Books You've Read in 2024

1. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) - Pierce Brown (9/10) (reread)
2. Golden Son (Red Rising #2) - Pierce Brown (9/10) (reread)
3. Morning Star (Red Rising #3) - Pierce Brown (9.5/10) (reread)

 

1. The Wager David Grann- 8/10

2. The Escape Artist Jonathan Freedland- 9/10

3. Red Sparrow Jason Matthews 9/10
Real well done spy novel, first 100ish pages were tough but picked up. Looking forward to the next 2

Next Up: Palace of Treason- Jason Matthews

 

1. Poverty, by America - Matthew Desmond (8/10)
2. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (7.5/10)
3. The Wager - David Grann (9/10)

Next up: Red Rising (Red Rising #1) - Pierce Brown

 

1) Dune by Frank Herbert 9/10
2) The Wager by David Grann 8.5/10


Very interesting. Book really took off once they set sail.

 

1 - Inferno by Max Hastings (8/10)
A bit verbose at times but I liked that he emphasized the words and viewpoints of regular soldiers and citizens. Gives a unique prospective on WWII without getting super bogged down in the minutae of each battle

Next up Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving

 

1. Babel - I liked the change of pace and it was a really good premise and well thought out book. It was kinda hard to get into even though I really enjoyed it. 7/10

 

Also, I got Avenue of Mysteries for like a dollar at our library before we moved away from the Chicago suburbs. I wonder why it was withdrawn... I can only imagine with chapter titles such as "Sex and Faith", "Two virgins", and " two condoms" that some uptight suburban moms were upset

My high school English teacher suggested The World According to Garp and a few other Irving novels. I've been a fan ever since.

 

1 - Lonesome dove by Larry McMurtry 9/10; unfortunately, I saw the movie first, and I’m not sure there’s ever been a more faithful adaptation. Regardless, the book was still amazing.

2 - Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons 7.5/10; second book by Simmons I’ve read, and he just knows how to write a compelling novel. It did drag a little bit, and I think it had some excess fat on it, but a really enjoyable book.

3 - The Wager by David Gran; 6/10. Unlike everyone else, I just didn’t find it particularly compelling. Certainly had some interesting parts and history, but I didn’t love it.

In the queu: (1) The Terror by Simmons; (2) A boy’s life by Robert McCammon.

 

Plan on reading lonesome Dove this year

 

Me too brothers

 

You guys are in for a treat Lonsome Dove is a beautiful piece of fiction

 

Boy’s Life is so fucking good

 

Lonesome Dove is awesome. We picked for book club a few years back

https://www.the-mainboard.com/index...-book-lonesome-dove-by-larry-mcmurtry.173168/

 

1. The Wager David Grann- 8/10

2. The Escape Artist Jonathan Freedland- 9/10

3. Red Sparrow Jason Matthews 9/10

4. Palace of Treason Jason Matthews 8/10
Didn't enjoy it as much as the first one, but overall a solid 2nd book in the trilogy. Looking forward to seeing how they take the story in the final book.

Next Up: The Kremlin's Candidate- Jason Matthews

 

1. Usher’s Passing by Robert McCammon - 8.5/10
2. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons - 8/10.

3. Blindsight by Peter Watts - finished this book Monday morning, and have spent much of my free time in the last 30ish hours reading wikis, user reviews, Reddit threads, etc. to figure out what all happened . This is a hard science fiction novel that is quite dense and simply has a ton going on pretty much the entire time. The briefest summary is that it’s a first contact alien novel dealing with themes of consciousness, memory, sentience, and evolution. There’s a remarkable cast of characters and incredibly in-depth descriptions of space and passage; I frequently had to use the Wikipedia feature on my kindle to read up on astrophysics, solar systems, etc. It’s hard for me to give this book a fair review because as soon as I finished it I knew I needed to read it again and again to pick up on clues and missed dynamics on my initial read. I’ll give it a 7.5/10 for now, but expect that to rise in future readings.

 

3. King Leopold's Ghost: A Story Of Greed, Terror, And Heroism In Colonial Africa / Adam Hochschild (10/10)
I've seen this one recced on here before -- absolutely harrowing. You don't know the story of African slavery if you've only read about what happened in the Americas. I wish there was some sort of punishment afterlife for people like Leopold.

2. Brookgreen Gardens: Ever Changing. Simply Amazing / Paige Kiniry, Dick Rosen, Robin Salmon (8/10)
Coffee table book. Loved visiting this place since I was a kid. Make sure you visit if you are ever on the upper coast of SC -- sculpture park + nature garden on site of a former rice plantation.

1. Proust And The Squid: The Story And Science Of The Reading Brain / Maryanne Wolf (7/10)
Actually read this last year and forgot to post. The subject is interesting for a reader obviously but it's still a little dry.

 

1) Dune by Frank Herbert 9.5/10
2) The Wager by David Grann 8.5/10
3) Wool by Hugh Howey (reread) 9/10

Read Wool the first time back in 2012, actually had it rated 5/5 on Goodreads back then. Think I enjoyed Dune better, I wouldn't be surprised if Dune ends up being my favorite read this year. Will read Shift and Dust in the near future.

 

1. Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica - 7/10
2. Chain Gang All Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah - 5/10

3. Flying Blind by Peter Robison - 9.5/10. Fascinating book on the history of Boeing with a focus on the 737MAX and the obvious uh failure. Step by step look at how a company who started with a focus on high quality and well engineered/manufactured machines who relied on experienced unionized labor can systematically get turned inside out by Jack Welch obsessed shareholder value, deregulation focused CEOs and ultimately build a machine so fast tracked and short sighted it kills 600 people. The author maintained great pacing given the subject. Honestly one of the best business books I’ve ever read, up there with Barbarians at the gate.

 

1) Dune by Frank Herbert 9.5/10
2) The Wager by David Grann 8/10
3) Wool by Hugh Howey (reread) 9/10
4) Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel 8.5/10

Felt like reading a sort of Stand-lite at times, good book nonetheless. May swap it's rating with Wool over time.

 

I’m in my noir phase I guess because I just listened to All The Sinners Bleed and The Shamshine Blind back to back. I thought shamshine was kind of corny but I liked it.

 

1. Poverty, by America - Matthew Desmond (8/10)
2. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (7.5/10)
3. The Wager - David Grann (9/10)
4. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) - Pierce Brown (9.5/10)

Next up: When These Mountains Burn - David Joy

 

1) Dune by Frank Herbert 9.5/10
2) The Wager by David Grann 8/10
3) Wool by Hugh Howey (reread) 9/10
4) Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel 8.5/10
5) When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut 8.25/10

Not sure how to rate this book, I definitely found it interesting. Thinking in terms of a spectrum from non fiction to fiction, this started out as nearly complete non fiction, then trended more and more towards fiction as the book went on. About mathematicians/scientists, their discoveries and drawbacks related from them. Didn't know Schrodinger was such a POS.

 

Love that one. His new one MANIAC is similar but based on a single storyline vs short stories

 

Trust by Hernan Diaz 8.5/10
Bad News by Edward St. Aubyn 7.5/10
Some Hope by Edward St. Aubyn 7.5/10
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray 9/10
Mother's Milk by Edward St. Aubyn 6.5/10
King, Queen, Knave by Vladimir Nabokov 6.5/10
Venusburg by Anthony Powell 7/10
Transit by Anna Seghers 9/10
At Last by Edward St. Aubyn 7/10

Thanks to Truman for the recommendation of Trust. I enjoyed it a lot and about 2/3 of the way through I was thinking it was headed towards a 9+. In the end, I just felt it was a little too pretentious and gimmicky to get there. Still, really really good.

The five Patrick Melrose novels by St. Aubyn are all pretty quick reads. like 250ish pages but in fantasy romance novel sized 14 font. A lot of critics thought they were a 'masterpiece,' and I don't really agree. It tracked the main character (i definitely hesitate to call him a protagonist) from age five through his early 40s, with each book containing a few days to a week. Much of it is focused on an estate his mother inherited in France that she is swindled out of. There are some cool scenes-- a dinner party with Princess Margaret that is laugh out loud funny. I enjoyed them.

Vanity Fair was really good. I also seriously doubt any of yall will ever think about reading this, so I'm not going to waste my time

King, Queen, Knave is another one that I thought was headed towards the 9s. A story about a capitalist in Berlin between the wars who neglects his wife who eventually falls for the capitalists teenage nephew. It was Nabokov's second book, and it never really came to a concise or satisfying ending. I think he just reached like 250 pages and was like yep I guess that's enough let's just wrap it up in ten pages or so. But, it was easy to tell from this early work that he was going to eventually produce some absolute classic stuff.

I found Transit through the New York Review of Books--it's the publishing arm of the magazine. They've published like 600 'classics.' These are mostly translations from other languages that have not been available much in the US market and/or lesser known works from big time authors. I really, really am into this imprint. I've ordered like 15 books from them. Transit is the story of a German refuge during ww2 who finds himself in Marseille. It's really a story of bureaucracy and helplessness, as to get out of Marseille he and other refugees need a like four different permits, including a transit permit, and they all have different deadlines and they all have to be procured from different places.

About halfway through Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman. Another "masterpiece," and so far I agree. It's a winding story with hundreds of characters all focused around the siege of leningrad. It was first published in 1980, as it was banned in the Soviet Union. It was eventually smuggled out and translated. It's another that was published by NYRB.

 

NYRB Classics series >>>>>

 

they also look sexy as f on a bookshelf. most can be had for $4-7 on ebay.

 

And the branding on the spine of the books makes it super easy to browse for them at used bookstores. I've bought like 25-30 titles from that publishing group in the past 8 months and they hardly ever disappoint

 

4 - The Terror by Dan Simmons. Too goddamn long, and my least favorite novel by Simmons so far. Stil had some enjoyable parts and history, but could really trim some fat. 6/10.

Next up is Boy’s life, and then either between two fires or the reformatory.

 

Hey, I used to read this magazine back in Cub Scouts

 

1 - Inferno by Max Hastings (8/10)
2 - Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving (8.5/10)

Have been a big fan of John Irving since a high school English teacher suggested him to me. I haven't read all of his books, but I always seem to enjoy them. I like his characters and humor, although I know his constant themes can annoy irritate others (circus, sex, sexual orientation, characters are often writers, etc). I especially liked Lupe, the sister of the main character

Next up is The Hobbit, Bones of Plenty, or a Kazuo Ishiguro novel...hmm

 

1. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas (9.5/10)
2. Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton (9/10)


Count of Monte Cristo - Long af but so very good. It's a classic for a reason.

Birnam Wood - Catton is a Kiwi author and the novel is set in New Zealand. About a guerilla farming commune, for lack of a better term. They find plots of unused land and plant crops without permission. They get involved with a billionaire right after a massive land slide and shit hits the fan. Really enjoyed it. Lots of good social commentary. Really good characters. Everyone is a shade of gray. Plot moves pretty well. Idk if this book is for everyone, but it was for me.

 

1. The Passage - Justin Cronin 10/10
2. Life After Life - Kate Atkinson 6.5/10

Been 10 years since I read the Passage and wanted to come back to it after reading The Ferryman. Sure it's a post apocalyptic vampire story filled with tropes, but I loved it even more this time around. I just love the 3 distinct acts and think it works magnificently.

Life After Life was all over the place. I enjoyed the characters and settings (yes another mostly WW2 book) but I wasn't sure I wanted to finish it at some points. The final chapters were iffy but once you get half way through to about 90% it's quite enjoyable. I may entertain the idea of reading the sequel/companion but in no hurry.

 

1. Pretty Girls - Karin Slaughter 7/10
2. The Will of the Many - James Islington 10/10 - not sure what it was about the book but I really enjoyed it, couldn't put it down.

Next up - Recursion - Blake Crouch

 

1. Usher’s Passing by Robert McCammon - 8.5/10
2. Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons - 8/10.
3. Blindsight by Peter Watts - 7.5/10

4. Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery by Brom: A novel that combines folk horror and a sharp critique on the dangers of religious hysteria, Slewfoot is, in short, a novel about a woman scorned, her vengeance, and nature’s role in life. Pagans vs Puritans, prayer vs destruction, the ambiguity of good and evil, and how much cruelty can we inflict upon nature before she turns on us? It reads like a dark fairytale, and should appeal to anyone interested in historical fantasy. It meanders a bit, but boy is the payoff worth it! Has some really phenomenal illustrations, too. 8/10.

Not sure what’s up next. I’ve got I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes downloaded, but I’m about to get really high and browse the kindle store and see what sparks my fancy.

 

I am Pilgrim is very good.

 

Started it last night around 10:30 and had to force myself to go to bed several hours later lol.

 

Anyone in TMB Book bros read the the Remembrance of Earth's Past series? Saw a trailer for Three Body Problem coming to Netflix I think it was and snagged the first book.

Gonna try to read it before the show airs, if I can wrap up the Silo series before then

 

I read the trilogy a couple months ago. It's a challenging read, but very good. Also I cant imagine Season 1 will get past the first book, or even all of it.

 

Word word in that case I may try to finish the 2H of Dune before part 2 comes out on 3/1. Feel like 300 pages for book one of 3BP would be easy to get done between 3/1 and 3/21 premiere date

 

Boy’s life 9/10. It’s a heavy dose of nostalgia, and the plain language makes it a quick read. Definitely takes you on an emotional roller coaster, especially at the end. Great book.

Next up: Between two fires by Christopher Buehlman.

 

1. King Leopold's Ghost - spot on above, eye opening on the colonization of African and role America played enabling it was a surprise angle. Always surprised grifters go so far in life. Finished up 2023 reading Undaunted Courage and Red Cloud's War and saw the parallels between colonization between Africa and the American West and the attitudes of white men civilizing the savages. 10/10

2. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad - short easy read based on the colonization of the Congo above, 9/10 wish it was longer and in more depth, very period specific and provided context for the above.

Apocalypse Now is based off the HoD so I rewatched. Totally forgot the scene with the French family plantation before they get to the Colonel Kurtz's village and their reasoning to fight for their land as being their family home. I tend to read in themes so this all went together well. "The horror, the horror" was the last words of Kurtz in HoD and same in AN.

3. Belly Up: The Failure of Penn Square Bank - story of OKC regional bank failure in early 80's for outrageous lending practices in the oil and gas fields of Oklahoma and how they sold the loans up/down stream which literally no underwriting or standards. Borrowers never made payments and their outstanding interest was simply rolled into new loans.

Everyone just went along with it and it became one of the largest bank failures in US history. Would've liked to see more on the trials of the loan officers, failures everywhere through the bank syndication and government regulators. As a former CRE banker, it made my palms sweat and I was in shock the bank examiners let it go so far. Greedy shell game. 6.5/10, read the wikipage.

Reading Phil by Shipnuck about Phil Michelson, then jumping back to the Indian West.

 

1) Dune by Frank Herbert 9.5/10
2) The Wager by David Grann 8/10
3) Wool by Hugh Howey (reread) 9/10
4) Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel 8.5/10
5) When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut 8.25/10
6) Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert 7.5/10

 

This has been such a good month of reading

 

1. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexander Dumas (9.5/10)
2. Birnam Wood - Eleanor Catton (9/10)
3. Jade Shards (Green Bone Saga) - Fonda Lee (9/10)
4. Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings - Neil Price (8.5/10)
5. Tusks of Extinction - Ray Nayler (6.5/10)
6. Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice - (8/10)

Jade Shards - A collection of short stories that the author used as a writing exercise to help develop her characters for the series. She ended up publishing them after the fact. Nothing mind blowing, but i loved the series and it was cool to get a little taste again after it's over.

Children of Ash and Elm - Pretty self explanatory. Shout out to Iron Mickey who I saw reading it on GR. The first half was kind of slow, but once they got into raids and shit, it really got interesting. Learned a lot. A must read if youre into Viking History. The author does a really good job using archeology and contemporaneous correspondence as corroborating evidence or conflicting. The approach to history in general is as interesting as the actual history being discussed.

Tusks of Extinction - Sci-fi book about an Elephant expert / scientist who is trying to bring Mammoths back from extinction. Her conscience is planted into the matriarch of the herd in an attempt to help them survive, evade poachers ect. Concept was interesting, execution a little less so. The book was very short. If it was much longer - I dont think I would have really liked it too much.

 

Forgot to list one -

6. Moon of the Turning Leaves by Waubgeshig Rice - (8/10)

Sequel to Moon of the Crusted Snow. Rice is a First Nations author. Crusted Snow is about a remote First Nations reservation/community. All the sudden there's a blackout where they're essentially cut off from civilization. Some outsiders show up from the south and shit happens. It's a great suspense/thriller. The writing is really good, the slice of live from the First Nations perspective is really interesting. Moon of the Turning Leaves picks up a decade later. It's hard to say what it's about without spoiling the first book. But I highly recommend both. He writes about nature and living off the land so well. I just love that genre. Different but reminds me of Peter Heller novels, which also are a favorite of mine.

 

1- Cassandra at the Wedding – Dorothy Baker (8/10)
Published in 1962, it’s a dark comedy about a wealthy family living on a ranch in the foothills of the Sierras. It’s told from the perspective of two twins in their early 20’s. One is a self-destructive Berkeley grad student and the other is set to marry a doctor and start her own family. Reminds me of The Moviegoer meets The Bell Jar with all the family drama, substance abuse, focus on mental health, allusions to philosophy/mythology, and references to music/poetry. The prose is sooo strong

2- Trespasses – Louise Kennedy (9/10)
A finalist for the 2023 Women’s Prize for Fiction, it’s set around Belfast in the 1970s and follows a young Catholic schoolteacher who has an affair with a Protestant lawyer known to represent IRA members. It’s exquisitely written, heartbreaking, and has a sense of tension hanging over everything while offering insight into life in Ireland during the Troubles. On a per capita basis, no country comes close to Ireland at producing elite writers

3- Emerald City – Jennifer Egan (8.5/10)
Published in 1993, it’s a collection of 11 elegant short stories about privileged American women experiencing a wide range of emotions and traumas as they near the brink of life. They occur all over the world but NYC and SF feature prominently. The sense of place the characters shared particularly resonated with me. Their moods/outlooks were heavily influenced by their surroundings. Egan

4- Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout (5.5/10)
Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize and a finalist for the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award, it’s comprised of 13 stories set in a small town in coastal Maine. They feature a vast array of characters and unfold over the course of many years, but mostly relate back to the title character and show how life keeps disappointing her. It’s cleverly arranged and some of the stories packed a punch, but I easily get tired of books focused on headstrong/quirky rural New Englanders (this reminded me of The Wapshot Chronicle and some Annie Proulx stories in that sense)

5- Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont – Elizabeth Taylor (6.5/10)
Shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize, it’s a portrait of an English widow as she takes up residence in a London hotel where a group of elderly people are spending their final years. It gently pokes fun at postwar English society while illustrating the loneliness older people experience as they lose connection to their loved ones

6- Jesus’ Son – Denis Johnson (8.5/10)
Published in 1992, it’s a collection of 11 gritty stories told from the perspective of a young unnamed drug addict. Each is understood in the context of earlier and subsequent stories. They’re about fatal car crashes, abortions, drug deals, murders, etc. and build up to a finale where the narrator seeks redemption through sobriety. It’s a chaotic/intense read where the prose reflects the mental state of the narrator. This book probably needs a trigger warning

7- Child of God – Cormac McCarthy (10/10)*
You know the drill. Annual re-read. Southern gothic masterpiece. Extremely dark

* = re-read

 

1. Poverty, by America - Matthew Desmond (8/10)
2. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (7.5/10)
3. The Wager - David Grann (9/10)
4. Red Rising (Red Rising #1) - Pierce Brown (9.5/10)
5. When These Mountains Burn - David Joy (6/10)

Next up: Golden Son (Red Rising #2) - Pierce Brown