Fuubutsushi NATSUKASHII (2021)

 

hmu if u have an opinion on what I should do with my life

  The War Nerd Iliad by John Dolan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Dolan makes it new. Perfect gift to get a young reader into the classics.

Crooked Still SHAKEN BY A LOW SOUND (2021)

 

 ain't no grave

A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Triggered my wit envy.

Elder & Kadavar ELDOVAR: A STORY OF DARKNESS & LIGHT (2021)

drinking in the American Legion, dice on the bar, horses on the set. good to know you're the biggest coward in the room for real. 

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An open-hearted invitation to share in her double-tragedy, and imagine how we could carry on. Living in the bargaining-zone of DABDA for a year must have been reality-warping. Illustrative of how many of us spent our lives covertly (even to ourselves) seeking control of situations totally beyond our power.

Matthew Halsall SALUTE TO THE SUN (2021)

 

meet you at the astral plane café

  A Little Lumpen Novelita by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bolaño is worth more than the collected output of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Nils Frahm OLD FRIENDS NEW FRIENDS (2021)

blessings on the heroes of Stalingrad: 5 months, 1 week, 3 days. August 23rd through Groundhog's Day Christ Almighty

  Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bolaño, merciless and endlessly inventive, skewers the putative Fourth Reich in the Americas, while leaving an imaginative history to teach the conditions that allowed Colonia Dignidad, Operation Condor, the overthrow of Allende by the Chicago Boys, the implementation of the Jakarta Method, etc. Highlighting the second-tier intellectual class that perpetuates and facilitates the fascist international, Bolaño shows how imperative it is to understand that these people worked these ideas out in broad daylight, and still do. To truly grasp the leadership of the modern "alt-right," we should keep an eye on who they read. And they do read, believe it or not. Bronze Age Pervert, et al. Stay frosty, amigos.