We had the most lovely and sociable Chihuahua of all time. By which I mean her circle of trust was FIVE people and not the usual one/two. RIP Cheech, you were a real one.

We have completely de-Christmased the house and still no one has noticed.

Nobody makes them burn like @beaujohnson44.bsky.social Check him out y’all.

Good morning from the greatest city in the world (Secaucus, New Jersey)

No one has noticed yet

This tasted exactly as blue as it looked #beervent

Waiting to see if anyone notices this today. Don’t leave me alone to decorate.

Beervent 22: Peaks and Valleys Favorite book: one of the best crime thrillers I read this year was @browneallover.bsky.social’s They All Fall the Same. Phenomenal writing. Surprise beer: Mountain Girl Hefeweizen from Maryland’s own Union Brewing. A perfect thematic pairing. #beervent #booksky

Beervent Day 21: Favorite Book: King of Ashes. No one writes crime fiction better than @blacktopkid.bsky.social; his debut, Blacktop Wasteland, made me want to write my own crime thriller (so I did). The best in the game, 💯. Surprise beer: a raspberry hefe—can’t wait to get into it! #beervent

Beervent Day 20 Favorite book: Brilliance, by my pal Marcus Sakey. This trilogy is an absolute ride—mutants, superpowers, bureaucrats, family. Heart and brains. Top notch. Surprise beer: Bell’s Porter, a great example of the style. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Not me writing K-pop Demon Hunters fanfic for my kid for Christmas.

Beervent 19: Throwbacks Random beer: Dogfish 30th Ann Decadence, the OG biggy stout, aged in palo santo marron, whiskey, and Utupias casks. Yes please. Favorite Book(s): classic Dean Koontz COOKED, and Strangers is in my top 5. #bookvent #beervent #booksky 💙📚

Beervent 18 Favorite Book: IS Berry’s The Peacock and the Sparrow is the best spy novel in decades. America’s le Carré. And a nice person to boot. Surprise Beer: Lakefront Honey Bock, with actual honeypot (ok barrel) on the label, which is perfect confluence. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Beervent 17 Surprise Beer: A chocolate coffee stout from Dewey Beer. Perfect for winter! Favorite Book(s): The Broken Earth trilogy, NK Jemisin. Strange, beautiful, rage-filled FAR future SF. Also a slow burning mystery with a staggering reveal and incredible payoff. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Reviews matter, y’all, I should know. #booksky

Beervent 16th: Favorite book: Reacher, Lee Child*. Great collection of essays about the genesis, growth, and journey of Jack Reacher and the man who writes him. Surprise beer: a berry pancake sour from Imprint. Reacher loves pancakes, so it felt like a match. 1/2 #bookvent #beervent #booksky

Beervent Day 15: Old School Mystery beer: Thomas Hardy’s Ale, a venerable English Barleywine (1986 vintage on left, 2024 on right). Favorite book: The Black Company series by Glen Cook. Grimdark low-ish fantasy before it was mainstreamed. Rough and ready. #beervent #bookvent #booksky

Beervent Day 14 Surprise beer: Free State’s west coast pils, a collab with Burnished and Lallemand. Favorite Book: The Dark Tower, #7 (well, 8) in Uncle Stevie’s magnum opus. Never cried so hard at a novel. And no, that’s not the horn of Arthur Eld (though I wish). #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Beervent Day 13: Favorite Book, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, by Michael Chandon, about an alternate America where the Jewish homeland is Sitka, Alaska. A phenomenal work. Surprise Beer, a 14% abv malt liquor from Founders, my oh my. #beervent #bookvent #booksky

Beervent Day 12: 2 is better than 1 Today’s surprise beer: Brau Buddies, a collab lager between the venerable HofBrau and Lakefront Brewing. Today’s favorite book: Lucifer’s Hammer by BFFs and brilliant SF writers Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. #beervent #bookvent #booksky

Beervent Day 11 Favorite book: Swan Song by Robert R McCammon, a phenomenal post-apoc thrill ride that’s reminiscent of The Stand while being very much its own great thing. Random Beer: a peanut marshmallow stout from Equilibrium. Sign me TF up for this one. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Beervent Day 10 Random beer: Dewey’s Sunset Eclipse, a strawberry chocolate stout. I have more reservations than a Bennigan’s on St Patrick’s Day but I’ll give it a shot. Pair with David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, a matryoshka novel that’s stayed with me for 15 years. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Pairing surprise beers with favorite books, day 9. This. Is. BEERVENT. Blue Milk, a smoothie sour from Magnify Brewing in a galaxy far far away (aka New Jersey); should be…interesting. Paired with Brian Daley’s Solo trilogy, the best Star Wars books; don’t @ me Thrawniacs. #beervent #booksky

Beervent Day 8: Sweet n Sour @joerlansdale.bsky.social is one of eight authors who I’ll read anything they write, anytime, anywhere. Rusty Puppy is one of my favorites in his wonderful Hap & Leonard series. Pair with mystery beer number eight: Raspberry Jammin by Beer Tree! #beervent #booksky

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel.

Beervent Day 7: Ben McIntyre wrote Double Cross, the best spy novel I ever read: At times hilarious, even poignant. Only it’s not a novel, it’s nonfiction that reads like one. Paired with Blush by Foam Brewers, because every now and again I like a fruited sour. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Beervent Day 6: Darker Succession + paranormal horror = FIEND, a deliciously sharp novel by the excellent @almakatsu.bsky.social, one of the best working today in *many* genres. Pair with mystery beer 6, Founders Porter, one of my favorites in the style. #beervent #booksky #bookvent

Beervent Day 5: Salvagia, by @timchawaga.bsky.social, a brilliant cli-fi noir that adeptly recalls the John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee, set in a climate-ravaged Florida and featuring secretive machines… …a perfect pairing with Dewey’s Secret Machine fruited sour! #beervent #booksky #bookvent

As a highly-trained former counterintelligence agent I am extremely adept at identifying surveillance.

Day 4 of Beervent, in which I open one of 24 random beers and pair it with a favorite book. @jordanharper.bsky.social’s LA noir, Everybody Knows, is a poetic, tanto-sharp masterpiece. Pair with The Bruery’s Valencia Orange radler; clean with a hint of sour—LA after a storm. #beervent #booksky

Beervent Day 3: timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly. Had to pair Blake Crouch’s twisty Recursion, the most realistic time travel thriller I’ve ever read, with First State’s Lucid Refraction hefeweizen. I mean, the label and nomenclature similarities almost require it. #beervent #bookvent #booksky

Day 2 of Beervent (wherein I pair a favorite book with one of 24 surprise beers from my wife as we approach the holidays)! Today, darkness: - Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks; wrecked me when I first read it at 12, and doubly so at 32. - Robinson’s Fear of the Dark stout. #beervent #booksky 📚💙

Every holiday season, my wife gets 24 mystery beers. I open one a day, pairing it with a book that’s special to me. This. Is. BEERVENT. Day 1: classics. - St Bernardus Christmas, a big spicy Belgian. - Jim Crumley’s Thr Ladt Good Kiss, truly the last great PI novel. #beervent #booksky

Guess which one is the derpy young puppy and which is the crotchety ol lady of these two. Just guess. #DogSky 🐶

Between Ackerman and Baldacci, spittin distance of Berney. Happy to be in that company. #booksky

Yeah it’s crazy to me anyone is worried about this. Given the long history and various actors, it’s clear that 007/James Bond is just a code designator/name for a top agent and not one guy. Just…do that.

Oh dear, another scam email. These have been very steady over the past few weeks, although few have been so blatantly detectable. Unless, @gradyhendrix.bsky.social it’s really you, hit me up brother! 🤣 #booksky 💙📚 #scam

Only a few authors out there I’ll seek out every single word they write: @joerlansdale.bsky.social, @blacktopkid.bsky.social, @almakatsu.bsky.social, @premeemohamed.com, @chuckwendig.bsky.social are on that list, as is @gabino.bsky.social. What do they have in common? 1/2 #booksky Hint:

It’s time

Gorram, @blacktopkid.bsky.social did it again, and better than ever. The darkest noir I’ve read in a minute, chock full of great characters, a plot tighter than a miser’s a-hole, and flames that lick right out of the pages. There’s only one question I have left… 1/2 #booksky 💙📚

Welcome to Derry, good LORT

If yinz hain’t picked this one up yet, what are you even doing

Scientific fact: it is impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to Me First & the Gimme Gimmes.

We have joined the sourdough tribe. Behold our starter, Toast Malone (left) and overflow jar, Discardi B (right).

August 2021, I’d just finished Blacktop Wasteland by @blacktopkid.bsky.social; so damn good it inspired me to try my hand at a crime thriller. Now I’m reading his latest in the downtime between signing my own, while copies of our books share table space. Somebody pinch me. #booksky 💙📚

Yuuuup

Small complaint in the grand scheme, but ever since I published my novel I get 1-2 contacts a day through my website where a “book marketing specialist“ pings me with an AI-generated pitch to “increase my reach through their carefully curated network of 2000 readers“. #booksky 💙📚 #ScamAlert

This is the best gorram news to come out in forever. So many talented writers and downright wonderful people involved…

In Maryland, they don’t do it any better than Elder Pine in Gaithersburg. 10/10, no notes. #beersky

HEYOOO FRIENDOS! After six months, my self-paced, unfunded, haphazard-as-a-chimp-flying-a-space-shuttle book tour is coming to an end. My FINAL BOOK TOUR EVENT will be NEXT SATURDAY, October 18th, at @barnesandnoble.com in beautiful Ellicott City, Maryland. 1/3 #booksky 💙📚