What I’m reading from in January
Justin Bryant’s Thunder From a Clear Blue Sky (2023)
This one from Malarkey Books begins with a riveting set piece. Then starts to drift into dreams and scenes that defy clear categorization. I’m about 30 pages into it.
Thomas Pynchon’s novel Inherent Vice (2009)
This one sits as a distraction next to my work computer.
Theresa Runstedtler’s Black Ball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Spencer Haywood, and the Generation that Saved the Soul of the NBA (2023)
I am in the early going. Still in the bit about Connie Hawkins. But I can already see the NBA Fan Fiction that will likely result. Have mercy. Some of us are compelled to transform habit into ritual.
Carl Safina’s Becoming Wild: How Animal Cultures Raise Families, Create Beauty, and Achieve Peace (2020)
First section of the book deals with whales. Second section with parrots, specifically, macaws. Haven’t gotten to the part on monkeys. I love this book so far because it triggers the synapses and makes a reader want to write, not necessarily about whales or chimps and birds, but life and relationships or anything really.
Sam Wasson’s The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood (2020)
Think I saw Micah Wimmer tweet about this one a year or two ago. I can’t really remember. But it looked cool. And so far it is. The book is mostly about Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate’s Hollywood of the ’60s so far. Eventually it will get to Jack Nicholson and Chinatown, but right now, the visuals in my head are mostly lifted from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Callan Wink’s novel August (2020)
I’ve been reading this one before falling asleep. That is not some sort of pun on the author’s name. Has anyone read this besides Mitch Nobis? When it came out, I remember seeing links to reviews everywhere, but I didn’t read any of them. Then nothing except a lone tweet from Mitch Nobis. I don’t even know if Mitch liked it or not. I’m on like page 60.
