I read thirteen books this quarter for a total of 28 on the year. This time includes a lot of quick reads. Several of these I completed in a single day.

Nonfiction

Never Panic Early

By Fred Haise with Bill Moore

I’ve joked that just about every summer I read a book about the early American space program. This summer’s entry is the autobiograph of Apollo 13 lunar module pilot Fred Haise. All of these guys were incredibly impressive and as a bit of a sign of that, the events of Apollo 13 only make up 14% of the book.

This isn’t my favorite space history book but digging in to one particular individual, especially one who’s less well known, was a fun read.

Swing Your Sword

By Mike Leach with Bruce Feldman

This is the autobiography of Mike Leach, the most “that guy sure is a character” in college football. It’s written very conversationally and elicited audible chuckles from me every few pages.

When he gets to the end of his tenure at Texas Tech, discussing the firing and subsequent legal actions, his anger really comes through and the phrasing sounds a lot like lawyers are tempering what he’s saying.

I suspect this would be mildly amusing even to someone not at all familiar with him or interested in college football.

Fiction

A Gentleman in Moscow

By Amor Towles

The pitch I got was:

In Bolshevik Russia, a rich man is sentenced to house arrest in the hotel where he’s been living. Then he meets a girl and everything changes.

This was a good read. It left me wanting to learn more about Russian history, especially the revolution.

Showtime made a miniseries adaptation which is available on Paramount Plus. I was turned off pretty quickly when a character unnamed in the book has his name revealed (it matters) in the subtitles. I can’t otherwise speak to how good the show is as I gave up just a few minutes in. I guess try to watch without subtitles.

All My Friends are Going to be Strangers

By Larry McMurtry

This is another Man Carrying Thing recommendation, specifically as the place to start with McMurtry. In short, a young writer publishes his first novel, then ruins all his relationships. This book is not happy but man, McMurty sure can paint a picture with words.

The Dispatcher Trilogy

By John Scalzi

People have been recommended Scalzi to me forever. While in the library for something else, I checked what they had and the blurb sold me.

Something has happened, we’re not sure what, and now when people are killed, they come back to life. This has created a new job, dispatcher, who kill people to save them, like during a dangerous surgery or after a bad accident. Naturally, a job where you kill people has some dark sides.

I really enjoyed this kind of sci-fi where there’s just one change to our current world.

These were audiobooks first, so they’re dialog heavy. They’re pretty easy reads. I think I read all three of them in eight sittings.

Dungeon Crawler Carl books 1 and 2

By Matt Dinniman

*Note: On audiobook.

From what I’d heard about it, I wasn’t particularly intereted in DCC. It seemed like little more than Ready Player One in a fantasy setting. Then a friend texted me that he was coming to visit. He asked if I’d read DCC. I said no. Minutes later, I got an email that the audiobook had been added to my Amazon account. He told me to have it read by the time we met up. That was less than 72 hours away.

And I almost made it!

Dinniman does a good job of pacing. Sometimes, perhaps too good. Many chapters end on cliffhangers which is great for getting me to turn the page but is also occasionally frustrating when I’m looking for a place to stop.

I was nearly done with the first book and sure that I’d only read the one. In one of the very last chapters, Dinniman starts to unveil the broader world, which got me really hooked to read the rest of the series. I just wish he’d gotten there a bit faster.

I suspect I will finish out the series. For now, I’m trying to slow-drip them.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

By E. L. Konigsburg

This is another book from my childhood that I decided to revisit. It turns out I’d forgotten the back ~1/4 of the book. It was an enjoyable, quick read.

I saw on Wikipedia that it’s been made into a movie (Twice! One starring Ingrid Bergman and the other Lauren Bacall!) and I decided to check it out. Both versions are available free on YouTube¹. I gave up halfway through as I realized that, given my reading speed, the movie was progressing at the same rate that I’d read the book, and frankly that was too slow for a movie for me.

The Sirens of Titan

By Kurt Vonnegut

I set myself the goal of reading all of Vonnegut’s novels in order. This is the second in that journey.

In everything I’ve previously read by Vonnegut, I’ve felt it was pretty clear that he was trying to say somethign. About 3/4 through Sirens, I still wasn’t sure what that was, so I looked it up. My search told me that it’s about free will. That became clearer later but overall the message felt muddy. Not my favorite entry in the Vonnegut canon.

The Three-Body Problem

By Cixin Liu, translated by Ken Liu

I previously tried to read Three-Body several years ago and bounced off of it. A lot of my issue was simply confusion with the Chinese names. A few years later, Netflix released their adaptation, which I quite enjoyed. I spotted Three-Body in my favorite book store and decided to give it another go. This time I absolutely devoured it.

When the Moon Hits Your Eye

By John Scalzi

Once again, a randomly select Scalzi novel from the library. Again, the story starts with a simple change and then works with the rammifications. This time, the moon has literally turned to cheese.

This was overall enjoyable but I didn’t love the way the book ended. That said, a proper ending for this book is basically Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves.

Feature image by Nahuai Badiola, Public domain via Wordpress Photo Directory

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