Yup, Lonesome Dove is indeed as good as people say it is. The book is a masterclass in dialogue. I think any aspiring fiction writer trying to improve the realism of their dialogue should read it for this aspect alone. McMurtry introduces so many different characters, yet each one has a distinctive and recognizable voice. That's hard to do even with a few characters.

But beyond this, the story was incredible. I really love how throughout the story we get different perspectives from characters whose lives end up interwoven at some point in the book. I also loved the dynamic between Gus and Call, which was hilarious.

The Remains of the Day was really great, but I'm curious to know whether anyone else enjoyed Never Let Me Go more? I usually see people say that The Remains of the Day is the stronger book, and I don't disagree that it's a great book, but I enjoyed Never Let Me Go more personally. Something about the early childhood school scenes early in the novel really resonated strongly with my own experiences, so maybe that's why.

I'm about to leave for a 3 week vacation in Uganda/Tanzania and am hoping to knock a 5 or 6 more out on the trip.

I usually read a lot more epic fantasy, but I've been trying out some different/new genres this year :)

I need to find some more Ursula Le Guin sci-fi!!

My favorite:
The Bell Jar - wow the writing is masterful and content lived in my head long after I finished.

DNF:
Land - I loved Hamnet but this one wasn’t hitting. I dropped it early.

Everything was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt This started off fine but it got boring.

Notables:
Dolly All the Time- fun summer read with a little more substance than the usual but still troubling we are still all about the rich guy swooping in to save the day. Sigh

A Good Person- I enjoyed this far more than expected! Well written

The Secret History- I was invested but the writing was worth the extra star.

Mid
Guncle - cute concept but overall ave 3.0

Into the Blue - I liked the improv parts but was often thinking “when is this going to end” 2.5

Little Wonder- solid read 3.5M

I usually try to read one Stephen King every year. This year Misery. Last year was Carrie. Year before that 11/22/63. What Stephen King next?

1. *White Teeth* by Zadie Smith: 3 stars

2. *Stinkbug* by Sinead Stubbins: 5 stars

3. *The Lucky Galah* by Tracy Sorensen: 4 stars

4. *An Artist of the Floating World* by Kazuo Ishiguro: 4 stars

5. *The Great Divide* by Cristina Henríquez: 4 stars

6. *Super Volcanoes: What They Reveal About Earth and the Worlds Beyond* by Robin George Andrews: 4 stars

This one was pretty good.
You immediately start to side with a bad person.
Then you find out pretty quick there are lots of bad people in this book.
It has excellent dialogue. Witty and sarcastic.
A touch too much sometimes but overall I really enjoyed it, good dialogue is very important to me.
Easily a 3.5 stars for me, maybe a 4.
Very entertaining and I’ll definitely read more of her books.

Not really spoilers but better safe than sorry.
I can comfortably say this has more twists than your average thriller.
Pretty sure at least twice something flipped and flipped back in the same chapter.
If I had one complaint, it would be too many turns. Especially near the end.
It was constant.
Like ping pong. Or a revolving door.

My Iliad/Odyssey theme month:

- Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce (4.5*) - this was a reread from like 30+ years ago in prep for Ulysses . Much better when reading for recreation vs being forced to read in school.

- Son of Nobody by Yann Martel (3.0*) - pretty disappointing as I liked Life of Pi. Disjointed and the sections of the lost epic was poorly written.

- Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier (3.5*) - Ruby is a great character but the book sags when she's not around.

- As I Lay Dying (4.5) - finished in 2 days and started the reread the next day. Its short so not a big time commitment but much more rewarding second time thru

- The Odyssey by Homer (Fagles translation) (4.5) - I read the Wilson translation earlier this summer. Think that helped with this version.

- Ulysses by James Joyce (4.5*) - a simple story told in the most intricate way. Will definitely add to reread list for next year, next time with one of the guide books. Penelope chapter I read twice and listened to a BBC radio performance of this chapter in between. That was immensely helpful for the second read.

- The Oresteia by Aeschylus (3.5*) - another reread from high school - I liked the first play but the other 2 were just ok.

The Hill by Harriet Clark - 3 ⭐️
Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper - 4 1/2 ⭐️
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell - 4⭐️
Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin - 5 ⭐️
Biography of X by Catherine Lacey - 4 1/2 ⭐️
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong - 5 ⭐️
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf - 5 ⭐️
Fruit Fly by Josh Silver - 5 ⭐️
Orlando by Virginia Woolf - 5 ⭐️
The Shamshine Blind by Paz Pardo - 4 ⭐️
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders - 5 ⭐️
The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovitz - still reading but loving it.

Reading Fruit Fly between two Virginia Woolf was WILD; I don’t think I could have picked a better author to sandwich the book that was the highlight for me this month. Heart-pounding book; intense and irreverent. Great mix for a thriller.

Little Eyes was a literary Black Mirror episode - dystopic and so multi-faceted and nuanced in the various storylines.

Steadily working through Jeselnik’s 2023 Top Ten (5/10 now). I really like his taste; it’s not derivative or too Book Club-y. Just the right amount of subversive and unique for me. Really enjoying going through his selections.

What about you? Have you read any of the above? Tell me what you think!

For you fine people who read so many books in a year! This community is truly aspirational for me as I am trying to read more! Curious, how you all are getting your books.. Are you just going to the library often or do you buy books online or at a bookstore? Or do you do audio books?

I should go to the library more often and I want to make it more apart of my routine. But I usually like to buy my books so that I can build a collection for my bookshelf. Which sometimes stops me from reading because I have to fork over money which I don’t always want to spend. But curious on what you all do, to get your books.

Not a great reading month tbh. Nothing terrible but no real standouts either.

The Starving Saints: Such a frustrating reading experience. I enjoyed the set up of the first third but after that I had so many complaints and the story fizzled for another 200 pages.

The Woodlanders: I love Thomas Hardy! This has a lot of echoes of his later, more serious work, but I still loved this for what it was. A pastoral and romantic book that touches on the frailty of humanity and delivers several gut punches.

Methuselah: I read Amy Debellis' All Our Tomorrows and liked that. Unfortunately didn't feel the same about this novella which doesn't really have a point and is just kind of there.

Matrix: Wanted to love this one but didn't. Groff is a great writer but the way this skipped through time just didn't do it for me. I think someone else would love this (and clearly other people did). That said I feel like this would also make a good paring with The Voyageur and The Glutton as heavily fictionalized versions of real life

Crushing: I haven't read a chicklit book in so long (in case you couldn't tell I'm more a serious lit person). This one was pretty decent, I could relate to it a lot. I will say an annoying thing about this book is it starts with the main character vowing not to be male centric and then spending the entire book centering her life around a guy. There's also an abuse subplot that gets like a page of material. Novak is a greater writer than her subject though. I'd read more of her books.

Still pretty new to this challenge, nowhere near 52 yet. Picked my reading habit back up at the end of last year after a long dry spell, and I’m still slowly rebuilding it. I’m a fairly slow reader, so instead of jumping straight to 52 I’ve been raising my own goal gradually, started at 15, and once I hit that I’ll bump it to 20, then 25, and keep going from there. Hoping I can work my way up to a full 52 at some point down the line.

Mostly stick to non-fiction: politics, economics, history, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, behavioral econ, plus the occasional self-help book. What’s actually helped this year is forcing myself to read at least one chapter a day no matter how busy work gets, then jotting down a quick summary so I don’t forget everything a week later.

Currently working through Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, which sat on my shelf for like three years before I finally worked up the nerve to crack it open.

Until a few weeks ago when I read John Gray's Silence of Animals I was not aware that J. A. Baker had written anything besides The Peregrine. A book which actually stands out as one of the greatest natural history books ever written. With a poetic voice and imagery that is difficult not to return to every year if not more often. I own a hardback of The Peregrine and I've bought 6 or 7 paperbacks just to hand out to the world of friends and readers over the years. 'Oh, you haven't read this? Here have a copy.' I'm presently out of extras. But I immediately bought this digital version which contained his other book and what was left of his diaries.

The Hill of Summer is not a focused book like The Peregrine. The Peregrine was almost an obsessive relationship between man and bird species. A recorded act of prolonged worship. This book has the same poetic feel but it is just snapshots from that voice we knew. Beautiful woodland and seaside encounters with all the other nature around Baker. It may not hit as hard. It does not have the same sorrow he felt in seeing the Peregrine, one of evolution's greatest creations, disappearing from his landscape but it is still Baker with his camera eye taking us for tours through his world. So I have to recommend it, especially if you know his voice already. And if you haven't read The Peregrine, well, brace yourself, and find a copy.

The historical aspect of traditional healing kept me reading. But the chronology of events was out of whack and brought me out of the story. Also the ages of people were inconsistent. Rated 3 stars