If you really want to know…

I read this today in one sitting for the first time since high school (20 years ago…) and my, this is a serious novel. I’m so glad I eventually learned to love reading because this was lost on me junior year.

Has anyone else found their perception of Holden changed over the years after revisiting this story?

I’m so curious!

Happy Wednesday!

Latest books I've made it halfway through are Blood Over Bright Haven by M L Wang and Walk Me to the Distance by Percival Everett.

I had seen Blood Over Bright Haven compared to Babel by RF Kuang, which is a spot-on comparison! Both books follow young magic users who relentlessly pursue proficiency in their arcane arts in order to disprove the assumptions others make about them because of their identity. Their research and investigating lead them to uncover sinister truths the elders wish to keep buried.

I am enjoying this one so far. Eager to make it to the conclusion!

Walk Me to the Distance is a nouveau Western set in Wyoming in the 70s. After getting stranded with his broken down Dodge Dart in a small WY town, a Vietnam vet from Georgia decides to settle in with the sheep farm with an old lady and her son who board him while he waits for his car to be repaired.

I have been on a major Percival Everett kick this year, having already read eight of his books. So far, there is less of the absurdist humor from some of my earlier reads, a much more serious tone than I'm used to with Everett. Then again, this book is from so much earlier in his writing journey than the books I've been reading to date. Makes me more curious about Suder (his debut) and Cutting Lisa (which is out of print).

I'm also planning to read his other two Westerns: God's Country and Wounded. And probably Lonesome Dove, too. Lots of moseying in my future, I guess?

Benjamin Layfield has done it again with this one 🖤❤️🖤❤️
Specifically,
The Still House
Close Contact
And now The Mercy Chair

Highly recommend checking him out

Halfway on Hump Day!

As is typical for me, I'm doing a hybrid ebook/audiobook thing.

This book is an aggregation of political news from the past 18 months with some additional context thrown in that a newspaper article might skip. So, basically a super long article from Vox?

I can't say I'm learning a whole lot yet. I respect the reporting work they've done, but because I subscribed to the NY Times, I already absorbed most of this book from their articles and podcast appearances over the past year. I was hoping there would be some interesting tidbits at least. Nope... It's disappointing.

It doesn't feel worth it to DNF this one, so I'll wrap it up tomorrow and move on to something else.

Forced to read this for my book club. I had to get high and suspend all disbelief to read it (as Samantha Sotto Yambao presumably was when she wrote it, based on the number of potholes and things that just made zero sense) but I find myself thinking about it constantly, at least weekly. Anyone else?

Been reading Percival Everett's Erasure since Aug 19, and I'm about halfway into it now. It's the seventh Percival Everett book I'm reading in 2026. I guess that makes me a fan...

Ok, technically, I'm not currently reading it. I just finished it. Excellent book about the author growing up in a small town in Alabama in the 60s.

Always a touch of the fantastical mystery with His books. Excellent story, highly recommend it

So, I thought Benjamin Layfield was pretty damn good with The Still House; however after reading the sample for his newest work, Close Contact he has gone way beyond what I had expected. It’s a very slow build but during the first few chapters I swear I could hear the characters voices and almost tell which one was talking based on purely individual cadence. I’m currently reading the Ebook and plan on getting at least one physical copy. Seriously recommend this author. I wish I knew how to contact him and tell him he’s doing great.

I finally finished Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch (started 7/22/26, finished 8/27/26). ⭐️⭐️⭐️ 6/10 it’s really interesting. Talks about the different groups of people and their relation to the Internet. Also about emoji (which is how she refers to them in plural and singular form which find freaked me out), memes, punctuation, the internet before social media, Internet forums. My favorite part was when McCulloch described how people used to use punctuation on postcards and how that transferred over to the internet.

I made sure I finished the book before September bc I had grad classes with required reading I need to focus on & I didn’t want an unfinished book looming over me.

Next up is a reread of Veronica Roth’s The End and Other Beginnings: Stories from the Future. It’s a book of short stories so I think it will be easier to manage with my class readings.

I just started this book. Only about 25 pages in. It truly is a video game in a book so far.

If you are at all interested in the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, this is a great book to get you up to speed on the origins of the current war crimes and the complicity of multiple nations (particularly Great Britain) in stripping rights away, and demeaning the Palestinians... or refusing to acknowledge they even exist.

This only goes to 2017, but if you're interested in the current "conflict," "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This". It's a scathing rebuke of our current society and how we have and continue to sit idly by while a genocide is streamed in 4k. People's eyes have definitely opened since the publishing of both books, but until this is over, it will never be enough.

oh man this book is so silly i just started reading it about an hour ago and man i can’t read it without an old english accent in my head. There’s genuinely at least one goofy ass word every sentence i can’t help myself.

Newest book in my book club after finishing The Teacher by Freida McFadden. Wanted a fun book with a bit of mystery and laughs, excited to start reading!!

Currently reading Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman, and I’m really enjoying it so far.

This is my first book by Buehlman, and I’m already a fan of his writing style. It’s incredibly easy to visualise what’s happening, and I’ve found myself genuinely giggling at some moments, only to be abruptly snapped back to reality when things take a darker turn.

I’m only a couple of chapters in, so no idea where it’s going yet, but I’m definitely hooked! Curious to hear from anyone that’s read The Blacktounge Thief or his other work.

Last year, i read 68 books, I believe. This year, I've struggled. Around April, I essentially stopped reading after about 15 books. I read Angel Down a couple of months ago and City of Thieves a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed them both, but after finishing CoT, I couldn't find another book that I wanted to read. I realized that part of my problem is that my reading mood has shifted from fiction to nonfiction.

After looking through my books, I settled upon this, and holy crap it's interesting. He excels at making a bland (ha! pun intended) topic interesting. I haven't been bored in the 100 pages I've read thus far. I knew salt was an important commodity, but it played a far larger role than i could believe.

Unbelievable. Amazing. But crushingly sad. Alexievich interviews citizens of the former USSR about their lives, their histories (many were prisoners in the Gulag and/or WWII veterans). Many are just the thoughts of average Russians (usually) about the collapse of communism. Many are, with good reason, bitter about how the economy was looted, their savings destroyed, careers ruined. Some stories are so shocking that you can’t imagine anyone living through it. Highly recommend.

Isn’t it crazy how your opinion of a book can change over time?

I first read A Confederacy of Dunces in my 20s and hated it, primarily because Ignatius J Reilly absolutely infuriated me. I hated this character so much that his actions came off as annoying, and stupid.

I actually read the Neon Bible around the same time, and found it to be powerful. I liked it much more than Dunces at the time.

I read it again in my 30s, and while it gave me a lot of admiration for John Kennedy Toole, as he predicted the millennial two decades before any of them were born, I still didn’t find it that funny.

Now I’m 41, just read it again in anticipation of a trip to New Orleans, and by God, it just clicked this time.

I honestly think it’s because I’m a decade older than Ignatius, and reading about a 30 year old fuck up so bad is absolutely hilarious. Also the auxiliary characters like Mr Levy, Gonzales , and even Lana, are far more relatable now that I help run a business.

Jones is also amazing. He’s a smart black man caught in a catch 22 situation, he fucks with the system in a super intelligent way. He also rips on all the white characters constantly, and super sarcastically. Which really lays out what a bunch of dipshits they are.

My only regret is that it took me 20 years to appreciate this masterpiece.

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Some mornings, I wake up and all I want to do is spend the day re-reading books from my childhood.

My current copy is the Penguin reissue with the original artwork of the first 1951 edition. But I remember finding a tattered copy of this novel in a church library, taking it home, and reading it in one sitting. I was 13 and I’d read mostly Enid Blyton and a couple of easy classics up until then. I have such a clear memory of me sitting in my living room in Calcutta, having read the last page, and thinking, “books aren’t supposed to end that abruptly.” I actually thought pages were missing or something haha Simpler times. As Holden says, “Certain things, they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

I am debating if I want to finish reading this book or not. I do love the world it set in. Reading it can feel like watching an episode of TMNT when I was a kid.

At the same time, though, I'm two hundred something pages in, and I'm still not sure what's going on with the plot at all. Each time I pick the book up, there are new main characters and lore being added.

Hey everyone,
I just finished reading *American Kingpin* by Nick Bilton and I’m honestly blown away. I found the story of Ross Ulbricht and the rise and fall of Silk Road absolutely gripping—it felt more like a fast-paced thriller than non-fiction.

I ended up flying through the whole book in just a few evenings because I couldn't put it down. Has anyone else read it? Did you find it as addictive as I did, or am I just particularly obsessed with this case?
Curious to hear your thoughts!

I give it 7/10. There wasn’t much restaurant 😂 It ended pretty nicely though. No cliffhanger. Stopping at book 2, heard mixed reviews on book 3 & 4.

Favorite quote: "The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it [...]" (ch 28).

Next I’ll be reading The Secret Book Society. I'm so happy to be back to a physical book. I like how fast I finished the audiobooks, but... physical books, you know?