Tag: books (Page 5 of 25)

Africa Is Not A Country – Dipo Faloyin
Those of you who read these posts should know I’m perpetually behind, and even after nearly 20 years I’m still not smart enough to jot down my thoughts about a book shortly after finishing it. So the first entry in each post is usually going to be about four weeks old and my thoughts about it murky.

That’s the case with this, a very good book written by a native African raised in London about how the rest of the world views his ancestral continent. The constant theme throughout the book is how the white, western world often views all of Africa through a series of stereotypes. As Faloyin points out, not every country had the same colonial experience, history with slavery, process of gaining independence, experience with democracy, or has the same racial/ethnic makeup and resulting issues. Yet we always want to apply the same filters when we are looking at the problems African countries face.

He also gets into the history of the continent, specifically how colonialism royally fucked things up. There’s also a chapter about the misguided, if well-intended, aid programs that often come from grass roots movements in the west. One example was the Kony 2012 group, created by Americans to help oust the militant Joseph Kony from Uganda. Only problem was Kony hadn’t been in Uganda for six years. The movement was hyper-focused on this one, unattainable goal rather than going to Uganda and asking people there how they could help make the country a better place and protect its people.

Anyway, this was both a very good and fun read. Faloyin has a great writing style that made the book a joy to work through.

Trigger Mortis – Anthony Horowitz
Forever and a Day – Anthony Horowitz
Two modern James Bond novels, or at least written in the past few years. I’ve read similar efforts by other authors, but Horowitz is the only writer who gets them right.

Both books take place in the 1950s, early in Bond’s career. Both feature tidbits from Ian Fleming’s notebooks that his estate allowed Horowitz access to. And they both very much fit the aesthetic of Fleming’s early Bond novels, from the precise references to the consumer goods and fashion that 007 prefers to the general vibe of the era.

Horowitz updates his Bond a bit. He’s far less chauvinistic and cold than Fleming’s Bond. Minorities are treated with respect rather than disdain. There’s even a gay character that is one of Bond’s closest confidants rather than an overly affected person who is evil at their core.

That may trigger the woke alarms on some people, but I’m not sure why a book written in the 2020s that takes place in the 1950s has to mimic the most unfortunate beliefs of that time if they aren’t a key part of its plot.

The stories are quite good. They are page turners, to be sure. But they have some depth, are at least anchored in the vicinity of reality, and are fun to tear through.

I have one more Horowitz Bond novel to get to, then I’m going to check out some of his other thrillers. They seem like they will be good pool reads over the coming months.

The Candy House – Jennifer Egan
Boy do critics love Egan. And for the third time I came out lukewarm about one of her books.

Apparently this has some repeat characters from her earlier book A Visit From the Goon Squad, but since I read that 13 years ago I didn’t make those connections.

Again she has written about a series of people and moments that all have connections. I haven’t gone back to read my thoughts about her earlier books, but I bet I struggled to find a point to those books. That sure is what happened here. I enjoyed how she slowly presented these people. I couldn’t ever see a real point to them or their stories, though. I know she was making a statement about how our relationship with our memories affects us. But there was never any real plot, just another character with their set of stories.

The writing was very good. There was just no plot train pulling those words along that kept me engaged.

In Patagonia – Bruce Chatwin
Chatwin’s work was the inspiration for so many other travel writers I’ve read over the years, so this piece has always been in the back of my mind. If you’ve ever purchased a Moleskine notebook and bothered to read the insert that came inside, you know that Chatwin documented his trips in notebooks similar to them.

I mention the notebook angle because that’s very much how this book reads: like a series of brushed-up notebook entries made while traveling through the South American region of Patagonia in the mid–70s. Some are the barest of entries. Others are extended vamps on things he experienced, or deep dives into the history of the region. Often one entry leads into the next with a set of ellipses. It has a very casual presentation.

Because of that it was hard for me to establish a reading rhythm. I can see how it would influence writers who came later. But I think I’ve read so many of those authors, and enjoyed their styles more, that this didn’t really resonate with me.

It was fun, though, to look at his travels in a relatively primitive technological time and imagine how different his travels were compared to someone making the same trip today.

Fairy Tale – Stephen King
So there’s a parallel world, with a portal between ours and it. There’s strange magic in said parallel world. There’s a quest through that world whose end result will have major ramifications in both worlds. There’s an unlikely friendship between a young person and an older person. There are creepy characters.

Basically it’s every note from the Stephen King greatest hits collection. And, as happens more often than not, it works. Not a classic but worth the 5–6 nights it took me to get through it.

The thing that really stuck out to me was how King spent over 200 pages on what amounted to setup for the real story. In some ways that felt like too much. But he tells that part of the story in such a compelling manner that it makes complete sense.

Walking With Ghosts in Papua New Guinea – Rick Antonson
This was an account of Antonson’s walk along the Kokoda trail in Papua New Guinea. It wasn’t just about his trek, but also about the battles that were fought along the trail during World War II.

That historical angle stuck with me more than the actual hike. It helped me to remember that there are so many stories from that war that are left out of its broader narrative, but which were insanely important to the people directly affected. Most of Antonson’s group was Australian, and many of them had family members who had served in PNG during the war.[1] They often had incredibly emotional responses to the stories they heard as they traversed the country.

I’m a little behind once again, so these will be brief both for brevity’s sake and because the two older books aren’t so fresh in my noggin.

The Confession of Copeland Cane – Kennan Norris
I loved this book. It is exactly what the title says: the confession of Copeland Cane, a young Black man from East Oakland. Sometime in the near future (I think it is pegged around 2030), Cane is accused of murdering a police officer. In his post-pandemic, post–1/6 world, both the media and internal policing have been taken over and combined into a single national conglomerate. This entity uses its immense power to lean heavily on people like Cane. In his case, people all over the country are fed a false story about his life and actions and a national manhunt is organized to hold him accountable for a crime he did not commit.

The book is his reaction to that effort. Told in a rambling style that is supposed to be a nearly 48-hour conversation with a good friend, Cane shares what it was like to grow up in the projects of Oakland, how young people of color like him were assumed guilty of any number of crimes without investigation, how the educational system failed them, and how he hustled to carve out a better path for himself. We also see how gentrification wipes out communities of color without giving them any reasonable alternatives.

This is an incisive, infuriating, and brilliant piece of fiction. A piece of fiction that, sadly, isn’t too far from reality.

Box 88 – Charles Cumming
I knew I had read some of Cumming’s works before, but a check shows that I’ve read four of his spy novels. I honestly don’t remember any of them. That’s not a knock on his work; he’s considered on of the best current authors in the genre. It’s more a function of me just reading a lot of books in general and specifically a lot of espionage thrillers.

This one serves as an origin story of sorts. Lachlan Kite is an officer in a secret, off-the-record unit known as Box 88 that combines elements of British and American intelligence to do the darkest of spy work. In the current day, he is kidnapped and confronted by a Iranian man seeking answers for something that happened early in Kite’s career.

The bulk of the book is about that earlier event, back in the summer of 1989. Just before going off to college Kite is recruited into Box 88 when a handler learns he will be spending time in France with the family of a friend. That friend’s dad has direct connections to an Iranian Box 88 believes was responsible for at least one terrorist bombing, and is plotting to carry out another. Kite is asked to spy on the Iranian and has to make hard choices not many 18-year-old ever have to consider.

It was interesting to read about a spy exactly my age, and going back to see his career start the same summer I was preparing to go off to college.

But the story felt uneven. The contemporary half, especially, seemed a little half-baked. It was a quick read, though, so the second book in the series may be an option for when we hit pool season.

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
C is reading this for her literature class and kept talking to me about it. I told her I had never read it, but decided I should rectify that so we could discuss. I think the reason I never read it was because A) it wasn’t required when I was in school (or I missed it when I switched schools my sophomore year) and I’ve always heard mixed things about it. Some people love it and consider it a classic. It seems like just as many people think it’s overrated.

I fall somewhere in the middle. It certainly takes awhile to pick up momentum. I struggled to connect with the patois of 1920s Long Island. And I didn’t find any of the characters to be very likable or sympathetic.

Still, once it got going, I did enjoy its build toward the series of big events in chapters eight and nine.

I’m just glad I could knock it out in three nights rather than annotate and have to write a paper about it like C did.

Red Cell – Mark Henshaw
I saw this compared to a Tom Clancy novel, which both intrigued and concerned me. Clancy wrote some pretty good stories, especially in the first half of his career. But his work was often weighed down by his clumsy writing style and those super-technical stretches where things got explained in far too much detail.

Fortunately Henshaw is more about the story than the details. He does mimic Clancy by putting an unlikely CIA analyst in the midst of what could turn into the next world war. In this case China has invaded a small island that belongs to Taiwan and the US is forced to make some difficult decisions about its relationship with the two countries.

Agent Kyra Stryker is part of the Red Cell team working to figure out China’s motivations. In the process they uncover a secret Chinese weapons program that could alter the balance of power in the Pacific. In order to confirm their suspicions, they must go to China and sneak out our best asset in the Chinese government before he can be arrested. Their efforts lead to a glorious American victory, which is always fun.

I guess there’s a series of Stryker books, just like there was with Jack Ryan. This was enjoyable enough that I think I’ll try another down the road, although they, too, may be pool season reads.

Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story – Bono
One of my sisters-in-law received this book from her employer awhile back and passed it along to me. I wasn’t super excited to read it, since I’m not much into U2 anymore. But when brother-in-music E$ told me he was reading and liking it, I pulled it from the shelf.

I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Bono is a very good writer. There are times when he gets a little over-ambitious with his words, something that has plagued his songwriting over the years, too. But in the end he tells a very compelling story about his life, the career of U2, and lots of stuff he has encountered along the way.

One weird thing about reading this book was that I had several uncanny coincidences while reading. For example, while reading the chapter where he writes about Band Aid, Live Aid, and Bob Geldof, I suddenly heard “I Don’t Like Mondays.” Not a song I hear very often. Same thing happened when he discussed his relationship with Michael Hutchence; I heard an INXS song. This one might be a stretch, but shortly after reading about his efforts to lobby politicians around the world, a friend stopped by and told us how she is now a registered lobbyist so she can promote the non-profit she runs at the state legislature.

Weird!

Too Bad to Die – Francine Mathews
This has been sitting in the spy section of my To Read list for awhile. It has a fascinating concept, but was met with very mixed reviews. I figured it was worth a shot.

Mathews mixes history with fiction here, following a youngish Ian Fleming during late 1943, as he serves in support for the meeting between Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, and Joseph Stalin in Tehran. British intelligence has informed Fleming that there is a Nazi attack planned on the trio, and a member of their party is a double agent who will lead the attack. Fleming gets into some scrapes but eventually helps to save the day. Along the way he uses a pseudonym that to cover his tracks: James Bond. He also spends time jotting down ideas for a spy novel he has been thinking about. Foreshadowing!

Turns out the real Ian Fleming was actually part of that mission to Tehran. But he fell ill and was stranded in Cairo while the rest of the group traveled to the summit in Iran.

I think the general plot lines are fine, if a little overdone. We keep hearing about how the war will be lost if the assassin succeeds and some combination of the Big Three are killed. I doubt the allies would have stopped fighting the Nazis if their political leaders were all wiped out, although I get that all three were leaders of immense symbolic importance.

The big problem is that we know who the assassin is very early in the story, but it is still laid out like a mystery, as if we are discovering who it is at the same pace that Fleming is. I also felt like Mathews tried too hard to tie Fleming’s fictional actions to those of the Bond we know today.

In the end, it was a weird combination of styles. I like the idea of Fleming’s real life experiences serving as a base for his Bond novels. This failed to make all of Mathews’ ideas work.

The Lemon – S.E. Boyd
This was the book I read in one day, our snow day on January 25. Part of that was because it wasn’t super long, but also because it was extremely engaging.

It is build around the aftermath of the suicide of a famous TV chef. Yes, pretty much everything about this man, named John Doe in the story, is mirrored upon the life, career, and death of Anthony Bourdain. Which is a little weird, especially since the authors (more on that in a sec) casually mention that Doe and Bourdain were friends.

Anyway, Doe kills himself, perhaps accidentally, and several people’s lives are changed. His best friend, the world-famous chef who finds him (this character is pretty clearly based on Bourdain’s real-life friend Eric Ripert). A hotel employee who comes across Doe’s body just as his friend discovers it. Doe’s agent, who must manage the narrative of his death and figure out how to carry on his legacy. A down-on-her-luck blogger who fabricates a story of an encounter with Doe and suddenly becomes the hottest thing in media. A washed-up TV chef, who sees Doe’s passing as an opportunity to get his mojo back. And a few others.

The book is a delightful examination of modern celebrity. It is both deeply cynical and hilarious. And at times kind of gross. Much like fame itself.

I mentioned authors, plural, above. S.E. Boyd is a pen name for journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane and book editor Alessandra Lusardi. I’m not sure how they divided up the writing here, but you would never guess three different people were involved. It flows, it is well written, and it’s fun as hell.

Often December is when I really pad my reading stats. There’s always at least one holiday book. I also tend to get locked into a good reading groove as the days get cold and dark and the girls are out of school.

Not this December. I only finished three books last month. Despite that, I still logged 62 books for the year, which is my most since 2018. Just think if I had stayed focused last month!

Here are my last three books of 2022 and my first of 2023.

A Christmas Story – Jean Shepherd
An integral part of my holidays for 15 years now.

China Lake – Meg Gardiner
Gardiner was Michael Mann’s co-writer for Heat 2. Since I enjoyed it so much, I figured I’d check out some of her work. Her Evan Delaney series came highly recommended, so that’s where I started.

There was a lot going on in this one. Delaney is a writer and legal assistant who has her family sucked into a really bizarre situation. Her ex sister-in-law joins an apocalyptic religious group, The Remnant (think of that crazy church in Topeka, KS on wild, end of times steroids) and uses their power to try regain custody of her son, who is staying with Delaney while the boy’s father/Delaney’s fighter pilot brother is deployed. When the brother returns, he is framed for a murder within the Remnant. As Delaney fights to clear her brother, she discovers that the Remnant has far more sinister plans.

This book is tense and flows quickly. But it might have a little too many big moments. Or maybe I was just grumpy when I was reading it. Not sure I loved it, so I doubt I’ll continue with the series.

The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson – Jeff Pearlman
Pearlman’s latest about an ‘80s/‘90s sports hero, this time focused on one of the most remarkable athletes of my life. He carefully balanced the mythical stories of Bo Jackson’s sports exploits with the not-so-great aspects of him as a person. To be fair, once Bo got to college, he was never a truly bad person. But he was certainly selfish, standoff-ish, prickly, and arrogant. That arrogance may have been what cost him his sports career.

Like a lot of Gen Xers, I’ve limited my memories of Bo to those dramatic moments when he did things no one else had/has done. We weren’t living in Kansas City the summer he announced he would add playing in the NFL as “a hobby,” so I didn’t live first hand through all the bad blood that caused. And, thus, have no strong memories of that time. I forgot how many of his teammates on both the Royals and Raiders criticized his decision to play both sports and his work effort outside of actual games. Bo, apparently, did not know practice, something that irked many of the people he shared a locker room with.

We want our athletes to delight us with their performances. For all his flaws, Bo certainly did that. He may not have been a perfect person, but he also wasn’t a bad dude. And that brief window when he was doing amazing things will stay in my generation’s memories as long as we are around.

Blood in the Garden: The Flagrant History of the 1990s New York Knicks – Chris Herring
Usually these kinds of books – see Jeff Pearlman’s coverage of the 1980s Mets and Lakers and 1990s Cowboys – focus on the winners. So, really, this book should have been about the Pistons, Bulls, or Rockets: the franchises that won the bulk of the NBA titles in the 1990s.

However, despite not winning a championship, the New York Knicks were certainly one of the most compelling franchises of that decade. This is an appropriately compelling book.

We get it all, from the wins and losses on the court, to the personality quirks and conflicts within the team, a case study in what an absolute nut job Pat Riley was/is, how the team’s ownership and front office dramas affected the players and staff, and so on. Herring digs up a lot of great anecdotes about all aspects of the team. I’m glad the Knicks never won an NBA title in the ‘90s, but it was still fun to read about their efforts to get there.

Long Road: Pearl Jam and the Soundtrack of a Generation – Steven Hyden
One of two books I loaded onto my Kindle for our Italy trip, and the only one I really read much of, mostly on the train.

This is Hyden’s take on the story of Pearl Jam, told through chapters that each center on one song selected from their catalog. It is less an updated comprehensive history of the band – there are plenty of those books already – than an attempt to take elements of that history and use them to explain how PJ carved out such a unique place in music history.

They were the biggest band in the world within a couple years of formation, selling albums in numbers that wouldn’t be matched until the Boy Band boom of the late ‘90s. Then they intentionally threw much of it away, making decisions based on (sometimes misguided) principles or with their mental health rather than chart success in mind. By the turn of the millennium they had turned themselves into one of the most popular tour acts in the world despite their singles and albums not being anywhere near as successful as their early ‘90s releases. That road strength persists; they can tour pretty much whenever/wherever they want and count on selling out every show. And while their 2020 album Gigaton got the best reviews of any album they have released this century, it still barely registered outside their fanbase.

What made PJ unique was that they never imploded, broke up, or let their personal demons derail them. They also did not try to make albums that would still connect with the broader public, as say U2 has done, often issuing “difficult” songs as the lead single from albums to dampen mainstream interest. Nor have they specifically mined their extensive back catalog to ramp up interest, as U2 did with their Joshua Tree tour, or other bands have through “Farewell” tours. Their path was to declare that they were going to play super long concerts that were never the same combination of songs, and pour their hearts into those performances, making them truly unique events that created a deeply dedicated and motivated world of followers who constantly fill the arenas and stadiums where PJ play.

As a fan of the band, I enjoyed revisiting some of the stories from the band’s early days that I had forgotten about. And while I continued to purchase their new albums up until Gigaton (Which I streamed quite a bit upon its release) I’ve not kept up as much with their backstory, so those sections of the book were filled with tales that were new to me. It’s worth noting that Hyden is a much bigger fan of the band’s later work than I am, so his assessment of some of those more mature songs was a nice counter to my feelings about them.

If you’re a Pearl Jam fan, or just want to figure out why they ended up with their unique career arc, this is a well-written and highly engaging relatively quick read.

The Number Ones – Tom Breihan
My man Tom expanded his Stereogum column into a broader work. Here he took what he felt were the 20 most important or influential Number One hits of the Billboard Hot 100 era and went into greater detail than in his columns.

He selected these 20 for how they changed music, how they were inflection points that made everything that came after different from what came before. This feels like a difficult exercise as the importance of songs is highly subjective. I think he gets most of these selections right, or at least he justifies them with plenty of evidence to sway the doubters.

His Stereogum column is a national treasure. I’ve read it faithfully until just recently, as he’s reached a point in music history – the mid–2000s – where I was less connected with pop music than I have ever been. But I know as he gets a few years closer to the present and artists come along that I know more about, I’ll dive back in and read every word of those entires. I’m glad he got a book deal out of the gig.

Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties – Ian MacDonald
I mentioned last month I had been slowly working through a book that was heavy in music theory. This was that book.

I discovered it after watching the Get Back documentary last year as several writers suggested it as a good companion piece. In it MacDonald works through every song the Beatles ever recorded, in chronological order, and comments on them and the albums they came from. I started reading it in January, figuring I would work through it casually between other books. That’s exactly what I did, sometimes reading it several days in a row, other times not touching it for weeks. I finally finished it on December 2.

I’ve read plenty of Beatles books, but this was a very different perspective. What I did not expect was how heavy into music theory it was, with MacDonald breaking down songs into very technical components that I, as a non-musician, do not understand. That made it tough to read. MacDonald was also a bit of a curmudgeon, and as much as he admired the Beatles best work, he also skewered many of their songs that are considered classics by most.

My technique for the book was to read each song’s entry, then listen to the song, another reason it took so long to get through it. I did so sitting at home, waiting in the car for a kid to finish practice or an appointment, on planes to/from Europe, by the pool, waiting for an oil change at the auto dealership, and probably some other locations I’ve forgotten. I’m not sure how much the book added to my Beatles knowledge, but it certainly kept me listening to their music throughout the year, as I think my year-end music stats will reflect.

The Abduction – Shea Serrano
A very short, very dumb story from one of the funniest men on Twitter. It was perfect.

Five Decembers – James Kestrel
I cheaped out when I bought my Kindle and got the one that has “special offers,” a euphemism for constant advertising on its sleep screen. All so I could save $50 or whatever.

This book was often featured in those ads late last summer. I’ve found a lot of the books that Amazon pushes are crap, so I discounted it. Until I saw it land on a best mysteries of the year so far list. I’m glad I saw that list, because this was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read this year.

At its core it is a pretty standard murder mystery. A couple bodies are found in a shack on a farm above Honolulu. The investigating detective then shoots and kills a man who shoots at him while he is searching the crime scene. Noir-ish escapades follow.

Ah, but what makes Kestrel’s story special is that the murder takes place Thanksgiving week, 1941. As you may know, if you’ve read your history, something big happened in Honolulu a few days later. Kestrel makes that part of the story, in a pretty amazing way.

Detective Joe McGrady thinks he has a solid lead, one that has him hopping across the Pacific in pursuit of a person of interest. He lands in Hong Kong on December 6. The next day he is captured by Japanese forces who were invading that island and sent to a prison camp back on the Japanese home islands. However, as he is being registered into the camp, a Japanese man pulls him aside with an offer of freedom. It seems that the man has a direct connection to one of those murders back in Honolulu, and wants to keep McGrady safe so he can continue his investigation when this new war between Japan and the US no doubt ends quickly.

Again, if you’ve read your history, you know that short war was not what happened. The man, and his daughter, hide McGrady until Japan surrenders in 1945. Some bad things happen in those years, especially towards the end when the US is fire-bombing Tokyo nightly.

At the end of the war McGrady makes his way back to Honolulu, reclaims his job (briefly), and sets to unraveling the case that the rest of the HPD force has forgotten about. He brings it to a conclusion in a satisfying manner and then returns to Japan for a pretty wonderful ending.

A quick, pulpy read that is absolutely terrific. It also made me want to go back to Hawaii.

The Quiet Boy – Ben H. Winters
I’ll always read former Indy resident Winters’ work, even if none of his recent novels have matched – to my tastes – his wonderful The Last Policeman trilogy. This was no different; a solid read, but nothing great.

Winters often brushes up against sci-fi without ever fully committing. That is the case here. At the center of the story is a young man who suffered a brain injury and emerged from a medical procedure in a strange, semi-vegetative state. He endlessly paces in loops, but shows no emotion or ability to interact with people. He also never eats, drinks, sleeps, gains or loses weight. Word gets out and he becomes the center of some often uncomfortable attention.

While he is the pillar the story is built around, it’s not really about him. Instead it is about the legal battle over his medical care, and then a related murder that takes place a few years later. Winters focuses on the grief of his family and their desire for revenge, the attorney (and his son) who believes he has stumbled onto a massively lucrative case only to lose badly, and the “medical expert” who was expected to be the star witness in that attorney’s case.

There are some interesting moments in those personal tales. But I wanted to know more about that kid and what was really going on with him. Winters hints at another world, with sinister consequences for opening it up, but we never really get to the meat of that angle. That ends up being a tease for the rest of the story. And as character after character disappoints the reader, it is hard to say what remains is as compelling as the potential of that kid’s story.

Upgrade – Blake Crouch
Speaking of border-line sci-fi, Crouch’s latest also delves into that territory. Set in the near future, he writes about a human “upgrade” virus and the battle to keep it from infecting the world’s population. This virus, crafted by a geneticist who has already, accidentally, caused a massive famine the world is still recovering from, turns people who survive its infection phase into super humans, with unbelievable strength and intelligence and healing powers. It also kills a lot of people. Her hope is that these super humans will cease the endless squabbling that has prevented “normal” humans from solving the problems of the world. But her son, who she infected against his will, realizes that even with these super powers, humans will still fight for power and control of each other, and battles to prevent the virus’ introduction into the general public. His prime opponent in that effort is his sister, who also has the virus. Holy sibling rivalry!

There’s some cool stuff in here, but the story felt a little rushed to me. And also lacking in some depth that made me wonder if it was written more as a vehicle for a screenplay. Like Winters there is less exploration of the What Ifs and more focus on the family dynamic at the story’s core.

Maybe that means I need to read some real sci-fi.

The Stand – Stephen King
I mentioned in my last entry I was working through a very big book. Nearly 30 years after reading the original version, I decided to read the “completed and uncut edition” of The Stand. Released in 1990, this version included over 400 pages cut from the original 1979 manuscript, and checks in at over 1100 pages.

I read the original version in the summer of 1993, my first-ever experience with a King novel. I was inspired to take on the expanded edition thanks to a sportswriter I follow who recently read it and gave it his highest recommendation. While the basics of The Stand are still stamped in my brain, the details had all faded, and October seemed like a good time to jump back in.

As you would expect, a lot of it felt unfamiliar. I was constantly thinking, “Do I not remember these parts because they were ones that were cut from the original, or because it’s been almost 30 years since I read this?” It was clearly more B than A, because I remembered way less than I thought I would. There were also moments that he obviously updated pop cultural references in the re-editing process that kind of threw me.

I also realized that I think I’ve mixed up a lot of other King works with The Stand in my memory. Certainly parts of The Dark Tower series, which has some overlap. I really thought more of The Stand took place in Kansas, but realized after that I was thinking of parts of The Dark Tower.[1] And, let’s face it: a lot of King books revolve around cross-country quests, so it makes sense that I would get them a bit jumbled in my mind.

Anyway, I enjoyed the re-read, even if it took up nearly two whole weeks of my free time. In addition to the dated pop culture references, the way King wrote about relationships and sex has changed a lot. His perspective has always been from the political left, but some of his words in The Stand still struck my modern ear as very retrograde. It was also a little disconcerting to read it in the age of Covid, especially since the Super Flu of the book nearly wipes out the world’s population.

As I said above, The Stand was my introduction to King’s work. At least in terms of reading it. I had been familiar with King for a long, long time before that, though. My mom was a massive Stephen King fan. One of the few indulgences she allowed herself in the years when she was struggling to keep us afloat financially was buying each new King novel the moment it hit her Book of the Month club. There was a big section of his books on our shelves. I would occasionally take them out and look at the covers. This was during the time when his books were more pure horror, and those images spooked me. I don’t remember if my mom told me specifically not to read them, or rather that they were best saved for when I got older, but I built up an aversion to them. I was never terribly interested in horror to begin with, and assumed all of King’s books fell into that world. So even as I got older, I didn’t have much interest in them.

One of my college roommates bought the paperback of the updated edition of The Stand in the spring of 1993. I read the back cover blurbs, talked to him about it, and became interested when I realized it was more of an apocalyptic/quest novel than one about spirits and gory death or whatever. When I got home for the summer, I found my mom’s copy of the original and spent a week or so getting through it. And I loved it.

Soon I was racing the clock before I went back to school to read as many of King’s books as I could. I specifically remember reading The Shining. My mom had long told the story of how when she read it, she stayed up all night to finish it because it was so compelling. I know I saved it for a weekend night when I didn’t have to worry about getting up the next morning, but couldn’t quite last long enough to polish it off in one sitting. But I did read it in less than 24 hours.

Born in that summer was a love for Stephen King that continues to this day; I just read Billy Summers back in March. I recently counted how many of his books I’ve read (at least 30; a few I’m fuzzy on), and while it is a lot, it is no where near everything he’s written. I’ve “retired” from reading his stuff a couple times.[2] I once again feel like I probably don’t need to read any more of his books. But I also know it will only take one good review or recommendation from a friend for me to pick it up should be publish something new and compelling. I was also thinking about re-reading The Dark Tower series. Some of those books I’ve read 2–3 times, but the later ones I’ve only read once. That feels like a project that would occupy my time for several weeks. While I would love to revisit Roland Deschain and his compatriots, there are a lot of other books I want/need to read, not to mention things to watch on TV. I think it was enough to pause my reading for two weeks to get through The Stand a second time. At least for now…

I am deep into the longest book I’ve read in years. My Kindle tells me I’m 54% through it after more than a week of work. Figured I better get to the books I read before I started it so I don’t totally forget what they were about.

Italian Ways – Tim Parks
Hmmm, a book about taking trains in Italy. That is interesting. Because, you see, we will be riding on trains in Italy in about six weeks.

But more on that next month.

I’m not sure how helpful this book will be in our adventures. The author, an Englishman who has lived in Italy for over 40 years, details his journeys across the Italian peninsula on the country’s trains, which are loaded with idiosyncrasies that often defy logic. I say it won’t be super helpful to our journey because his focus is on the more traditional commuter trains that connect Italian cities. He, for example, commutes from Verona to Milan for work a couple times each week. He does spend some time on the newer, high speed, Frecciarossa trains that we will be using. But those, with their reserved seats and more smoothed out experience, lack some of the local color the commuter trains offer.

Still, it was interesting background on a service that is vital to so many Italians. And I’m sure, despite our higher-end experience, we will run into some of the craziness that is central to Italian train culture.

Heat 2 – Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner
As I mentioned in last month’s media post, I watched the original Heat in advance of reading the sequel that Michael Mann wrote during the Covid lockdown. Re-watching the movie was helpful, but not entirely vital.

The book jumps around in time, from the late 1980s to 2000, showing how the crew of the movie came together and had a formative experience in the late 80s, to how Val Kilmer’s character, Chris Shiherlis, the only surviving member of the crew in the movie, carves out a new life.

It was a bit hard to read the book with the images of the movie characters in your head. Many of them translate just fine. The one I had trouble with, though, was Neil McCauley, played by Robert De Nero in the movie. In the late ‘80s part of the book, he comes across much less cold and closed off than De Nero’s portrayal. Which makes sense; there is a moment in that part of the book which totally explains why his character is so emotionally distant. But it was hard for me to image De Nero playing that softer, earlier version of Neil.

Otherwise the book is solid. Not great. Don Winslow is one of the blurbing authors on the back jacket and I couldn’t help but think he would have made the same story better. But it was a relatively quick read, so not a waste of time by any measure.

I’ve stuck to a pretty brisk reading pace lately. Several of my latest batch of books have some common themes, so I’m going to pair them up to attempt to get through them quicker.

Suburban Dicks – Fabian Nicieza
The Damage – Caitlin Wahrer
Two mysteries from first-time authors that were both very good.

In Suburban Dicks a disgraced reporter and a one-time phenom profiler who had her career derailed by normal life stuff team up to not only solve a murder the local police don’t seem to want to solve, but also uncover a deeper conspiracy that has plagued their town for over half a century.

Nicieza’s writing is sharp, his characters are wonderfully developed, and the pacing of the story is terrific. Which made me mad because he is a comic book writer and this was his first published work of proper fiction.

The Damage takes the traditional He Said, She Said angle of a sexual assault and updates it for our times – both the attacker and victim are gay men – and then brings in some good family dynamic stuff along with a lot of interesting twists in the story. Wahrer just keeps increasing the pressure throughout the story. I enjoy books like this that make it tough to breath at times. Apparently she’s an attorney, so this book made me mad, too. I need to do something with all this time I have and all these ideas in my head.

US MACV-SOG Reconnaissance Team in Vietnam – Gordon L. Rottman
Rogue Heroes – Ben MacIntyre
The video I watched last month about the Green Beret who returned to Vietnam got me searching for info on MACV-SOG. I found this small book at the library. It’s more of a technical guide, going into great detail on how MACV-SOG units were formed, what kind of training they did, what kind of gear they carried, and then an example of a typical mission.

MacIntyre’s book is about the development of the British Special Air Service during World War II, a unit credited for being the first, modern special forces outfit. If you’re old enough to remember The Rat Patrol TV show, it was based on SAS exploits.

Election – Tom Perrotta
Tracy Flick Can’t Win – Tom Perrotta
I wanted to read Perrotta’s sequel to his classic, but since I had only seen the movie for Election and never read the book, I figured I should knock it out first.

These two books took maybe a combined six hours to read. The sequel is very much an update on the concept of the original, from format to narrative arc. I greatly preferred the original to the sequel, but the sequel was worth the few hours that went into knocking it out.

Perrotta has generally written about people roughly my age. It was a bit sobering for his characters to be hitting the stage of life where they reflect on where they are and how they got there.