#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Stagnation

2. Atticus Finch comes to mind right away.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @dabbe @IndoorDame @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. No. There are plenty of people I admire, but I don't subscribe to the idea of heroes anymore.

2. Rand is not only a hero, but an incarnation of a hero reborn age after age after age.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @IndoorDame @CBee @BarbaraBB @Yuki_Onna @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

I can now confirm that a total eclipse is exponentially better than even 99% coverage. One of the coolest, spookiest things I've ever seen, not to mention the temperature plummeting and all the songbirds disappearing for three minutes, then returning all at once singing their morning song. If you ever get a chance to see one, do it. It's worth the effort!

#motivationalmonday

1. I have the good fortune to live directly in the path of totality AND for it to be sunny in Vermont at the beginning of April, so watching the eclipse is the one and only thing I have on my mind this week. 🌞🌛🌗🌑😎
2. Coffee
3. Bookmark
4. Tagged!

#TLT @dabbe

Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView !

1. The Godfather (so much better than the book it deserves its own category)

Books and movies I love equally:

2. No Country for Old Men
3. The Maltese Falcon

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @IndoorDame @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

Went into my favorite used bookshop looking for Deadwood, but came out with a copy of Pete Dexter's other masterpiece. A pitch-perfect illustration of small-town dynamics and repression, and a powerful warning of what happens when you allow evil to linger too long unchecked. Paris Trout is one of the more disturbing characters in fiction, a perfect embodiment of a certain type of paranoid rage that seems to exist everywhere now.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. I have about a dozen books in the on-deck circle to read next, but I'm not sure which I'll choose. Most likely The Skin of Dreams or Portnoy's Complaint (thanks @RaeLovesToRead 😊).

2. No, between the NYRB bookclub and all my local used bookstores I have more than enough to read at the moment.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @BarbaraBB @eeclayton @dabbe

#TLT @dabbe

REALLY late on this one. 😬 Thanks for the tag @RaeLovesToRead !

1. Slaughterhouse Five
2. Crime and Punishment
3. Dune

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. My favorite authors are mostly dead or otherwise out of commission. I guess Ishiguro, and maybe Patrick DeWitt (although I still haven't read The Librarianist).
2. Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut)
3. Raymond Chandler for his Philip Marlowe books and Wodehouse for the Jeeves & Wooster books. And, as I was obsessed with Dune in high school, Frank Herbert.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. As much basic home and auto maintenance as possible- how to change a tire, how to change oil, how to unclog a drain, how to change a doorknob, etc. I think some schools do teach a little of this, but the more the better.

2. Ignatius J. Reilly lacks pretty much every life skill. 😄

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @IndoorDame @dabbe

#TLT
Thanks for the tag @dabbe !

1. The Metamorphosis (Kafka)
2. The Nose (Gogol)
3. The Double (Dostoevsky)

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @BarbaraBB @IuliaC @CBee

Glad I listened to the recommendations, because I really enjoyed this one. The writing felt both contemporary and timeless, somehow. The themes are evergreen, I suppose - mother/daughter relationships and the difficulty of truly knowing another person, even someone as central to one's own life as a parent. Riley has a keen eye for detail, and her style is lean and biting in the best possible way.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Thanks for the tag @dabbe 😀

1. It's not terribly original, but it's hard to beat a dragon. Or maybe a sea serpent - I love to swim, and I could hang out in Lake Champlain with our own resident monster, Champ (though I guess that would make me a lake serpent 🐍 🤔).

2. The tagged book has ALL the creatures! 🐲🐉🧛‍♀️👾👻

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @Ruthiella

This book blew me away! I don't know that I've read anything as perceptive on the psychology of writers, the delicate line between solitude and loneliness, the introvert's desire to take part in life without sacrificing something fundamental of themselves, the interplay between in-groups and outsiders and the often cruel treatment that results...it was excruciating, in the very best way!

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Apparently I'm named after Randolph Scott, the western star, because one of his movies was on TV when my parents were trying to come up with a name. But they didn't like "Randolph" and so switched it to Randall - Randall Scott. (Why use the name at all if you don't like it, one wonders?) Personally I'm not crazy about Randolph OR Randall, but...here I am. ?

2. Easy! ?

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @IuliaC

#TLT @dabbe @RaeLovesToRead

1. The Shock Doctrine (Naomi Klein)

2. Brightsided (Barbara Ehrenreich)

3. The Age of Wonder (Richard Holmes)

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Probably the one I'm reading now, Frances Hinton from Look at Me (Anita Brookner). She's quiet, keeps a strict schedule, is rarely home, and when she is she spends most of her time in her room writing. Perfect!

2. I had no idea, so I just typed in "roommate" and tagged the first book that came up. ?

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @Yuki_Onna @CBee

This was my first foray into Rosemary Tonks, and I was glad to discover that she's as biting and funny as her reputation makes out. A novel about relationships - familial, romantic, platonic - we spend a lot of time in the MC's head as she struggles with how best to forge her own identity. Luckily, she's insightful and witty and a lot of fun to be around.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. Mattie Ross (True Grit)

2. Arthur Dent (HGTTG)

3. The Halt During the Chase, by Rosemary Tonks

@RaeLovesToRead @Yuki_Onna @IuliaC

##Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. I used to move constantly, but we've now lived in the same house in Vermont since November 2012.

2. Stoner - the title character moves from the tiny farm where he grew up to the University of Missouri, first as a student and later as a professor.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @Ruthiella @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @BarbaraBB @dabbe

I have always hated the way modern political commentators and academics have coopted the term "populism" and made it into a euphemism for bigotry and authoritarianism. This book provides a historical corrective, tracing the term's roots from the People's Party of the 1890s through Roosevelt and the New Deal and the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, highlighting its importance in securing most of the basic rights we take for granted.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

Just a few short years ago we Americans knew what we were doing in the world.

#TLT @dabbe

1. Philip Marlowe
2. John Rebus
3. Sherlock Holmes

A fantastic boxing novel that's not really about boxing at all. A funny and often sad portrait of poverty, dashed hopes, self-sabotage, and ennui born of the feeling that your best years have passed you by before they ever even really began. This is one of those tiny, near-perfect books, and if not for the abrupt, seemingly arbitrary ending this would be a five-star pick for me.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. I don't care one bit about Valentine's Day, so if I have to receive anything let's keep it simple and say chocolate hearts filled with peanut butter. 😋

2. The Road - it's a brutal book, but a great illustration of parental love.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @dabbe @Ruthiella @IndoorDame @Jari-chan

#MotivationalMonday @Cupcake12

1. The usual balance of work, cleaning, school events, and trying to carve out some time to write.

2. That's a good question. I used to do it seemingly naturally, and now I can barely do it at all.

3. Stockton, CA in the late 1950s.

#TLT @dabbe

Thanks for the tag @TheSpineView

1. Even though I'm right-handed, I can only hold a phone in my left hand when speaking to someone.

2. I have an ornate hierarchy of coffee mugs that govern which I'll choose in any given situation.

3. I refuse to watch movies based on books unless I've read the book first.

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

He lived in the Hotel Coma - named perhaps for some founder of the town, some California explorer or pioneer, or for some long-deceased Italian immigrant who founded only the hotel itself.

Soft pick. A middle manager at a packaging firm deals with the death of his wife and the (mildly) dysfunctional family that reunites for her funeral. Nobbs is known as a comedy writer, and there were some genuinely funny set pieces and observations scattered throughout the story, but in the end it felt like he was pulling too many punches, aiming for pathos where black humor would have been better. Well written, but ultimately forgettable.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Bluebeard (Kurt Vonnegut)

2. Fat City (Leonard Gardner)

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @CBee @dabbe @BarbaraBB

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

A husband and wife were driving, in separate cars, towards two very different luncheon appointments.

Even more surreal than coming across one of your own books in a used bookstore is coming across it in Barnes & Noble. 😳 Not even the Local Authors section, just general Fiction. What a nice surprise. (And no @RaeLovesToRead I did not put it there myself. 🤨)

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

Thanks for the tag @Yuki_Onna 😀

1. Not sure I have a favorite, but I seem to like a lot of novels set in post-WWII 20th Century.

2. Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

3. I remember one of the Wheel of Time books was more than 1,000 pages (just can't remember which one it was 😁).

All of Vonnegut's trademarks are here in this fictional autobiography of the equally fictional abstract expressionist painter Rabo Karabekian - the narrative shifts back and forth through time; he reveals exactly what's going to happen early in the story; and the trademark mix of cynicism and aching sincerity. Full of profound insights on war, art, feminism, and death/resurrection, and also laugh out loud funny, as usual.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. No, a thing I used to sort of regret but do so less and less every year that goes by. (Can't even remember the last time I saw a stick shift.)

2. Dog of the South (Charles Portis). Few authors put such a premium on cars and automotive knowledge as Portis.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @dabbe @ImperfectCJ @Leftcoastzen @Kimberlone

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Thanks for the tag @RaeLovesToRead ?

1. Not a must. In fact it's barely even a "might".

2. I'm pretty sure I was drinking coffee Sunday morning when I read a chapter of Skeletons in the Closet, but I'm not sure. Let's just say that any drinking I do while reading tends to be purely incidental.

Tag @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm @IuliaC @eeclayton

Like a mix between a classic hard-boiled detective novel and a 90s action movie, the story moved a mile a minute, one violent set piece after another. It should have been thrilling, but I found it difficult to care, at least through the first half of the book. The characters were one-dimensional, the writing was unbearably clunky at times, and I felt mostly numb every time someone was dispatched in some brutal fashion. It was almost a "pan" but ?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

The phone rang.

(Finally, an opening line even I could have come up with. 😆)

Tough book to summarize in so few characters. It's formally daunting, a literal labyrinth of stories exploring themes of abandonment and melancholy using the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur as a central metaphor tying them together. There are numerous digressions - "side paths" as they're called - yet they're never tedious and the central narrative holds throughout. Better than Time Shelter IMO, and should have been what won Gospodinov an award.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. No goals. I suppose the closest thing to a plan that I have is just making sure I read a little every day. Usually I end up reading 40-50 books in a year.

2. None. I'm challenged enough as it is. 😆

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @dabbe @IndoorDame @Ruthiella @Jari-chan

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

I was born at the end of August 1913 as a human being of the male sex.

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. None, aside from making sure I carve out some time to read every day.

2. Roadside Picnic (tagged)

3. Fat City (Leonard Gardner)

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @IuliaC @eeclayton @Ruthiella @Yuki_Onna

If this book wasn't Jeff VanderMeer's chief inspiration for writing Annihilation, I would be amazed. Aliens pay Earth a brief visit, then bugger off, leaving behind six "Zones" full of strange artifacts and some terrifying phenomena that flout our scientific laws. Were these artifacts a gift to humanity? A warning? A threat? Or just some junk they discarded by the side of the interstellar highway before continuing on to their actual destination?

Christmas book haul. This is in addition to having my NYRB book club membership renewed. I think everyone has finally given up on trying to find creative gifts to give me and just defaults to books or coffee (which is fine by me 😁).

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Both! 📚🎄🤓

2. Just books themselves, I never really give bookmarks or bags or anything else book-adjacent as gifts.

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee @dabbe @MegaWhoppingCosmicBookwyrm

INTERVIEWER: ...I suppose that your first important discovery, Dr. Pillman, was the celebrated Pillman radiant?

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

It's incredible that this book was published in 1985. There's a proto-tech bro turned vulture capitalist buying up the assets of distressed countries out of sheer boredom; a handheld device that's part Google Translate, part WebMD, part Goodreads quotations; a financial crisis precipitated by the collective lack of belief in our monetary system; the devolution of humanity due to environmental factors; etc. This could have been written last week!

#wondrouswednesday @Eggs

1. As I mentioned somewhere before, if you count Pee-Wee's Playhouse Christmas Special as a movie, then that's my favorite hands down. Otherwise, it's a tie between A Christmas Story, It's a Wonderful Life, and Bad Santa.
2. All I want for Christmas is to get some cake. 🎂😄
3. A Prayer for Owen Meany

Tag @RaeLovesToRead @CBee

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

1. Yes, which I've accomplished by gradually cutting down the number of people I buy presents for by about 90%. 😁

2. White Noise (the grocery store scene)

Tag @dabbe @Ruthiella @ImperfectCJ @IndoorDame

#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl

One million years ago, back in 1986 A.D., Guayaquil was the chief seaport of the little South American democracy of Ecuador, whose capital was Quito, high in the Andes Mountains.