Up Next

It’s been a minute since I tackled multiple books at once, but I can feel the air cooling outside, the days getting darker faster, and I think it might be time to hunker down in the evenings with a few different titles. Let the vibe switching keep at bay the total envelopment of winter darkness. Gonna kick things off with these three:

Joyland, by Stephen King

Might’ve actually bought this all the way back when it came out? In 2013? I know it’s been on the shelf awhile. On the way back from New Mexico, with The Familiar: One Rainy Day in May finished, I found myself without a book for the flight home. No bookstore in the ABQ airport, either. So I hopped on Libby on my phone and found the first available-to-borrow book from my to-read list. First seventy pages or so have been intriguing, if a little YA, though I guess that’s maybe to be expected from a coming-of-age narrator.

theMystery.doc, by Matthew McIntosh

I really know how to pick the tomes. This one clocks in at 1660 pages in total, and I’m reading it in a two-person book club with my mother. I recommend the two-person book club. You pick a book, you pick a waypoint in the book, you read to the waypoint, you discuss, and then you pick the next waypoint, and you keep going till you’re done. A great motivator, both to do the damn reading and have some thoughts about it.

Book’s a fractured narrative of transcribed .wav files, chat logs, and straight prose sections so far. Some legit laughs. I have absolutely no idea where it’s going, I refuse to read the front flap for any hints, and I couldn’t be happier.

Wind, Sand And Stars, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The latest selection for my in-person book club. I know even less about it than theMystery.doc. A memoir, from what I’ve gathered, of a French pilot in the early days of aviation. I’ve historically not taken to memoir, as a genre. The rate of hits to misses is so damn lopsided. But I’ll give it a shot all the same. Gotta let the book have its day in court.

I’ve already started the first two. Might start the third this evening. Gotta pace myself with the book club selection, lest I finish it too fast and forget too much before the actual meetup.

Back to the pages.