Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Reading Roundup, Q1 2025
Transcript
- 1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,160 Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step out 2 00:00:08,160 --> 00:00:11,160 for a walk, and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around. 3 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,160 I'm Brendan Riley. 4 00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:22,400 Well, good afternoon listeners. 5 00:00:22,400 --> 00:00:24,320 It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago. 6 00:00:24,320 --> 00:00:25,720 The sun is out. 7 00:00:25,720 --> 00:00:26,760 Cars are zooming around. 8 00:00:26,760 --> 00:00:29,600 The robins are looking for worms in the grass. 9 00:00:29,600 --> 00:00:31,680 I am walking back from the library. 10 00:00:31,680 --> 00:00:36,760 I picked up a new Mary Roach book and a movie to watch with the kids or a kid. 11 00:00:36,760 --> 00:00:39,160 Probably only one of them will watch it, but still. 12 00:00:39,160 --> 00:00:40,880 And we're having a good time. 13 00:00:40,880 --> 00:00:44,560 So I looked back and I realized it had been a little while since I talked about stuff 14 00:00:44,560 --> 00:00:49,200 I've read and thus it tells me it's time to do a reading roundup. 15 00:00:49,200 --> 00:00:51,000 Quarter one, 2025. 16 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:57,400 So as you know, each quarter or every three months, I do an episode in which I talk about 17 00:00:57,400 --> 00:01:00,040 the books that I read in the previous three months. 18 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:04,920 In this case, I'll be talking about books from January, February and March of twenty twenty 19 00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:05,920 five. 20 00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:07,440 I read 17 books in that time. 21 00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:10,120 I'm not going to have time to talk about them all, but I'm going to do my best. 22 00:01:10,120 --> 00:01:11,120 So let's see how it goes. 23 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:14,760 I'm actually going to walk an extra block or two just to have time to talk to you. 24 00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:17,360 So this episode might be a little longer than usual. 25 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:18,360 We'll see. 26 00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:22,480 So to start off, I read a book that I've read several times, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. 27 00:01:22,480 --> 00:01:24,960 The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is my favorite Agatha Christie book. 28 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:29,280 I've read several of her is probably ten and I think this one's the best. 29 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:30,280 It's really good. 30 00:01:30,280 --> 00:01:32,120 It's a tight little cozy mystery. 31 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:36,800 It's got fun reveals and I think it's well paced. 32 00:01:36,800 --> 00:01:39,600 It's just pretty great all around. 33 00:01:39,600 --> 00:01:43,880 So the Murder of Roger Ackroyd, if you haven't read it, I do recommend it's a Poirot mystery. 34 00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:47,240 And I don't think you have to have read very many other ones although if you've read one 35 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:52,160 or two other Poirots, I think it will fit the bill pretty well. 36 00:01:52,160 --> 00:01:55,080 I would recommend not reading much about it before you go into it. 37 00:01:55,080 --> 00:01:56,080 Obviously it's a mystery. 38 00:01:56,080 --> 00:01:59,520 So having stuff told to you about what it's about gives it away. 39 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:00,520 I'll give you a hint though. 40 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:03,920 There's a guy named Roger Ackroyd and he gets murdered. 41 00:02:03,920 --> 00:02:05,760 All right. 42 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:07,840 Next up is the Anthropocene Review. 43 00:02:07,840 --> 00:02:10,320 This is a book of essays by John Green. 44 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:15,280 They all have the kind of sardonic wit and thoughtful writing that we have come to 45 00:02:15,280 --> 00:02:18,920 recognize is John Green's forte. 46 00:02:18,920 --> 00:02:23,660 I have not read his new book yet, everything is tuberculosis but it seems like it's probably 47 00:02:23,660 --> 00:02:24,760 pretty great. 48 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:28,240 The Anthropocene Review, like I said, is a series of essays. 49 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:33,400 The premise is basically just writing reviews of reality and the Anthropocene is the 50 00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:34,840 Age of Humans. 51 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:40,800 So John Green is reviewing stuff around us and it's everything from like vaccines to doctor 52 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:41,800 pepper. 53 00:02:41,800 --> 00:02:42,800 It's pretty great. 54 00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:44,400 It's well written and fun. 55 00:02:44,400 --> 00:02:48,480 And I fell into a funny category. 56 00:02:48,480 --> 00:02:55,480 He talked, well I saw him talking once on TikTok about how his book, the Anthropocene Reviewed, 57 00:02:55,480 --> 00:03:01,680 for some reason the large print copy is the highest selling edition on Amazon. 58 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:07,280 It outsells the regular print copy and he figured out that it was because if you search 59 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:12,400 the book, the first copy that comes up on Amazon is the large print copy. 60 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:13,400 It's not the regular one. 61 00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:14,880 And it's the same price I guess. 62 00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:20,200 So it doesn't come up like this is, you know, there's a cheaper one that you could look at. 63 00:03:20,200 --> 00:03:23,600 And so a lot of people, if they're interested in buying it, they search it and they just click 64 00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:27,160 the first one that comes up and then they end up ordering the large print edition. 65 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:31,440 I laugh about that because I got this as a gift and I got the large print edition. 66 00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:36,760 I will say the paper quality is not as good and the book is kind of annoyingly big but 67 00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:38,280 boy it's easy to read. 68 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,840 So something to be said for the large print edition of things. 69 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:46,320 That was the Anthropocene Reviewed or checking out I think. 70 00:03:46,320 --> 00:03:50,640 Next up we have the Labyrinth Index which is another of the Charles Stross Laundry 71 00:03:50,640 --> 00:03:52,720 Files novels. 72 00:03:52,720 --> 00:03:59,280 If you haven't read any of these, they are an interesting series of books in which magic 73 00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:01,640 is real and controlled by math. 74 00:04:01,640 --> 00:04:02,880 There's the sort of long short of it. 75 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:05,920 They're Cthulhu adjacent novels. 76 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:11,600 They started out as a series of spy novels in which Stross was writing a different novel 77 00:04:11,600 --> 00:04:17,680 in the style of each of a number of significant British spy novelists. 78 00:04:17,680 --> 00:04:19,280 And it made four pretty entertaining reading. 79 00:04:19,280 --> 00:04:21,520 I really enjoyed the first two of them. 80 00:04:21,520 --> 00:04:25,200 In fact I like them enough to keep reading them but they've gotten a little bit wrote which 81 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:31,160 I guess he knew because the Labyrinth Index is either the last or the second to last of 82 00:04:31,160 --> 00:04:34,680 the regular books in the Laundry Files series. 83 00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:41,000 After that, that Stross starts writing with a different main character as the sort 84 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:45,080 of the center point of the story and the different set of characters and the characters from 85 00:04:45,080 --> 00:04:48,960 these and the Laundry Files are basically not in the stories anymore. 86 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:53,080 I've read two of those by the way but you'll hear about those later. 87 00:04:53,080 --> 00:04:58,400 So the Labyrinth Index, the basic idea is that an Elder God has gained control of the 88 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:02,240 British government but there's another one trying to ascend and gain control of the 89 00:05:02,240 --> 00:05:06,160 United States and of course the Elder God in Britain doesn't want that. 90 00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:07,920 Neither do the British people. 91 00:05:07,920 --> 00:05:11,680 And so they are working to stop it. 92 00:05:11,680 --> 00:05:18,240 There's also a good spy, shenanigans and interesting covert activity and so on and so forth 93 00:05:18,240 --> 00:05:20,280 that you would expect from the novels. 94 00:05:20,280 --> 00:05:21,680 It's the same kind of thing. 95 00:05:21,680 --> 00:05:25,600 It's like a new album from a band that's steadily producing good albums. 96 00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:29,280 It's another new novel from Charles Stross in the Laundry Files. 97 00:05:29,280 --> 00:05:32,840 Enjoyable to read and as always I listen to it as an audiobook. 98 00:05:32,840 --> 00:05:36,760 Next up is Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by Jason Pargin. 99 00:05:36,760 --> 00:05:41,960 I don't remember if I read this, yes I did read this on paper. 100 00:05:41,960 --> 00:05:48,840 This was a book I got after getting another book by accident so I got a book called 101 00:05:48,840 --> 00:05:55,360 Zoey's Too Drunk for this Apocalypse and I thought it was pretty good but as I was reading 102 00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:59,840 and I realized it was in fact the third book in a series so then I went back and got the 103 00:05:59,840 --> 00:06:03,680 first one and read that and I believe there's the second one still that I have not read. 104 00:06:03,680 --> 00:06:05,280 I'll have to look. 105 00:06:05,280 --> 00:06:09,560 Because the first one and the third one have a very similar, or you know, it's the same characters 106 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:12,240 and stuff I can't really remember if I read the second one or not. 107 00:06:12,240 --> 00:06:13,240 I don't think I did. 108 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:16,480 The second one is called Zoe Punches the Future in the Dick and I don't think I've read 109 00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:17,480 that one yet. 110 00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:21,400 But I really did like Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. 111 00:06:21,400 --> 00:06:28,880 It is a romping, rollicking, violent story that takes place at high speed. 112 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:31,680 It reminds me a little bit of like Neuromancer or something where there's a bunch of different 113 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:32,680 characters. 114 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:35,280 It's a crazy technology everywhere. 115 00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:36,280 It's tough to keep up with. 116 00:06:36,280 --> 00:06:38,480 I mean, Pargin is a good writer. 117 00:06:38,480 --> 00:06:44,280 He doesn't have quite William Gibson's chops for language but he really knows how to 118 00:06:44,280 --> 00:06:46,160 pace and tell a story. 119 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:49,800 This does put, make me interested in going and reading his other stuff. 120 00:06:49,800 --> 00:06:51,280 John dies at the end. 121 00:06:51,280 --> 00:06:54,000 I'm really starting to worry about this black box of doom. 122 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:55,680 There are spiders in this book. 123 00:06:55,680 --> 00:06:59,000 He's got a bunch of weird wild titles. 124 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:03,320 So I am, these are on my to read list but it's going to take time. 125 00:07:03,320 --> 00:07:07,880 So this one in particular is about a young woman who discovers that her father who is a 126 00:07:07,880 --> 00:07:13,860 sort of famous gangster has died and left her all of his money and it's believed that 127 00:07:13,860 --> 00:07:18,400 he has some sort of very valuable thing in his safe and so a bunch of people trying to 128 00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:22,080 kill her or capture her to be able to get into the safe. 129 00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:28,480 That's the core premise and then mix that with dystopian future tech and you've got Futuristic 130 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:29,480 suits and Fancy Violence. 131 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:31,800 A few Futuristic Violence and Fancy suits. 132 00:07:31,800 --> 00:07:36,600 I got to read another Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe novel, Prisoner's Base. 133 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:37,600 This one's got a great premise. 134 00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:43,000 A woman shows up at Rex out at Nero Wolfe's house, asking to stay the night or stay for three 135 00:07:43,000 --> 00:07:47,560 days or something until she wants to stay till Thursday when something's going to happen 136 00:07:47,560 --> 00:07:48,840 but she won't tell him what. 137 00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:50,000 He says no. 138 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,520 She says, okay, I'll figure something out and she leaves and she's been murdered by the 139 00:07:53,520 --> 00:07:54,720 next morning. 140 00:07:54,720 --> 00:08:02,560 So the book goes from there, Archie particularly feels responsible because he turned her out. 141 00:08:02,560 --> 00:08:08,040 So he tells Nero Wolfe he's going to take a leave of absence if she says no but Nero Wolfe 142 00:08:08,040 --> 00:08:10,120 insists that they work it anyway. 143 00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:14,920 So they try to solve the murder of her and then a couple other people get murdered too. 144 00:08:14,920 --> 00:08:16,920 I don't recall why it's called Prisoner's Base. 145 00:08:16,920 --> 00:08:20,000 Oh, it has to do with a game of tag. 146 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,360 The children play a background game. 147 00:08:23,360 --> 00:08:27,000 Next up we have Fritz Lieber's Foshard and The Grey Mouser. 148 00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:34,280 This is a comic book version of a series of short stories that Fritz Lieber wrote about 149 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:39,940 two fantasy characters in a kind of high fantasy world and they are in the style of Old 150 00:08:39,940 --> 00:08:41,540 European folk tales. 151 00:08:41,540 --> 00:08:42,540 It was fine. 152 00:08:42,540 --> 00:08:47,080 I was interested in it because Howard Chaykin was the writer who adapted these stories and 153 00:08:47,080 --> 00:08:50,920 I like Howard Chaykin but ultimately I didn't really find it that compelling. 154 00:08:50,920 --> 00:08:52,480 Not as good as I would hope. 155 00:08:52,480 --> 00:08:59,480 Next up we, my wife and I, on our trips to and from birding opportunities we read Field 156 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:02,560 Guide to Dumb Birds of North America by Matt Kracht. 157 00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:07,160 Basically this is a lightly informative book about different kinds of birds that you encounter 158 00:09:07,160 --> 00:09:10,560 in North America full of insults of those birds. 159 00:09:10,560 --> 00:09:17,120 They put rude twists on the birds' names and tell you about what the birds do but full 160 00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:20,040 of insults and calling the birds' names and stuff. 161 00:09:20,040 --> 00:09:21,040 It's pretty funny. 162 00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:25,160 It gets a little repetitive but it works fine if you read like three entries and then read 163 00:09:25,160 --> 00:09:26,160 some more the next time. 164 00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:30,520 It took us a while to get through it but all in all we had a good time with it. 165 00:09:30,520 --> 00:09:35,920 That's the Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America. 166 00:09:35,920 --> 00:09:38,760 I am trying to slowly make my way through the Baroque cycle. 167 00:09:38,760 --> 00:09:43,920 I never finished it but I did enjoy it and so I have the three big hard covers that it 168 00:09:43,920 --> 00:09:44,920 was published. 169 00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:46,760 It's a Neal Stevenson set of novels. 170 00:09:46,760 --> 00:09:49,600 I think there's eight or nine altogether. 171 00:09:49,600 --> 00:09:55,080 If you buy them in the paperbacks in the hard covers it's three big novels divided into 172 00:09:55,080 --> 00:09:57,080 sections books. 173 00:09:57,080 --> 00:10:00,000 So I read the second section of the first book. 174 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:01,920 The first big novel is called Quick Silver. 175 00:10:01,920 --> 00:10:06,720 The second book in it is called King of the Vagabonds and I read that and enjoyed it. 176 00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:08,280 I thought it was pretty great. 177 00:10:08,280 --> 00:10:14,000 Neal Stevenson as always does a really good job building and elaborate and interesting world 178 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:25,000 full of fascinating people and telling us a lot about the kind of world that evolved and 179 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:26,920 what it was like for people to live there. 180 00:10:26,920 --> 00:10:33,200 Of course it's fantastical as well but it's not fictional or it's not magical realism or 181 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:34,200 anything. 182 00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:39,000 Everything he has in there as far as I can tell pretty realistic and very carefully researched 183 00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:42,160 but the characters are a bit goofy. 184 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:46,840 So that's King of the Vagabonds which was a delightful start. 185 00:10:46,840 --> 00:10:48,240 Delightful part two. 186 00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:51,280 Next up we have Horror Movie from Paul Tremblay. 187 00:10:51,280 --> 00:10:56,120 Paul Tremblay is sort of a guy of the moment right now for his horror novels. 188 00:10:56,120 --> 00:11:01,960 He wrote the novel that the house at the end of the world was based on a cabin at the 189 00:11:01,960 --> 00:11:02,960 end of the world. 190 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:07,720 The movie they made, the book had the same title which looks interesting and scary. 191 00:11:07,720 --> 00:11:12,800 I saw a horror movie at a bookstore and thought it was really interesting kind of admired it 192 00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,880 for a while and then I found it at another bookstore later and I was like yeah I got to get it. 193 00:11:16,880 --> 00:11:18,400 It's got a really neat premise. 194 00:11:18,400 --> 00:11:23,720 It operates from one of my favorite ways for a book to start is to have a character who's 195 00:11:23,720 --> 00:11:27,280 going through whatever is going to happen in the book saying you know if I'd known it 196 00:11:27,280 --> 00:11:30,000 was going to turn out this way I would have done things differently or something like 197 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:31,000 that. 198 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:32,520 And this book starts that way. 199 00:11:32,520 --> 00:11:38,160 So right after that I'm really intrigued by the possibilities at the heart of horror movie 200 00:11:38,160 --> 00:11:39,160 by Paul Tremblay. 201 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:45,520 I will say I like the idea of it more than the execution by the end of the book. 202 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:48,680 I was like if you'd stopped me halfway through the book and said what are you going to rate 203 00:11:48,680 --> 00:11:49,680 this? 204 00:11:49,680 --> 00:11:53,560 I'm like probably five stars and I think I gave it four or even three and a half. 205 00:11:53,560 --> 00:11:55,560 The end was not as great as the beginning. 206 00:11:55,560 --> 00:11:58,160 That's how I don't remember if I go back and look at it and maybe I really loved it at 207 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:00,480 the time but I've cooled on it since. 208 00:12:00,480 --> 00:12:03,400 It was very well written in an interesting idea. 209 00:12:03,400 --> 00:12:08,320 I definitely would be interested in reading more of this writer's works if I encounter them. 210 00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:10,480 That's Paul Tremblay horror movie. 211 00:12:10,480 --> 00:12:15,680 Oh the basic premise is there's a horror movie that was made sometime in the past. 212 00:12:15,680 --> 00:12:16,840 Something went wrong. 213 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:18,040 We don't really know what. 214 00:12:18,040 --> 00:12:23,760 The main that one of that it was an indie, a little indie film sort of a cult thing, 215 00:12:23,760 --> 00:12:25,160 not many people have seen it. 216 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:27,800 Little snippets of it exist here or there. 217 00:12:27,800 --> 00:12:32,680 The guy who played the stalker, it's like a stalker movie. 218 00:12:32,680 --> 00:12:36,400 It goes to horror conventions and stuff and won't talk about what happened there but everybody's 219 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:37,400 intrigued by it. 220 00:12:37,400 --> 00:12:40,920 And then somebody decides to do a remake of the film. 221 00:12:40,920 --> 00:12:42,960 So that's the basic premise. 222 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:44,800 I read Song of Susanna by Stephen King. 223 00:12:44,800 --> 00:12:47,720 This is the sixth of the seven books in the Dark Tower. 224 00:12:47,720 --> 00:12:49,960 I thought it was pretty great. 225 00:12:49,960 --> 00:12:55,000 Not as good as books five or four but it set up book seven really well. 226 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:59,600 The characters are all going through dark and scary times of course. 227 00:12:59,600 --> 00:13:04,400 You can't have a great ending if everything was unkidore the whole time. 228 00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:07,360 So that part is dramatic and interesting. 229 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:08,360 Yeah I really liked it. 230 00:13:08,360 --> 00:13:11,640 It did get me excited for book seven and I have read book seven since then. 231 00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:15,920 I'll talk about that more in the quarter two episode which will come out probably in 232 00:13:15,920 --> 00:13:19,280 August, July or August so you'll have to wait or you can go over to Goodreads and look 233 00:13:19,280 --> 00:13:22,320 at my reviews where I've written a review of it already. 234 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:23,320 Yeah. 235 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:28,200 Song of Susanna by Stephen King and as before I listened to that in an audiobook. 236 00:13:28,200 --> 00:13:29,640 Next up I have two books that I read. 237 00:13:29,640 --> 00:13:33,800 The "Circure" and the "Hunter" both by Tana French. 238 00:13:33,800 --> 00:13:38,440 Tana French is one of my favorite mystery writers writing today. 239 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:42,400 She wrote a series of books, sort of called "The Dublin Squad" about these different 240 00:13:42,400 --> 00:13:44,080 police detectives in Dublin. 241 00:13:44,080 --> 00:13:49,720 And now she's written two books about this character Cal Hooper who is a former Chicago police 242 00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:57,320 detective who has retired to Ireland in his late 40s or early 50s to get away from it all. 243 00:13:57,320 --> 00:13:59,320 Hello. 244 00:13:59,320 --> 00:14:00,960 Both of these books are really good. 245 00:14:00,960 --> 00:14:06,320 They're very slow although I thought they were delightfully moody and did a good job of setting 246 00:14:06,320 --> 00:14:09,720 up a character based mystery. 247 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:13,040 Some of the reviews I read just said, "Oh man, it takes forever to do anything to happen." 248 00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:16,200 So you know, six and a half and dozen of the other there. 249 00:14:16,200 --> 00:14:18,120 But I thought they were both pretty good. 250 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:22,800 I like the way they build off each other and the stories they tell are compelling. 251 00:14:22,800 --> 00:14:26,800 The mystery at the heart of them is worth exploring. 252 00:14:26,800 --> 00:14:32,200 So if you get a chance to read the "The Surcher" and "The Hunter" these are the first two 253 00:14:32,200 --> 00:14:35,880 books in the Cal Hooper series from Tana French, I don't know if she's doing anymore. 254 00:14:35,880 --> 00:14:37,600 All right, I'm going to buzz through. 255 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:39,280 I read "Twelve Owls." 256 00:14:39,280 --> 00:14:41,240 This is another bird book that I read with my wife. 257 00:14:41,240 --> 00:14:43,360 It's about different species of owl in Minnesota. 258 00:14:43,360 --> 00:14:44,360 Pretty great. 259 00:14:44,360 --> 00:14:49,600 I read "Tourist Season" which is a very early Carl Hineson novel, which I remember being 260 00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:52,200 pretty great and it was in fact fine. 261 00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:56,440 The mystery in it was pretty great but a lot of the interpersonal politics and stuff just 262 00:14:56,440 --> 00:14:59,360 were gross because they're old. 263 00:14:59,360 --> 00:15:04,920 So I don't think I'm going to read anymore old Carl Hineson or reread, I should say. 264 00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:11,200 I read "The Righteous Mind Why Good People Are Divided By Politics and Religion" by Jonathan 265 00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:15,040 Height. 266 00:15:15,040 --> 00:15:21,760 This is a public scholarship science book about different kinds of moral or ethics and moral 267 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:25,120 systems and why people think that what they do. 268 00:15:25,120 --> 00:15:32,120 Height is attempting to explain basically the divisive nature of the United States in 2013 269 00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:36,480 and there's some interesting stuff in it but ultimately I found it not as satisfying as 270 00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:37,760 I was hoping. 271 00:15:37,760 --> 00:15:45,000 In part because he doesn't really spend much time addressing how to bridge that gap. 272 00:15:45,000 --> 00:15:48,480 He does a little bit toward the end but not as much as I would like. 273 00:15:48,480 --> 00:15:53,520 And then finally I read "The Horror novel, The Eyes Are the Best Part" by Monica Kim. 274 00:15:53,520 --> 00:15:57,760 This is probably the best book I read in the first quarter of 2025. 275 00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:05,480 It is a very compelling novel about a young woman who is going through terrifying and dramatic 276 00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:06,480 things in her life. 277 00:16:06,480 --> 00:16:07,480 Her father leaves her mother. 278 00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:09,880 Her mother starts dating a new guy. 279 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:12,080 She's having trouble in college. 280 00:16:12,080 --> 00:16:17,640 There's she's fighting with her friends and she's being haunted by terrible and terrifying 281 00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:21,000 urges that make for really good reading. 282 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:23,120 It is a dark book. 283 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:24,920 It's not scary. 284 00:16:24,920 --> 00:16:27,320 But it's gripping and I really enjoyed it. 285 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:32,760 If you can handle something that's kind of gross but really interesting, I would recommend 286 00:16:32,760 --> 00:16:38,360 checking out and enjoying "The Eyes Are the Best Part" by Monica Kim. 287 00:16:38,360 --> 00:16:43,520 So that brings me to the end of my list of books that I read in the first quarter of 2021 288 00:16:43,520 --> 00:16:44,520 or 2025. 289 00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:49,080 I mean, I'd love to hear what you were reading in January of February and March. 290 00:16:49,080 --> 00:16:52,120 Head over to board game guild 3.269 and let me know. 291 00:16:52,120 --> 00:16:53,920 And I look forward hearing them. 292 00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:55,560 Thanks for joining me in my walk today. 293 00:16:55,560 --> 00:16:58,200 I hope your next walk is pleasant, smiley, bye bye. 294 00:16:58,200 --> 00:17:23,440 We read "The Field Guide to Dum Birds of North America" by Matt Crotch. 295 00:17:23,440 --> 00:17:25,240 Crack, crack. 296 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:34,840 I'm not sure. 297 00:17:34,840 --> 00:17:36,840 Matt Crack, that's what I'm going to call it. 298 00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:39,880 Basically this is a lightly informative book. 299 00:17:40,520 --> 00:17:43,320 Brought to you by Rattlebunk State. 300 00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:53,320 [MUSIC]