I read Hideo Yokoyama’s Six Four at the start of 2018. I was expecting it to be one thing (a dense, layered murder mystery) and instead got another (a character study and bureaucracy-heavy police procedural). It wasn’t what I would normally read but I appreciated that it was something different. I appreciated the inflections of the main character and how Yokoyama could inject such nuance about life in Japan in the midst of a professional crisis. I had difficulty focusing in the beginning of Seventeen. Yokoyama takes his sweet […]
Decline and Fall of the Targaryen Empire
If you’re a Song of Ice and Fire fan, you’ve got to read this, no questions asked. It’s a detailed history of how the Targaryen takeover of Westeros actually happened. Not written in the style of a Ice/Fire book, it reads like an old man transcribing a large history tome, which was obviously Martin’s intention. This book hit every expectation I had, though I was disappointed to see it’s only volume one in a two-book series and thus didn’t cover the two kings I’m most interested in learning about: […]
Hollywood Horror Story
For as often as I listen to it, I’m not much of a fan of Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald, co-hosts of The Watch podcast. They both come off as smug and insufferable. But they have excellent taste in books, particularly crime fiction. Their suggestions have opened some new doors in a genre I thought I was familiar enough with. So they’re not THAT bad I guess; I just don’t listen to them talk about anything else besides books. Anyway, Newton Thornburg is probably the most obscure […]
Just Enjoy The Ride
Part of my sudden interest in reading James Crumley was the news from this past spring which suggested Mel Gibson’s interest in adapting this book with famed Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne. Gibson described the story as “basically Chinatown set in a 7-11 in 70s Montana, with a lot of cocaine.” First and foremost, Mel Gibson is a lousy human being whose continued popularity in the film industry is a national disgrace. I hope he doesn’t make this movie. But I hope someone less vile than him does (the Coens, […]