This was my first book by this author – often referenced in books by Paul Theroux – and I thought it was time to see if his writing would fit my interests.

Apparently this book was one of his early writings, and it felt a little rough sometimes. It didn’t fit into what people might call a “travel book” these days, but at the time of writing (1962-1964) there really wasn’t a popularized genre like travel writing quite yet.

The writing in this book is quite good – especially the descriptions of natural scenes and scenes from urban life and poverty of India are written in a way that really brings them alive. He often writes quite harshly about individuals which seems rare these days – hopefully he has changed the names.

I liked the storytelling style here – and the writer fills the stories not only with events but his own reactions, sometimes surprisingly visceral/judgmental or raw. It seems like he felt like he needed the reader to understand his reactions to what he was seeing in India at the time, so there was no hesitation baring his soul.

I’m not sure I liked the format of this book – it wasn’t a traditional journey and there were some chapters that contained commentary on a single topic or a sort of literature review on an element of Indian/British culture – these didn’t seem to fit smoothly with the stories of his journeys around the country.

And for a world traveler the author seems to get ruffled pretty easily. I’m sure things were a lot more stressful traveling in those days, but it seems like it doesn’t take much to piss him off. Maybe his anger just seemed so sudden while he writes his calm descriptions.

I’m not sure if I’ll read more from this writer – but later on I’ll check reviews from some of his other books to see if there is a shift in tone for his later works. For some reason I’ve read a lot about India in the last year or so – maybe I need to shift to some other countries.

Next I am (re-)reading Pet Semetary by Stephen King. I haven’t read this one since I was in junior high school – it’ll be interesting to read it again after all this time and see how I like it!

This was a brilliant book that took its time to tell a complex story of how America has changed with shift away from a manufacturing economy – and especially how Amazon has affected and profited from this change.

First, the book is focused on the long game, so a little patience is required to follow the theme, but it is rewarded with a very wide view of the issues. This shift in how America works is huge, with real consequences across many different industries and lifestyles, so a quick “Amazon is bad” message would be inadequate. The writing here is investigational style, with facts and figures to help illustrate the message. The writer doesn’t tell you what to think as much as frame the issue in a way that leads to your own conclusions.

Coming at this from my point of view as someone who no longer lives in America, the changes described in the book don’t resonate with me as I’ve not seen them firsthand, but I guess that people living in the USA will find a lot they recognize.

And as for Amazon in Japan, it was interesting to see how things are different here, especially surrounding the issue of lower income workers and dying cities. For various reasons the broad changes that swept through the USA over the last two decades are not occurring here at nearly the same pace.

I’d like to read more of these kinds of books – taking a methodical look at social issues like this one does seems to be my style of reading.

The next book I am reading is An Area of Darkness by V. S. Naipaul.

This was a sci-fi book with an interesting idea, a person whose job on a mission to colonize a planet is to do all the dangerous jobs fully expecting to die – and then have his body (and consciousness) rebuilt and spit out of the generator for another go.

The story reminded me a bit of the movie Moon with Sam Rockwell, and also a bit of the book The Martian by Andy Weir. Like in The Martian, the character here is talking directly to you, and so the background and information of the world comes to you conversationally. That means a lot of information download, and so the book is filled with telling rather than showing, which felt a little dry.

Mickey, the main character(s) is kind of a smart-ass and was trying to be funny all the time. He was funny some of the time, but for the most part it kind of grated on me after a while. The opportunity to explore the universe is here for him but he seems to mainly focus on cracking jokes.

I did like the book – it had a lot of good imaginative sequences and it was fun for a short read. Maybe it would have worked better as a short story?

Next I am reading Fulfillment by Alec MacGillis.

This book told a story – a semi-fictional episode in the life of George Sand and Frederic Chopin – using the voice of a ghost haunting the abandoned abbey in Mallorca where they stay to get away from Paris for a time. The ghost at first seems like a character in the book, but by the end seemed like only a gimmicky device to explore the future and past of Sand.

There are a lot of side stories in here that were well-written: thoughts on gay/lesbian relationships in that era, the joys and perils of small town life, clever antics performed by the ghost to try to exert influence on the living. But most of this is a sort of biography on George Sand and her unique life. I was totally interested in her story, but the storytelling of the ghost and some of the other characters got in the way for me.

There is some beautiful writing in here, sadly not enough about food (with “delicious” in the title I was hoping for a more food-centric story) and I think I’d like to read a happier story written by the same author.

Next I am reading Mickey7 by Edward Ashton.

This was the second book in a series, released this year. It seems like most fantasy/sci-fi novels are written as part of a trilogy at least, and this one is no different.

Just like the first novel, this one is well-written, and adds a few new character’s points of view to tell the story of a world where dead gods are being brought back to life, and changing the world as we know it. The Viking setting is unique enough to make the story interesting, and we’ve gone into full magic mode in this book.

Again the author spends a lot of time describing the equipment, the weapons and armor, and how each piece works together. This is to be expected in the first book, but it got a little tiring for me in this second book. I guess if you heavy into medieval and Norse weaponry this is the series for you.

The author writes really well about the small details of a battle – the confusion, fear, panic and adrenaline and the tiny in-between moments between life and impending death. As this series develops there are more scenes on a bigger scale – armies moving and going to war – and this isn’t as well-written. Anthony Ryan writes some great large scale battle scenes in his books. Hopefully these big scenes will improve in future books as I think they’ll become more and more important based on how the story is developing.

The pace of development continues quickly (too quickly?) and as the characters travel around the world we look forward to key interactions – similar to Brandon Sanderson’s epic novels. I found myself guessing what will happen next, who will die, and what twists might get thrown in. The good news for me was that I was almost never correct in guessing what will happen.

Based on the length of the first two books in the series it will be a long while before I can read more – at least the author provided a summary of the previous story in the beginning of this one.

So overall, more of the same but in this case it is a good thing. Next I am reading Briefly, A Delicious Life by Nell Stevens.

This short novel takes a cool concept and attempts to make a story out of it. For me there wasn’t quite enough here to make this a great story, but I give it high marks for potential.

The best part of this book is that it introduces this distant planet inhabited by long abandoned colonists that have restarted a civilization, with one “modern” anthropologist in cryogenic suspension awakened occasionally. This book throws together the modern with the primitive and allows the reader to see events unfold from both perspectives. It is sort of a gimmick that works to an extent – I’d have liked to see it explored a bit more.

The world building here is excellent. Tchaikovsky has a great sense of scale in science fiction – beyond the day to day he also shows generational shifts over a very long time. All the background info that he packed in here had me begging for more details, more development, more exploration. Instead it seemed like he was trying to wrap up the book as soon as possible. Maybe he has other things he wants to get to.

I’m not sure I’ve read anything like this – the barebones of a story draped over a rich universe of lore, ideas and background information that are pretty much left untouched. Hopefully the writer will come back to this at some point and expand it.

Next I am reading Hunger of the Gods by John Gwynne.

His books are always a challenging read for me – both in topic and depth. In this new book I was again caught up in the beautiful writing and that helped to get me through some more difficult sections (the in-depth discussion of the state of quantum physics, or recurring conversations with an impish hallucination, for example).

But the story here was both broad (covering a wide variety of topics) and narrow (diving deep into one man’s soul) – and there is a lot to process for the reader. Once again with McCarthy’s writing I felt some scenes will stick with me for a long time: the main character’s nights alone on an abandoned (?) oil rig, living in an old empty house in the middle of nowhere, the submerged passengers in the beginning of the story. There were plenty more – some really good stuff here.

It was also fun to read through the philosophical discussions throughout the book between some recurring characters. The book approaches these meaty topics without dumbing them down. As I said before, some sections were hard to get my mind around, but reading this author’s books you should know to be prepared to go through the mental wringer.

I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time – and there is a sequel/coda/partner book coming out next month so I’m sure I’ll read that and see where it takes me.

Next I’m getting back into sci-fi/fantasy with Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race.

This book was a pretty interesting true crime story, involving the shady business of sea transport, insurance fraud, and assassination.

The authors did a lot of research on this story, and overall they did a great job to tell a complex story in an interesting way. Occasionally they got sidetracked with (perhaps) overly deep biographies of characters that played only a small part in the story. I liked the level of detail when it came to what actually happened, and what came next.

Also, one person who lived and worked in Yemen as it deteriorated was a good illustration of expatriate life, and how people can stay in a hot spot even though all the warning signs are clear to everyone else.

The end of this true story was a little frustrating – justice was not really delivered, but I suppose that is a sign that the book needed to be written and that there is more to do in this area to avoid repeat episodes in the future.

Next I am reading The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy.

I read the fifth and sixth book in the series, back to back, and for a while there I thought that I had read them in the wrong order.

Network Effect is book five of the six book series, but unlike all the other books it is a full-length novel. It wraps up the story nicely, and does it in a way that we feel totally satisfied with how things end for our main character.

But then the next book I read, was back to novella form, and takes place before the events of the previous book. I was a little confused, and it felt strange that the author would go back in time to write another story – one that seemed unnecessary to the character’s development, It was a good story, but nothing ground-breaking.

I guess I shouldn’t complain – I really enjoyed the tone of the series, and the writer pulled off a lot of writing feats that I think others wouldn’t be able to do, thanks to the unique nature of the AI protagonist.

Now that I finished the series, I saw that the author signed a contract for three more books – so apparently the adventure will continue. I’ll be eagerly awaiting the next book!

Up next in the reading list is Dead in the Water by Matthew Campbell and Kit Chellel.

This was a weighty tome on wasps – all you ever needed to know about these under-appreciated insects. There is a ton of interesting information in here, and my only real complaint was how it was organized.

Going into this I really didn’t know much more about wasps than the fact that you should avoid them. After reading this book I feel like I know a lot more, and I appreciated the author’s efforts to educate people. She obviously has a lot of love for the subject.

The most interesting parts for me were near the end of the book (on social wasps) – I probably would have been hooked more quickly if they were at the beginning. The author seemed to bring up different species of wasps in a random way – I found myself forgetting which species was which sometimes because of the random ways they appeared in the book. There was an odd chapter featuring a hypothetical dinner with Aristotle that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of the book.

Despite these complaints it was a quite interesting book and it made me want to read more on other social insects – maybe ants next time.

Next I’m going back to Martha Wells’ Murderbot books to finish off the last two!

A book on writing, focusing on the short story form, doesn’t at first sound like that interesting of a topic. Writing short story fiction is hard – I know that – but I do enjoy reading short stories. Some of the collections of short stories that I read contain ones that seem to leave me wondering – was that the end? What was the point? Am I just too dim to get it?

This book analyzes seven short stories by famous Russian authors, and without being overly technical shows you why these are great works, specifically what the authors did to achieve that greatness, and what steps you can take to dig into the layers of what is going on below the surface of the story.

This was written in 2020 – fairly recently – while the short stories were from a long time ago – the 1700’s and 1800’s. Furthermore we read these short stories translated from their native Russian, so it is sometimes difficult to get the cultural points and understand the political background at the time.

George Saunders is a teacher (as well as a writer) of literature, and here we can feel what it is like to be in his course. He takes an open approach and most of all encourages his students (and in this case, his readers) to think more deeply about these stories and consider what they might mean.

I really liked this book, and although some of the Russian short stories weren’t to my taste necessarily, I’m sure I’ll be a better reader in the future thanks to what I picked up here.

Next I am reading Endless Forms by Seirian Sumner.

More Murderbot – I just love this series of short novellas.

This one has the main character heading back to save an old employer, and orchestrating a jailbreak from a huge space station.

Bringing back some of the characters from the first book was refreshing (although it has been a long time since I read that one). The plot here was a little less suspenseful and more focused on action, but it delivered plenty of that signature A.I. commentary coupled with sarcasm, antisocialism, and a growing sense of self-awareness.

There are just two books left in the series, and I suppose I’ll get to finishing them off by the end of the year. Looking forward to it!

Next I’m reading A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders.

I found this book listed as one of the best thrillers of last year, and it turned out to be a pretty good book.

This might be the first thriller I’ve read where the main character is black. I’m sure I’ve read other books where the main character was black but it didn’t really register as pertinent. In this book the character’s color is an important part of his identity, and maybe because of the area of the USA where he lives the author makes sure to point out the colors of the characters in this story.

The action in this book was fast-paced and the writer often invoked what you expect from cliche scenes of action movies as a device to upend the reader’s expectations. I liked the main character, he is a guy who is trying to do the right thing by his family but also somehow get ahead of his financial obligations.

The bad guys in this book are suitably evil and interesting, and the story often hints at behavior that happens beyond the reader’s view – we just kind of infer and that makes the story more interesting.

I felt like there was an overuse of similes throughout the book – so much that it was distracting. Maybe some people like to save these up and use them at their next party but it felt a little forced to me. Maybe just a writer’s quirk.

Overall I liked this book – a step up in intensity for me, but still entertaining and a good read.

Next I’m reading Exit Strategy by Martha Wells.

This was an odd book that felt like it was two different stories grafted together. During the first half of the book I was thinking it was going one way, but then it oddly shifted in the middle and turned out to be completely different.

So focusing on the first half, there is some great writing about food in Mumbai, and growing up in a big (rich) Indian family that runs a restaurant. The writer has done a lot of research and put in a ton of details to make things come to life.

After a brief time spent in London the family moves to a small village in France. Magically the perfect house appears, magically language troubles don’t come up, magically a perfect foil is available to provide a counterpoint to the Indian restaurant that the newly arrived family opens up. All of that I can forgive because I am reading this for entertainment and it is a small price to pay for the fantasy.

Life in the French countryside sounds great, and surprisingly there are few culture shock moments for the Indian family. There is a point when the talented son in the family (the main character in this book) discovers that he has a gift for cooking, and soon thereafter decides to sort of pitch his culture’s cooking in favor of learning to cook French classical cuisine. I couldn’t buy his motivation for changing his focus – supposedly while this Muslim teenager was watching a group of French people slaughter a pig the old fashioned way he was inspired to learn French cooking. Hmm…

Then oddly the book takes a sharp turn and we follow the budding French cook to Paris and we fast forward through 20 years, as he gains Michelin stars and deals with the challenges of running a restaurant in Paris. Most of the characters from the first half of the book (who we’ve come to know and love) are just dropped and are forgotten (until the last page) and instead the writer spends a lot of time grinding an axe about modern French cuisine, chef’s inspiration, and how the government is making things hard on French restaurants. All of these are interesting topics but they don’t fit well into this story.

I guess overall I felt like the story was deformed to fit into a particular ending, in a way that felt unnatural. It was a pity because the writing of the first half was really well done.

Now I’m waiting for the next book to become available at the library, so I am not sure what I’ll be reading next.

This was a sensual book written in a sensual style, focused on how someone harnesses the sense of smell of others for their own ends. It is about an evil man without any moral compass, using their gifts to find their place in the world. Such a strong power and ability eventually turns into a curse, and we follow along this journey.

I liked the writing style here – describing scents and their effects is not easy, and although there was a sort of “translated” feel to the words sometimes (this was translated from French, I believe), the story kept me interested even though you could kind of predict what was going to happen.

There are scenes of brutality in the face of beauty, and some of them were a little hard to stomach. There is a great deal of sexuality without very much sex, with one large exception near the end of the book.

It is hard for me to describe the message that I got from this book – it was an examination of evil and what morals and character bring to humanity, but also it lampoons various religions, the rich, the poor, and science (as it was in the 1700’s).

I enjoyed this book – and I heard there is a movie so it would be interesting to see how they film something that relies so much on a power that is invisible.

Next I am reading The Hundred Foot Journey by Richard C. Morais.