Books I Read in May 2022

 “What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?”

— Anthony Trollope from The Warden

Seven books this month. 

Lucky Breaks (2022) by Yevgenia Belorusets 

This is a collection of short stories originally published in 2018 about women affected by war in East Ukraine. The stories are very short, from one to four pages. 

The stories are also quite surreal and fragmented, more sketches than actual stories. After reading a few I read the afterword by the translator. It helped me gain a better understanding of Ukraine’s history and of the author’s intentions and storytelling style. 

In the end though, the stories just blended together into a haze of random surrealness. I gather that was the author’s intention, but I enjoyed and got more out of the translator’s afterword than the actual stories.

The Year of Reading Dangerously (2014) by Andy Miller 

This book is the author’s account of spending a year reading books that he had always wanted to read but just never got around to. In between the discussion of the books, he mixes in various anecdotes. I enjoyed the stories about his time working in a bookstore and the stories about the books he read as a child.

Throughout the book he talks about the joy and the frustrations of reading with wit and humor in an uplifting way. While I found some parts of his journey more interesting than others, every chapter is filled with the love of reading. 

Pietr the Latvian (1930) by Georges Simenon 

This is the first book in the long running Inspector Maigret series by Belgian author Georges Simenon.

At only 162 pages it was a quick and enjoyable read, especially after things really picked up at the halfway point. I believe the other books are all around the same length. Apparently Mr. Simenon wrote them so each one could be read in a single sitting. I’ll be reading more. 

Full review here:

We Learn by Writing: Pietr the Latvian (Inspector Maigret #1) by Georges Simenon

Blood’s a Rover (2018) by Harlan Ellison 

This is a collection centered around Ellison’s story “A Boy and his Dog.” It won the Nebula Award for best novella in 1969.

The stories are about Vic, an amoral boy and his telepathic dog Blood, trying to survive in a post-apocalyptic world after nuclear war. 

Besides the title story this collection includes the prequel “Eggsucker,” the sequel “Run, Spot, Run,” and the screenplay for the aborted television series “Blood’s a Rover.” The other stories are interesting but they don’t have the same impact as the original novella.

“A Boy and His Dog” is the strongest story in the collection. It’s dark, disturbing, satirical, and controversial. In other words, peak Harlan Ellison. 

The Complete Poems (1994) by Edgar Allan Poe 

This is a collection published by Barnes & Noble. I was familiar with “The Raven” and the titles of a few of the others but most were new to me. Many of the poems are about love, death, and despair. I had to look up a few of the poems to understand what Poe was referencing but they were all beautifully written. 

The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) by Ray Bradbury 

This is a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and non-genre stories. While I liked some stories more than others, I liked Bradbury’s prose in all of them. Bradbury was a master of metaphor. The paperback edition I read includes twenty-two stories. Later editions include ten more.

Favorite stories: 

"The Fog Horn"

"The Pedestrian" 

"Invisible Boy"

"The Flying Machine" 

"A Sound of Thunder"

"The Great Wide World Over There"

The Warden (1955) by Anthony Trollope

This is the first novel in the Chronicles of Barsetshire series, set in the fictional county of Barsetshire and its cathedral town of Barchester, England.

The protagonist is Reverend Septimus Harding, a conscientious clergyman who is also a warden of a hospital.  He finds himself enveloped in scandal when a lawyer investigates the hospital’s charity and the amount of money it brings in.

The writing style, the humor, and the characters hooked me so I’ll be reading more. 

Full review here:

We Learn by Writing: The Warden by Anthony Trollope

Books I Read in January 2022

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” 

— Ray Bradbury

This year I’m trying to read a wider variety of genres. I think I’m doing okay so far. 

Collected Ghost Stories by M. R. James and A Warning to the Curious, Count Magnus, and Other Horrors: The Best Ghost Stories and Weird Fiction of M. R. James, Annotated and Illustrated by M. Grant Kellermeyer. 

M. R. James was a medievalist scholar and provost of King’s College, Cambridge and of Eaton College, best remembered for his ghost stories. I started both of these in December. I really enjoyed the collection annotated by M. Grant Kellermeyer. The annotations were packed full of information and really added to my enjoyment of the stories. 

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury 

I re-discovered Ray Bradbury recently and he’s now one of my favorite authors. This is his classic about man colonizing Mars. It’s more drama than science fiction. Like everything else I’ve read by him, it’s moving and brilliantly written. 

Out on the Cutting Edge by Lawrence Block 

This is the seventh book about Matthew Scudder, an ex-cop solving crimes in New York City. In some ways it’s slow moving but it’s also filled with compelling characters and absorbing dialogue and prose. I finished it pretty quickly. I really like how Mathew Scudder has grown since the first book. One thing hasn’t changed though. He’s still a grave and compassionate man trying to do the right thing in a bleak and tragic world. 

Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne 

In 2020 I read Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise by Katherine Rundell. It reminded me of some of the books that I loved as a child and inspired me to revisit some of those and read the ones I never got to. As much as I like SF, crime, noir, and horror, sometimes it’s nice just to read something that’s light and plays with words just for the fun of it. A. A. Milne did quite well. 

Lupin III: Greatest Heists by Monkey Punch 

The adventures of master thief Lupin III and his partners in crime, Jigen, Goemon, and Fujiko. This is a best of manga collection that was originally released after the author passed away in 2019. The stories involve slapstick humor, wild chases, crazy heists, and double crosses, and are more risqué than some people realize.  I love the art style and use of panels. Monkey Punch stated that he was influenced by Tom and Jerry cartoons, Mad Magazine, and the art of Mort Drucker, and it really shows. I have to say that I think Monkey Punch is the greatest name for a comic book artist ever.

100 Poems by Seamus Heaney 

I’ve been mixing up my reading with poetry. I read this after a collection by Robert Frost. This was okay but it didn't grab me like the quote from The Cure at Troy, which is the first thing that I read by him. I think part of it is being unfamiliar with a lot of the subjects that Heaney wrote poems about.

Life Ain’t Nothing But Sex Misspelled by Harlan Ellison 

This is a collection of some of Ellison’s early non-speculative fiction stories. As with most anthologies I liked some stories more than others. I found myself becoming impatient as I read some of them. He can be too wordy at times. On the other hand, among the stories that I liked were two that really stood out. "Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine" concerns abortion and "A Prayer for No One's Enemy" concerns Nazis in America. Although written in the ‘60s, it’s eerie how relevant they still are today.

Favorite Read of the Month: A Month in the County by J. L. Carr 

What a beautifully written book. The main character Tom Birkin is a WWI veteran who reflects on a month from his past in which he was tasked with uncovering a mural that was painted over in a church. There are so many things I love about this book. How the main character develops a bond with the unknown painter from 100s of years ago, his connection with another WWI veteran who is working on an excavation in the churchyard, the conflict between Birkin and the person overseeing the restoration, how Birkin slowly makes a connection with the people from the town, his growing connection with the young woman who comes in to watch him every day, and how it all comes together in the end. All done in 135 pages. The ending is sad and bittersweet but still uplifting. It reminds us that if we miss out on something special in our lives that we have to find a way to settle for its memory.

I learned about this book after I started listening to the Backlisted podcast, which is dedicated to “giving life to old books.” I was planning on branching out on the kinds of books I read, and this podcast is really helping with that. After listening to a few episodes, I have more books added to my to-read list. 

On to February! 

Three Favorite Authors

“People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” - Harlan Ellison 

I’ve really been into three particular authors recently, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and Harlan Ellison. I’ve gotten so into them that I’ve created checklists of each author’s work. I’m ticking things off as I add them to my collection and as I read them. I’ve also rearranged my bookshelves and grouped their books close together. Not only have I rearranged my physical bookshelves, I’ve also added author “shelves” for these authors to my Goodreads page. 

Neil Gaiman

I first discovered Neil Gaiman when I was in university. I read his Sandman comic around the time it was originally being published. I liked it but never finished reading it. After Sandman I didn’t read any of his work for quite a long time. I was always aware that he was writing short stories and novels over the years but I never got around to reading any of them. 

I rediscovered Neil Gaiman right after I started this blog. His book Art Matters had just been released and I picked it up. I liked it enough that I sought out more of his advice on writing. I liked what he had to say. I found his advice simple, straightforward, and motivating. It was just the right kind of advice that I needed to hear. Things like the importance of finishing things. That you don’t have to get it right at the beginning. By finishing things you start to learn. You learn more from finishing a failure than by beginning something that is fantastic that is left unfinished. 

He also uses examples from his work when giving advice. This intrigued me enough to seek out his fiction. So I read Coraline. I wasn’t expecting to like a dark fantasy children’s novella as much as I did. It was eerie and suspenseful and the main character was smart, resourceful and brave. Then I read The Graveyard Book. I never thought that a story of a young boy that lives in a graveyard and is raised by ghosts could be as moving as it was. I liked it even more than Coraline. Next was The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Neverwhere. So far The Graveyard Book and Neverwhere are my favorites. Most recently I’ve been reading his short stories and I’ve been enjoying them a lot. M is for Magic is a nice, quick overview of his short story work. I’ve just started the short story collection Smoke and Mirrors. He seems to have a genuine love for storytelling and it really comes through in his work. 

Ray Bradbury

I first read Ray Bradbury in high school. I came across his work in the science fiction short story collections that I read from my high school library. I remember liking them a lot but didn’t read any further. When he passed away in 2012 I picked up a collection of his short stories but I didn’t read it. The years went by.

I also rediscovered Ray Bradbury right before I started this blog. I have mentioned before that  I watched a video of a speech he gave at a writer’s symposium in 2001. In the speech he gives lots of advice for aspiring writers. His speech was one of the things that motivated me to write more and to start a blog. I still didn’t get back into reading his work though. Until a few months ago. I found a beat up copy of Bradbury’s R is for Rocket in a used bookstore recently. I picked it up and read it. Good stuff. I recognized some of the stories. I may have read this collection in high school. Next I read The October Country, a collection of science-fiction and horror stories and The Halloween Tree, a short novel about the origins of Halloween. I loved them both. I also read Zen and the Art of Writing. He mentions some of the advice from the book in his speech.

There’s something lyrical and poetic about his writing. I’ve added a few more Bradbury books to my shelf and I’m looking forward to reading them. 

Harlan Ellison 

I first discovered Harlan Ellison when I was in high school through his interviews, reviews, and essays in Starlog and Future Life magazines. I soon learned that he wrote my favorite Star Trek episode, “City on the Edge of Forever.” What’s on the screen may be different from his original script but his voice is still there. It’s not perfect but it’s a powerful episode. It doesn’t offer up easy answers to the problems the characters face and it doesn't end with the characters laughing and smiling on the bridge.

I can’t remember exactly when I started reading his fiction. I do remember buying his books at one of my favorite book stores in Atlanta, The Science Fiction and Mystery Bookshop. It moved twice but like a lot of bookstores it eventually went out of business. It’s been closed for years but man, I still miss that place. In any case, I bought a number of his books, both fiction and non-fiction. 

I had all my Ellison books packed away and stored at my parents house for the longest time. I dug some of them out a few years ago and started reading his fiction again. I also started filling in the holes in my collection. Within the last year I’ve picked up a hardcover, a trade, and a number of books on Kindle. Just recently I found some more boxes of his books that I forgot that I had. 

It turns out that I have way more Ellison hardcovers and paperbacks that I thought. At present I have nine hardcovers and twelve paperbacks. Some of them are signed. I thought I only had two signed books but it turns out that I have more. I haven’t seen these books in over twenty years. Finding them was like finding a time capsule filled with treasure. 

It’s been driving me crazy that I can’t remember which convention I met Ellison and got my books signed at. I thought it was at a Dragon Con but I can’t find any documentation of him attending prior to 1992, which is when I moved to Japan. It’s also driving me crazy that I don’t have any photographs. I used to always take pictures at the conventions that I attended. 

I just finished reading one of his early collections of short stories, Paingod and Other Delusions,  and I finally read Dangerous Visions, which he edited. Ellison was not without controversy and I don’t like every single thing he has written. But there are so many gems. I still find his writing, especially his fiction to be raw, powerful, and moving. 

In Summary 

While I have some other favorite authors, and I’m always discovering someone else to read, I keep coming back to these three. They have some similarities but they’re not exactly alike. Bradbury and Gaiman seem the most similar, but Ellison is different. He can come across as louder, angrier, and more in your face. That’s just one side to his writing, especially his non-fiction. He can also demonstrate that lyrical, poetic poetic quality I find in Bradbury, and he also comes across as having a genuine love for telling stories that both Bradbury and Gaiman have. 

They reached deep into themselves, put in the time to put words onto paper, and told stories that go beyond what’s just on the written page.