Books from 2024!
two excuses before we start:
- as a child i wasn’t allowed to watch television and had things from which to run away, so i read a lot
- in my 20s in went to grad school and had to read at least three books a week
this is all to say that
Stats
i read 158 books this year and, again, i wont apologize. this is two less books than last year, so I quess you might say i’m slowing down. i still confuse my gs and qs always tho
i also gave up on 26 books, often early, in case you confuse my obsessiveness for a sort of masochism
Favs (no order)
Paul Celan - 70 Poems
Astounding
Walter M Miller - A Canticle for Leibowitz
My second time reading. Dude knew that deathly serious stuff is never serious without a few little jokes; or, god no surprise this guy did a suicide
Lucy Ellman - Ducks, Newberryport
I just sank inside this book. I wish it were longer.
J. G. Ballard - High-Rise
Post-facto: i read an intro to a collection of his short stories calling ole JG a “surprisingly normal man”. Sorry, I’ve read this shit. He was not normal
Stephen King - Duma Key
Stephen King tries Murakami. And it’s in Florida!
Garielle Lutz - Complete Stories
If I ever get around to adding reviews to my site bookshelf you’d see how up and down I really am with these, but overall they’re fantastic in a ( me at least) new way
Stephen King - 11-22-63
Only king could write a book about killing lee harvey oswald that’s almost half a self-consciously nostalgic look at the 50s. Like all great king books, he stumbles headfirst into something unpleasant and profound.
Other Notable Books
Gordon Burn - Happy Like Murderers
Realistically, a fave, but i just finished it in the last few days, and its very gruesome. However I’ve already started imitating its voice.
The Animorphs series (finished it this year)
I am 30 or 40 years old and I need to make record of this.
In conclusion
- This was a year primarily of sci-fi, which I didn’t realize till now. I am trying to write an encyclopedic sci-fi novel, perhaps that’s why.
- I love to look back at books like this. Because I read voraciously I read these at home, in the park, on the train, on vacation, and so many other places. It’s an accidental collection of small memories
stay awhile partner (2025-52 weekly post)
last week of the year, officially. we’re dropping the next few days into the first week of next year, as our disorderly calendar demands
i am home agian, in real vacation: the post travel time from christmas to the first. this is the real holiday: lay with cats and watch house (md)
wrote: Scott and Bianca stuff, mostly. its their time to shine. i’ve some time back finished the first three “episodes” of the revolution, so i have to enter the complex morass of the third. that means writing randomization scripts also
else: been reading the devestating Happy Like Murderers. such a strange and frightening cycling writing voice. lots of music. how ya do
it casts a strange and compelling light (2025-51 weekly post)
i’m away from home and my lovely shell scripts so instead of recording all i’ve written (scattered fragments and stories, and a return to my three daughters, if i recall), have a list of things i saw in the airport, my favorite semi-public place:
- a trend of men with oddly manicured eyebrows, or at least eyebrows shaved into patterns i didn’t recognize
- a boy looking out the window comparing the approaching cityscape to minecraft, which he has open on his switch
- unfortunately that’s all i wrote down and it’s been days since i been there
- i wrote an essay about airports on tumblr once and someone liked it, but then i deleted my tumblr and i don’t remember what it was like
goodnight, sleep well dear readers. i’m gonna watch youtube and do flash cards :)
apartment 2A is open (2025-50 weekly post)
phew: between sickness, christmas, 3 late nights, racoons, and karaoke, i barely wrote: just a revision to a beautiful tale of nannyhooks, literally yesterday
oh well!!!!!
and i cleaned some site code up and learned some haskell and drew pictures on my ipad. why would i try to learn haskell? i wont use it in my life
here are some good karaoke songs
- life during wartime (talking heads)
- love shack (its fun voices)
- punk rock girl, by dead milkmen
- bug like an angel (as a bit, lower the mood)
in addition
in another year, perhaps the next year, might expand these into retrospectives, as a bit (synonym for resolution)
let them know its christmas time this year (2025-49 weekly post)
bc it is december and bc its therefore holiday season, we put our tree up for the year and watched terrible christmass movies. its a cultural thing: once child actors no longer bring us celebrated joy, we put them in intentionally bad holiday movies, as a humiliation ritual. this, the tv says, is why you never should be famous. its better being quiet, after all
(what i mean to say: i finished revising the first half of the Revolution this week: exciting. it was my goal to get it by the end of the month, and i was (thankfully) done by the third. now i only need a way to publish)