Book 11 of #2024Halfway is Dahl's iconic story of the patron saint of bibliophiles: Matilda. I have read a good handful of Dahl's morbid & macabre adult stories & have now read 3 of his books that can be enjoyed by all ages & in the latter category Matilda is a definite favorite. Dahl's wordplay is in top form & Quentin Blake's illustrations are the perfect enhancement to this coming of age story.
Book 10 of #2024Halfway is a story collection by this problematic author. The title story is a masterpiece of tonal surprise & it is the range in registers among O'Connor's misfits that make her southern gothic stories work so well, even if she seemed to have trouble perceiving & valuing it in her own personal life.
Known for the Harlem Detective series, Book 8 of #2024Halfway is Himes' brilliant standalone novel of unchecked police brutality in NYC. I read this in the LOA '64-69 omnibus & it was def one of my favorites. A cat & mouse story of racial tension featuring a psychotic police officer. This was a relentless read & sadly just as relevant 6 decades later.
Another favorite story collection for book 7 of #2024Halfway I was greatly impressed by the range in this collection. There was body horror, fantasy, stories that reminded me of Black Mirror at it's finest. A wide range of spec-fic with great commentary. Bora Chung is def an author I will be keeping an eye on in the future.
I have been on a real short story kick all year long & one of my favorites was my reread of Gaiman's “Fragile Things.“ I wrote in a post several months ago about gems such as “A Study In Emerald,“ “October In the Chair,“ “Forbidden Brides of the Faceless etc,“ “Closing Time,“ “Bitter Grounds,“ “Instructions,“ “Feeders & Eaters,“ “How To Talk To Girls at Parties“ & “The Monarch of the Glen.“ These remain among the best I have read this year.
I have not forgotten about my #2024Halfway countdown. Life gets in the ways (life=work & work related nonsense). Resuming on book 4 & using the trusty number generator is Rick Remender's 12 volume graphic novel series Deadly Class. In years past the best character work that I read were often in classics. But, this year I just can't stop thinking about the excellent character work in this series. Is it violent? Yes. Is it over the top at (CONT)
Book 3 of #2024Halfway is one of the first books I read this year & one that I immediately knew would end up as a favorite of the year. My enthusiasm for this fantastic novel has not waned. Spec-fic with a great cast of characters that reads like realism a couple of years down the line depending on what day you are looking at the newspaper.
Book 2 of #2024Halfway is Doom Patrol. My introduction to the wild & thought provoking world of DP was via Gerard Way's terrific 3 vol. run. The exact same month I also read Grant Morrison's 6 vol. run. Although I found Morrison to be a bit too cerebral & experimental at times, I appreciated him pushing the boundaries of the form. IMO Way hit all of the right notes in his volumes & really illuminated what makes Doom Patrol so great.
As we have a couple of weeks left in the month, I am going to try to daily post my favorite books that I have read so far. I have read a lot this year, so I will be posting only those that I have given 5 stars to. But I will also be posting a bonus favorite in the comments section as well. The order of these is by number generator.
#2024HalfWay Book 1
I somewhat recently heard in a podcast that Kuang had described “Yellowface“ as a horror (CONT)
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Patricia Highsmith's “Tremor Of Forgery.“ This is a book with more questions than answers & is the most political novel by Highsmith that I have read. The MC is a chameleon like character, similar to Tom Ripley, & this was one that I thought about for days afterwards. Highsmith doesn't hit the reader with clever plot twists but gets under their skin in very subtle ways & will have you questioning motivations. Absolutely fantastic. 2w