And baby makes sixty-one

.

Well, it's October and we finally made it to sixty. I'm just about out of danger, in terms of finishing the fewest since recording. We're passing 2010 in the next post (maybe 2016 too!).

I don't feel bad (or am trying not to feel bad) about the numbers. Moby Dick was a big lift! The Torah-with-more-notes-than-Torah was a lot of words! I've read a couple hundred more pages in The Stand! the big danger of a project like these posts is getting trapped by metrics that are not the point. If my goal is to make up for this year but hitting 200 next year, no way in gazzoobiss am I picking up George Eliot and, well, how nice to pick up George Eliot?

(That's what George Henry Lewes said!)

 That said, every book on today's list is quite the quick read. So.... Who knows what I'm talking about. 

.

☞

054) Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, finished September 21

This is a weird play. It's shaped so differently than the other plays with things that feel like final calamities happening over and over again.

Harold Bloom says that Antony and especially Cleopatra are among Shakespeare's greatest characters, in large part because they're contradictory messes. I mean. Okay. But, on the other hand, really? Bloom ranks Cleopatra with Hamlet, Iago, and Falstaff as the characters with the greatest interiority but man, I'm having a hard time seeing it. I finished reading the play today and I watched it yesterday and . . . I dunno.

Excited to do it with students! Maybe they can help me come around. We'll find out!

eight days 

☞

055) We Can Fix It: a time-travel memoir by Jess Fink, finished September 23

I don't know much about Jess Fink other than she's supposed to be funny and she's supposed to be sexy and that people I like like her.

I love the concept of this book: an autobiography from the perspective of now you visiting various past yous. It's largely silly and sometimes sad and certainly largely skates across the surface ending with a pat and generic time-travel moral, but it's a fun little journey and time well spent.

two days

☞

056) The Sculptor by Scott McCloud, finished September 25

It's funny. You start reading this and it's very good but a tad short of great. And then you read the last few pages and feel everything the book has on offer in one great explosion of emotion. And maybe it is great.

Anyway, it's about love and death and life and art and, yeah, it's pretty darned great.

I wonder if part of what makes it great is that Scott models Meg after his own wife. Which isn't to say they're the same person, but Meg's genesis is in the person Scott loves. Which reminds me she died in a car accident a few years ago. And this book allows me some parasocial comourning which sounds like I'm joking or being silly, but no. Art brings us together. Which is exactly what The Sculptor hopes.

 

I've been wanting to reread it since first reading it and now I want to read it again. See you in 2036.

probably over a week 

☞

057) The Last Words of Dutch Schulz by William S, Burroughs, finished September 26

I have a friend who is the Dutchman's . . . great-grandson? Anyway, he've given me a couple books about the famous gangster and this shorter one (a screenplay) is the shorter and more easily finished.

But I had read the chapter in the other book that is just the transcription of his last words as recorded by a police stenographer in the hospital as his shot-up body gave out. These words are alleged to have inspired the Beats and other stream-on-counscious–curious writers. And here Burroughs borrows from them (and invents plenty) as he gives us Arthur Flegenheimer entire biography.

It's well understood that Burroughs's screenplay was never meant to be filmed, was only meant to be read, but I can't read it without seeing his fantasies of maybe just maybe it making it to screen. But honestly I don't think it would be a very good movie. A cross between Scorsese, Malick, and Tarantino might sound good, but . . . I'm not so sure.

But the final pages really came together as a read and there the story really worked. Hard to say how close to reality they come, but who cares?

The book's heavily (and impressionistically) illustrated with photos from the period (largely photos of the players) and honestly that makes the whole thing a better experience.

Incidentally, someone else has had a similar idea and made a one-act based on those dying words. 

under a month 

☞

058) It Girl and the Atomics: Dark Streets, Snap City by Jamie S. Rich and a slew of other people, finshed September 28

I've never read one of the It Girl books that isn't a Mike Allred original. The team did a good job capturing the zany fun and sideways innocence of the Madman universe. The art played sensibly with the writing and it all felt very Allred, which feels like the real goal here. I'll admit, less than making me want to read more non-Allred Allred comics, it made me want to heck out Rich's other penned comics and see what he does with his own worlds and characters.

And it made me want to reread all the Madman stuff the Allreds made. Might be time to write about them again....

under a week 

☞

059) The Holy Covenant: Living Our Sacred Temple Promises by Anthony Sweat, finished October 4

This is one of three short books (#2) ol' Tony Sweat has written about the temple. They're well regarded and rightly so. They are compact and clear.

My biggest compliment will be a bit of a surprise, because one aspect of this book is Sweat's reliance on patching together temple language from carefully footnoted other sources. He's trying to set free temple sentences and vocabulary from the prison skittishness has placed them in. And everytime he says something direct from the endowment, he footnotes it with identical language from a Conference talk or the Genreal Handbook or something. At times, this feels as much like a parlour trick as fresh analysis or exegesis.

But then he will find beautiful language to turn all that recylced language just slightly such that it reflects a new collection of lighted colors directly to us. The final chapter is a good example of what I mean. Through subtle use or repetition, verb tense, lists—really simple tools—he crafts something utterly wonderful. Just by retelling Moses's encounter with God—largely through the words of scripture!—he recasts it and defamiliarizes it and makes it sing afresh. It's an impressive rhetorical accomplishment and spiritually potent.

I wouldn't mind reading the other two.

under two months 

☞

060) Penthouse Legend by Ayn Rand, finished October 5

I had no idea Ayn Rand wrote plays. This one is just a trial, from opening arguments to jury's verdict. The gimmick is that the jury is chosen from the audience (perhaps randomly, perhaps to put celebrities on stage) and depending on the vedict they reach, the play ends differently. I have questions about how the jury was managed, but whatever.

The revelation of information as the trial proceeds is at times pretty fascinating / exciting / compelling. But then the characters pause to tell about rand's great-man theories and the gears grind. The final speeches from the defense and the D.A. tell us that what's really on trial is Ayn Rand's philosophy and not an alleged murderer. And so the startling and provocative physical elements are thus subsumed to some flabby ideas and the entire piece is the weaker for it.

I can see how this could be a fun night at the theater but I'm doubtful anyone remembered it later. The difference between one ending and the other is slight, for one thing, and while good actors could really make the thing sing, it's about its gimmick and its philosophy and those are the two least interesting things about it.

one day

☞

061/062) Antony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, finshed October 8 and 9

Rich and strange and confusing and weird and delightful and funny and tragic and kind of a lot.

I don't think I've ever had two classes so out of sync in reading. Not sure why. Did one class really have that much more commentary and discussion? Hard to say.

Anyway, it's feels like an outlier of a play. If you have opinions on it, I'm interested to hear. I've read Harold Bloom and Marjorie Garber's thoughts, but I'm open to more. 

☞

 

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

 

After 2026—What?

030) Saints Volume 3: Boldly, Nobly, and Independent, 1893–1955, finished April 11
031) Wrapped in Plastic: Twin Peaks by Andy Burns, finished April 11
032) After 1903—What? by Robert Benchley, finished April 15 
033) Money: The True Story of a Made-up Thing by Jacob Goldstein, finished May 4
034) Montana 1948 by Larry Watson, finished May 6
035) Clever Girl: Jurassic Park by Hannah McGregor, finished May 11

 

Fifty-three days and only nine books
(American literacy truly is in decline)

035) Okchundang Candy by Jung-soon Go and translated by Airin Park, finished May 22
036) The Lost Gate by Orson Scott Card, finished May 27
037) Bad Kitty Goes on Vacation by Nick Bruel, finished June 1
038) Backward by Ben Abbott, finished June 10
039) Too Many Cooks by Rex Stout, finished June 12
040) Pickles by Brian Crane, finished July 7
041) Pickles, Too by Brian Crane, finished July 7
042) Lost & Found by Shaun Tan, finished July 13
043) The Arrival by Shaun Tan, finished July 13

One of these things is not like the other

043) Urban Legend Hunters: The Dreaded Mr. Snipe by Joel McKerrow and Wayne Bryant, finished July 23
044) The Firelight Apprentice by Bree Paulsen, finished July 23
045) The Five Books of Moses: A Translation with Commentary by Robert Alter, finished August 4
046) Surfside Girls: The Mystery at the Old Rancho by Kim Dwinell, finished August 6 

 

"Remember you can trust me / I am not as evil as you think"

047) Resolution by Robert B. Parker, finished August 8
048) American Zion: A New History of Mormonism by Benjamin E. Park, finished August 23
049) The Candy House by Jennifer Egan, finished September 1
050) Juliet: The Lives and Afterlives of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine by Sophie Duncan, finished September 7
051) Lost Girls by Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie, finished September 12
052) Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, finished September 12
053) Apos by Anna M. Wright, finished September 14