What Books Are You Made Of?

and what to do if you die before returning a library book

Sometimes time I read a book, I feel like it has become part of me. I wish this were not always the case; books that I didn’t enjoy very much stay with me as well as the good ones, and I have, on occasion, truly thrown a book at the wall in apoplectic fury at its ham-fisted ending.¹

Good books get a place on the shelf where I can see them. Latest to get this honor was North Woods by Daniel Mason. I realize that when talked about this book, I spent little time expounding its joys, and focused on what it missed. So, let me return to it, and say that it is a fabulous love story for a wood in Massachusetts that will appeal to all of us who love nature. It’s also a history of the United States, from the Puritans to an unknown future. We meet denizens of this land of all species, from insects and trees to a mountain lion; there are no stories that go on too long, but some that could warrant their own book.

Sometimes a story is best left mysterious, with parts for you to wonder. As stories become Intellectual Property and storytellers become Shareholders, every secret must be revealed to fully monetize the asset, so “prequels” abound. So now we know why Hannibal Lecter eats the rude, and why Darth Vader is a walking iron lung, and frankly these one-mythical characters are both the lesser for it.

This does not mean that mystery should never be explored; Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet began when she imagined the unknown family life of William Shakespeare, and what a wonderful story she invented. But perhaps we should let things be.

I don’t want to know what the bunnies of Watership Down got up to after they defeated Efrafa. I liked when Peter S. Beagle returned briefly to the world of The Last Unicorn for his wonderful novella, Two Hearts. Those are two books that I am made of.

I didn’t plan on making this a list. I don’t think any of us are merely the sum of what we’ve consumed, like the Oankali in Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis series, who travel the universe to find dying species to join with. Butler’s stories like The Parable of the Sower and “Speech Sounds” are definitely part of me now. I hope that I have one scintilla of her empathy, when I write.

An aside, do you ever fret, “If I die who will return my library books?”

I do. I took out Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and I’m not taking it with me on a flight to New Orleans, because if I explode over the Gulf of Mexico I don’t want the stain of failing to return a library book on my immortal soul. I’m buds with Anubis, and he says that sin is venal, bro. Toss your heart straight to Ammit for that.

I love the latest bloom of transgressive fiction by women, from Bad Marie by my Montclair pal Marcy Dermansky, to filthy Tampa by Alissa Nutting. (Alissa’s Made for Love was less ick and more funny, about breaking up with a billionaire tech bro.) I liked the Tom Ripley books, but would like them better if Tom was Thomasina; Kathleen Turner in Body Heat or Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction are a good start. Kate Folk’s Sky Daddy came recommended, and it’s on my list. Nightbitch starts with a mom—referred to only as ‘the mother’—thinking she’s turning into a dog or a werewolf thanks to the hair on her nape. I’ll likely finish it before my flight.

Do you realize how much water and power it’d take to replicate the average writer’s narcissism, self-loathing and despair? —Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead wrote a wonderfully sarcastic and snarky piece on A.I. and creativity. I enjoy his crime stories Harlem Shuffle and Crook Manifesto, which are not copaganda bullshit like much “crime fiction,” and deliver you to the era of New York City that we’re all supposed to be afraid of. He doesn’t shy from the ugly parts, but makes it a breathing, living place. They are lighter reads than his excellent Nickel Boys which shares a traumatic story without salaciousness, and with some hope, and Underground Railroad, which depicts chattel slavery as brutally as it must be.

Hopeful science fiction is a big favorite; my introduction to speculative fiction was Harlan Ellison and Douglas Adams, with a bit of Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda McIntyre, and Joanna Russ in there, so not always so hopeful! Even funny man Adams thinks bureaucracy will doom the planet. Lately, I loved E.J. Swift’s When There Are Wolves Again, and I have Monk and Robot by Becky Chambers on my shelf (it’s coming on the plane) and I include Anne Leckie’s Ancillary books, especially Provenance and Translation State; they imagine horrors beyond belief, but not to spoil it, the good people win.

I recently picked up What We Are Seeking by Cameron Reed, which seems sorta-hopeful; it’s billed as a novel of “queer hope and transformation,” as humans explore new planets. What exactly are we seeking? We have a perfectly good planet here. I loved watching the Artemis II mission and as long as we tax the shit out of our billionaires to pay for it, I am all for a base on the Moon (preferably one that doesn’t scar Luna’s beautiful face). Now, Mars is not habitable and we know that. We can get to the Moon in a few days with a bottle of Perry-Air if the people on Moon Unit Zappa get in trouble; Mars is over a year away. I recommend the not-hopeful novel Terrestrial History by Joe Mungo Reed for an idea of what I think about fleeing to Mars instead of staying on Mother Earth and not destroying her.

Should I bother using Bookshop links? No one’s bought a book since 2025, but I still look up the damn URLs. They support local bookstores, but I understand if you are buying locally.

The latest book I finished was The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe by Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, and I recommend it as a breezy history read that focuses on the lesser known events in Europe before the Renaissance. It’s made me pick out a copy of Dante’s Inferno and Connie Wilson’s Doomsday Book—about a time traveler in the time of the Plague—from my shelves.

I’ve been meaning to read the Willis book for years. I’ve moved it from the built-in paperback shelves to the book table next to my reading chair—a La-Z-Boy recliner with enough room for my broad buttocks and a very large cat—so this may indeed occur. The Lounge Pit with its fireplace also includes some shabby built-in shelves; not quite the hardwood ceiling-tall shelves with a rolling ladder that readers all dream of, but it will do.

So what will I bring on the plane? I’m glad I finished the infamous Canadian classic Bear by Marian Engel, because if I die I don’t want to be found clutching a novel about a woman who becomes lovers with a bear, no matter how sharp and astute it is. Years ago, this book answered the internet’s question to women, “what would you rather encounter when in the woods alone, a man, or a bear?” and made its case. It’s a short novel. I recommend it.

I picked up the lovely edition of Locke Lamora and the Bottled Serpent by Scott Lynch Lynch mentioned in the post below, but hell if I’m bringing that beauty on the plane. If you enjoy fantasy, The Lies of Locke Lamora is well-deserved of its title as a classic, the first in the Gentleman Bastards series. To my shame I have not read the other two, so I bought the story to urge me along. His worlds of low fantasy are great fun and not icky like some others.

Go to Boston! Go to Mars! Go Back to Camorr!

I think it will be Monk and Robot, and The Overneath by Peter S. Beagle, because he always makes me smile, even when he’s forced to publish stuff that’s half-baked, like the unfortunate I’m Afraid You Have Dragons. That one didn’t get thrown against the wall, but it felt half done, and forced, like a lot of Stephen King’s Dark Tower books. Like King at the time, Beagle is likely concerned with his own mortality and to quote my favorite old codger, Lawrence Block, is at the age when it is unwise to buy green bananas. If you haven’t read Lawrence Block… the Burglar series is so much fun, and is a long love letter to New York City and drawing-room mysteries. Small Town was his Manhattan masterpiece that got unfairly overlooked; it’s a very funny story about the mayoral race. If you like sexy noir, Getting Off and The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes are great fun. Sadly they seem to be out of print, like so many good books these days. You can get many of them at his website.

I just learned that there’s a new translation of Gilgamesh by the laureate poet of the United Kingdom, Simon Armitage. I was eyeing the Folio Society edition of Andrew George’s version, which has been called “the definitive,” but a hundred smackeroos on eBay seems a bit much. There’s also a $360 edition of the Stephen Mitchell translation from Easton Press if you fancy. (I ain’t that fancy.)

My thoughts on first reading the epic:

Gilgamesh and What is Best in Life

By the time you read this I’ll likely have visited The Last Word bookshop in Philly, and bought more. The new Gilgamesh, definitely, if they have it…

I’ve already pre-ordered Monster of a Land by Lauren Hough, and if you haven’t, you ought to. I loved Travels with Charley back in the day and Lauren is a much funnier writer than Steinbeck. She’s a foul-mouthed Molly Ivins who bounces at gay bars and her dog Woody loves me, so buy her book so maybe I’ll get to pet him again. That’s him on the cover!

That's What She Said

I’ve babbled enough about books, don’t you think? Links to buy mine are in the corner of the homepage, by the way. If you like crime and revenge, Bad Boy Boogie; if you like adventure, Blade of Dishonor if you like it bloody, or Vyx Starts the Mythpocalypse if you like it fantastical and fun… a kid running from ICE and fighting them with dragons and faery? I had to self-pub it because no one thought it would find an audience… maybe you’ll prove them wrong. These are all on Hoopla, Libby, every possible retailer. Maybe they’ll find a place in your heart!

1. Sara Gran’s Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead, where a white girl detective snitches out a black teen who murdered his pedophile rapist abuser, and then tries to tell us that her New Orleans PD friends will “watch out for them.” This was one of the books that turned me off so-called “crime fiction” that is essentially white middle-class fantasy or Law & Order fanfic. It exists to make white collar people afraid of the impoverished, so they don’t want to guillotine the ruling class families of the rich white people in publishing. Gran wrote this crap in 2011, when the abuses of Angola prison and the NOPD were very well known. But if you want to sell books, you can’t let a young black man go free when he’s hurt a white person (The old white women who read crime fiction would write very harsh letters in protest of this lawlessness.) The “crime” must be solved, and “justice” must be done, so they can get their sick rocks off.