This is astounding

The council convenes once more #deathblart

Finally, three middle-aged white men have a podcast. Join me, @slicehicks.bsky.social, and @dwightslappe.bsky.social as we discuss life’s little victories and constant disappointments.

Hell yes you should it's one of my favorite movies and I explain why here: whatever.scalzi.com/2023/12/12/t...

Piranesi, I realized in this, my second read, is my favorite book. Don’t research. Just go read it. It’s short. If you’ve read before, and are considering rereading, I’ll remind you that The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; it’s Kindness infinite.

Hey, read the Murderbot Chronicles. They’re so short. I found the first one so … relatable which is … maybe bad? I dunno! It’s a novella, read it!

My episode of Big City Greens is on Disney if you wanna see it

Hey pals! Do you or someone you know work in children’s museum exhibit design? Specific, I know! I’d love your help with a thing, please email Justin at Mbmbam dot com

Fever House by Keith Rosson was the very scary first part of a duology about a disembodied hand that fills people near it with murderous impulses. It’s October, treat yourself!

Syd and I read the whole ACOTAR series since last we spoke. They’re books about horny fairies that I found invigoratingly inventive in a structural sense and terribly romantic. Maybe I’m just going soft in my old age, I dunno

So: Major Labels by Kelefa Sanneh is an astounding account of modern popular music. He condenses and contextualizes like 75 years of music in a way that rearranged my whole outlook on how I listen to music.

Hey, like all Elmore Leonard I’ve read, Get Shorty is a real treat. I think I might be bad at book reviews. I try to only read stuff I’ll like and I usually do. Like them that is. Especially if I finish them

THE DADLIEST CATCH: Just finished Essex Dogs, a historical fiction following one hard-bitten company during the Hundred Years War. I know nothing about history, this might as well have been set in Enchancia for all I knew, but it’s a really compelling story!

Syd and I read The Appeal together. When I tell you it is an epistolary murder mystery set in a British community theater group told almost entirely through emails you know with 100% certainty if you will love it. if you think you will after reading that just go get it

I finished Crooked Kingdom, and it was thrilling, watching the author evolve through this series and watching her tie her universe together. Some great action writing as well.

Now reading Crooked Kingdom

Finished the great Zoey Ashe trilogy, which is the story of a dystopian city in future Utah so lawless and attention-obsessed that it’s a very useful satirical stand-in for the internet. The first book is called Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits, which does what it says on the tin.

welcome to my Bluesky new friends. It’s just books here. About to wrap up the Zoey Ashe trilogy

Y’all, Chain Gang All Stars is an incredible, devastating, wildly-entertaining book that’s so inventive in how it delivers its message and story. Read it!

A very warm and funny book book about a woman who is raised with a chimpanzee for a sister. As you might suspect, it’s about the blurred lines between person and animal and how memory plays into that divide and it’s just lovely

This was a little heavy on world building at first, but it’s a really incredible world, more about political and societal struggles than a typical fantasy novel that’s rife with big battles. There are two more that I’ll probably read, but I think I’ll do something a bit more grounded next.

I found so much of Pete Holmes’ church upbringing and journey out of that past incredibly relatable. I thought this was a refreshingly vulnerable book that I really got a lot out of.

All were correct: Six of Crows, a fantasy heist novel, is fun from beginning to end. I read the preceding Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is just fine, but it’s cool watching Bardugo evolve by leaps and bounds

Stu Turton is my favorite working mystery author, but you may really like the a Japanese novel called The Decagon House Murders.

You know what was really great was the Silo series, Wool, Shift and Dust. I tried the TV show, but there was so much cruft added to what’s an incredibly propulsive and lean story on the page. It’s a book about people living underground in a Silo and what that illuminates about the human experience.

Just finished this weird little novella, unsettling stuff!

Right now I’m listening to Six of Crows because it’s a book about criminals in a fantasy setting, which is one of the top things for books to be about. I read the Shadow and Bobe trilogy that led up to it, and it was … pretty OK! SoC is way better so far.

So yesterday I finished Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It’s a short novel about a world that is also a house filled with nearly infinite halls of giant marble statues and shifting tides and exactly one living resident. It’s amazing.

Maybe on Bluesky im just a books guy