In fulfillment of a promise I made you a little while back, allow me to present the last 100 books I read in my silly, silly little book tracking project, wherein I’ve been cataloguing all my books since the summer of 2013, and have been recording each book I complete since July of 2015. This is all my wife’s fault, as she gave me a barcode scanner and database software back in 2013, and now I’ve become kind of a nut about this stuff. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I still love to read. A lot. But of course there’s a difference when you start tracking anything. (And no, this has nothing to do with Schrödinger—Cut that out!) Indeed, it is only this week that I’ve admitted to myself that I have to let go of some of my books without reading them. Heretofore, I’d thought that if I entered them in my database well I had to read them before I could get rid of them. However, I’ve realized that I have to let some of these things go … whether I love them or not. Also for any of y’all reading about my own self-imposed stupid rules for the first time (and likely I’d have given up reading this page by now, so … moving on), I should note that I count as a ‘Book Read’ only those non-comics (& graphic novels, and that ilk) I complete. Thus the first book of this ‘century’ of books, Book #1401, is pictured here. Though I do keep track of the comic books as well, as we shall see.
Also I like to highlight some of the better reads in each tranche of ‘Books Read’ in this book listing. (Generally 10 at a time, plus any comics I read during that set.) And boy oh boy was Book #1402 a winner! I read this seemingly throwaway novel about Abercrombie Fox, forced to endure service in the English navy at His Majesty’s pleasure, while looking out for the real prize: Mr. Fox. I jumped in out of order because … well, look at it! Obviously a tossed off book for a quick buck. But no! Because behind the pen name of Adam Hardy lies the actual pen (or, more likely, typewriter) of one of my favorite writers of action, Kenneth Bulmer. He is in fine form here, combining his love of military tactics with a great eye for plotting and dialogue and action. Now I have to find the first book in the series so I can give it the attention it deserves.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1401 | 2/28/25 | Stephen Mitchell | Tao Te Ching: A New English Version | Religion & Spirituality |
| 1402 | 2/28/25 | Adam Hardy [Kenneth Bulmer] | Fox: Treasure Map | Fiction |
| 1403 | 2/28/25 | Michael Bonner, ed. | Uncut Magazine March 2024 | Music |
| 2/28/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #25 | Comics | |
| 2/28/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #26 | Comics | |
| 1404 | 3/1/25 | Ron Goulart | Too Sweet To Die | Mystery |
| 3/1/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #27 | Comics | |
| 1405 | 3/1/25 | Agatha Christie | Appointment With Death | Mystery |
| 3/2/25 | Subba Rao | Raman: The Matchless Wit | Comics | |
| 3/2/25 | Yagya Sharma | Rana Pratap: The Heroic Struggle of a Rajput King Against the Might of an Empire | Comics | |
| Subba Rao | Rani Abbakka: The Queen of Ullal Who Stood Up to the Might of the Portuguese | Comics | ||
| 1406 | 3/3/25 | Margery Allingham | No Love Lost | Mystery |
| 1407 | 3/4/25 | Ken Smith | Junk English | Reference |
| 1408 | 3/4/25 | Will Self, intro. | Revelation (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian |
| 1409 | 3/4/25 | Michael Barson | Better Dead Than Red: Nostalgic Look at Russiaphobia Red-Baiting, and Other Commie Madness | History |
| 3/4/25 | Russ Cochran, ed. | Two-Fisted Tales #20 | Comics | |
| 1410 | 3/5/25 | Fay Weldon, intro. | The Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian |
Russ Cochran saved so much of our cultural heritage by making available reprints of the old EC comic books in many different guises and under so many different publishers. Often imitated but never bettered, the original pre-code comic books from genius William Gaines might be known only through a handful of pages and panels in historical works on the comic publishing trade were it not for Mr. Cochran’s monomaniacal pursuit of promulgating these classic comics to new readers. (It certainly wasn’t the cash.) So we’ll let this reprint of Tales From The Crypt stand in for all those wonderful reissues of those old EC Comics. After all, who are we kidding? It was the horror comics that made that publisher’s reputation. So reputed, in fact, that the reaction, led by Herr Wertham, destroyed all those great books, leaving behind only MAD magazine to keep the American kids salivating for great art and societal insight each month. The particular issue pictured here reprints a 1952 issue, full of great stories—especially that cover tale!—from start to finish.
In 1998 the folks at Canongate Books had the bright idea of publishing individual books of The Holy Bible as individual volumes, calling these the Pocket Canons. Each volume was to be (and was) introduced by some literary light or like that, and the text was the good ol’ King James Version (still under crown copyright in the United Kingdom). The theory was that this was the way these books were originally read, as each book would have been a single scroll passed from one literate hand to another, to be read in contemplative reflection. This gospel, that of John (no relation to The Revelator), proves the worth of this ideal. The introduction by Blake Morrison is both useful and moving, and (re-)reading the words of John in this format gave them a very different impact. I also learned (or realized for the first time) that Judas was Jesus’ bagman.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1411 | 3/5/25 | Constantine Cavarnos | Byzantine Thought and Art | History |
| 3/5/25 | Russ Cochran, ed. | Tales From The Crypt #18 | Comics | |
| 1412 | 3/6/25 | Maj Sjöwall & Per Wahlöö | The Fire Engine That Disappeared | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 3/6/25 | Russ Cochran, ed. | Tales From The Crypt #14 | Comics | |
| 1413 | 3/6/25 | André Gide | The Immoralist | Fiction |
| 1414 | 3/7/25 | John Mortimer | Rumpole and the Golden Thread | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1415 | 3/7/25 | Katherine Fischer Drew | The Burgundian Code: Book of Constitutions or Law of Gundobad, Additional Enactments | History |
| 1416 | 3/8/25 | Blake Morrison, intro. | The Gospel According to John (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 3/8/25 | Russ Cochran, ed. | Tales From The Crypt #13 | Comics | |
| 1417 | 3/8/25 | Robert Barnard | Death of an Old Goat | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1418 | 3/9/25 | Royal Armouries Staff | Torture and Punishment | History |
| 1419 | 3/10/25 | Lawrence A. Yates | Power Pack: U.S. Intervention in the Dominican Republic, 1965-1966 (Leavenworth Papers No. 15) | Militaria |
| 1420 | 3/10/25 | J.S. Richardson & Marguerite Wood | Edinburgh Castle | Militaria |
I’ve talked before about the pithy sayings and stories of the so-called ‘Desert Fathers’ (Book #1041 in my list of books read #s 1001–1100), the strange cenobites and hermits who left the world behind (this would be the Roman world) in 3rd Century Roman Egypt. These recluses sought a deeper Christian faith by renouncing possessions and spending their days and nights in contemplation and solitude. The Waddell book referenced above gives a nice bit of background, but it is primarily concerned as is this book by Thomas Merton, The Wisdom Of The Desert, with the spiritual insights of this small but influential group of men (and a few women!) which had such influence upon the path taken by the Christian church. Merton is a good person to retell these stories and sayings, coming as he does from a modern contemplative monastic life. And he offers beautiful little versions of these gnomic utterances and tales of love, and more love.
Since we’re already doing the ‘Christian Thang’, I may as well give honorable mention to this little throwaway pamphlet from 1932, The Catholic Mind, which reprinted essays of interest to good Catholics, mostly about social issues. I of course picked this up because of the Chesterton essay, but both of the articles are surprisingly good. That of G. K. Chesterton, unsurprisingly, is just a bit precious. However, his comments on smoking and the nanny state are both prescient and laughable. Interesting to read these tracts written while Father Coughlin was just beginning to promulgate his Radio League to more and more listeners. Also interesting to comtemplate the fact that thousands of Americans were expected to read with attention and enjoyment these fairly erudite (or at least they’d seem so in our AI-darkened Age) essays.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1421 | 3/10/25 | Thomas Merton | The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century | Religion & Spirituality |
| 1422 | 3/10/25 | Lewis Watt & G. K. Chesterton | The Catholic Mind, Vol. XXX, No. 6 – “Economic Principles and Social Practice” & “A Sermon” | Religion & Spirituality |
| 1423 | 3/10/25 | Claude Lévi-Strauss | Myth and Meaning: Cracking the Code of Culture | Anthropology |
| 1424 | 3/11/25 | Godfrey Holloway | The Empress Of Victoria | Travel |
| 1425 | 3/11/25 | Anthony de Mello | The Song of the Bird | Religion & Spirituality |
| 1426 | 3/12/25 | Hilda Lawrence | Blood Upon The Snow | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1427 | 3/12/25 | Richard Holloway, intro. | The Gospel According to Luke (Pocket Canons) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1428 | 3/12/25 | Rius & Friends | Mao for Beginners | History |
| 1429 | 3/12/25 | Sylvia Angus | Dead to Rites | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1430 | 3/13/25 | Georges Simenon; Geoffrey Sainsbury, trans. | Maigret’s War of Nerves [La Tête d’un homme] | Mystery & Thrillers |
It’s the second book in the series, but One Corpse Too Many is really where my love for Ellis Peters’s Brother Cadfael begins. This is the book where we first meet Hugh Beringar, who will play the foil in so many future adventures with our favorite crime-solving Benedictine monk. All of the things we love, well, that I love, about Cadfael are here: his human and humane insight, his knowledge of plants and love, his own legalisms and duty-shaving in pursuit of what he sees as higher ideals. Plus in this one we get some crazy fun hiding this and that from not-yet-sheriff Beringar. Of course, some of the unrolling of the mystery is barely plausible, and coincidences will as ever come to the aid of Cadfael, but then again, why wouldn’t he find favor from on high in pursuit of both the truth and the Truth?
Since I talked to you about Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis book in my last Book List (Book #1371), I may as well mention another book harping on the same theme, though it’s as terrible as the Donnelly book was great. And the Donnelly book was very great, if wrong-headed. (Hey, plate tectonics was proposed over a decade after his demise, and was laughed at as much as Brother Ignatius’s theories, possibly mores.) But this piece of trash, The Second Atlantis by Robert Moore Williams, is worth reading solely for the awfulness of its prose. You wonder if Mr. Williams had ever experienced an earthquake, but that takes second place to the crazy techno-boosterism which perhaps Steinbeck could have pulled off, but … well, why would he want to? The story itself is piffle, the sort of ‘human drama’ which the movie Earthquake did so much better (and it was a terrible movie), but somehow manages to become worse as it slides into a “To Infinity … and Beyond!” claptrap ending that manages to disappoint our already extremely low expectations. At least it’s short.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1431 | 3/13/25 | Margery Allingham | The Allingham Case-Book | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1432 | 3/14/25 | Erle Stanley Gardner | The Case Of The Horrified Heirs | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1433 | 3/14/25 | Hyman Shapiro | Scotland in the days of James VI | History |
| 1434 | 3/15/25 | Ellis Peters | The Rose Rent | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 3/15/25 | Mala Singh | Rani of Jhansi: One of the Bravest Leaders of the 1857 War of Independence | Comics | |
| 1435 | 3/15/25 | Ellis Peters | A Morbid Taste for Bones | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1436 | 3/16/25 | Nick Cave, intro. | The Gospel According to Mark (Pocket Canons) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 3/17/25 | Satyavrata Ghosh & Luis M. Fernandes | Rash Behari Bose: Story of a Revolutionary | Comics | |
| 1437 | 3/18/25 | Ellis Peters | One Corpse Too Many | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 3/18/25 | A. Saraswati | Ravana Humbled: Three Tales About the Lord of Lanka | Comics | |
| 1438 | 3/18/25 | Robert Moore Williams | The Second Atlantis [Ace F-335] | SF & Fantasy |
| 1439 | 3/19/25 | Frances & Richard Lockridge | Murder Comes First | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1440 | 3/20/25 | Jack Vance | The Pnume | SF & Fantasy |
| 3/20/25 | Kamala Chandrakant | Sati and Shiva | Comics |
This book, J. J. Pollitt’s Art and Experience in Classical Greece, was one of my textbooks from a survey course I took in freshman year at college, and I see highlighting through the first two-thirds of the tome. The highlighting itself has aged, and in places one cannot be sure if the yellow marker’s marks are present or not. I, too, have aged, but haven’t yet reached the level of ‘classic’, which is the subject of Pollitt’s work. The book repays well its reading, clearly delineating the Archaic, Ancient, Classical, and post-Classical movements in the art (primarily statuary, natch, but with pottery as well and just a soupçon of surviving painting) of that small rocky world which gets much of the blame for Western Civilization. The author provides much insight in this slim (220 pages) volume, especially for one as ignorant of art as I. Pollitt maps the changes in artistic display to the substantial changes in the Greek polity (or polities) during the crucial years of the rise and fall of the Athenian dream.
Almost a hundred books after I read the classic Dr. Mabuse, I found myself reading Thea von Harbou’s novelization of the movie she wrote that you all know so well, Metropolis. However the movie is, the book is even moreso. The words are whack—crazy in some way that seems defined by 1920s Germany, hard to explain and not all that comprehensible even on its own terms, but it’s genius. There is even more matter in the book than the film, and I would give a lot to see a modern movie of the Von Harbou novel. (It would likely just get a Marvel/Michael Bay treatment, however, and that would be a tragedy.)
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1441 | 3/24/25 | J. J. Pollitt | Art and Experience in Classical Greece | Art |
| 1442 | 3/25/25 | Thea von Harbou | Metropolis | Fiction |
| 1443 | 3/25/25 | David Goodis | The Wounded and the Slain | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1444 | 3/26/25 | Kenzaburo Oë | A Personal Matter | Fiction |
| 1445 | 3/28/25 | Francis L. Wellman | The Art Of Cross-Examination | Law |
| 1446 | 3/28/25 | John Kenneth Galbraith | How To Control The Military | Politics & Social Sciences |
| 1447 | 3/29/25 | Youngman Carter | Mr. Campion’s Quarry | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1448 | 4/1/25 | Penelope Hunting | Royal Westminster: History of Westminster Through Its Royal Connections | History |
| 1449 | 4/1/25 | Daniel Patrick Moynihan | Secrecy: The American Experience | Politics & Social Sciences |
| 1450 | 4/2/25 | Joshua L. Golding | Rationality and Religious Theism | Religion & Spirituality |
Perhaps this particular exemplar of 1940s noir has a few thin spots at the end, but Leigh Brackett’s novel No Good From A Corpse crackles with fantastic dialogue and its brilliant depiction of a seedy, seamy World War II Los Angeles. This tale of detective Ed Clive and his search for a beauty’s killer is worthy of reading on its own terms, so I won’t mention all the other panoply of interest around this book, and I recommend you read the story before the introduction (my edition had Anthony Boucher’s informative essay) or anything online. You won’t. I didn’t, and I still liked the story very much.
Yet another blast from the past, a re-reading of a book beloved in what passes for my youth … and yet another disappointment. Oh, don’t get me wrong, A Child’s Garden Of Grass (which is strangely subtitled The Official Handbook For Marijuana Users, but I guess officialdom was more loosey-goosey back in the day) is still an interesting document of its time, and we should remember and honor those who got a twenty-year sentence for a couple of seeds found on the floor of their car. But authors Jack S. Margolis and Richard Clorfene turned out to be not as funny as I remember them, which is weird when you consider that the marijuana of their time was sooooo very much less potent than the brain splatter they sell nowadays. (Their first instruction after you buy a lid? Remove all the seeds and stems, especially those seeds! Ah, good times!) Of course, the fact that I remember it being funnier may say something which we shan’t look into too closely. There are a few good bits, true, but it’s mainly of historical interest.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1451 | 4/3/25 | Bob Woodward | The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat | History |
| 1452 | 4/3/25 | Timothy Harris | Wild at Heart: Discovering The Secret of a Man’s Soul | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1453 | 4/4/25 | John Weber, ed. | Kyd for Hire | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1454 | 4/4/25 | Leigh Brackett | No Good From A Corpse | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1455 | 4/5/25 | Harvey Cox | The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay On Festivity And Fantasy | Religion & Spirituality |
| 1456 | 4/5/25 | Jack S. Margolis & Richard Clorfene | A Child’s Garden of Grass: The Official Handbook For Marijuana Users | Drugs |
| 1457 | 4/7/25 | Michael Bonner, ed. | Uncut Magazine April 2024 | Music |
| 1458 | 4/9/25 | Lewis E. Birdseye | Vastation | Fiction |
| 1459 | 4/9/25 | Charles G. Finney | The Circus of Dr. Lao | Fiction |
| 1460 | 4/10/25 | Honoré de Balzac | The Girl With The Golden Eyes | Fiction |
I knew Georges Simenon as the wildly prolific and possibly profligate author of the Maigret series, which to be honest has been an on-again off-again reading pleasure—the books seem to me to be all about mood, and I’m moody enough already. But The Premier was a revelation, a deft portrait of an aging politico in decline that leaves no doubt about Simenon’s vast powers. I believe my comment after finishing this slim volume (All of his books are slim volumes.) was “Wow. Just wow.” In these 159 pages of dense prose, we live the thoughts, the overwhelming, powerful, lucid dreaming of a political animal at the end of his long run. The novel is amazingly well-written (translated by Daphne Woodward in this edition), and gives no little insight into French politics of a certain age. (The book came out in 1958, the year that saw the collapse of the 4th Republic and DeGaulle’s creation of the current, 5th, French Republic.)
And I guess since I finally got around to reading Naked Lunch I should say something about that. I guess. I guess my main take is that William S. Burrough’s arguably most famous book has brilliance indeed, but only in spurts. (Heh heh.) There is a lot of good stuff here, and don’t get me wrong I liked it, but some parts of the book are merely indulgent, kinda like some of Ginsberg’s poetry. Likely, however, I’m just not the right audience for the work, being a very boring bourgeois fearful middle class ecch who wouldn’t know Art if it hit him in the face. That said, it was also humorous to read Ginsberg’s oh so erudite interpretation of the homosexual elements in this book. Indeed, I’m not sure I recognized the book discussed in the trial extracts printed at the front with the ‘novel’ as printed in these pages.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1461 | 4/10/25 | Ellis Peters | Monk’s Hood | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1462 | 4/11/25 | Georges Simenon | The Premier | Fiction |
| 1463 | 4/12/25 | H. John Poole | Militant Tricks: Battlefield Ruses of the Islamic Insurgent | Militaria |
| 1464 | 4/13/25 | Ellery Queen | The Chinese Orange Mystery | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1465 | 4/14/25 | John D. MacDonald | The Damned | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1466 | 4/15/25 | A. N. Wilson, intro. | The Gospel According to Matthew (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1467 | 4/16/25 | Colin Dexter | The Daughters of Cain | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1468 | 4/17/25 | A. S. Byatt, intro. | The Song of Solomon (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1469 | 4/17/25 | William S. Burroughs | Naked Lunch | Fiction |
| 1470 | 4/18/25 | Caleb Carr | The Lessons of Terror: A History of Warfare Against Civilians | History |
This appears to be my first Graham Greene novel, … or at least the first I’ve read since commencing this silly book tracking project. And The Ministry Of Fear is a fine book, even if it has a fatal flaw. Of course, I don’t meant harmatia in the classic sense; I mean the fact that the book is wonderful as long as you don’t think too hard about the premise. Like many British novels of this ilk—I just read The Great Impersonation yesterday—it only seems silly if you think about it too long. And that ending disturbs me a little—though it may have been necessary in terms of the characters and like that. But this is an excellent revisioning of the Buchan-like thrillers that kicked off the genre, and the main conceit of the murderer’s narrative is brilliant.
Geisha In Rivalry was one of those surprises that confirms me in my decision to try almost anything once. Thinking of it now, it reminds me of my world-weary doubts before reading the books of Jon Hassler. Certainly, reading this hundred year old novel (it was published originally in 1910) about a Tokyo lifestyle that was almost gone even when this realistic fiction was written isn’t exactly something I’d expect to enjoy, or even condone. But Kafu Nagai penned a simply brilliant novel of the Japanese demimonde at the beginning of the 20th Century, deftly capturing the intricate and involved lives of these men and women—and capturing my interest as well. Truly a masterwork, and full of revelation.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1471 | 4/19/25 | M. Wiesenthal | The Belle Époque Of The Orient-Express | History |
| 1472 | 4/19/25 | Helen MacInnes | I And My True Love | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1473 | 4/20/25 | Doris Lessing, intro. | Ecclesiastes or, The Preacher (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1474 | 4/21/25 | L. A. Mayer | Saracenic Heraldry | Reference |
| 1475 | 4/22/25 | Tanith Lee | Sung in Shadow | SF & Fantasy |
| 1476 | 4/23/25 | Graham Greene | The Ministry Of Fear | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1477 | 4/24/25 | Kafu Nagai | Geisha in Rivalry | Fiction |
| 1478 | 4/25/25 | P. G. Wodehouse | Psmith in the City | Fiction |
| 1479 | 4/26/25 | Norman Daniels | Operation S-L | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1480 | 4/27/25 | William W. Johnstone | War of the Mountain Man | Western |
If you crave mindless action have I got a book for you! Even if Martin Wulff, the titular ‘Lone Wolf’ of The Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit, spends most of this novel in his own head brooding on his upcoming death which can’t come soon enough unless maybe just maybe he can claw his way to the bastards who murdered his … well, there’s a whole host of people murdered by ‘The Network’ (as the criminal gang pushing smack on the street will be called here) who were near and dear to Mr. Wulff. Anyway, the plot is ludicrous, from the opening hijacking to the titular Havana to the strange and laughable and unrecognizable communist Cuba of Mike Barry’s imagination. The author (actually the workmanlike Barry Malzberg, just trying to make a living here) seems to hate commies almost (almost!) as much as he hates the crooks that would peddle drugs to kids on the street. Anyway, it’s mindless fun of the best type, an object lesson in headlong rush pacing to get to a writer’s needed word count.
I’ve spoken to you about John Le Carré before, but I cannot help it, I have to underscore again just how incredible this author is at what he does. In Smiley’s People he shows once again that he is simply the best at what he does—perhaps he’s the only one who can do it. How he manages to craft such interesting tension out of what are basically a set of extended—usually very extended—interviews is a marvel to me. Possibly only the Kevin Costner movie No Way Out can come close to his ‘thing’. This book is as good as The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, which was perfect.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1481 | 4/29/25 | Julian Symons | The Broken Penny | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1482 | 5/9/25 | J. R. Jones, ed. | Liberty Secured?: Britain Before and After 1688 | History |
| 1483 | 5/10/25 | Michael Bonner, ed. | Uncut Magazine May 2024 | Music |
| 1484 | 5/11/25 | Charles Johnson, intro. | Proverbs (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 1485 | 5/12/25 | Ross Macdonald | The Barbarous Coast | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1486 | 5/13/25 | Bruce Sterling | Holy Fire | SF & Fantasy |
| 1487 | 5/14/25 | Robert Wilder | Fruit Of The Poppy | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1488 | 5/15/25 | Robert Bloch | Lori | Horror |
| 1489 | 5/16/25 | Mike Barry (Barry Malzberg) | The Lone Wolf #5: Havana Hit | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1490 | 5/18/25 | John Le Carré | Smiley’s People | Mystery & Thrillers |
I just talked about Philip K. Dick in my last 100 books, but here I go again. (And I’ve talked about him before, the last time I read his best book … well, one of the three.) This time I was revisiting The 3 Stigmata Of Palmer Eldritch, which I admit I didn’t even remember very well, which I suppose made the story even more arresting. As I enter deeper unto my oldening age, I found the re-reading very affecting. PKD’s flaws as a writer are here his strengths, his dissociative and fractured plotting shown as real insights by the damaged minds that inhabit his universe. He does dumb down (literally) a loved woman in the tale, but … ah, well, what do we expect for nothing?
I can hardly speak to half of this book of Pablo Neruda’s book of revolutionary erotic poetry, The Captain’s Verses (Los versos del Capitan), because I cannot read Spanish. But I still loved its rhythm and force, and the English versions (here in translations from Donald D. Walsh) were beautiful and seemed fairly literal—but what would I know? Neruda’s words are more powerful than any I might have, and the other poetry book in this tranche of ten books finishing off this last set of 100 books was also great. Penguin Modern Poets 9: Levertov Rexroth Williams has a great sampling from three of the best poets of the mid-20th Century (as I suppose you could argue each volume in the series does), and I also learned that William Carlos Williams is even better than Bukowski at writing about the boozers and sluts of the drunken world. Good stuff.
| # | Read | Author | Title | Genre |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5/19/25 | Dolat H. Doongaji & A.K. Lavangia | Shakuntala: An Adaptation of Kalidasa’s Famous Sanskrit Play | Comics | |
| 1491 | 5/19/25 | Louis de Bernières, intro. | The Book of Job (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
| 5/20/25 | Kamala Chandrakant | Shiva Parvati | Comics | |
| 5/20/25 | B.R. Bhagwat | Shivaji: The Story of the Founder of the Maratha Empire | Comics | |
| 1492 | 5/21/25 | Georges Simenon | The Third Simenon Omnibus: Maigret Has Doubts / Maigret & The Minister / The Old Man Dies | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 5/22/25 | Kamala Chandrakant; Pradip Bhattacharya & Meera Ugra; Shyamala Mahadevan | The Sons of Shiva: Ganesha, Karttikeya, Ayyappan | Comics | |
| 1493 | 5/23/25 | Tanith Lee | Anackire | SF & Fantasy |
| 1494 | 5/25/25 | Philip K. Dick | The 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch | SF & Fantasy |
| 5/25/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #28 | Comics | |
| 5/25/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #29 | Comics | |
| 1495 | 5/26/25 | Alistair MacLean | Seawitch | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 5/28/25 | Mike Baron | Badger #30 | Comics | |
| 1496 | 5/28/25 | Erle Stanley Gardner | The Case of the Haunted Husband / The Case of the Careless Kitten | Mystery & Thrillers |
| 1497 | 5/29/25 | Margaret L. Wiley | The Subtle Knot: Creative Scepticism in Seventeenth-Century England | Philosophy |
| 1498 | 5/30/25 | Pablo Neruda | The Captain’s Verses (Los versos del Capitan) | Poetry |
| 1499 | 5/30/25 | Denise Levertov, Kenneth Rexroth, & William Carlos Williams | Penguin Modern Poets 9: Levertov Rexroth Williams | Poetry |
| 1500 | 5/30/25 | David Grossman, intro. | The Second Book of Moses, Called Exodus (The Pocket Canons Bible Series) | Christian Books & Bibles |
And now I’m finally caught up with my book list, having lost a whole century during my last pell-mell reading spree. Even better, I have a little while left before the next set will be due, as I’m only a third of the way through the next set of one hundred. I hope all your books are great ones!
The lists of previously read books may be found by following the links: