Books I dug this fall
Maybe you'd dig some of 'em, too?
Winter, for all intents and purposes, has been here in Winnipeg since early November. But now it’s official! Here are some books I found time to enjoy this autumn. Maybe you’ll see something in here that you’ll dig, too?
Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon - Boom! What a read. Picked this up, my first foray into Pynchon, after reading a piece by Jim Ruland on the recent Pynchon convention, and his love of the book. Hit that sweet spot for me re: LA noir + psychedelic burnout. Some of those sentences, man! Groovy stuff.
Agents of Dreamland by Caitlin R. Kiernan — Short, sweet, highly unsettling! Bonus points for Salton Sea content.
Goon Dog by Jon Berger — I already wrote about this bad boy here, but wanted to pump the tires once more. Might be my favourite book of the year? Certainly up there, anyways! Check it out!
Toadstones by Eric Williams — Fantastic collection of weird fiction from fellow Malarkey Books writer. Think Weird Tales, but totally contemporary and fresh. Highly recommend.
The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer — Had been meaning to tackle these three books (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance) for some time, and was finally prompted to by a post by Tex Gresham on Twitter. I’m glad I did. Read through Authority while fighting through a COVID infection, and felt like maybe Area X’s borders had spread to my own brain! Dig in, if you haven’t already.
Sandman: Overtures by Neil Gaiman — I’ve never read any of Gaiman’s work before, and am only a relative newb when it comes to comics/graphic novels, but I dug it and have the next two books on order from the library. What got me going on the format is I read the first volume of Alan Moore’s Saga of the Swamp Thing earlier this year and thoroughly enjoyed it, from the storytelling to the artwork and how the two work together. I also enjoyed the first run of six issues of Justice Warriors, co-written by my old colleague Ben Clarkson. The story is great, the art bonkers, and the experience as a lotta fun. It’s also had me buying comics each month for the first time since I was a teen and the comic shop at the Dawson Creek Co-op Mall would order in editions of Topps’ The X-Files series.
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy — What can I say about this sucker? If you know me, you’ll know I’m a big Cormac fan, so this release and its companion novel Stella Maris have been eagerly anticipated. The Passenger hit plenty of the right spots for me, which I felt drew parallels to some of his best stuff, from Outer Dark to Suttree, Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men and even The Road, in places. It also left me scratching my head plenty too. I’ll have to reserve final comment until I’ve had a chance to read Stella Maris, which I have yet to get to, as like a fool I put it on my wish-list for Santy Claus rather than accepting that I would want to read it as soon as it hit shelves on Dec. 6. So the wait continues. Until then, dig this…
He stood above the bank of riprap. Rock and broken paving. The slow coil of the passing water. In the coming night he thought that men would band together in the hills. Feeding their small fires with the deeds and the covenants and the poetry of their fathers. Documents they’d no gift to read in a cold to loot men of their souls.
(If you’re at all into McCarthy, here’s a piece from the New Yorker on the two new novels that I thought was quite well done.)
Dracula by Bram Stoker — I picked this puppy up at the start of October, thinking I’d breeze through it during the lead up to Halloween. Wrong! Took me some time to reread this classic, well into the snows of November and into December. A real slow-burner, but very worthwhile if you haven’t read it (lately).
Angels by Denis Johnson — Oh boy! Love Johnson’s writing, and his debut novel did not disappoint. Such a special writer, had his voice in my dreams more than once while reading this. Boom! Beautiful!
Quantum Diaper Punks by Stuart Buck — This little novella is quite the trip. Short, pedal to the metal.
I read Winners by Fredrik Backman for the Freep, too, but I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it.
Totally loving this Plains record, front to back, too. Dig it. Happy holidays, etc!