j konger2025
please, accept mystery

2025

Posts tagged with 2025

    Books from 2024!

    two excuses before we start:

    1. as a child i wasn’t allowed to watch television and had things from which to run away, so i read a lot
    2. 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

    1. 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.
    2. 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