I'm extremely easy to please and spend a lot of time at work reading, hoping to hit 120 books by the end of the year now that I've surpassed 52

Currently reading The Vegetarian, The City & The City, and Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You

Winslow knows New York. Winslow knows cops. Somehow. He has connections. He has some New York history. And here he stirs in informers, guns, prostitutes, heroin, gangs, the mafia, the night, the long night. There are more cops in New York than live in my whole town. And Winslow is playing among the elite cops who tangle with the politicians and the bosses in Manhattan. I think it likely the view from a taxi riding the length of Manhattan and the view from an unmarked drug squad’s car on the same route are drastically different. And the pull of money, the high dollar cars, the best seats in the best restaurants-- one can be dragged down into, well, the swirl of everything that is not quite considered the straight and narrow. One needs a taste.

This is a hard ride. And I have never seen New York so Winslow’s fantasy land I can only compare to Chicago, Houston, Seattle, San Francisco. But New York is like Tokyo and Paris: they all insist they are unlike anywhere else in the world. Maybe I believe it. But you get down into the nitty gritty of anywhere and I think they start to look alike. The scrabble of humanity up close and tight, right in the eyes and nose, starts to lean towards the median of harsh streetlife. And Winslow’s job here for me was to pull me away from all my quieter more refined books and shake me up. Job accomplished.

How does one love the overpopulated, hyperkinetic badland miasma that is New York?

Like this, Winslow says, like this. 

I just wanted to throw it out there that this is the ultimate spooky season read. I’ve read a lot of Stephen King and Paul Tremblay. Love those guys. This beats the hell out of them. The slow crawling feeling of dread I get from this book is insane. I’m only like a third of the way done with it. But I feel like it’s going to be one of my new favorites. S tier for sure.

I think calling this book horrible is a stretch, but the truth is I would never recommend it so that’s the bucket it’s going in.

This is just not enjoyable.
It’s not particularly well written.
I can’t tell if it’s the characters making bad decisions and poorly communicating, or just the way it’s written in general, but way too often I’m thinking “that’s just stupid”.
Then followed by too often by “oh, come on!” (eye roll)

Way too much time spent in intentional confusion, building the dual story that would be the big reveal. The result is once we finally start getting “the truth”, it’s a non stop barrage of twists and turns and truths and action and it’s just way too much at once.
Twists and turns and action in general are a good thing, entertaining, but when you cram it all in a small section, it’s just feels like a funhouse. Like there are more twists just so it feels endless.

Spoiler for my biggest complaint.
There is no ending. It literally ends in the middle of a “chase” with no clear indication if they escaped, completed their “mission”, save the day, etc. No conclusion to most of the character to character relationships. A big twist happens like 3 pages before the end that isn’t fully explained. It’s obviously left that way for a sequel.
That’s just not my jam.

This book wasn't what I expected (in a good way.) Various timelines and stories are brought together in the most intriguing way. There are a ton of "aha" moments when timelines connect. The writing is well done, no complaints from me!

Completed (70):

• Bolesław Prus - The Doll

• David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding 

•       Early Christian Writings (Ignatius, Polycarp, Barnabas, The Didache, Clement, Epistle to Diognetus; Penguin Classics)

•       Confucius - The Analects (Penguin Classics)

•       Homer - the Odyssey

•       Thucydides - The Peloponnesian War

•       Montaigne - Selected Essays (Penguin Classics)

•       Plutarch - Essays (Penguin Classics)

•       Ludwig Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logic-Philosophicus 

•       Tacitus - Annals 

•       Thomas Aquinas - Selected Writings (Penguin Classics, read 17 of his philosophical writings and skipped devotional writings) 

•       Niccolo Machiavelli - Discourses on Livy

•       Spinoza - Ethics 

•       Locke - Second Treatise on Government

•       John Stuart Mill – On Liberty     

•       Immanuel Kant – Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals

•       Cicero - On Living and Dying Well

•       Michael Pollan – A World Appears: A Journey Into Consciousness 

•       Siddhartha Gautama – The Dhammapada 

•       Xenophon – The Expedition of Cyrus (Oxford World Classics)

•       Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America   

•       Friedrich Nietzsche - The Genealogy of Morals

•       Frederick Douglass - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 

•       Zhuang Zhou - The Book of Chuang Tzu 

•       Plato - The Republic

•       Polybius - The Rise of the Roman Empire (Penguin Classics)

•       Durkheim - On Suicide

•       Jean-Paul Sartre - Colonialism and Neocolonialism 

•       Meister Eckhart: Selections from His Essential Writings (HarperCollins Spiritual Classics) 

•       Plato - Theaetetus (Oxford World’s Classics)

•       Abraham Lincoln - Lincoln Speeches (Penguin Civic Classics)

•       Ernesto Che Guevara - The Motorcycle Diaries   

•       Thomas Paine - Common Sense

•       David Hume - Dialogues and Natural History of Religion (Oxford World’s Classics)

•       Alvin Roth - Moral Economics: From Prostitution to Organ Sales, What Controversial Transactions Reveal About How Markets Work

•       V.L. Lenin - The State and Revolution

•       Max Weber The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism: and Other Writings (Penguin Classics) 

•       Supreme Court Decisions (Penguin Civic Classics)

•       Aeschylus - The Oresteia (Agamemnon The Libation Bearers, & The Eumenides)

•        Voltaire - Treatise on Toleration 

•       Thomas Paine - Rights of Man 

•       W.E.B. Du Bois - The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics, with “The Talented Tenth” and “The Souls of White Folk”)

•      Plato - Early Socratic Dialogues (Penguin Classics)  

•      Erasmus - In Praise of Folly

•       Diderot - Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream (Penguin Classics)

•       Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse On Inequality 

•       Baltasar Gracian - The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence

•       Cicero - On the Republic and Laws (Oxford World’s Classics) 

•       James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young man

•       Shunryu Suzuki - Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

•       Swan, Haberman - Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump

•       Herodotus - The Histories 

•      The Penguin Book of Existentialist Philosophy (Includes writings by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, & Fanon) 

•      Suetonius - The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics, Tom Holland)

•       Tim Whitmarsh - Rome’s Age of Revolution: Augustus, Empire, and the Making of Christianity

•       Hesiod - Theogony and Works and Days (Oxford World's Classics)

•       Sallust - Catiline's Conspiracy, The Jugurthine War, Histories (Oxford World's Classics)

•       Augustine - On Christian Teaching

•       Michel Foucault - Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison

•       Livy - Rome's Italian Wars: Books 6-10 (Oxford World's Classics)

•       G.W. Leibniz – Discourse on Metaphysics and Other Essays (On the Ultimate Origination of Things, Preface to the New Essays, The Monadology) 

•       Blaise Pascal - Pensees 

•       Robert M. Sapolsky - Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst

•      William James - Pragmatism and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

•      George Berkeley - Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous 

•      Musonius Rufus - That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic 

•      Demosthenes - Selected Speeches (Oxford World Classics) [Read The Olythiacs, first, second, & third; First Philippic; On The Peace; Third Philippic; On the Crown; On the Dishonest Embassy; For Phormion, a Counter-Plea; Against Canon, for Battery; Reply to Callicles, On Damage to a Farm; On the Situation in the Chersonese; Against Meidias, on the Punch)

•     Ivan Turgenev - Fathers and Sons

•     Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin 

•     Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments 

In-Progress:

•     Karl Marx - Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Volume 1 

I enjoyed all of these. Most of these are from r/bookclub. A lot of death! The John Lewis book is for the Jimmy Carter Library Book Club.

very rarely do i give books 5 stars, but when i do it is special. good writing, plot that kept me engaged, and characters i cared about. those are usually the things i look for. not to mention if the book made me feel something.

this book is amazing. i read it with my girlfriend for our own little ‘book club’ that we do, and it is such a beautiful story. normally it is not something i would have picked up, as i gravitate towards horror. but i am so glad i read it. while tragic, it captures women, the porn industry, and lesbianism so well. i found myself relating to the characters quite a lot— even though i am not a sex worker like these girls are. it is more-so the woman’s experience, as well as being a lesbian and feeling like you have to like men anyway before being comfortable in your identity.

amazing story, highly recommend.

I thought this was an exceptional novel. It is brutal and unflinching in its depiction of slavery, but its ambitions extend well beyond. I particularly appreciated how the railroad (a literal railroad in this case) acts as a way to transport the main protagonist to different states and times where a different method of subjugation and oppression is taking place. The end result is a wonderful (terrible) survey of the many injustices inflicted upon African Americans throughout American history, exploring different manifestations of racial oppression, from outright brutality to more insidious forms of exploitation and discrimination. 

There is also a deep examination of the relationship between slavery and American prosperity, and the extent to which the country's economic achievements were built upon the exploitation of enslaved people. The novel brought to mind the notion of slavery as America's original sin, something whose consequences cannot simply be escaped or erased, even after the institution itself has been abolished.

All in all, I thought it was riveting, uncomfortable to read and many points, unflinching, bold, captivating, informative, and above all beautifully written. 

I started the month with "Everything Was Beautiful And Nothing Hurt". This book made me UGLY cry and upset me so greatly that I talked about it for days. Don't get me wrong: it's a great book but it really hit a nerve for me. I don't think I ever cried that much reading a story.

I really loved "Broken Country". It was very atmospheric and the story was heartfelt and intriguing. I read some comments in which people criticized the flawed nature of the protagonists but I personally don't mind morally grey characters.

I decided to read "Spell For Forgetting" because I loved "The Unmaking Of June Farrow". This one didn't have the same impact on me. The magical realism elements were few and far between and the story felt a bit convoluted. Adrienne Young is amazing at creating atmosphere but the story aspect of this one fell short for me.

I finished "I Who Have Never Known Men" yesterday and I am still sitting with it. I have thought about it all day. If you enjoy books with a lot of room to theorize and speculate, this one is made for you. I myself would have loved SOME explanations but that's a personal preference I am sure. It's a heavy and thought provoking read.

This is a huge achievement for me! Last year I only managed 26 books, this year im currently at 65! I'm pretty stoked ☺️

Favorites:
These Letters End in Tears by Musih Tedji Xaxiere
The Healing Hippo Of Hinode Park by Michiko Aoyama
Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh
The Employees by Olga Ravn
Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
All Friends Are Necessary by Tomas Moniz
We Had to Remove This Post by Hanna Bervoets
In Memoriam by Alice Winn
The Long Game by Rachel Reid
Time to Shine by Rachel Reid
After Hours at Dooryard Books by Cat Sebastian
We Could Be Rats by Emily Austin
The Prospects by KT Hoffman
We Could Be So Good by Cat Sebastian
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
Futbolista by Jonny Garza Villa
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica
We Used to Live Here by Marcus Kliewer
Is This a Cry for Help? by Emily Austin
The Caretaker by Marcus Kliewer
The Guardians by Sarah Manguso
Big Swiss by Jen Beagin
Swimming in the Dark by Tomasz Jedrowski
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden

Very Good:
What You Are Looking For Is In the Library by Michiko Aoyama
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid
Think of England by KJ Charles
To be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
Open Throat by Henry Hoke
Tampa by Alissa Nutting
The End of Eddy by Edouard Louis
Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry
Tramps Like Us by Joe Westmoreland
A Queer and Pleasant Danger by Kate Bornstein
Tough Guy by Rachel Reid
Open, Heaven by Sean Hewitt
Notes on an Execuation by Danya Kukafka
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

Good:
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Pretend I'm Dead by Jen Beagin
Vacuum in the Dark by Jen Beagin
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Boy Erased by Garrard Conley
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine
The Celebrants by Steven Rowley
Role Model by Rachel Reid
The Shots You Take by Rachel Reid
The Very Long, Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates
Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval
Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
Rent Boy by Gary Indiana
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq

Okay:
Stoner by John Williams
After the Siren by Darcy Green
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Greenland by David Santos Donaldson
It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over by Anne de Marcken
Still Life by Sarah Winman
Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman
100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell
The House In the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
I Am Not Myself These Days by Josh Kilmer-Purcell
The Story Game by Shze-Hui Tjoa
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Yellowface by R. F. Kuang
Common Goal by Rachel Reid
Failing Up by Leslie Odom Jr.

Not for me:
Into the Blue by Emma Brodie
The Build-a-Boyfriend Project by Mason Deaver
All Them Dogs by Djamel White
Bunny by Mona Awad
Nova Scotia House by Charlie Porter
The Vegetarian by Han Kang
World War Z by Max Brooks
A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt
Gliff by Ali Smith
Minor Black Figures by Brandon Taylor
People Collide by Isle McElroy
All Down Darkness Wide by Sean Hewitt
Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor
Lucky Us by Amy Bloom
Death Valley by Melissa Broder
Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano
Bellies by Nicola Dinan
I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver
A Botanical Daughter by Noah Medlock
The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Actively Disliked:
Breakout Year by KD Casey
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
And They Were Roommates by Page Powars
Hold Me Under by Riley Nash
Close to the Knives by David Wojnarowicz
Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh
Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh
The Lesser Dead by Christopher Buehlman
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion

September recap, 27-31/52

A pretty good month! I’m still behind but am slowly gaining speed. Life has been busy so I’m a little behind on posting this one!

The Road to Tender Hearts: 4/5, I wasn’t sure that I would like this one based on the premise but I actually really enjoyed it. I did listen to it while on a roadtrip so that added to the experience. I was not a fan of PJ most of the time.

The Secret Garden: 3.5/5, I somehow missed out on reading this as a kid. Overall I liked it though I’d probably found the characters more likable if I read it as a kid.

Iron Gold: 4.5/5, I’m happy to be back in one of my favorite universes! Though this wasn’t my favorite of the series, I still really enjoyed it. I held off reading for a while since the series isn’t finished yet. Hopefully the release date will be announced soon!

Invisible Strings: 3/5, A really cool concept with the poems inspired by Taylor Swift songs. I wish they would’ve said which song went with each poem. Some were easy to tell but others I had no idea.

This Story Might Save Your Life: 3.5/5, I had high hopes for this one and didn’t love it as much as I hoped I would. Parts of the plot really annoyed me but overall I enjoyed it.

I didn't really have much time for reading this week, so just two (standard sized) TPBs. Mark Waid writes good superhero comics. The "Valkyries" was a little bit less clear to me.
I read several books concurrently, so I am also doing other reading, but this is all I finished this week, specifically.

What a great year for reading!

S: Recommend to anyone and everyone

A: Fantastic

B: Pretty good/fine

C: Meh

D: Did not enjoy

This year I was introduced to some Native American Indian literature and it's been an eye opener. Especially Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I almost couldn't finish it because of how heart wrenching it was. I think it should be required reading. So Buffalo Hunter Hunter was the perfect pallet cleanser afterwards. haha.

Surprise hit was Agent Zigzag and Rogue Heroes. Not a genre I'm familiar with (non-fiction/espionage) and loved it. When real life is stranger and wilder than fiction.

Happy reading everyone!

Wanted to try and read 30 this year but it’s looking like it won’t happen. Reading Jade City right now which is definitely a 5/5 ⭐️ read for me. Luckily most of the books I’ve read this year have been enjoyable, other than a few DNFs!

In 2024 I rediscovered reading and genuinely helped me transform my life for the better. I was finally able to kick my weed addiction and since last year, it helped tremendously to reduce my screen time. Now I'm really looking forward to any free time I have during the day, because I have so many books, that are waiting to be read.

Last year, I ended up reading 48 books and started this year with the plan to get the satisfying 52/52 done. Well, this year I dedicated even more time to reading, so yesterday I finished the 52nd book of the year, way earlier than I thought when I started.

I really liked this challenge and it pushed me to make more time for reading in my life, get away from the screen, which is something that I struggled with for years. At the same time, there was some pressure to keep up the numbers, which I enjoy most of the time, but sometimes (especially with books, that are harder to read/take more time), it was something that was at the back of my mind while reading a book.

So, at least next year, I dont see myself doing this challenge again. There are some books, that I want to dedicate more time to and not feel rushed while reading them (looking at you, Infinite Jest).

Can some of you relate to this feeling? I really like reading books and reading them fast as well, but I think some books just take more time to get into.

Edit: per the rules I am apparently required to name all book titles and authors in the post, so here it goes:

Absolute Favorites:

Really Enjoyed These:

Solid Books:

Forgettable/Hard to get through:

Kills the Joy of Reading:

DNF:

This year I wanted to push myself to:

1) read fewer comic books and more “book books”
2) set a new personal page count record. I’m happy to say that I successfully broke the previous record of 7900 pages. I’m at 8002 and counting. With everything I have planned for the rest of the year, 10,000 pages is a doable addition to my goal.

As a high school English teacher, I take pride in sharing my reading with my students. I hope they see how important literacy is to me and feel inspired to read more themselves. I had a class get really invested in Twelfth Night and Fahrenheit 451 and another class love the Jerry Springer nature of Hamlet.

Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Playboy of the Western World, and Fahrenheit 451 are all rereads. Three future reads, I am Malala, Carmilla, and The Picture of Dorian Gray are novels I will be reading alongside my students in the coming weeks.

Please feel free to ask me anything about my list!

tl,dr: Believe the hype. This is in everyone's 'S' tier for a reason.

I lost a person I loved to the opioid epidemic. They got injured playing sports in 2010 and were prescribed oxy to relieve pain during their recovery. Three years later they were regularly in and out of emergency rooms begging for IV painkillers. They faked injuries to get high. When that stopped working they began hurting themselves for real, slamming their hand in a door. They dropped out of college and couldn't hold a job. Staying high was all that mattered to them because withdrawal was worse than death. And they were lucky. They survived.

"Empire of Pain" is a work of narrative non fiction about the Sackler family and how their business practices, decisions, corporate culture, and leadership of their pharmaceutical company, Purdue, led to a decades long crisis of addiction and death in this country. A crisis that is still ruining and ending lives today. This story is epic in scope and is impossible to deny. Like a doomed temple from another land, the author builds a story for us brick by brick in order to reveal the dread heiroglyphics and tawdry graffiti inscribed upon the walls they comprise.

I was in a bookstore called Books by the Pound which actually has a nice, normal used bookstore up front. In the back is where you carry a basket and fill it and at checkout they just weigh it and then charge you $1 a pound. Like you are buying turnips. Daunting number of bookshelves in the back and some airplane propellor sized fans blowing across the big room.

I was eyeworn but spotted this title on the shelf. Had never read any Hijuelos. Almost put it back and then I spotted that the main blurb on the back cover was by my friend Craig Nova. He was apparently good friends with Oscar. It was mine then.

Apparently Oscar became somewhat obsessed with Twain and Stanley in the last part of his life. Created this large fictional relationship over the years between the two. Both men led seriously interesting lives in real life. And Hijuelos patched over Stanley somewhat as I have learned afterward. Stanley being a tyrannical asshole in real life, destructive and self-centered. Celebrated to excess for his Africa explorations. Hijuelos does give him some guilt about his life in Africa and all the dead men he left behind but does not really paint it like a nonfiction book does. He was loved and hated. Twain comes out being saintlike. And perhaps he was. I need to read more Twain besides just Sawyer and Finn. This book is sending me down some rabbit holes for sure. How much being true and how much pure Hijuelos was unclear while I read it. I don’t think they had near the relationship he has created here.

Oscar died early at 61 before the book was completely finalized. Suddenly, on a tennis court in Manhattan. His wife made sure it was published. I am glad I stumbled on it. 

This is my fourth Harrison.
Big fan. Highly recommend.
So far all the main characters have had high levels of sarcasm and overall smartassness, which makes them entertaining as well as relatable.
All 4 have revolved around some type of creature, which makes them good for spooky season.
I like that each main character is unique, I can’t say that there are many similarities between any of them.
I also appreciate that each of the four have had entirely different endings.
After 4 I think I can be confident that I know what I’m getting with her each time, which is entertainment without too much seriousness.
That’s exactly what I’m going for.

An autobiographical look at a suicidal mind. Clancy Martin recounts his many attempts at taking his own life, his alcoholism, and his family while also discussion the subject of suicide as discussed with others and presented in literature.

I really loved this book. It did a lot to demystify suicide and open up the conversation in a respectful way. It offers hope and solutions while also expressing a deep understanding and compassion for those struggling with suicidal ideation. It will definitely stay with me.