After 2026—What?

.

On our trip to Montana, I brought three books. The first I started and finished en route. The second I started en route and finished flying home. Of the third I read the next four chapters while BARTing home. But that doesn't mean Moby Dick will be showing up here any time soon. I'm still only on page 162.

Long book, that Moby Dick. But I have finished these:

☞

030) Saints Volume 3: Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955, finished April 11

I loved this book, the first of Saints that I've read through (slightly embarrassing as I have a number of friends who've worked on them). First, I recognize this is something of a trendy book in that it believes history isn't just Great Man but examples of all the other people as well, "smaller" people doing "smaller" things. The thing is: I think that is great. We need to know what's happening in Cincinnati and Berlin as much as we do inner Salt Lake sanctums. Otherwise, it's not a history of the Church.

Anyway, I've already cited it in talks and even more in conversation. I liked getting to be friends with people now dead. That's one of my favorite things. Love it.

Plus, it's written in a cheery accessible way (without avoiding necessary darkness) and in bitesize pieces which make it perfect for pulling out during a solo breakfast or while waiting for someone to finish their shower. Which is largely how I read it.

Plus, knowing the amount of work that the team put into capturing things with accuracy—every quotation is a quotation, every sunny day was sunny in just that way—while making everything feel as natural as a Judy Blume novel, is just an astonishing accomplishment of both scholarship and artistry.

(Also, hilariously (but thought-provokingly), share this fun fact at your next writing group, they built the books using savethecat as a model.)

almost four years 

☞

031) Wrapped in Plastic: Twin Peaks by Andy Burns, finished April 11

Six years ago I read the Pop Classics on Calvin & Hobbes which remains one of the finest (and most pleasurable) works of criticism in my experience. This volume on Twin Peaks doesn't reach that level—it's more praise and fun facts—but absolutely worth the time I spent reading it. Plus, it's persuaded me to seek out other things (eg, the Psych episode that has over 700 Twin Peaks references which was delightful).

They've released a lot more since I last checked (Jurassic Park! Clueless! Labyrinth!) and, as there are now more I want to read, Imahafta.

But, also, it makes me want to finish my Napoleon Dynamite pitch. Someone needs to write that book and here I am, right here, available. (Soon as I finish this novel....)

perhaps a month

☞

032) After 1903—What? by Robert Benchley, finished April 15

I love Benchley's short videos which is why the last time I read one of his books, I made a vaguely Benchleyesque video in response:

More recently, when I interrupted my Benchley reading for Dave Barry's memoir, I was delighted to learn that Dave Barry counts Benchley as one of his heroes and continues to reread him to this day. I felt in good company.

And a Benchley collection really is the ideal bedside companion. He's a charming host, sometimes very funny, pleasantly old-fashioned, and the essays are all very short. I assume they were written for newspaper syndication but the book never says.

Speaking of, what the heck does After 1903—What? mean, anyway? The collection came out in 1938. So 1903 was 35 years earlier. Robert Benchley was born in 1889 so he turned 14 in 1903 and 50 in 1938. This does not help me any. I suspect it was a funny title in 1938, but why? Why???

Here's my copy:

Here's another version:

Neither of these covers makes the title any clearer to me.

You're welcome to read it yourself and explain the thing to me.

Or you can watch an actually entertaining video from the man himself:

could be less than one year or maybe it was two

☞

033) Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing by Jacob Goldstein, finished May 4

Loved it. Goldstein is a Planet Money reporter and the book shares that smart but accessible vibe. It covers everything from about four thousand years ago to 2020 and it opened my eyes to a lot of things I thought I understood and things I did not understand and even things I already understood. It's a swift journey through posibility, which is the real thing. Things need not be the way they are. We know that because they haven't been that way long. They haven't been any way long.

Solid work of popular nonfiction. Recommended. 

one or two or three weeks 

☞

034) Montana 1948 by Larry Watson, finished May 6

We have five essentially new ex-library copies of this novel. Some teacher had got them purchased then couldn't have used them more than a time or two. Then they sat for a decade or more before being tossed.

I grabbed five because "Montana." The Big O was considering Missoula for school and I thought maybe reading this together could be a fun family activity. Currently we're flying to Missoula for O's graduation so obviously that didn't happen. But Lady Steed grabbed two of them for us to read on the trip then give to O and his girlfriend when we finished. 

Well, it's probably best we didn't read this with a 12yrold even thought that's the age of the protagonist. Some of the blurbs compare this to To Kill a Mockingbird and part of the reason is the integrity of the father figure but it's also because of the darkness that fuels the novel's plot.

So why has this 1993 novel not had the lasting power of TKAM? They are similar in theme and quality. Its darkness might be slightly too clear for most high-school teachers. And it's probably slightly too short. But the biggest reason might be the title. Montana 1948 is fine, I guess, but it had little evocative power compared to, say, To Kill a Mockingbird. No competition.

I was looking in the text for a better title for the novel. I found options, but it's too late now.

It is a good book, though. I wonder if it will grow in my estimation as time passes.

[Spoiler: between handwriting this review on May 6 and typing it May 13, it already has.] 

from sfo to slc 

☞

035) Clever Girl: Jurassic Park by Hannah McGregor, finished May 11

A lot of "populist" queer writing shares a rhetorical problem: it makes no space for people who don't already agree with whatever is being said. (Sometimes it even makes enemies our of allies for good measure.) Unless you're already fully converted, you're a damn fool and there is not enough time in the world to explain things for you.

This sort of anger is understandable—plenty of queer people fairly feel the world feels this way about them, but this stance not only fails to gain converts, it can't even attain an audience.

Which isn't to say Hannah McGregor isn't angry. In her acknowledgements she calls Clever Girl an angry book. But her writing here is also sad and open and funny and deeply personably. Even if you came into Clever Girl convinced she's wrong about averything, you'll leave the book feeling friendly toward her and understanding why she feels the way she does, how she came to feel that way, and probably sympathetic to her argument. 

(It occurs to me that one of Clever Girl's themes—the depth of time—might partly explain how she's able to provide this context even to those who might start off assuming she's batty.)

Which argument is excellent, by the way. No just her exegesis of Jurassic Park, but every part of reality which it comes into contact with.

This is the most personal of the three Pop Classics I've read, but that deep personal connection is the engine that runs the intellectual vehicle that is Clever Girl.

Good stuff.

(recommended companion readings: my favorite thing is monsters one and two)

one week

☞

 

previous books

The first five books of 2026

001) Red Harvest by Dachielle Hammett, finished January 3
002) Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, finished January 14
003) Snoopy's Guide to the Writing Life edited by Barnaby Conrad and Monte Schulz, finished January 16
004) You Are Too Much, Charlie Brown by Charles M. Schulz, finished January 19
005) Ice by Anna Kavan, finished January 24

Emotion-of-your-choice Valentine's Day!

006) Midville High: Comic Caper Collection by Matt Blair, finished February 5
007) Guarding the Moon: A Mother's First Year by Francesca Lia Block, finished February 10
008) The Sellout by Paul Beatty, finished February 13 

I don't know much about hats Kafka wore
Or if Bottom's dream sunk in the sea
But I know that George Lucas made a fine film
And that The Shining just isn't for me

009) Where Hats Go by Kurt Wolfgang, finished February 20
010) Kafka's Manuscript, finished February 27
011) Lucas Wars by Laurent Hopman and Renaud Roshe, finished February 28
012–014) A Midsummer's Night Dream by William Shakespeare, finished March 9  

Six for 2026

015) The Path and the Gate: Mormon Short Fiction edited by Andrew Hall and Robert Raleigh, finished March 15
016) Hyperion by Dan Simmons, finished March 19
017) The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins, finished March 21
018) Visitations by Corey Egbert, finished March 23
019–021) After the Blast by Zoe Kazan, finished March 25
022) Accidental Devotions by Kelli Russell Agodon, finished March 30

Such poetry! Such hardboiling!

025) New & Selected Things Taking Place by May Swenson, finished April 2
026) Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett, finished April 4
027) Loved Ones by Kevin Klein, finished April 4
028) Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: an urgent paraphrase of paul's letter to the romans by Adam S. Miller, finished April 5
029) The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler, finished April 9

 

 

PRIOR YEARS OF BOOKS

2007 = 2008 = 2009 = 2010 = 2011 = 2012 = 2013 = 2014 = 2015
2016 = 2017 = 2018 = 2019 = 2020 = 2021 = 2022 = 2023 = 2024 = 2025