjoyable as the Corning Museum of Glass. I never get tired of visiting.

2. Nothing was coming to me, so had to cheat and google something.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @IuliaC @CBee @dabbe

#TLT @dabbe

42 out of 50. I think this was my favorite list yet as far as how good the choices were.

😈 Thrilled to see Rev. Harry Powell on here. Night of the Hunter is one of all-time favorite movies.
👹 Ditto for Harry Lime and The Third Man
👺 Ditto for Angela Lansbury and The Manchurian Candidate

All that said, let's face it - Darth Vader would annihilate everyone else on this list. 😂

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

#TLT @dabbe

Boy, did that gut my previous score! All the way down to 43/100.

Let's do 3 favorite movies from the list:

1. Casablanca
2. Wizard of Oz
3. Do the Right Thing

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @Ruthiella @Yuki_Onna @aa_guer2021

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Better late than never!

1. See colors. Taste is too important, plus it would be like living in a black-and-white movie.
2. It depends on how I'm going to die. If I find out it's some grisly, painful way but then don't know when, I'll spend every second of my life in abject terror waiting for it to happen. Let's say when.
3. Future, although would I also end up changing that, knowing what's going to happen?
👇

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

At noon, Wednesday, July 26th, windowpanes in the small mountain towns of Sevier County, Tennessee, were rattled by the shock and faint thunder of a distant explosion rolling down the northwest slopes of the Great Smokies.

#TLT @dabbe

72 out of 100

Is this list in reverse order? Old Time Rock and Roll #1 and SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW #100??? 😳

Three that I like (in no particular order, and maybe not even my top three):

🎵 Ding Dong the Witch is Dead
🎵 Aquarius
🎵 As Time Goes By

Song that should be on the list: Any of Curtis Mayfield's songs from Superfly (I'd choose Freddie's Dead)

Tag @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @IndoorDame

This is a difficult one to rate. The narrative weaves back and forth between the MC's rather tedious and impoverished existence and his daydreams, which are so vivid as to sublimate reality. As someone given to vivid daydreaming, I completely relate to this, even if it can make for a disorienting reading experience at times. Queneau's wordplay is dazzling at times and very funny, even in translation. It's not quite like anything I've ever read 👇

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. 🍻🍷🍸 + 📚 = 😴

If I drink anything while reading, it's going to have caffeine in it. ☕️😵‍💫

2. Look at Me, Anita Brookner

Thanks for the tag @Ruthiella !

Tag @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @IndoorDame

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Garbage tumbled out of the metal bin and fell in a torrent into the trash can, eggshells, cores, greasy paper, peels.

I can't imagine a more surreal upbringing than being born in LA during the Golden Age of Hollywood, coming of age through the death of the studio system, and being there in your 20s for the height of rock and roll and the hippies, let alone going to school at Hollywood High, having artist parents, and literal Igor Stravinsky as your godfather. This is a fun book beginning to end, and Babitz is a fantastic natural writer, the sort of person 👇

#TLT @dabbe

90/100 to close things out. I know lists are inherently dumb and just a way to get people talking about (and arguing over) a subject, but this one - taken in full, top to bottom - seems especially arbitrary.

3 I like...

-Smells Like Teen Spirit (not even a top-ten Nirvana song tbh, but given how central it was to life in junior high, I have to include it);
-Love Will Tear Us Apart (Joy Division)
-Once in a Lifetime (Talking Heads)

#TLT @dabbe

My best yet - 97 out of 100!

Three favorites (though there are at least a dozen others I could plausibly substitute in)...

1. I Only Have Eyes for You - The Flamingos
2. Just Like Heaven - The Cure
3. I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry - Hank Williams

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Going to try to answer through my COVID haze. 🤒🤢🤧 It was lame enough getting it in 2021, but this time around I'm beyond over it.

1. I try to read every day, at least a couple dozen pages but maybe up to 50 if I'm on a roll.
2. The Singularity wasn't exactly a disappointment - I still enjoyed it - but not the best-written book.
3. Plenty of them, but Slaughterhouse Five will always be my favorite.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

News reached the Church in Rome.

(Pictured w/ my most recent acquisition from Bulgaria, a desktop kuker 👹)

What an audacious book. A fictional account of the displacement of Neanderthals by Homo Sapiens, told from the Neanderthals' point of view. Creating a narrative voice that captures a simpler, less abstract mode of thought without sounding cartoonish and that also allows the reader to empathize with the characters is no small feat, let alone when you realize that Golding 👇