OK. I've broken down and put myself on the waiting list at my public library. Apparently this is being taught in the schools because there's also a student edition.

Check out Project Hail Mary by Weir too!

I’m a sucker for unexpected friendship stories - also loved Gentleman in Moscow for that reason.

Plainsong by Kent Haruf has a very different setting but an exceptional unexpected friendship story.

Thanks, BGP. On the list.

One other I'd heard of from him is Artemis.

I just reread The Sun Also Rises - so good. Next on the list: Killers of the Flower Moon. Might finish the year then with For Whom the Bell Tolls — Hemingway needs a good reread every 5-7 years.

very nice. The Ken Burns Hemingway doc was good if you haven't already checked it out.

Both of these are fantastic. If you haven't read it, Eventide, the sequel to Plainsong, is too. I didn't realize it until just now, but there is a 3rd book in that series, Benediction, which I now need to go read.

The Lincoln Highway, Towles' follow-up to Gentleman, reminded me of Plainsong in some ways. Both having small-town Midwest settings is probably part of it, but I think it had more to do with the characters and dialogue.

RE Weir: while all enjoyable, The Martian and Project Hail Mary are a tier above Artemis.

Assassin's Quest My 6th Hobb novel in a row. I knew exactly what I was getting into when I began, yet the third novel still fell short with me. She's great at what she does, but I just can't do her conclusions to thing. The world building and character development is still incredible and I enjoyed the third enough to continue reading her novels, but twice in a row the third act has not been as good as the first 2 in her trilogy.

Mistress of Magic and The High Queen have both been incredible so far. A very different take on Arthur.

Norwegian Wood - I’ve read Marukami’s most recent 4-5 books, but thus is the first time I read this one. It’s much more of a straight story than his more fantastic works, and just as good. Loved it. Miss the characters already.

Yeah -- that's the one that really made his reputation iirc.

His early Wild Sheep Chase might still be my fave though. Hilarious.

I think Murakami said that he wrote NW as a straightforward story to serve as a gateway drug to the rest of his work.

He has a lot of great books. My favorite is Kafka on the Shore.


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Read Pale Fire after all the recs in this thread. Intriguing, mysterious; I know I didn't fully understand it. Seriously considering purchasing a study guide to help make sense of it, because the only free one on the internet lacks detail.

Btw, read this on Kindle. All the footnotes are hyperlinked, which did make skipping back and forth easy. However the Index is missing, which is appalling.

All three of these are excellent. It might be 20+ years since I’ve read FWTBT and man it’s so much better than I remember it. I can’t believe how quickly I got through it. It isn’t short!

Killers of the Flower Moon is great, Scorsese is making a movie of it. Bloomberg just did a podcast about the Reign of Terror in Osage County as well called In Trust, which I enjoyed.

Indeed! The Index is part of the fun.

The Index is a huge part of the fun.

Just re-read it. It's not like you'd be reading anything better instead, and it will start to make a lot more sense.

Also:
1) Written by Shade, analysis by Botkin? / analysis by Kinbote?
2) Both written by Shade?
3) Both written by Botkin?

4) Botkin is Kinbote?
5) Kinbote has invented Shade? or vice-versa?

6) It doesn't matter, everyone is crazy anyway.

That's [2-3], thanks.

I read a lot but mostly older stuff. I love Dostoevsky and have read all his fiction. Most of it more than once. I must have read Crime and Punishment a dozen times in 3 different translations. In the past couple years besides rereading all his stuff including his newspaper articles I reread his bio by Mochulsky, some Turgenev, Pushkin, Schiller, all of Joseph Conrad's fiction except the stuff he cowrote, the Bible, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale (I have never liked anything of hers I read and this was no exception - it's like really bad John Wyndham) The Magic Mountain by Mann (I could not come to like any of the characters but the writing was fine) Middle March by George Eliot (ditto) some noir fiction by Raymond Chandler (light but fun), Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man is hilarious) and a few minor, mostly unknowns from the 40s and 50s, James Michener's Journey (great story teller), William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury (a difficult read. probably need to read it twice more to better understand but I won't) Agatha Christie's Cat Among the Pigeons, a bunch of Ernest Hemingway and his bio by Mary Dearborn (the man was a total a hole and inveterate liar but for the most part a great writer. I am about to read more of his stuff) The only thing from this century I read was The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon that I saw recommended somewhere in this thread. I found it entertaining up to a point. The constant back and forth wit from every character in every conversation was a bit much for me though.

I have been reading for about 60 years and have in the past read a lot of classic science fiction (Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Arthur C Clarke, Frank Herbert , Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Kurt Vonnegut, etc.) a lot of Vladimir Nabakov who I loved, Henry Miller who I loved, Woody Allen who I love, all kinds of non fiction science sort of stuff (Steven Pinker, E.O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, Matt Ridley, Brian Greene, Richard Feynman, Steven Weinberg, Steven Jay Gould, James Watson, Murray Gell-Man, William Poundstone etc.) For my 11th birthday every gift I received was a book. So everyone has known for a long time I love to read. God knows how much more I've read including chess books, poker books and comic books.

I figured it might be a good idea to read some more current fiction and when I received an email from Goodreads recommending some award winning books from 2022 I tried Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak and The Maid by Nita Prose. I found them both to be terrible. I did like the part where the maid in The Maid But in both these books the characters are caricatures. The writing is uneven at best and the dialogue is often annoyingly unbelievable. I have Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin on hold at the library. I'm going to read it no matter what but I'm not holding out much hope.

My question. Obviously I am living in the past. Should I stay there?

Read Anthony Powell. That will bring you to the 70s. Dance to the Music of Time.

Read the Joseph Frank bio

Also, if you can find any of his 6 novels,


https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ardianreview14

I love The Brothers K as well. Have read it 3 times. It's just the manic state of mind he conveys in C&P hooks me every time. Hemingway said he could only read it once. I might be easier to please.

Have read Wolf Solent but it's been awhile. Yeah I need to find a copy of Glastonbury. Thanks for the reminder

Will check him out. Literally! From the library.

I guess Cormac McCarthy is modern in that he's still alive and his writing is excellent though I don't think any of his books are set in the age of the internet. Blood meridian is one of my favourite books.