TBR 2025 (Patron-Only)
HERE WE GO!
All Links Below Are Paid Affiliate Links:
1. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy
2. The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut
3. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
4. Tell My Horse by Zora Neale Hurston
5. Thomas the Obscure by Maurice Blanchot
6. The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese
8. The Magician by Christopher Zeischegg
9. The Graveyard of Bitter Oranges by Josef Winkler
11. Samskara: A Rite for a Dead Man by U.R. Ananthamurthy
12. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
Comments (6)
Cliff, if/when you get to Gibbons, you may want to look into Dan Carlin’s podcasts on Rome and his book. The book has stand alone chapters on death and destruction. But there is one fantastic chapter on the irony of Charlemagne and his crowning as the Holy Roman Emperor. Being that he was descended from the barbarians who destroyed Rome. Cool analysis of our desire to reclaim history for our own use.
Woah - I did not know that about Charlemagne, incredible. Thank you very much for the recommendation, I'll check it out!
Just read “Samskara” a few weeks ago — definitely an interesting interrogation of the whole notion of “purity.” It didn’t blow me away on its merits as a novel but I still enjoyed it. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Noted! Thanks for sharing your thoughts David, definitely sounds intriguing. Hope you enjoy the review when it arrives.
Very nice list! I've got Black Dahlia and Palmer Eldritch on my bookshelf--would be nice to get to those myself perhaps this year (amidst the near dozen novels I have to read for this semester). As I've mentioned to you before, PKD is one of my absolute favorites. Even his "lesser," pulpier work shows his prescience (Eye in the Sky would be my recommendation for an early novel of his that toes that line of high/lowbrow. Weird dream-dimension hopping stuff--the part of that book featuring the titular Eye is fun. PKD was absolutely fascinated with religion, surveillance, and control (reminds me of Burroughs). It's s real pleasure seeing his thematic consistency. Made all the more wonderful when you read a real powerhouse like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? or Ubik. I'm hoping to get my hands on Thomas the Obscure in the next month or so, so that's another one that would be nice to fit in my schedule. Seems more manageable given its length. All the others sound great. I'm familiar with Zeischegg, Labatut, and Hurston but haven't read any of their work yet. Excited to see all these reviews, especially for the totally new books. For Yeats I've read one poem: The Second Coming. That's a phenomenal one.
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity." W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" lines 1-8