I've been reading strictly non-fiction for the past few months. I want to throw in some fiction for my next book. What would others recommend between American Gods (Gaiman), Station Eleven (Mandel), and Devil in the White City (Larson)?

i got a sample of Deep Thinking by Kasparov, insta-hooked, bought after reading like 2 pages. I don't know why I thought it wouldn't be anything less than excellent.

I loved Devil in the White City and couldn't put it down. It's historical fiction though so might not be what you're looking for.

I think it's being talked about being potentially made into a movie too.

I just finished an odd but entertaining novel, Dawn Powell's Turn, Magic Wheel. Her work was popular in the 1930s and is now being reissued. I became intrigued by this novel after it was recommended by John Williams in a recent New York Times as including "the funniest chapter I read in 2016, a sendup of the publishing industry”. The original New York Times review from 1936 is also online, and describes the book as “a barbed and immensely entertaining satire on a certain phase of New York's literary life.” I quite enjoyed it, not least because it’s a portrait of Hemingway’s first wife, in the mid-1930s, as seen by Dennis Orphen, a contemporary novelist who exploits his friendship with her (yet somehow loves her too) to write The Hunter’s Wife, a portrait exploring the myth she (and others) have created. The Hemingway-like character, called Andrew Callagham, remains off-stage until a few pages from the end, where his return to visit his ailing second wife, at the prompting of Effie, his first, allows Effie to see the reality of what he has become.

Powell writes in a satiric mode that has evoked comparisons with Waugh (for example, “He read Barclay Beekman’s sprightly reports of the six hundred dollars raised for the Free Milk Fund by Mrs. Ten Bruck’s brilliant Firebird Pageant and Ball at the Waldorf. It seems the costumes alone cost over fifty thousand dollars”).

I'm not sure which chapter Williams is referring to, but the book certainly has some amusing moments, as when someone in the publishing world says, “I look forward to the day when all our books will be written by blurb writers.” There's also some good satire about the new vogue for tough-guy writing: “It was an age of the present tense, the stevedore style. To achieve this virile, crude effect authors were tearing up second, third, and tenth revised drafts to publish their simple unaffected notes, plain, untouched, with all the warts and freckles of infancy. … learning, alas, too late, that Pater, Proust, and Flaubert had betrayed them, they would have learned better modern prose by economizing on Western Union messages.”

I loved Station Eleven.

I was amused by American Gods, but not hooked enough to finish it. I got to around the halfway point.

I haven't read Devin in the White City.

The book is great, specially the Deep Blue chapters.

Finished Barbara Tuchman's chronicle of the first month of the Great War, The Guns of August. I did get a little lost at times, mostly because I'm not very familiar with the subject matter and because I didn't have a map in front of me. The material is fairly dense, especially considering she's only covering basically one month of the war. Very informative book, even if I felt like I was reading at a level one or two grades above my current level of understanding.

Taking a break 2/3rds through Churchill's 4th volume memoir of WW2 [this one is damn long but getting close to Overlord] to read Deep Thinking. Thanks to whomever rec'd it earlier.

Also downloaded The Magpie Murders, highly recommended. Notable for being more of an 'old-school' classic murder mystery with all the clues given to you.

In 1206 the citizens of Amiens, Picardy's proud and prosperous capital, already a commune for a hundred years, acquired a piece of John the Baptist's head.

When you find a statement like the above upfront in a book you just know you are in for a damn scintillating read. Even Raymond Chandler can't equal that.

Just finished American Kingpin, the comprehensive story of the Silk Road and Ross Ulbricht. I was already familiar with the story, having seen the documentary and read the fantastic Wired article, which took away the novelty of the book, but it was still an entertaining, enjoying, and quick read.

BITE YOUR BLACKHEARTED TONGUE!

I read Benjamin K. Bergen's What the F. The book goes in depth on swear words and slurs: why we use them, how they come into and fall out of use, what happens neurologically when we use them (particularly interesting), even how they develop their own linguistic rules and grammar. The author makes only the requisite number of puns about stuff like the nickname Dick petering out after 1968, and unfortunately I was able to pluck only a few new curses out of the deal, but overall I'd say this book ended up being more than I bargained for especially as pertains to its scientific approach.

I tried reading that new biography of Letterman but it was horrible and humorless. As a huge Letterman fan from early on, I'd much rather go on youtube and watch old Late Night clips from the 80s.

Just started this Norwegian Wood book by Miramaki, it's pretty emo so far.

Murakami.

That's weird, I also misspelled Viggo Mortensen's name in the movie thread this morning.

Misspelling an author's name or a film star's name (or any famous person's name*), mistakenly, is one of the great joys in life. That the enjoyment comes after the fact does not detract from its inherent value, and true goodwill towards all men. That the nits of the world wish to call down lighting from heaven on your head, simply adds extra wonderment to the experimental spelling engaged in. Also, it is useful to misuse, and overuse, commas in writing. Slipshod and slightly askew punctuation adds verve.


*Many famous people, so called, deserve to have their names misspelled.

I agree with, Xeneau.

Started a reread of The Dark Tower series a few days ago. I think I'm enjoying it just as much on the 2nd reading as I did with the 1st.

I'm there with you. 75% through The Waste Lands. Really looking forward to Wizards again.

I just finished Wizard last night and started Wolves tonight.

Me and IAE are like women with the same cycle.... I'm starting Wolves right now, too. I did pitstop at the Keyhole, though.

Also, I finished Matt Bird's Secrets of Story. Like any advice book, time will tell how much I got out of it. It seemed to have more useful stuff than many books on writing, even if I didn't agree with all of it. A lot of the stuff is retread from his blog, but he does seem to focus on the value of irony and a few other concepts more in the book.

I almost read Keyhole after Wizard(where it belongs) but since it is my fav in the series I decided to wait so I'd have something good after the huge let down of Susannah.

Just finished this, I liked it quite a bit. Sneaks up on you, this story and the characters. They spend a lot of time telling each other how weird they are, and they're quite right! I'm gonna read his A Wild Sheep Chase next. It seems that Norwegian Wood is not at all typical of his novels, at least that's the word on the street.

Finished a re-read of Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth. Fifty years on, what was once so very new (and impressed me), has faded, and the sarcasm, irony, and satire have lost their edge. It has become an MFA student's exercise in showing off and mental self-stimulation. The lack of genuine concern for the characters remains.

I give Barth high marks for trying to do something different. It is much more difficult than trying to write a better New Yorker story.