What we read last month

 

Here is what Mark K. Brown read last month:

Neuromancer by William Gibson 7/23 
Slow Learner by Thomas Pynchon  7/26   
Anti-Sartre, with an Essay on Camus by Colin Wilson  7/27  

Mark is traveling, so he has less reading time. He also is plugging away on Charles Rosen's The Classical Style.

Here's what I read in July:

The Warlord of Greenline Town, J. Kenton Pierce.
The Story of Russia, Orlando Figes.
Kakistocracy: Why Populism Ends in Disaster, Richard Hanania.
Fly On The Tale Of The Tribe: A Rollercoaster Ride With Robert Anton Wilson, Steven James Pratt.
Master Alvin, Orson Scott Card. 

Starting in July, I am trying each month to read at least two books nominated for next year's Prometheus Award (I am a judge), hence the Pierce and the Card.

So, what did you read last month? 

What we read last month

The Sword of the Lictor is part of Gene Wolfe's four-novel The Book of the New Sun, which I've read several times. 

Here's Mark Brown's report for April:

Martian Time-Slip by Philip K. Dick  4/6 
The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson   4/9   
The Sword of the Lictor by Gene Wolfe  4/13   
The Yellow Cross: The Story of the Last Cathars 1290-1329 by Rene Weiss   4/16 
The Neutronium Alchemist, Part 1: Consolidation by Peter F. Hamilton   4/23   
Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse  4/28

What I read last month:

No Man's Land, Volume 2, Sarah Hoyt.
No Man's Land, Volume 3, Sarah Hoyt.
The Underachiever, David A. Price.
Storm-Dragon, Dave Freer.
Meat Cove, Janice Weber.
The Star Fox, Poul Anderson.

As usual, the rest of you are invited to say in the comments what you read last month. 

What we read last month

Another reading log from Mark Brown and myself.

What Mark Brown read last month: 

Trouble is My Business by Raymond Chandler 2/6 
The Night Land by William Hope Hodgson  2/11
Two Hawks from Earth by Philip Jose Farmer  2/18   
Domnei by James Branch Cabell  2/22   
Land of Terror by Edgar Rice Burroughs   2/25   
Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Psychedelic Rock by Jim de Rogatis  2/27

What I read:

The Uncertainty Principle?, D. Scott Apel
War By Other Means (Fall of the Censor Book 7), Karl Gallagher
The Workshop of Democracy, 1863–1932 (The American Experiment Book 2), James MacGregor Burns
Colors of Asia: A Visual Journey, Kevin Kelly
Forged for Prophecy (Forged for Destiny, #2), Andrew Knighton

As usual, everyone else is invited to share what they have read. 

What we read last month

What Mark Brown read:

Cocktail Time by P. G. Wodehouse  1/3/2026 
Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin  1/14  
The Night Life of The Gods by Thorne Smith  1/22   
The Charwoman’s Shadow by Lord Dunsany  1/29
Llana of Gathol by Edgar Rice Burroughs  1/31

What I read in January: 

A Kiss for Damocles, J. Kenton Pierce.
Hellenistic Philosophy, John Sellars.
Red Heart, Max Harms.
Beyond Control, Jacob Sullum.
The Fourfold Remedy, John Sellars.
Forged for Destiny, Andrew Knighton.

As usual, the rest of you are invited to post in the comments about what you read last month. 

Mark Brown's RAW-related reading

Mark Brown posts on Facebook what he read the previous month. Here is what he listed:

Reads and Rereads finished in December:

The Magus by John Fowles  12/6  

The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler  12/9

Every Day is a Good Day by Robert Shea, ed. by Tom Jackson  12/12

Venus Plus X by Theodore Sturgeon  12/18  

Dare by Philip Jose Farmer  12/21  

The Dead Man’s Knock by John Dickson Carr  12/24

I usually post what I read last month, but in a sense I have already done that; in December I read the last five books in yesterday's post.

Except for Fowles, I have read books by every author on RAW's list. But what I am struck by is that every author on Mark's list has a Robert Anton Wilson connection. The Fowles novel is one of Wilson's favorites. RAW was a fan of Chandler, Farmer, Sturgeon and Carr.  Sturgeon was a RAW fan. (This blog post has been updated to confirm that RAW was a Sturgeon fan.)

I am having to do this on my phone; I will update this later and fix the formatting. What did you guys read last month?

Philip José Farmer reading recommendations

Philip Jose Farmer (source). 

Robert Anton Wilson and science fiction writer Philip José Farmer were fans of each other's work. See this blog post for an apparent reference to Farmer's Wold Newton in Masks of  the Illuminati; for Wilson on Farmer's Riverworld novels, and Farmer on Wilson's work, go here. 

A couple of RAW fans, Mark K. Brown and myself, are Farmer fans. So I asked him what his favorite Farmer works are.

Mark answered, "My absolute favorite is the 1st Riverworld book. I love that series, World of Tiers, the Khokarsa books, the fictional biographies."

I like the first two Riverworld books, the World of Tiers series and "Riders of the Purple Wage," his Hugo Award winning novella inspired by Joyce's Finnegans Wake. To find "Riders of the Purple Wage"  see this listing of appearances. 

For more on Farmer, see this elaborate official website.  See also the Science Fiction Encyclopedia entry.  I linked above to the Wikipedia bio. 

As with other classic authors, such as Poul Anderson, Farmer's books often go on sale cheap as Amazon Kindle editions, although I didn't notice any current compelling sales when I looked yesterday. 

What we read last month

What Mark K. Brown read last month (reads and re-reads)

Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins  11/21  

Buddhist Scriptures ed. by Edward Conze  11/24  

Wasp by Eric Frank Russell  11/25  

The Little Sister by Raymond Chandler  11/26   

The Man Who Japed by Philip K. Dick  11/29

As usual, there is considerable overlap between what Mark reads and what I read. I've read the Conze, or a Conze edited book that is very similar. I've read Russell, Chandler and Dick, but not those particular titles. Mark is reading The Magus by John Fowles, as he mentioned in the comments recently, I may ask for a brief report when he finishes. 

What I read last month:

Melmoth the Wanderer, Charles Maturin.

For Emma, Ewan Morrison.

Operation Wandering Soul, Richard Powers.

A Non-Euclidean Perspective: Robert Anton Wilson’s Political Commentaries 1960-2005, Robert Anton Wilson. (Mark already read it). 

Vanishing World, Sayaka Murata.

As usual, everyone else is invited to say in the comments that they have been reading. 

How do you read?

I've enjoyed the responses to yesterday's post.  If you read Brian Dean's comment, he writes, " I tend to have several tomes on the go at once, which I dip into and read over a long period, rather than "Wham bam thank you ma'am, my quota sorted for the week!" and then gives a long list of books. (Alissa Nutting one of the authors he mentions, used to live in Cleveland, and talked to my book club about Tampa shortly after it came out. It's the only book of hers I've read.) 

I wasn't clear on how many books Brian will read at the same time, but it sounds like a lot.

I typically have 3-4 books going at the same time, although I typically concentrate on finishing one. I just finished Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer (it's due today and the library won't let me renew it, so I had to get it done.) I am currently reading Platinum Pohl by Frederik Pohl (essentially a selected stories) and Sell More Books! Book Marketing and Publishing for Low Profile and Debut Authors: Rethinking Book Publicity after the Digital Revolutions by J. Steve Miller. Also the two online reading group works, Vineland by Thomas Pynchon and the Testament comic book series. 

I'm pretty sure Mark Brown usually has several books going and in fact keeps them in separate rooms of the house. I am mostly sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, though I will sometimes read in the bedroom, on a plane, etc. I go back and forth from paper books to Kindle. I have also been known to read entire books on the phone; that's what I had to do with Tampa, mentioned above, it was the only way I could read it on short notice before my book club meeting. 

While I have a library of paper books at home, I have tended to whittle it down to the essentials. I have hundreds of Kindle ebooks, mostly bought on sale. 

I am on Goodreads as "Tomj." 

What we read last month

 

What I read in June:

The KLF: Chaos, Magic, and the Band Who Burned a Million Pounds, John Higgs. This is the updated version with the thousands of words of new footnotes, a good excuse to read it again. Some comments here. 

Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. I'm told Jill Biden has instructed Biden diehards not to read the book.

Lake of Darkness, Adam Roberts. A horror story about black holes, pretty well done. Mentioned in this blog post. 

Eight Million Ways to Die, Lawrence Block. I have been reading all of the Matt Scudder novels. This is the fifth in the series. 

What RAW fan  Mark Brown read in June (I have myself read the Silverberg novel more than once)

The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick  6/2   

A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit  6/6   

A Time of Changes by Robert Silverberg 6/24   

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman  6/30

What we read last month

Here's what I read last month. Only three titles, but the Roman history book was very long, so I did do as much reading as usual in May, it just doesn't look like it:

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. I was really pleased to read this again after several decades, see my comments. 

The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anthony Kaldellis. excellent history book, one of the best I've read in awhile. Here is Kaldellis on the Crusades. 

Every Tom, Dick & Harry, Elinor Lipman. I always enjoy her romantic comedies, this is her latest. 

Posted on Facebook, here is what Mark K. Brown last month. Notice that he read Eric Wagner's book twice, a pretty good recommendation! Also, the Greg Bear really impressed me when I read it years ago: 

Blood Music by Greg Bear 5/13   

Straight Outta Dublin: James Joyce and Robert Anton Wilson by Eric Wagner (x2) 5/13  

This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin  5/17   

A Messiah at the End of Time by Michael Moorcock  5/19   

Love and Death in the American Novel by Leslie Fiedler  5/22   

The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan  5/29