What I was reading from in June and July
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s Chain-Gang All-Stars (2023)
Could see myself recommending this novel to a wide variety of readers. Hey, you like that, you should read Chain-Gang All-Stars. Oh, you’re into that, you might want to read Chain-Gang All-Stars. You should read Chain-Gang All-Stars.
John Brandon’s Ivory Shoals (2021)
Bit of a slow burn so far. I read Brandon’s other novels a few years ago. They all grabbed me sooner. Doesn’t mean this one won’t eventually. I’m still in the first hundred pages or so.
Michael Lynn Crews’ Books are Made out of Books: A Guide to Cormac McCarthy’s Literary Influences (2017)
I’m in the part about The Orchard Keeper.
Hernan Diaz’s Trust (2022)
The structure of this thing. If Diaz wasn’t an author, he’d be a magician specializing in shell game parlor tricks. I just like how he went about doing the thing without saying, hey, this is the thing I’m doing.
Lee Durkee’s The Last Taxi Driver (2020)
Funny. Only read about fifteen pages, but they’re a funny start.
John Langan’s The Fisherman (2016)
Think my favorite portion of the book is the first third or so.
David Maraniss’ They Marched into Sunlight: War and Peace Vietnam and America, October 1967 (2003)
I’ve read through enough to see how Maraniss has juxtaposed two tracks running in parallel. We have young soldiers and officers leaving home for Vietnam. We have young graduates leaving home for the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
Charles Portis’ True Grit (1968) and Norwood (1966)
Good and good.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (1937)
The former kindergartner is preoccupied with more important matters.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring (1954)
The former second grader gets Boromir better than most. I’ve been told we need to read The Two Towers, so I guess we’re headed to the library.
Yaroslav Trofimov’s Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine’s War of Independence (2024)
Progressing steadily through this one. Kind of amazing how much news can be absorbed without really having consistent subscriptions to anything. Reading along. Reading along. I remember hearing about this. I remember this.
Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s Songs for the Flames (translated 2020)
Vásquez is a good writer.
Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (2021)
Did you hear they’re making this one into a movie? I’m kind of interested in that, but knowing the casting already, I can almost see the movie now. I have just over a hundred pages left to watch Amy Adams.
