Recently I was thinking back to the 1980’s Disney movie based on this book, and so I downloaded it and enjoyed it now as much as I remember enjoying it as a kid.

This book takes a hard look at the innocence of kids, and examines what makes men bad or good. There is a lot of philosophy here – mainly in one character’s speech while thinking through things in the town library – but it felt sort of forced to me. There is some great setup of some spooky situations, and a couple of scenes that weren’t in the movie. Also some scenes from the movie weren’t like the book, and it pleasant to discover these points as a reward for digging deeper into the story.

The book is written in a folksy tone, maybe deliberately, but some of the old idioms and expressions caught me by surprise. There are odd generalizations (“women love gossip”, bad kids throw dead cats down neighbor’s chimneys) that maybe resonated better fifty years ago.

Overall the story is solid and was worth reading, but just felt a little outdated in some parts. I’ve read plenty of older books that didn’t feel outdated – maybe it was because they depended less on phrases and idioms popular at the time.

Next I’m reading Hooked by Michael Moss.

Luckily I haven’t read any of this author’s other books, and went into this one completely blind.

A thriller/mystery set in the late 1960’s in Laguna Beach, Southern California, it is packed with memories from the author’s own childhood, and it turns out to be sort of a nostalgia trip turned into a mystery adventure. The quirky characters are here: a beachfront hippies, suspicious swami, murder, kidnapping, LSD and all the counterculture escapades of the revolutionaries of the era.

The writer did a great job capturing those times, sometimes going a little overboard with the cultural references, but the hits far outweighed the misses and I really enjoyed reading this book.

It helps that the main character is a likable teenager just hitting manhood in a time of great upheaval in the United States. You always are pulling for him, and we’re with him as he finds the seamy side of the world he lives in, and makes some moral decisions and has to live with the consequences.

I’ve read quite a few thrillers and mysteries, but this one really felt different – maybe because of the time shift and maybe because the author really loved his memories of growing up in this place. The result is a story that he put a lot of love into, and so it was naturally pleasant to read.

Next I’m reading Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.

This book is an eye-opening look at a subculture I didn’t know much about: the lives of long term low-income residents of the Ozarks in the United States. Written about ten years ago, it tells a fictional tale of a young teenage woman who is sort of co-opted into the role of head of household, and shows how much courage and conviction she exhibits to protect herself and her family.

The scenes of poverty and violence are pretty gut-wrenching. Boys and men are expected to cook meth and go to jail. Women are expected to marry and get pregnant. Relatives are there to protect their own. And no matter what, nobody talks to the police.

This would all be pretty depressing if it wasn’t for some beautiful writing and interesting background into the people’s lives and the generations that came before. Thanks to the beauty in this book I could stomach the brutality.

Next I’m reading A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker.

This book was recommended by a former student, and so I finally got around to checking it out. It is historical fiction, written by a group of Italian writers under a pen name, and I read the English translation (while my student read the Japanese one).

This is a meaty book – set in the mid-1500s around the Mediterranean Sea. The story shows the point of view of a Venetian spy hunter, who becomes hunted himself. This leads to travel all over, and thanks to the detailed writing style the reader gets a real taste of what life could have been like in those days. The novel overall deals with the Jewish struggle to establish a homeland for themselves, which in turn is set on the unstable edge of friction between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Empires. Throw in some interested European parties, hints of the future of Palestine, a dramatic invasion of Cyprus, and you get a wide ranging multicultural story that has a lot of depth.

There is a lot about this period of history that I don’t know, so it served as both entertainment and education. Thanks to the pacing of the story and the tag-team nature of the writing style (who wrote what?) you really find yourself unable to stop reading sometimes. Also, I had the chance to visit some of the places in this book which made them feel even more real to me.

There are some points that I didn’t like – the main character is generally likable but is prone to fits of sudden violence or lust that didn’t seem to fit his nature overall. I understood him as a vehicle to tell an overarching story, but I’d have still preferred a little more depth to him. Some of this might be due to awkward translations – I understand that things can feel slightly off when reading translated work.

Also this grand tale sometimes gets a sudden fast-forward, speeding through parts that I had been looking forward to, and glossing over intrigue that could have been teased out a little more. There is plenty of intrigue here, though, and this made me want to read some more spy stories (Tom Clancy?) soon.

Next I’m reading Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell.

I can certainly understand the idea of moving on past a tragedy, and it seems like part of the world is making motions towards normality after COVID-19, but it is not too soon to take a hard look at what things went wrong in response to the pandemic. Some books look at political missteps – this book looks at how some people took advantage of public money and a streamlined government response in order to enrich themselves.

The writer is a journalist with ProPublica, and his and his colleagues’ actions show the important role that journalism still plays. Parts of the book were fascinating in just learning about how journalists approach such a huge and fast-moving topic. The writer uses humor and an accessible writing style to really bring home the details of these scams and what went wrong.

There is plenty of blame to go around, and reading this is sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes disgusting, and very rarely, hopeful. Thankfully the author uses humor throughout, which helps to sweeten the bitter topic.

I wonder if political dialogue in the future will be up to the task of analyzing these serious faults – or are we doomed to repeat the same mistakes in the future?

Next I’m reading Altai by Wu Ming.

This book was recommended by my mom, and I was immediately interested in the story of Edward Dickens, and a fictional guess at what his life might have been like after emigrating to Australia just before his famous father, Charles Dickens, passed away.

This book tells its story in front of a deep background of all of Charles Dickens’ works, but while it may help to have read his novels it isn’t essential to digest what goes on here. Edward Dickens (nicknamed Plorn) is a young man of seventeen when we meet him, and we watch his approach to manhood and finding himself a place outside the colossal shadow of his father.

There were a lot of bad situations that he could have found himself in, but the book is written in a sort of wholesome, positive way that made it a pleasure to read. Sinking into the history and scenery of colonial Australia in the early 1900’s was captivating, and I especially appreciated the story of someone moving overseas to find themself – “the place that concentrated the forces of his soul.”

I enjoyed the attention to detail and the thorough research in this book. Recently I read The Spanish Daughter, which took place on a cacao plantation, and I lamented the lack of detail in the processes there. This book goes into great detail of the sheep and wool industry, and the tremendous scale and skill needed to supply England with the fabric it demanded for their suits and fashion of the day.

I’ve read Great Expectations long ago and certainly didn’t appreciate its literary qualities at the time, but people that have read most of Dickens’ works will surely be satisfied with this tale.

I’ll miss reading about Edward Dickens – a quick check of his Wikipedia page after completing this book showed a short and relatively uneventful life. I’m glad the author decided to breathe something new into Plorn’s story.

This book was my kind of read – a crisp, fast-moving story with a deep world in the background and just the right amount of wit and grit to keep me turning the pages. Written completely in the first person and following the adventures of just one character, this was a pleasure to read.

I hadn’t read any of the author’s other books but it seems like this book was a very polished work. Every detail had meaning, the attention to details that served the main character throughout the story, and a feeling that I couldn’t help compare to the Game of Thrones series of books. It wasn’t quite as deep as those books are, but the realism of the characters and their flaws was there, along with a healthy dose of mystery.

Apparently the second book in the series is coming in a month or two, so I’ll definitely pick it up when it comes out – I don’t think I can wait for the library to get it.

A tale of colonial Korea from the early 1900’s to after World War II, it shows the complex birth of an independent nation through the eyes of some of the people who live there.

It starts in a unique way – telling a story of a hunter and a tiger, and the events in this prologue echo through the entire book. I was pleased that the events I predicted to happen didn’t go exactly as I expected, and that the story was not always happy but ultimately satisfying to me.

The writing style stood out to me – sometimes it felt like an awkward translation, and in this awkward feeling was a more direct description of beauty that would be hard to tell otherwise. This is a saga that spans more than 50 years, so the book has to fast forward now and then, and sometimes that felt jolting. Huge events in people’s lives are glossed over in a few sentences, in order to keep our focus on the feelings of the main characters as they react to the progress of the nation.

One thing that caught my attention was how women were treated in those days – wives were for raising kids, courtesans and whores were there for other (more carnal) pursuits. Just about very man in this book was cheating on their wife, to the point where it seemed like it was part of the culture in those days. Whether it was or not is unclear, but it was a little jarring to read.

Next I am reading The Pariah by Anthony Ryan.

I’m always interested in books that focus on changing the way you think. For one, it gives you more tools to approach problems, and for another it gives more dimensions to your daily reflections.

This book is from the perspective of someone who has an academic background of cognitive psychology, and a professional background of playing poker for high stakes. It certainly is an unusual background, but this book focuses squarely on the thinking side of things.

There were some pretty useful points in here. Some examples that stuck with me: distinguishing between the decisions you make and the outcome of those decisions, not dealing in absolutes (“I’m 60% sure of X”), working within diverse groups to avoid personal biases, and firmly understanding the differences between what you can influence, and what is merely luck (good or bad).

The writing style of this book was a little heavy handed, and often dwelt too much on the real-world examples given. I’d have preferred to get the idea and move on, but there is some repetition here.

Still, not a bad book to refresh the old brain software. I might read more from this author in the future.

Next I’m reading Beasts of a Little Land by Juheah Kim.

I like the oddball style of the author – she engages the reader both inside and outside the pages – and so I was drawn to read this short book of memoirs. She wrote another book of stories/memoirs and also quite a few children’s books.

I’m guessing that most readers who know the background story behind this book (the author died shortly after publishing this book from ovarian cancer) get a sort of sad, melancholy feeling from it like I did. Without that information, there is a lot of joy found here and touching, playful moments where the author focuses on things that most people don’t think about or notice.

There was also an interactive component to this, which I sort of skipped over as I’m not sure it still works or if I can access it outside the USA. For a bit of a read off the beaten path, this was refreshing. Still, it was profoundly sad to see how much life and happiness was packed in here so soon before it would be snuffed out.

Next I’m reading Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke.

This book was hard to classify for me – historical fiction, murder mystery, with a bit of bodice-ripping romance thrown in for good measure. I came for the historical fiction part, but for me it was underrepresented.

Set in 1920’s Ecuador on a cacao plantation, there are a lot of interesting things to learn about. How the beans are harvested and processed, how the plantation was integrated into the growing town, and the parts it played in the economy and the lives of the producers – all of this is covered in a few short paragraphs.

The mystery side of the book is a little heavy-handed but entertaining enough. Some of the plot was a little too far-fetched for me, but if you don’t mind sitting back and watching the story play out without overthinking it then it sort of works.

The romance and women vs. men issues are a big part of this book, and it was the least interesting for me. If the balance of this book was a little different, I think I would have enjoyed it a great deal more.

Next I’m reading Textbook Amy Krause Rosenthal, by Amy Krause Rosenthal.

After my previous book was unexpectedly bad, I was happy to have a well-written book come up next. True Grit is a western tale told from the point of view of a girl who is exceptionally bright and determined, and unlike most female characters in westerns.

Having seen the movie adaptation first (the most recent adaptation, not the John Wayne one) I can’t help but picture the characters from that movie as I read the characters in the book. I was struck by how closely the movie had followed the events of the book, with just a couple of extra scenes thrown in.

The characters are introduced and unlike the previous book that I read (The Cartographers) we are given short episodes to see their personality in action – their personality is not explained directly but it is discovered by the reader, which is an altogether more pleasant process.

The book is rather short but paints a complex picture of each character – how they are motivated and what they believe in. You can’t help but root for young girl as she takes charge of her own life instead of leaving it to others to decide.

I blazed right through this book – it was a pleasure to read.

Next I’m reading The Spanish Daughter by Lorena Hughes.

This book marked the first dud I’ve read in quite a while. I had heard good things about it, but unfortunately I found a lot to dislike.

I’d like to write some of the good points to start, as a way to balance all the bad ones, but there’s really nothing to highlight for me. In the beginning my hopes and the anticipation of a mystery were enough to get me through the first few chapters, but from there my frustration and disappointment just started to build.

The book kind of reminded me of the DaVinci Code – the prose was stilted and seemed to be more about telling you things rather than showing them. I thought there should have been more elegant ways to introduce back story – but the author couldn’t be bothered to search for them. The plot moves forward and the characters are one dimensional and the surprises are telegraphed from the beginning and I could go on and on.

The best part of reading this book is that it showed me examples of writers shouldn’t do, and it made me notice what other writers do well: create dialogue and pacing that carry the reader along without them necessarily noticing.

So I’ll put down the hammer and walk away from this book – I’m sure whatever I read next will be better.

I haven’t chosen my next book, but I am reading The Wok by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt in the background while waiting for the next big book to drop in my lap.

This is the first book that I’ve read that addresses the COVID pandemic directly. In fact, it does a nice job of using a story to sort of document the early and middle stages of the pandemic in New York City. To me it almost felt too early to go back and look at it, but then again it also felt like so long ago.

I was attracted to this book because it is also about travel, and tells about a trip to the Galápagos Islands. There is also some romance in here, some family drama, LGBT issues, and a hard look at the what we may have previously taken for granted. In short there is a lot going on here, but the author pulls it off well.

Without giving anything away, there is a dramatic shift midway through the book that caught me by surprise, and thanks to this the book became a lot more interesting to me.

I think the best part of the book is the way it documented the pandemic, and showed it from various points of view. There are also some subtle barbs from the writer about the leadership of the country at the time, which was a nice touch. The very end of the epilogue was a little cheesy for me – but I could forgive – the story is really just a vehicle to tell a bigger story about the effects of the pandemic.

With a million Americans dead from COVID (by far the most of any country) there will be more time in the future to look at what happened and consider all the pain and recovery necessary to move on – this is an early attempt at looking at things and I think a successful one at that.

Next I’m reading The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd.