I'm going to write more (a lot more) about this later, but if anyone is looking for a great novel about resistance to an oppressive government, especially from a more contemporary & American perspective, The Curfew is the book you want.

My cousins are nerdy collectors so I set them up with a "certified mint in box" copy of my book that they put in a shadow box in the study. Not pictured: the signed playbill from a Night with William Shatner on the same wall to the left.

I had a super bookstore dream this morning. Bill Bryson was stopping in to sign copies of The Road to Little Dribbling, so I started flapping copies. As I did, I found one copy that had been inscribed with a message starting with "My Dearest Eric." I clearly remember thinking "Eric is a jerk," and "We have to be more careful with returns."

Book-length essay that explores a bunch of ways a classic Chinese poem has been translated over the years. Fun if you're into translation. Executive Summary: Translation is impossible but interesting.

Here's a phrase you don't often hear: "Comedic philosophy noir."

Haven't posted in a bit, because I haven't finished a book in awhile. As you can guess imagine, my reading and writing schedule has been somewhat disrupted. Now along with finishing the draft of my next novel and the reading I want to do, I've got to call Congress and email electors. I wanted to find something light and fun to help me cope. I really like Ahmed's politics on Twitter so his book was a way to do 2 things at once, support and relax.

Spirals tightening, spirals widening.

Noir binge part 2. Nice and dark with a really clever crime at its heart and an interesting twist at the end.

Selling books at the Boston Book Festival's keynote featuring Maria Semple, Tom Perrotta, & Emma Donoughue (who is very tall.) How is your Friday night going?

I don't read a lot for books on the craft of writing, but I trust Graywolf as a publisher and Perch is an interesting writer to me. I might write a longer piece for my blog called "Benjamin Percy Might Not Like My Book & That's OK," because we h as very some fundamental disagreements about the role & value of style in writing. But there is still a lot of overlap & a lot of dialogue between our positions.

This one moved a little slower than The Last Good Kiss (which is one of my favorite crime novels) and the shifting perspectives made it al little hard to follow (at least for airplane reading) but, when it finally all came together at the end, it was another one of Crumley's smart subversive novels.

There is only one indie bookstore in Las Vegas but Write's Block is a very cool store. picked up The Hideous Hidden, The Sobbing School, & an anatomical t-rex.

Thinking of going on a noir binge on my vacation starting with on if my favorite under-appreciated crime writers, James Crumley.

Fantastic classic, Sci fi. For fans of Asimov & Heinlein.

Slowly the plot lines spiral towards each other like asteroids approaching a once in a lifetime convergence.

Krasznahorkai is notoriously difficult, but his prose is some of the most beautiful being written anywhere in the world. These two short novels have all of his trademarks and so are a perfect starting point if you are interested in his work.

#FunFridayPhoto A book I love with an animal on the cover. This one happened to be on my desk.

"The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung." Melville being profoundly insightful on how we project our negativity and fears onto the other.

Can't say I remember exactly why I ordered this, but it's Lauren Beukes so I'm going to trust Past Josh on this one.

Beautiful, powerful book about discarded lives, identity, violence, & power. Reads well with A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing. Trigger warning for present but not graphic, sexual abuse

McBride's prose crackles and pops like the air in a dry field before a lightning strike.

One day, when I have all the time in the world, I'd love to write a book like this, that takes a relatively basic idea & follows it wherever it leads.

Apparently the #FunFridayPhoto today is of the book you most recommend. There are probably a couple other contenders, but the brilliant The Story if My Teeth was closest to hand.

Is it weird to say Coffee House might have a book with YA crossover potential? A thoughtful, even mediatative, story of a young man for whom the problems of his parents, the problems of the adult world that he is approaching, are still just beyond his understanding.

Really interesting entertaining narrator and run world building. The aliens and alien animals were delightful. But, ultimately, the story felt very rushed, and more like an introduction than a full novel, or even, a short story that was expanded into a novel. Still made me interested in Cuban Sci-fi and I would read more Yoss.