What Books Are You Reading In 2023? Part 4

I wonder whether Graham Norton has read it...

I loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. I had avoided it for over a year because I didn’t think I would relate to the characters (I’m not a gamer), but I was wrong—it’s a terrific read.

I’m about 2/3 through The Brothers Karamazov. I enjoy big classics once in a while.

I’m reading how now brown come by teet

Blue Latitudes by Tony Horowitz. It's about Captain Cook, not a biography, more narrative nonfiction. Yes, full of sailors who taste of the lash.

What brand of shit spray do you buy?

I remember enjoying TOMORROW x3 for the first 2/3 until it turned very sour. And the sourest parts were mostly about the female character, especially surprising as the author is a young woman.

Liked TOMORROW too, despite my misgivings. Just found Dan Chaon's AWAITING YOUR REPLY on the shelf. Looks intriguing. Anyone read it?

I gave up on Dan Chaon several books ago.

Harold Acton, Memoirs of an Aesthete (1939-1969). Wonderful. Knew everyone.

Dan Chaon's first 2 books AWAIT YOUR REPLY and YOU REMIND ME OF ME were both spectacular reads. Highly recommend both. Everything I've read of his since then have not measured up, unfortunately.

Has anyone read the Brit best-selling whodunnit THE APPEAL by Janice Hallett? 200 pages in and I can't put it down.

It won a CWG Dagger, so it was on my list r11.

Is it a stand alone?

It is, r11. All told in emails, texts, letters, etc. Wonderful fun. Very witty and a great mystery. centered around an amateur theatre group rehearsing All My Sons. I think it has to be read quickly, easy to lose the thread of all the characters and subplots.

My hands and my pussy.

Bless my twitchin snatch

I believe there were mixed feelings on the previous thread about Demon Copperhead but I thought it was great. I loved the main character’s voice and was highly engaged for the 500+ pages. The end was somewhat abrupt but I assume that was to align with David Copperfield.

Just curious, r16, but it sounds like you haven't read David Copperfield? As someone who has (and loves it), Demon Copperhead just felt like a facile rip-off.

On a a somewhat similar note, I recently read Jo Baker's Longbourn, which is a novel about the servants of the Bennet household of Pride and Prejudice. But rather than an obvious re-telling of P&P through the servants' point of view, it's very much their own story with the Bennet family in the background. I found it a brilliant conceit and loved the book.

Just finished mystery writer SA Cosby’s All the Sinners Bleed.

He’s a real talent. Violent stuff, though.

I tore through it.

I read Crosby's RAZORBLADE TEARS, and enjoyed it to a point, but his depiction of the gay scene was pitiful, much like rendered by the straight man that he is.

I just read "Sing Unburied Sing" by Jesmyn Ward. She's a powerful writer but it was such unrelenting grimness. Before that I read Stephen King's "Carrie" for the first time -- vivid and actually scary.

Leaving for a beach vacation tomorrow. I packed "Book of Numbers" by Joshua Cohen because I loved "The Netanyahus." But if that's a dud I also am bringing "True Grit" by Charles Portis which I've never read.

In the last month, Daniel Mason's North Woods (a single plot of land, a glorious orchard, and 250 years of its haunted and haunting owners); Lawrence Durrell's Clea (the last novel in the Alexandria Quartet); Jonathan Wilson's A Palestine Affair (set during the British Mandate in Palestine); Justin Torres's We the Animals (a terrific gay novel); Your Table Is Ready: Tales of a New York City Maitre'd (sex at the tables, under the tables, in the kitchen, at the bar, in the cloakroom, and some juicy moments in, of all places, the Mineshaft); Louis Begley's Wartime Lies (a Jewish aunt and nephew on the run from the Nazis) and also Begley's Mistler's Exit (rich businessman runs off to Venice after a cancer diagnosis and takes up with a young woman).

Each worth your time by my humble estimate.

TRUE GRIT is terrific, r20. I'm looking forward to reading more of Portis. (His novels have been collected in a Library of America volume.)

I'm reading this book on 9/11 called The Only Plane In The Sky - An Oral History of 9/11 - it is a vivid retelling of the horrible events of that day.

Reading the new Bryan Washington book. It’s okay so far. A lot of sex.

You all have a big appetite for sex crime and negativity

I just finished THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Martin Amis and found it very good. Intelligently written and rather unflinching it’s told in the viewpoints of a highly connected SS officer, the commandant of the camp (Auschwitz) and a Jewish kapo who is in charge of figuring out how to dispose over an increasingly high body count. I feel like the “banality of evil” is an overused phrase when referring to the Holocaust, but it could not be more apt to describe what’s going on in this novel. This is Amos’s final novel.

A film adaptation is being released next month.

Bible - New International Version

I started THE GUEST by Emma Cline yesterday afternoon and couldn't put it down. Read 100 pages before I went to sleep last night.

I really tried to get in to THE NETANYAHUS but it's just too intellectual and esoteric for me. And I'm a Jewish baby boomer.

Homecoming

Just finished "Hunting Eichmann" and "The Brigade" (WwII vengeance by Jews); have begun "Seven Men at Daybreak" (assassination of Reinhard Heydrich).

Yes, there's a theme. A very satisfying theme.

You'd probably like "The Origin of the Inquisition in Fifteenth century Spain" by Netanyahu pere. The idea was that here evolved the categories and thinking methods of modern racism.

Nobody expected your post, r32.

About to start Boyslut by Zachary Zane and am trying to bootleg Prequel by Rachel Maddow (I’m too broke to buy it). . I’m going to check out The Appeal. It sounds good.

R34, everything I read about ZZ makes me want to attach him to several bags of antibiotics. Good luck.

Don't even begin THE APPEAL unless you have a couple of free leisurely days because you're going to need to not be distracted. Fantastic book but it needs your undivided attention, as all the characters and plot lines are introduced (and really until the very end IMO). A great fun read.

New Bryan Washington book isn’t that great. It’s very read-able but page after page of anonymous fucking and rudeness. About 3/4 way through.

Bryan Washington used to have a semi-regular recipe column in the Sunday NY Times Magazine. Every time I saw his byline I'd try to guess how many paragraphs it would be before he mentioned his boyfriend, a trick, eating ramen/tacos with hungover club kids at 5 a.m. in dives in Tokyo/Houston. It was never more than four. Game over, I'd skip to the recipe, which was rarely anything I'd want to make but often something I'd like to eat.

Bryan Washington is a tad over-praised in the literary scene at the moment. Similar to Brandon Taylor whose books are also very similar book to book.

I prefer Taylor. His subject matter is more interesting and a bit more varied.

And I prefer Washington—I think he has a better style (I.e language level)

The Real Thanksgiving

Facebook is exploding today with post after post of eldergays who just received their copies of the book. At least, my Facebook.

"The book," r43?

Sorry, I actually meant to write the title but forgot. But I'm shocked as an ancientgay you don't know which book I mean.

Barbra didn't do it for me, dear r45, the way she appears to have done it for you. I bought Funny Girl, Funny Lady, The Way We Were, and The Broadway Album. Oh, and Guilty.

r44

I’d rather read names scratched out on the shit house walls!

Bogie and Bacall, a new bio by William Mann.

God she was a bitch. Nasty to anyone, nastiest to the little people.

^r48, is it good? I just bought that for my mom for her birthday. She loves Bogart.

It's well written (he wrote Tinseltown among other things), it's not hagiography, he did a lot of research and it has great backgrounding on both of their families. He was better than his, she was worse than hers.

Bogart comes off a lot better than she does, which is easy, I guess, when you're the legend.

Shit house walls….

I just finished Family Meal by Bryan Washington. I really liked Lot and Memorial, but this one felt off to me. As others have noted, the sex is endless, which becomes boring. But it was more the style than the substance that disappointed me. Almost the entire book is dialogue. It felt like reading a play. And that’s not what I want when I’m reading a novel, especially when the dialogue doesn’t always feel natural.

I often wonder if the second or third books of a well-received authors may have been sitting in a desk drawer and published to capitalize on early successes. This latest is Washington's third in four years. That's prolific these days.

R52 agree. It does feel off. Just a bunch of depressed and hopeless gay men in Texas who fuck anonymous men nonstop and treat each other like shit.

Should I read his other work?

R54, I was impressed by Memorial, his first novel. I don’t remember it feeling as bleak as Family Meal.

I got Chelsea Summers' A CERTAIN HUNGER out of my library today after reading intriguing reader reviews on it on Amazon. It's about a woman who's a serial killer, a great chef, and loves sex with hunky men.

Anyone know it?

Emma Cline's The Guest was terrific, as good as her debut The Girls. She and Joshua Cohen are probably my two favorite of-the-moment novelists. I put down Brandon Taylor's Real Life after a few pages, it felt dreary and flat. I also have an unread copy of "Memorial." I want to support more gay writers but the reason I like Cohen and Cline is because they seem interested in exploring lives not like their own, and raise concerns beyond the purely personal. I did recently enjoy Darryl Pinckney's newish memoir, Come Back in September. I do mean to pick up Justin Torres' new novel soon.

Real Life was mediocre, until it got to the stream of consciousness section. Then it was embarrassing. I'd say that it read like a parody of modernism, but even that would be giving it too much credit.

[QUOTE] I want to support more gay writers but the reason I like Cohen and Cline is because they seem interested in exploring lives not like their own, and raise concerns beyond the purely personal

Have you read READ BY STRANGERS by Philip Dean Walker? His book AT DANCETERIA - which is very gay and popular - has been mentioned on these threads many times but I think this one is stronger. The stories mostly center around women at their lowest. There are several that take place in Japan that are incredibly vivid. There’s a great story about a blocked writing professor at Middlebury College who steals an idea from her best student while starting an affair with a colleague whose wife is dying of cancer (one of the best).

I also have MEMORIAL sitting on my shelf unread. I think I’ll read it next and skip FAMILY MEAL based on what others are saying about it.

I loved THE GUEST, couldn't put it down, but the ending...

*****SPOILER ALERT*******

was very disappointing. So many different directions it might have gone and it felt like Cline couldn't figure out what would be most powerful and just said: "Fuck it. let the reader make up their own ending."

I'd still recommend it though.

Labia Majora or a Fedora

Agreed, R60. That ending really divided my book club. I actually didn’t mind it (it was giving me Cate Blanchett at the end of Blue Jasmine) but I know it’s a point of contention even with readers who are fans of the book as a whole.

Reading the Appeal and love it so far. Thanks for the rec.

R35. He’s an absolute horror show of a person. Threw in the towel halfway through.

Aubrey Plaza 10 (or 15?) years ago would have been perfect in a film of The Guest.

I just finished Ann Patchett’s “Tom Lake” and I wouldn’t recommend it. The section about the main character’s beginnings as an actress was the best part but it’s the only character that’s fully realized. The sensibility is too earnestly womanly for me. I also finished Mona Simpson’s newest novel “Commitment” and I thought it was her best work but I like all of her work. Her themes are fairly consistent, how does a child grow and develop in the face of a parents emotional collapse. Highly recommended.

I found Tom Lake inauthentic from beginning to end. I loved Bel Canto, but I think she has gone downhill since, reaching her nadir in her “living” memoir of Lucy Grealy, Truth and Beauty (disclosure: I haven’t read The Dutch House).

I've heard from some people who've made a living in professional theatre and did years of summer stock, that TOM LAKE has lots of little anachronistic gaffes in the writing. Like understudies employed in summer stock - that just never happened. Haven't read the book yet, overly cautious of Patchett's books since BEL CANTO.

[QUOTE] Aubrey Plaza 10 (or 15?) years ago would have been perfect in a film of The Guest.

I was picturing Dreama Walker while reading it.

I’m reading Woody Allen’s autobiography Apropos Of Nothing.

His writing voice is kind of charming, like his movies. I’m still in the first half, and it reminds me of Radio Days, him talking about his childhood and his early career.

He was athletic but had bad teachers so he started reading wisely and indiscriminately to keep up with the smart girls he tried to ask out on dates.

[quote] I still am taken aback at the cruel spacing of The Magic Mountain.

Likewise!

[quote]I so-so about Fitzgerald but loved Thomas Mann and Turgenev. I loved The Red and the Black, especially where the young hero keeps wondering if he should make his move and hit on the married woman.

[italic]Mais ouis.[/italic]

[quote]I know Edith Wharton and Henry James and Fitzgerald all wrote about New York, but the town I recognized best was described by that sentimental Irish librettist on the sports beat, Jimmy Cannon. You would be shocked to know what I don’t know and haven’t read or seen. After all, I am a director, a writer. I’ve never seen a live production of Hamlet. I’ve never seen Our Town, in any version. I never read Ulysses, Don Quixote, Lolita,…

Convenient 👀

[quote]…Catch-22, 1984, no Virginia Woolf, no E. M. Forster, no D. H. Lawrence. Nothing by the Brontës or Dickens. On the other hand, I’m one of the few guys in my peer group who read Joseph Goebbels’s novel. Yes, Goebbels, the gimpy little suppository who flacked for the Fuhrer tried his hand at a novel called Michael, and don’t you think the main character had all the anxiety of the nervous lover anxious for the girl to like him.

[italic]Je répète, mais oui[/italic]

Apparently there is relatively little about his film career and most of the second half is about the Soon Yi and Dylan’s debacle , soI’ll enjoy the portion while it lasts.

I’m lying here slapping my taint.

Say what?

I'm really enjoying a whodunnit of a few years ago called THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL by Sunjata Massey.

The sleuth is a young woman in 1921 Bombay who is India's first female lawyer, working for her family's firm. Really smart writing with great characters and lots of exotic details about Indian culture and mouth-watering descriptions of Indian cuisine and desserts. It's a different take on a classic mystery novel I find very refreshing. Excellent reader reviews on Amazon if you want to know more.

I want to begin reading Anna Karenina

I've begun reading it several times....

That's the easy part.

The unshaven taint

but.....

Anna Karenina is fantastic. You can skim the chapters with Levin gassing on and on about the Land and the Peasants and get back to the high-society soap opera.

I can’t imagine not having finished Anna Karenina once starting it. It’s fantastic and the penultimate chapter is just wow. I memorized “the candle by which she had been reading book filled with…” passage as a teenager.

Has anyone else read “the sluts” by Dennis cooper? I saw it under staff picks at Jackson McNally last week and was intrigued, got it from the library.

My god.

I’m no prude, but I can’t believe what I’m reading 😂

The Sluts? Is this a book about Kim Guilfoyle and Lauren Boebert?

FWIW I just couldn't get into that book I posted about at r56 A CERTAIN HUNGER but gave up after just a few pages. Seemed like very trashy (actually vulgar but not funny vulgar) chick lit to me. I suppose others might like it though...

I’m reading “Tender is the Flesh” by Agustin’s Bazterrica. My god, I can’t put it down. I think someone recommended it here. I’m reading a Martin Walker Dordogne mystery for contrast and relief!

So happy that Justin Torres won the National Book Award for BLACKOUTS; another queer writer, Stenio Gardel won for Translated Literature for THE WORDS THAT REMAIN. A good night for the gays!

I’ve been reading Daphne du Maurier off and on - Rebecca, The Scapegoat and now House on the Strand from 1969 which is strange and compelling. I would never have guessed it had been written by a woman.

I hosted a party for Justin Torres at my house over a decade ago when I was getting my MFA (this was closer to the time of WE THE ANIMALS). He was so lovely and nice - very cute. I’m really happy for him.

Agree. He came into a bookstore where I worked and was totally charming. Gave a lovely acceptance speech at the NBA ceremony.

Justin Torres is indeed cute, but i read Guardians interview with him and the description of the book did not interest me much, unfortunately.

Yesterday i finished A Meaningful Life, by LJ Davis, tragic, horrific in parts but very funny as well, so I started again Desperate Characters by Paula Fox, which covers similar ground.

Always meant to read Desperate Characters. I simply loved that title. Please return and let us know what you thought, r88.

I love that Paula Fox is Courtney Love’s grandmother (fact) and that Brando (rumor) is her grandfather.

Will do, r89.

I'm re-reading the Invincible comic series.

Have you looked inside my asshole lately?

You’re such greedy pig. Sniffing my asshole and examining it for hours on end

You know the idiots posting bathroom humor and fake book titles in this thread haven’t actually read a book since their middle school teacher assigned “To Kill a Mockingbird” in 8th grade.

They are also most likely Trump voters.

Of course they’re Trump voters: they can’t read, can’t think, and delight in what they childishly think is humor.

Shitgibbons, really.

R95 R96 😆

Night Clit starring Labia Majora, Twatsy and Vulva!

[quote]before that I read Stephen King's "Carrie" for the first time -- vivid and actually scary.

It is a really good book; generally speaking, I don't think King writes women characters well, but I think he nailed Sue Snell & her motivations. I really never felt the need to read the book because the movie was so good, but I loved it.

Looking for a recommendation: I recently read A World Undone about WWI and really enjoyed the backstories & intrigue that resulted in the war & it's continuation for years. Anyone have any recommendation for other books like that?

Just spent almost $30 on WELLNESS by Nathan Hill, an Oprah Book. I'm really hoping I love it. I wasn't so wild for THE NIX.

Just ban those idiot posters here. You won't regret it. I certainly don't miss those posts and had to think for a second what you were saying, r95.

R101 pull that stick out of your ass.

Shitzilla

Night Clit Shanghai

Sorry you're getting nuked and zapped, OP. Hope it makes you better.

I loved TOM LAKE but I did think the narrator was deliberately fuzzy as she told the story.

I have some theater knowledge but not summer stock so I didn't spot the inaccuracies.

My 4th grade teacher, Miss Monkey, used to masturbate herself in front of the class using the corner of our math text book.

I generally find that if I selected a book, my instincts were correct and it was worth reading. But there were a number of books I started but could not get through. Emma Cline's THE GUEST was at the top of the list. I didn't give a single flying fuck about anyone, least of all the main character.

THE HEAVEN AND EARTH GROCERY STORE had an intriguing/engaging first 50 to 65 percent before it started imploding under its own weight. It also clangs to a complete stop in the middle of a character's 1938 (I think?) death so that the narrator can go on a rant of several paragraphs about 21st century technology (cell phones in particular).

THE PEOPLE WE KEEP by Allison Larkin was one I really loved though it may be a little frau-y for some. Maybe because it's based in Ithaca and I knew that town well. (It's not new though - might be a few years old?)

I loved Maggie Smith's YOU COULD MAKE THIS PLACE BEAUTIFUL.

For me THE GUEST was a perfect example of a book with unlikeable characters that was still totally engaging. I couldn't put it down though the very end was admittedly disappointing.

Reading Idlewild by James Frankie Thomas.

Enjoying it so far. If you live in NY or were in high school in the late 90s/early 2000s, it has some nostalgic references.

I also tried to read Aaron Foley's BOYS COME FIRST but it just seemed like one of those old Felice Picano "Here's all the people I fucked, they were all so hot, see how hot they were?" except all the guys were black and in Detroit. Or was it Atlanta?

I really like Aaron's other work.

I couldn't get through "America Fantastica" either.

Is everyone in this thread mad at me making such vulgar, juvenile replies?!

This is not fiction or prose of any kind but I'll briefly mention. I like his videos and so far am enjoying the book.

I didn't like Boys Come First much either, r111. Foley's heart was in the right place and he clearly knows Detroit - his writing about the city was the most interesting thing about the book. But the character machinations were predictable and the whole thing felt insubstantial.

“Desperate Characters” deserves its place as rediscovered classic. Franzen wrote a very good introduction to the latest paperback edition.

Is also loved Tom Lake by Ann Patchett R106. Highly recommended!

I very enthusiastically recommended Janice Hallett's THE APPEAL upthread and just finished her second book THE TWYFORD CODE.

While not nearly as good as the first book it did hold my attention the last few days and I couldn't put it down as I finished the final 50 pages. Definitely not for the casual cozy (or cosy) whodunnit fan but a truly mind-bending wild ride of a puzzler with acrostics, anagrams and encrypted codes as part of the cluing. Only attempt it if you have a few leisurely days to devote to reading.

“Tom Lake” was not a good novel. The central character was the only one that was fully realized. I couldn’t understand the daughters interest in the movie star because the protagonist didn’t present a very compelling character. The last twenty pages were pure indulgence. Hard to believe that Patchett had an editor.

R119 I agree. Patchett's "Bel Canto" was wonderful. I haven't liked any of her books since. And this one feels wildly inauthentic--as if she saw one summer stock show and decided to make up shit about its culture.

Anyone read this year's Booker winner, PROPHET SONG?

I just finished Blackouts by Justin Torres, a very worthy winner of the National Book Award. It’s a beautiful book and unlike any other I’ve read. Parts of it remind me of Cormac McCarthy.

Readers are winners!

Non-readers are losers!

Yay!

I've read a little over 100 pages of Nathan Hill's WELLNESS but I don't like it enough to continue.

Shame, because I was really looking forward to it and hoped it would be as good as Jonathan Franzen's CROSSROADS and Paul Murray's THE BEE STING, 2 recent great novels, also about "ordinary" families. But....very disappointing. I don't get the rave reviews.

I just finished Michael Cunningham's latest, DAY.

It takes place in three parts, each on a specific day in 2019, 2020, and 2021, detailing the lives of an extended family. Not too much happens, but if you like Cunningham, you'll like this.

I'm reading [bold]Lie with Me[/bold] by Philippe Besson, translated by Molly Ringwald.

I'm liking it so far, though it reminds me of a situation from my college days so it can get a little rough at times.

R126, I loved that book. And the movie version is good too.

Have you read “Crotch Crotch Don’t Betray Me” ??

One of the reasons I'm reading it R127. I have the UK Blu-ray sitting on the shelf waiting for me when I'm done.

(As an aside: I can't believe how much Victor Belmondo looks like his grandfather.)

R129, Victor is very handsome.

Dearborn Stories. Ten interrelated short-ish stories about the lives of contemporary Arab-Americans in Dearborn, Michigan.

Just finished IN MEMORIAM and loved it. Could be a killer movie or series. Now trying WE COULD BE SO GOOD by Cat Sebastian because I'm fascinated by female authors specializing in gay male romance. This one seems YA, but her historic novels are pure porn.

It must be just me as all of my friends loved IN MEMORIAM as did the critics. I found it so sentimental and mawkish and faux-literary I couldn't finish it.

Will anyone ever agree with me?

No, fool!

Your lucky day, r133. I tried to read it twice. Just couldn't get there. "Faux literary" hadn't occurred to me, and I'm not sure I agree, but I found it quite gorpy.

Thank you, r135!

Anyone else?

Fuck yoi

I got some questions for your, from Rebecca Makkai, i think it has been discussed. 100 pages in i am struggling, which is strange as it should have been an exciting read, with a cold crime, a character returning to her school where the murder ocurred many years later, etc. i am finding it mistifyingly boring.

“In Memoriam” was great but for the last chapters. I couldn’t care about the lives if the characters after the war. The best part was the escape from the prison camp and their slip into Belgium.

I've started reading the Lew Archer books by Ross Macdonald. They're really great, maybe the best genre fiction I've ever read.

I just started Tender Is The Night

Just finished The Martian Chronicles, which is a bit of a masterpiece.

On the third volume of Manning’s Balkan Trilogy. It veers between involving and dull.

I read "Father Figure" by Beverley Nichols. Nichols was a gay English playwright and novelist, also renowned as a gardener. His lovers included Siegfried Sassoon and the actor/director Cyril Butcher. Late in life he published this memoir of his family, from his Edwardian childhood through to the death of his parents 40 years later. His father was an alcoholic, whose short periods of sobriety were inevitably followed by extended drunken binges, during which all member of the family, particularly his wife, were bullied and abused. Twice as a teenager and once as an adult, Nichols tried to kill his father; when he survives the third attempt, Nichols refers to him as "Rasputin." Both his parents were homophobic, to the point where his father demands he stop reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and his mother discourages him from seeing a production of "The Importance of Being Ernest." In spite of the nightmarish depiction of family dysfunction (straight out of Eugene O'Neill), both Nichols and his mother shared an absurd sense of humor, which provided them (and provides the reader of this book) with some genuinely funny laughter in the dark.

I've tried reading The Balkan Trilogy 3 times and always gave up before I hit 100 pages. Though I always hoped for more, I found it deadly dull.

As for Makkai's I Have Some Questions For You, I'd agree that there were some sloggy parts but I found it well-worth reading by the end. Ultimately, I really liked it.

[quote]I got some questions for your, from Rebecca Makkai, i think it has been discussed. 100 pages in i am struggling, which is strange as it should have been an exciting read, with a cold crime, a character returning to her school where the murder ocurred many years later, etc. i am finding it mistifyingly boring.

I had the same reaction, and I loved her first book THE GREAT BELIEVERS.

The library just delivered SURELY YOU CAN'T BE SERIOUS!, the story behind AIRPLANE!. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm reading Bernard Cornwell's non-fiction book on Waterloo.

Just finished Night Clit

Importance of Being *Earnest*

The Great Believers was Makkai’s fourth book, not her first.

American Midnight by Adam Hochschild

Importance of Being Bitchy

I guess I'm the only one here who likes Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant Trilogies. I agree that there are some slow/repetitive sections (Nazis! Again!), but I still enjoy them. (A gay character shows up in the Levant novels, although he's tertiary at best.) I wonder if I like them because I first encountered them in 1987 on Masterpiece Theatre as "Fortunes of War" starring Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson as Guy and Harriet (plus a slew of terrific British character actors). When I read the books after seeing the series I could see all the characters in my head. (Not-Sir-Ken-Then looked nothing like Manning's description of Guy, but never mind.) The baggier sections of the plot had been trimmed in the script, so I found them interesting in passing. Sadly, the series is not available for streaming in the US, nor are there DVDs.

I'm almost 1/2 way through Bryan Washington's MEMORIAL and enjoying it quite a bit (after a dubious slow start). Can't remember if it was discussed here earlier. Any fans?

I thought his book of short stories, LOT, was one of the best new books I’ve read in y as. Haven’t read MEMORIAL since year.

Right now I am re reading Peyser's biography of Leonard Bernstein.

Reading this book ARCADE. Has anyone else read it?

I read it when it came out, R158. It was just fine. Not really something I would recommend, but it was fine for what it was.

Word of warning. Do not read Blackouts by Justin Torres on a Kindle. There are drawings, photographs and documents that are impossible to read on a small screen. As a result of reading on a Kindle, I feel like I lost a lot of the book’s power and meaning.

Either way, I didn’t love the book because I was expecting a more traditional novel, which this is not. It is very light on plot and requires intense concentration. I’m sure I would like it more if I were willing to read it for a second time, which I’m not.

I respected the book more than I enjoyed it.

"Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969"

Fascinating.

R161, I loved that book

Went to Powells in Portland today. Bought Elizabeth Jane Howard’s first novel in her Cazalet Chronicles “The Light Years,” Peter Mann’s “The Torqued Man,” James Plunkett’s “Strumpet City” and Alice Winn’s “In Memoriam.” What should I read first? Help me, DL, you’re my only hope. (I also bought Jamie O’Neill’s “At Swim Two Boys” for the people I’m staying with. I’ve already read it — reread it again — once this year, but I could happily start with that.)

r163, I spent the first year of Covid reading the entire Cazalet Chronicles, all 6 novels, though I read other stuff in between. I really got into them though they were a bit uneven. The first book was actually the least interesting to me, as there's so much on the grandchildren who are only kids then. They become far more interesting as they grow up in the later novels. Enjoy!

I must read At Swim, Two Boys! Thanks for the reminder.

I've been beating the drum AT SWIM for a long time. Thanks for keeping it alive. I vote for IN MEMORIAM wholeheartedly, but others on this thread haven't enjoyed it.

[quote] I guess I'm the only one here who likes Olivia Manning's Balkan and Levant Trilogies. I agree that there are some slow/repetitive sections (Nazis! Again!), but I still enjoy them. (A gay character shows up in the Levant novels, although he's tertiary at best.)

That's because in real life, "Guy Pringle"--who was actually Olivia Manning's husband R. D. Smith--was gayer than the gay is long.

The novels are loosely autobiographical, but Olivia Manning changed the story in the books so that Guy is always running off just to be sympathetic to men and women both when in reality he was always off fucking men.

Thanks, R166! The more you know…

I’m reading “The Collector” by Daniel Silva.

I'm more interested in The Collector by John Fowles, which was made into a film in the 60s with sexy young Terence Stamp and beautiful Samantha Eggar. I remember my mom had the paperback but I was too young to read it then.

Re The Cazalet Chronicles, when I said they were "a bit uneven" what I meant was that each of the 5 volumes (I mistakenly said 6 upthread) had characters/situations that were less interesting than others. It's a huge cast of characters of 3 or 4 generations of a wealthy family in the years leading up to WWII, the war and the aftermath, so inevitably some it isn't that engaging. But as I think I said, it was well-worth the long haul in the end.

Just started "Starter Villain" by John Scalzi. Enjoying it so far.

I'm reading a very funny satiric novel called WHEN WE WERE BAD by Charlotte Mendelson from 2007 about a seemingly prosperous but highly dysfunctional Jewish family in London, controlled by the domineering and self-centered matriarch who is a highly respected and successful rabbi.

Wickedly good, especially if you're Jewish.

Tardy to the party, but I'm reading BEFORE THE FALL by Noah Hawley (exec producer of FARGO). A private plane crashes off Martha's Vineyard and he traces back the people's lives. After the crash, a Bill O'Reilly type sensationalizes the tragedy on cable news. Little by little Hawley reveals why the plane crashed and why.

It has some of the Tom Wolfe social criticism, but the style is warm and dry like Tom Perrotta. I liked it a lot.

Loved before the fall.

Are you doing ok with the chemo, op? I hear it's really improved with medical breakthroughs versus how it was years ago.

I read Before The Fall on a cross-country flight from Boston to SF. Apparently, I was not thinking at the time. Still enjoyed it, though!

Anyone read DROOD by Dan Simmons? Just bought it cheap at my used book shop but it's almost 800 pages and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I do love the summary blurb on the back of the paperback.

Has anyone read anything else by Dan Simmons before? I'd never heard of him before this but I gather he's a very popular writer of historical fiction thrillers.

I am consistently recommended The Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros.

I can’t deal with the shitty frau fantasy series taking over right now - Rebecca Yarros is one of those crappy writers.

For me "Before the Fall" fell into the category of "nice try." It strained to be something a bit more literary than an airport bookstore-style paperback, but didn't quite get there. It started well and wasn't terrible overall, but the characters felt thinly developed, and the mystery's resolution was anti-climactic.

Any Hard Case Crime fans here? I'm reading Seed on the Wind by Rex Stout right now. Finding it hard to get into but I'm only about 70 pages in

I just started The Decline and Fall of The American Republic. Excruciating. Verbose. I can’t tell if the author’s Repug or not yet. I know he’s a respected scholar. Some stuff I read for my own good but it’s not fun. I read five at a time so I can switch around.

R177 Simmons wrote "The Terror," a great novel about the 1845 Franklin Expedition, which was adapted into an even better tv series. I haven't read anything else of his.

The Terror is a really good book

r180, I have to say I agree with you on AFTER THE FALL. I found it very middling.

Sorry, I meant BEFORE THE FALL. That book was so dull I never remember the proper title.

R80, can’t remember if I posted about this already but yeah, The Sluts, is really challenging stuff. I thought I was going to be sick but it was also so hypnotic. I’d never read anything like it.

R181 I read a Hard Case Crime reprint by one of the Watergate associates just for laughs. I think it was called The Hotel Dick.

And of it’s newer titles I enjoyed Money Shot by Christa Faust.

I've just started The Romantic by William Boyd. Reviews have described it as similar to Any Human Heart which I loved and is the best of Boyd’s many novels.

Don’t let the crappy title fool you. Any Human Heart is a great novel and through journal entries tells the story of an Englishman’s extremely entertaining and interesting life through the 20th Century. Highly recommended.

I've loved many of William Boyd's books over the years, especially ANY HUMAN HEART, but, sadly, found the last few a bit wanting. RESTLESS is also a great novel.

The last one I really enjoyed was ORDINARY THUNDERSTORMS from about 10 years ago, I think. Great Hitchcockian plot with a man finding himself at a murder scene in the first chapter and having to run from the police throughout London to avoid getting caught.

Just started Bee Sting and already I'm hooked.

Reading "True Grit" by Charles Portis. I previously read his later novel "Masters of Atlantis" which I utterly loved. This one is very good too though I've seen the Coens' (quite faithful) version twice so there aren't a lot of surprises. Think I'll watch the John Wayne version, which I've never seen, when I finish the novel.

p.s. to above, this is consistently the best thread on DL and I'm glad it's so enduring.

What a coincidence, r192! I just happened to read TRUE GRIT a few weeks ago. Not sure why I chose it, I've never seen either film and not particularly interested in Westerns but it kept popping up in my Amazon suggestions and seems to be on a lot of the best 20th century fiction ever written lists. I liked it, didn't love it....wonder if it was a fresher take on the subject matter and feminism in the 60s when it was written?

As for THE BEE STING, r191, please stick with it as it has has some bumpy sections but well-worth it in the end. So glad this unconventional novel has gotten so much attention this year.

I’m about 90% thru The Bee Sting. I’m mostly enjoying it, but the Imelda sections are really difficult and take long to read given Murray’s choice to forgo all punctuation.

Once I got used to the style, they were actually my favorite passages in the book, r195. I became very invested in her.

I'm combining reading Bee Sting and listening to it on audio. Did that with Skippy and it enhanced the book. Helps to hear those Irish accents.

I started bee sting and LOVED the first two sections with the two kids. I got completely stuck with the Imelda section and gave up. It was so difficult and obnoxious.

The Hobbit

New Michael Connolly book, Resurrection Walk. Mainly Mickey Haller, with a big assist from Harry Bosch. Another good one.

I gave up on DROOD last night which I mentioned starting upthread. Lots of beautifully written atmosphere and authentic period detail but no real plot or direction after 100 pages. And the book is almost 800 pages. Life is too short.

Then I began reading DISORDERLY MEN a new novel by Edward Cahill which I think was mentioned way upthread and easily read over 50 pages before going to sleep. It follows 6 very different men who are caught up in a raid in a downtown NY gay bar in the early 1960s.

I enjoyed DISORDERLY MEN a great deal, and recommend it particularly for those who weren't around in pre-Stonewall NYC. Great period detail (but 3 men at the center, not 6).

Reading the new Michael Cunningham book and Blackouts by Justin Torres. Both randomly arrived the same day in order at the library.

Really enjoying both of them.

Anyone read Stephen McCauley? His umpteenth novel is coming out in a few weeks.

I just finished John Scalzi's "Starter Villain". A light little trifle. A fast, easy run, fun, but rather insubstantial. Fun vacation reading. Nothing that will feel like a slog, but also nothing that will stay with you for more than a few days after you finish.

The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory

As a fan, I'm looking forward to Stephen McCauley's new book YOU ONLY CALL WHEN YOU'RE IN TROUBLE but won't be too surprised if it's not so great. His last few efforts were just so-so and he hasn't written a new one in awhile. Some authors only seem to have a few good stories in them to tell.

Which always strikes me as sad because there's so much craziness going on in the world now, how could any smart talented writer not want to react to it in a personal way?

I loved McCauley's early books, but hit a roadblock with him midway in his career when he started repeating himself.

I really liked McCauley’s last novel, My Ex-Life from 2018. It’s not great literature but it’s highly entertaining.

[quote] Anyone read DROOD by Dan Simmons? Just bought it cheap at my used book shop but it's almost 800 pages and I'm wondering if it's worth it. I do love the summary blurb on the back of the paperback.

Like the other poster above, I found it really directionless. I finished it, but it was a real slog. I'd stay away.

[quote] And Matthew Perry’s memoir, just because.

I'm reading it too! It's quite a chuckle.

r210, I was the poster who initially asked about DROOD and I did, indeed, give up after about 100 pages finding it aimless.

I thought blackouts ended up sort of repetitive and meh.

I’m surprised it won the national book award. Preferred his first book.

BEE STING is terrific. About 1/3 through. Alternating between text and audio.

Has anyone read “Better Davis”? I saw that it was blurbed by Drew Droege who I love.

*whom

Oh, dear.

Add me to the list of people who think Stephen McCauley has been repeating himself for his last couple of novels. They're nice and all, but we've read it before. (And it pains me to say that because I've met him -- friend of a friend -- and he's very unassuming and charming.)

Yes r215 it’s good

Food Circus by Naomi Oates

[quote]Add me to the list of people who think Stephen McCauley has been repeating himself for his last couple of novels.

I agree, but this new one has gotten starred reviews, so I'm hopeful.

Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities

I recently finished I am Charlotte Simmons

Have you ever read Wolfe's A Man in Full, r221? I remember loving it, but like Bonfires, it kind of peters out at the end like Wolfe lost interest in his own characters.

R222, It's next on my list.

And now I've add I Am Charlotte Simmons to my list. Thanks, r221.

What was everyone’s favorite book this year?

If the book has to have been released in 2023, I'd go for a tie between IN MEMORIAM and THE NEW LIFE. If it can include earlier books I read this year, I'd go for STILL LIFE by Sarah Winman.

THE BEE STING would be my fave.

I remember feeling an uneasy kinship with Bush Jr. after a story in the NYT about how neither Laura nor staff could tear him away from reading Charlotte Simmons to do anything else.

I loved I Am Charlotte Simmons. I remember it getting the Bad Sex Writing award that year but I thought it was a brilliant novel and so funny a lot of the time. And I’ll never forget the voice of the main character. It really delivers, especially if you’re a Tom Wolfe fan.

My fave book I read this year was Tender Is the Night. After years of starting and stopping mid way, I finally finished it.

I’m reading The Magus by John Fowles and enjoying it quite a lot

I'm with R226 -- Tom Crewe's The New Life is my favorite new book of 2023. I would love to see it filmed as a limited series, but until then I'll just cast and film it in my head. (My favorite re-read of 2029 was Jamie O'Neill's At Swim Two Boys, but that's practically a given since I re-read it every four years or so. It's another book screaming for a limited-series adaptation.)

r232, are you posting from the future?

Bless you, r232, I adore AT SWIM and have been flogging it on this site for ages. A series would go a long way to increasing its readership, as would more work from its author.

Add me to the list of those who love At Swim, Two Boys

The new McCauley comes out January 9. I've placed a hold on it at my library.

And thanks to the poster who alerted us.

I'm more excited about the publication of Janice Hallett's latest epistolary whodunnit THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE APERTON ANGELS later in January. Her THE APPEAL was one of my favorite books of 2023.

I started reading Gore Vidal's "Lincoln," but it was so tedious I gave up after 65 pages.

Same, r238! I tried to read a few of Vidal's books this year after enjoying (if that's the right word) The City and the Pillar but couldn't get into any of them, not even Myra Breckinridge.

Opinions on NORTH WOODS by Daniel Mason? Heard great things from friends but I trust you guys more.

Weird, I reread Burr and am now reading Empire. Definitely not hating it. I guess Gore Vidal isn't for everybody. I tend to like them, very much including Lincoln.

My Name Is Barbra. I'm at the point where she talks about adding back in those scenes they left out, without which people went "Huh?" as to why Hubbell and Katie broke up. It's available on Apple+. Gonna watch it soon. She explains the scenes very well in the book. Why they were left out makes very little sense.

I’m reading Desperate Characters by Paula Fox and really enjoying it.

R226, i am reading Still Life and loving it, it is the sort of book you don’t want to end. Definitely one of the reads of the year.

But my favourite is Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein, followed by Real Estate from Deborah Levy.

I'm really going to have to take another look at STILL LIFE. I remember reading about 50 or so pages and finding it very artificial. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for whatever it was offering.

"Ms. Demeanor" by Elinor Lipman. She's sort of a straight female Stephen McCauley. Droll urban humor, charmingly imperfect characters.

Journalist Patricia Evangelista's "Some People Need Killing," her memoir of state-sanctioned killings of Filipino citizens under Rodrigo Duterte.

(It can and will happen here if we fail to defeat trump.)

Almost finished with The Appeal. It’s a really fun read. For light reading I really like the Thursday Murder Club series, and for my heavier reading project I am tackling the DaVinci biography or Capital and Ideology. I’m also trying to shoehorn in The End of Reality.

Or I may just lie around like a lump instead.

Also loved The Appeal and went on to read Hallett's second mystery The Twyford Code which was not quite as good though still engrossing.

I just finished her novella The Christmas Appeal which was excellent, hilarious and benefited from its brevity. It revisits the community theatre players a few years later so its best to have read The Appeal first as many iof the same characters return.

I'm really looking forward to her next The Alperton Angels which got rave reviews in the UK and comes out here in late January. Between Janice Hallett and Richard Osman, they've really re-invented the cozy English murder mystery for me, though "cozy" might not be quite the right characterization.

Read 29 books this year, one less than 2022. Just finished DeLillo's "Cosmopolis," a dark, vivid read that's a lot more action packed than many of his books. He's my favorite writer, and I aim to read the rest of his late works in 2024 in order to be a completist.

Favorite book I read that came out in 2023: "The Guest" by Emma Cline

Favorite non-fiction book I read this year: "Prairie Fires" by Caroline Fraser (Laura Ingalls Wilder bio)

Best book I read this year: "As I Lay Dying" by William Faulkner. Turns out the guy could really write.

Since my disappointment with Gore Vidal, I'm staying in my Abe Lincoln era and trying "Lincoln in the Bardo."

Lincoln in the Bardo is one of my all-time favorite books. I strongly urge supplementing a text reading with the audio version with a huge cast.

I didn't much care for LINCOLN IN THE BARDO. I know I'm in the minority. I wanted it to be be more about Lincoln's late life than an elegiac ghost story.

But two books I loved on the subject were COURTING MR. LINCOLN by Louis Bayard about the "love triangle' between Lincoln, Mary Todd and his confidant and former roommate Joshua Speed. And BOOTH by Karen Joy Fowler about the Booth family and ultimately the Lincoln assassination.

I could not get into Vidal's LINCOLN. Tried a couple of times.

I loved COURTING MR. LINCOLN too.

R253 I'm feeling a bit iffy about "Bardo"as well. I get what he's trying to do, but....I don't want to read a whole book of it. Maybe if the Greek chorus was interspersed with a few chapters of straight narrative prose? But I'll carry on.

I enjoyed "Courting Mr. Lincoln" as well as "Mary: Mrs. A. Lincoln." (Though I think of it as "MARY! Mrs. A, Lincoln.")

Couldn’t get through Bardo. Found the style too weird.

New thread for 2024

Our Father's Fields by James E. Kibler. A Childhood, A Biography of a Place by Harry Crews. The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner...oh my brain.

Finding Florida: The True History of the Sunshine State. T.D. Allman

History, non-fiction, the gist of which is that it’s been a scam since the Spanish were unlucky enough to find it in the 1500s.