blackdogbooks growls into 2024

Though it might be a good idea to show my 2023 reading to any of you wondering about my tastes for following here:

1. The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar
2. How Much of These Hills is Gold by C. Pam Zhang
3. Later by Stephen King
4. The Line Between by Peter S. Beagle
5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
6. Twilight by William Gay
7. The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy
8. Ron Carlson Writes a Story by Ron Carlson {NF}
9. Lord Foul’s Bane, Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson
10. Real World by Natsuo Kirino
11. The Talisman by Stephen King
12. Sphere by Michael Crichton
13. Black House by Stephen King
14. Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell
15. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
16. 11 Great Horror Stories ed. by Betty M. Owen
17. The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
18. Something is Out There by Richard Bausch
19. Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell {NF}
20. Old Forest and Other Stories by Peter Taylor
21. The Ill Earth War by Stephen R. Donaldson
22. Go with Me by Castle Freeman Jr.
23. Run with the Hunted by Charles Bukowski
24. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
25. The Canyon by Jack Schaefer
26. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
27. Provinces of Night by William Gay
28. Victory City by Salman Rushdie
29. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk {NF}
30. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi {NF
31. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
32. Writing the Southwest ed. by David King Dunaway & Sara Spurgeon {NF}
33. The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard by J. G. Ballard
34. Detecting Lies and Deceit by Aldert Vrij {NF}
35. My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers {NF}
36. Drood by Dan Simmons
37. Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
38. Hitler’s Pope by John Cornwell {NF}
39. The Third Grave by David Case
40. Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan
41. Hell at the Breech by Tom Franklin
42. Episode Thirteen by Craid DiLouie
43. The Counterfeiters by Andre Gide
44. Adventures in the Skin Trade by Dylan Thomas
45. Aimless Love by Billy Collins {NF}
46. Dan Eldon: Safari as a Way of Life by Jennifer New {NF}
47. How to Stay Sane in an Age of Division by Elif Shafak {NF}
48. All the Wrong Places by Philip Connors {NF}
49. The Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III
50. The Summons by John Grisham
51. The Point and Other Stories by Charles D’Ambrosio
52. Dirty Work by Larry Brown
53. Escaping into the Open: The Art of Writing True by Elizabeth Berg {NF}
54. Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans {NF}
55. The Cabinet of Dr. Leng by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
56. Cycle of the Werewolf by Stephen King
57. The Power the Preserves by Stephen R. Donaldson
58. Five Fates by Keith Laumer, Gordon Dicksion, Poul Anderson, Frank Herbert, and Harlan Ellison
59. In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood {NF}
60. Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones
61. Graveyards of the Wild West: New Mexico by Heather L. Houlton and Susan Tatterson {NF}
62. Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life by Ivan T. Sanderson {NF}
63. London Rules by Mick Herron
64. The Blood of Abraham: Insights into the Middle East by Jimmy Carter {NF}
65. The Atomic Weight of Love by Elizabeth J. Church
66. The Preacher’s Boy by Terry Pringle
67. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin {NF}
68. Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks
69. Holly by Stephen King
70. She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo {NF}
71. My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit {NF}
72. The Inner Voice of Love by Henri J. M. Nouwen {NF}
73. Gifts by Isaac Bashevis Singer
74. The Last Coyote by Michael Connelly
75. All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by Gayle Boss {NF}

Welcome back, Mac!

Happy reading in 2024!

I notice a couple of Stephen King's. Have you read 11-23-63? Good luck with your 2024 reading!

>3 mstrust: Thanks for dropping in on the new digs, mistrust - glad you're back for more.

>4 Tess_W: Oh, yes, Tess, I'm a Constant Reader and so I've read all things from Uncle Stevie, some multiple times. 11/22/63 is an all time favorite from him. Thanks for dropping in - stay tuned here for more King, as there will definitely be more this year.

>5 blackdogbooks: I read Billy Summers recently and it was most "unKingish" to me, but I loved it!

Indeed - he seems to be more interested in mysteries and thrillers these days. it was a good one, though, I agree. it's been awhile since he's written a true horror book.

Happy reading in 2024, Mac!

And to you, Anita.

Happy New Year, Mac!

A little late to get an update up, but here it is:



1. Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones

This is not the best from Stephen Graham Jones, but it's easily the most creative from him, and from the field of horror, which ticks up the rating. The structure of the book is essentially a screenplay with the descriptive narratives beefed up for readability. It follows a group of friends and colleagues from a hospital as they visit the childhood home of one of the group. They are terrorized by sentient, animated gargoyles with a taste for human blood. Or are they terrorized by one of their own who's gone mad? Bonus material in the form of David Foster Wallace-style footnotes cataloging cultural, film, and literary references in the narrative. There are three screenplays to cover a film trilogy (the 80s wants its platform back).

While the reading requires some patience and dedication, the overall effect is quite enjoyable. But, beware, that some work is required - missing for some of the other readers who've offered criticism here.

Recommended!!!!
4 bones!!!!



2. Rethinking the False Confession Phenomenon: A Law Enforcement Perspective by Bradford J. Beyer

No one else here in Librarything owns, or has read, this book - and that's a shame. While research oriented, the weight of the book is in its unique perspective on modern American policing, especially in today's world. Beyer takes on the Innocence Project's front of 'statistics' and uncovers that their numbers are artificially inflated as it relates to false confessions uniformly driving false convictions. That's not to say that false confessions don't exist - they do - but Beyer shows that the Innocence Project, and others like them, have misused the numbers to concoct a narrative about law enforcement practices.

Along the way, Beyer highlights the honorable and dedicated work of law enforcement interviewers and investigators, showing that respect, kindness, and openness are the hallmarks of their techniques in talking to criminal subjects. And he supports it all with research.

This is a book I wish I'd had at the beginning of my career.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!!



3. Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie's chose the first name of one of his favorite authors and the last name of another to use as a security pseudonym while he was protected by the British security services during the fatwa against him. This is a memoir of that time. It covers the initial fallout over the publication of Satanic Verses, the unbelievable struggle to publish his next book, and all the trials and tribulations until his reemergence. if all you know about him is what was written by the British press, and subsequently picked up globally, you don't know this man or his work. Sadly, that's the case for most people, happy to take the negative as pronounced at arm's length rather than let the man himself make his case. He does so with an often excoriating honesty about himself, which is refreshing and helps this narrative to stay on track as a truthful and balanced memoir rather than an ego-piece. It's also important that he doesn't focus universally on the censorship surrounding him, but highlights similar struggles for other authors. The book ends before the most recent brutal attack that left him without sight in one eye and on a long road to recover.

In the modern age of censorship and book-banning and fundamentalism and 'religious' intolerance, this should be mandatory reading.

Highly recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!!



4. West Trade Review, Volume 13, Spring 2022 ed. by Ken Harmon

Increasingly, the literary reviews seem to lack good solid writing - it's a difficult business they're in, looking for that writing in a world of mediocrity while their own business model grows ever more unsustainable. It makes one wonder what their slush pile's look like; whether there are gems waiting for the room to shine, or whether the difficulty these presses face make it impossible to foster and, worse, identify good writing.

There was nothing particularly memorable in this edition, and the poetry was particularly weak. Reading poets like Joy Hart and Billy Collins and Mary Oliver, to then shift over to one of these journals, makes the poetry in the journals look like so much ego-centric pulp.

2 bones!!



5. Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins

Billy Collins is the laureate of the everyday, capturing the lyrical nature of small moments. Some of the entries in this collection even cross into meta territory, poetry about poetry, or about a single poem. In any event, he is a one of a kind. There is no obfuscation, no riddles, no deeply inside jokes or references, as is so common of the poets of today who substitute the unknowable, untranslatable, or enigmatic for art. Each of the poems is clear in meaning without losing any lyrical mysticism. Why must modern poets purposely hide any meaning behind language or cute structure.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!!



6. Great Tales of Horror and the Supernatural ed. by Bill Pronzini

A collection of classic horror and thriller tales by some very famous and some not so well known, including some overlooked stories by the famous. The Introduction is by Uncle Stevie, and briefly covers a lot of the same ground as did his non-fiction masterpiece on horror, Danse Macabre. The book is worth the price just for this missive on the inner workings of horror literature. Some of the names you'd expect: Edgar Allan Poe, H. G. Wells, H. P. Lovecraft. Others, not so: Winston Churchill with a thriller about a man overboard; Theodore Dreiser with a spiritualism tale.

Rather than capture all the stories, I'll hit what I thought were the high points:

The Squaw by Bram Stoker, a tale of revenge from the most unlikely of characters, a cat. While this one has been largely lost to the world, no doubt owing partially to the less than politically correct title, it's chilling.

The Girl with the Hungry Eyes by Fritz Leiber, a vampire of a very different sort, and one that is imminently more frightening than most, especially the sparkly kind so popular these days.

Camps by Jack Dan, a man balances on the edge of death, dreaming of a life he didn't live in a concentration camp.

Sardonicus by Ray Russell, beware what you wish for, as the consequences may outstrip your expectations. A horribly disfigured man coerces a doctor to cure him, but the cure imprisons him beyond his original disfigurement.

The Oblong Room by Edward D. Koch, a police procedural that requires the gumshoe to expand his mind beyond the natural.

The Party by William F. Nolan, a fevered dream that cannot be escaped.

The Crate by Stephen King, this one bears a slight resemblance to Douglas Preston's The Relic. Here, a man opens a long forgotten crate in a university research laboratory and unleashes a very hungry entity. But the twist here - after the beast eats a couple people, the man's friend realizes its utility in doing away with his shrew of a wife.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
4 1/2 bones!!!!!



7. Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell

There's a lot to like about this book, and Malcolm Gladwell's writing in general - you can read the reviews below for yourself. I'll stick to the one quibble I have with Gladwell's conclusions.

In a late section in the book, he focuses on a lot of the research around detecting deception, agreeing with the conclusions in that research that law enforcement is not very good at detecting when someone isn't telling them the truth. The problem with the underlying research is that it is almost completely laboratory studies, most which is designed around college students and unrealistic situations. The typical is that a college volunteer is put in front of a computer and told to type but not to ever touch the ESC key. The researchers then confront the volunteer, saying they touched the ESC key. Some volunteers lie, some don't, and others watch five minute videos to determine who is telling the truth. Then, they show the videos to some law enforcement and everyone functions about chance levels. But to extrapolate that a cop, who is used to asking the questions themself, based on evidence and gathered information, in a lengthy interview, is poor at determining deception based on viewing a five minute video is preposterous. Indeed, the research is essentially designed to identify who can guess better, a cop or a college student - anyone remember their college days and tests; it's a lot of guessing. Laboratory researchers have been trying for years to set up a realistic design to test law enforcement's ability to detect deception, but they've always designed extremely poorly.

Outside this brief section in the book, it is a wonderful description of how we often get it wrong in interpersonal communication.

Highly Recommended, with a caveat!!!!
4 1/2 bones!!!!!



8. Trunk Music by Michael Connelly

Michael Connelly is back to his best with this Harry Bosch story. Bosch catches a murder with a guy shot, execution style, and left in the trunk of his own car. The victim is involved in money laundering for some seedy Las Vegas fellas - so, mob hit, right. Nope, and it takes him some work to get back to the truth on this one. Eleanor Wish is back, from the first book; she and Bosch dance a bit before getting back to where they were when Bosch sent her up. The last installment was good, with Bosch in mandated therapy, but this one is great.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!!

Sheesh. Just added three to the TBR. The Jones, the Beyer, the Pronzini all sound great!

Glad to have added to your pile, my friend. I do think you will appreciate the Beyer book, with your background and consistent curiosity about that part of the world.