That is a great series! I like the way it veers off from the PI norms along the way.
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Pandemic novels have been appearing, and I really liked this short one, Sarah Moss’s The Fell.
Intense, but nothing melodramatic. Better, a lot less forgettable for me, than Elizabeth Strout’s pandemic novel, Lucy by the Sea, which i read right before The Fell.
Review:
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I just finished rereading Sanderson’s Mistborn series (the original trilogy, the first three books of Era 2, Secret History, and the Mistborn stories in Arcanum Unbounded) in preparation for the release of the fourth and final book of Era 2 (The Lost Metal) on Tuesday.
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Just finished Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance by Mark Whitaker
Today black Pittsburgh is known as the setting for August Wilson’s famed plays about noble, but doomed, working-class citizens. But this community once had an impact on American history that rivaled the far larger black worlds of Harlem and Chicago. It published the most widely read black newspaper in the country, urging black voters to switch from the Republican to the Democratic Party, and then rallying black support for World War II. It fielded two of the greatest baseball teams of the Negro Leagues and introduced Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers. Pittsburgh was the childhood home of jazz pioneers Billy Strayhorn, Billy Eckstine, Earl Hines, Mary Lou Williams, and Erroll Garner; Hall of Fame slugger Josh Gibson—and August Wilson himself. Some of the most glittering figures of the era were changed forever by the time they spent in the city, from Joe Louis and Satchel Paige to Duke Ellington and Lena Horne.
Highly recommended.
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Best book I’ve read in a long time.
Horror, with a Carl Hiaasen - style sense of caricature.
Apparently only recently signed to a british publisher but has been around in the states for 20+ years worth of books.
Absolutely brilliant, rattles along at such a pace that I read this one in 3 days flat (good for me).
Will be looking for more of his work.
You won’t regret reading this one.
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Two more recently-read recommendations:
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. At just over a hundred pages, a quick read, but chock-full of heart just in time for the holiday season.
The Wonder by Emma Donoghue. Writer of “Room”. It’s just been released as a film but if you get the chance, read it. Dark, but worth the journey.
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Thanks, didn’t know about that one.
My favorite of his:
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Thanks, I will seek that one out.
I’ve read synopses of several of his books.
Just amazed his work didn’t cross the water much earlier, but at least I’ve got a new author to look forward to.
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If you haven’t read it the flu pandemic Novella “pale horse, pale rider “ by Katherine Anne Porter is great. She wrote it years later but it really feels lived. Resentment at the war efforts bubbles through it also. I read it out aloud onto an unlisted YouTube channel in March 2020 after finishing work late every evening.
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A friend just recommended this.
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From time to time I reread some of Mr. Lovecraft short stories and novellas. I like some of his work, but I think I would have hated to have met him in person.
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Hmm. Is your friend a republican?
I managed to get past the recs from the likes of George Will and The National Review, to gather that it argues that caring about race and similar classifications is absurd because they’re all fictional.
Well, they do have real-world effects, and people do find their group memberships salient and important facets of their identities. 
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I noticed that on further looking. She’s a civil rights lawyer. I asked her to update after she reads it. It was recommended to her by another civil rights lawyer.
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I’m hoping that’s a case of just needing to know what the other side is thinking.
It may be because it has useful information.
Anybody read A Thousand Brains?
It’s about a systemic theory of intelligence, relevant to neurology, computers, AI, and evolution. Well written, reminds me of The Selfish Gene in scope and accessibility.
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I’m currently reading The Dawn of Everything and it’s pretty mind-blowing so far…
It’s ambitious, but not a difficult read (as some academic works making this kind of argument can be). I highly recommend it, even if you think you’ll disagree with their premise.
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Read Ducks by Kate “Hark a vagrant” Beaton at last the other day. It’s fantastic. But why take some randomer on the internet’s word for it. From the back Carmen Maria Machado says “an exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labour, and survival”. Or Alison Bechdel says "the efffect is devastating. Despite the brutal toll… she has woven… a vast and complex tapestry that captures the humanity of people doing a kind of “dirty work” in which we are all complicit.
I notice that the two recommendations on the inside of the dust jacket describe the work as a “graphical memoir” and nowhere is the phrase “graphic novel” to be found. No doubt her publisher is fuming at her insistence but I applaud her! This is work of rare empathy and while her novellist’s approach to storytelling is noted by some commentators I have to applaud that she hasn’t lost her six/eight/nine panel joke chops. She delivers dozens of one page belly laughs or poignant vignettes.
If you think you might possibly like something like this, you will like this I am sure.
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I’ve been reading and enjoying the Slow Horses books, as well. Very well written, especially compared to some of the junk I’ve read recently.
I’ve taken the opposite track, and read most of them before starting to watch the series.
We were holding off on watching until my 15 year old recently said, “there’s this show on Apple TV I want to watch. It is like James Bond, but with MI6.”
I had to warn him that it won’t be as much like Bond as he might think…
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