Thanks for the recommendations, I'll add them to my list.

Underboss by Peter Maas. The story of Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravano, former mobster in New York.

Pretty interesting reading, well written. If you enjoy this sort of thing, should be on your list.

Looking into getting into Bret Easton Ellis.

He doesn't seem to have a huge bibliography, are they all worth reading? Any personal favourites? One's to avoid?

I haven't really been a reader in quite some time but a book I did read this year was mans search for meaning by victor frankl.
It's a great story to read if you're trying to survive something very difficult or have legal troubles. It highlights psychological resilience in a way very few books do. There was a piece of advice in the book that may have saved me.

Basically I recommend it if you're in a catch 22 or have a certain kind of trouble. If you're doing really well , save it for later.

Finished The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (Brad Stone). Basically a decent history of Amazon from 1995-2015; would recommend this instead of reading every year’s shareholder letters.

Currently 2 chapters into a Teddy Roosevelt biography, The Bully Pulpit (Doris Goodwin). I like it so far.

you'll most likely either love him or hate him so not a big difference where you start although I think less than zero is probably his most approachable

The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, several authors. Modern authors' tales of the great detective.

Only writer I recognized was Stephen King.

One I thought wasn't good was a scene between Watson and his wife. Other than that, I think this would be enjoyable for fans of the original stories.

Vacationland by John Hodgman. If you like his storytelling, you'll probably enjoy this.

He has two properties. One in W MA that had been in his family for years which he took over when his parents died.

The second is in Maine, which his wife is connected to. Stories about their experiences at these places.

Nothing LOL-funny, as you'd expect. Fun stories told in a quiet (droll?) style.

just finished unbroken and really enjoyed it.

what a life.

Every Day is an Atheist Holiday! by Penn Jillette. Not what I expected from the title; thought it might be his reasoning why being an atheist is great. Not that, a bunch of stories.

Sometimes very touching, especially when talking about his family. Always profane, pretty funny if you like that sort of humor. Overall, I found it fun.

Now reading

Finding Abbey by Sean Prentiss. Author's search for Abbey's gravesite. Not too far into it. So far, noticed some errors in how he describes his travels. Nothing major, just annoying inaccuracies. Can't quite put my finger on it; the story is pretty entertaining, but seems like he's writing in a style that's a bit navel-gazing (I think). Not bad so far, we'll see.

Lonely Planets by David Grinspoon. The story of the search for extraterrestrial life, even going back to the ancients. Interesting how the idea of life 'out there' has changed over time, and what's driven those changes. Quite good. Interesting material, keeps it light and is able to bring it down to the layman's level.

Couldn't figure out why this guy sounds familiar. Yesterday when it was hot, came in to take break. Turned on the TV, NOVA was on with a show about exploring the outer planets. He was one of the e, that's him experts that had sound bites during the show. Ah, yes!

Started reading PD James. Really enjoying Dagliesh as the Inspector. Finishing up book 4 which has been an interesting whirlwind so far, set in a Nurses' school.

Def enjoyed re-read of Lions of Al-Rassan, a one-off novel by GG Kay. 2-3 really great main characters in it. If you like battles, w/ court politics, w/ superior world-building it's for you.

Persiana: Recipes from the Middle East and Beyond, by Sabrina Ghayour.

My mother made some recipes from this book, which I enjoyed, so she bought me it. I recommend the Turkish White Bean Salad.

Freezing Order - A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath by Bill Browder.
True story of Browder, who is a very wealthy investment fund manager and activist, who takes on the corruption in the Russian government and the oligarchs to get revenge for the death of his lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, who was tortured to death in a Russian jail. Dragged a little at times but overall a crazy story.

Tiers:

Less than Zero
Lunar Park

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American Psycho
Imperial Bedrooms

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Rules of Attraction
Glamorama
The Informers

LTZ is exactly like everything you've likely heard about it. Probably start here. As RBK said you'll either love it or really, really hate it.

Lunar Park IMO is a slow burn masterpiece that showcases BEE's ability to lead you down the cellar stairs without you realizing the lights are very quickly dimming.

I wouldn't touch the 3rd tier stuff listed above unless you love the "good" stuff and are looking to round out his material.

I've been working on my "stick with it" plan and trying to knock off some essentials. I primarily support my local used book store for purchases but at the end of the day it's hard to work through some books with small print and crappy pages.

So I bought new, hardcover editions of the following and knocked them out in a couple months:


Lonesome Dove
Shogun
The Count of Monte Cristo


A crisp, new copy of a hardcover with sensibly sized print is a thing of beauty.

Shogun was a reread and still fantastic.

Lonesome Dove was a first timer for me and a new entry to my top ten list. Easiest 1,000 pages I've ever read, and I read every single word of it.

Monte Cristo: Had previously read the first 300 pages 3 or 4 times on an aforementioned used paperback copy. Glad I finished it but will admit was struggle bussing for the last couple of hundred pages.

Currently working on 100 Years of Solitude and really not into it altho the writing is super unique and ever propelling forward. Might put it down for a bit cuz I've got a hardcover We, The Drowned sitting next to me.

count of monte cristo is one of my all time favs man what an absolute epic revenge adventure.

+1 to CoMC being A+. Full version, none of the abridged BS.

I’ve been wondering/noticing lately that there seems to be a phenomenon where dudes (such as me) who consumed anything+everything by David Foster Wallace in their 20s ended up having a similar voracious appetite for anything (podcast, blog, books) by Tyler Cowen in their 30s.

At least among folks I follow here & Twitter (of which there’s overlap — e.g. a previous host of the Thinking Poker podcast).

Curious what the equivalent would have been 20-30 years ago. (And what about the next 10 years...)

I raced thru Blake Crouch's latest book, Upgrade. It's not terrible but it's not that good, even by bestseller standards. Not close to his previous 2 books which I liked quite a bit, mainly Dark Matter but also Recursion. He's science fictiony but not too sciency and very readable. Anyway, Upgrade wasn't much of an upgrade for me but I'll still gladly read his next, which I suspect will be coming along pretty soon now, he's doing well career-wise for sure.

Traveling Light by Bill Barich. While billed as a travel book, it's not really that. A series of essays that appeared in The New Yorker which were written as he happened to be away from home. Published early 80s, may be slightly dated.

It's nice. A piece when living in London about his search for a pub, and then the pub itself was charming. The other stories are nice too.

Mississippi Solo by Eddy L. Harris. At the time of the writing, Harris was a young (30 I think) black man from St. Louis who decided to canoe the Mississippi from its origins in Minnesota to New Orleans.

He didn't have much canoeing or outdoor experience, so there's some early minor mishaps. More a story of the people he met and his experiences along the way. A lot of the story was about himself too, sort of a self-discovery.

It was his first book. Not bad writing. Noticed some of what I thought were typos or grammatical errors, but nothing major. Not something I'd say "Wow, travel readers really need to read this," but it was pleasant.

I love travel books. Thanks for the reviews.

I enjoyed The Latecomer. Decent story, good pacing, interesting themes.

You're welcome, Mack. I also enjoy those. Maybe a bit of living vicariously.

Douglas Adams wrote a travel book. Worth checking out.

Are we being trolled here?