The days grow colder, and the piles grow larger. This week, the piles bring mass protests, big dinosaurs, God mascots, and the debut of a new pile: movies!
Books
Protest Flag in Hong Kong from which the book takes its title — Image Credit: Ill Will Press
If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution By Vincent Bevins Public Affairs, 2023
Between 2010 and 2020, history saw “the biggest protests” on the scale of attendees. These demonstrations brought more people into the streets than ever before, and the mass demonstrations were streamed online. Yet afterward, something strange happened: repressive, right-wing governments came to power. Bolsonaro in Brazil, Trump in America, and Johnson in Britain are just three. How could both these things happen in sequence? Citizens rejected their governments and elected even worse, more repressive governments.
Bevins’ new book seeks the answer. He considers mass protests in the decade and interviews the people who planned and participated in them. While the US and Britain are mentioned, most of the analysis is on countries in the “Global South.” Bevins was a reporter in Brazil, so the story is centered around Brazil, considering the red tide, the election of Lula, and the subsequent rejection and election of Bolsonaro.
The book’s analysis considers the “Arab Spring” protests in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Libya and the vastly different protest outcomes in these countries. The 2018 Hong Kong protests and its cooptation by the Trump State Department to sew anti-Chinese sentiment. Ukraine’s history leads to a critical view of the current conflict; after the fall of the U.S.S.R., right-wing military groups co-opted protest energy and won governmental power. For Ukrainian nationalists, armed conflict against Russia has always been the goal. The limits of representational democracy are also considered with Boric and Chile. Bevins’ first book, The Jakarta Method (2020), considers coups throughout the 20th century; If We Burn considers evidence of US State Department intervention in Libya, Syria, and Bahrain.
Considering these examples, Bevins draws conclusions for more effective political actions (ch.20). Power does not exist in a vacuum; when one system is displaced, another system finds its place. Organization is the key to winning power. The rightwing groups in Ukraine were already organized, meaning they had systems for electing leaders, a defined message, and they identified local leaders. This allowed them to win state elections. The book proscribes justice activists to organize into democratic structures. One might call this Leninism (but Marx said to do this too). He even suggests in a vague, general sense that the 2010s were protests against our phones, protests against the violence we saw captured on digital video. Who showed us those videos?
This is essential reading for international politics, political activism, and history. It’s out of the book’s scope, but I felt the analysis has made society fully reckoned with the role of billionaires in this decade, specifically in these mass protests. The narrative alludes to oligarchs who take advantage of the crisis and get richer, lurking in the background like vampires. Last month, I wrote about The Bill Gates Problem (2023) and how Gates uses international “aid” foundations to influence foreign and domestic policy for African countries. Surely, he could benefit from capitalizing on discontent. The Chaos Machine (2022) considers the technical role that social media, particularly Facebook, played in some of these mass protests. My point: billionaire capitalism might imply billionaires hold more influence than entire state governments. I’m sure we’ll continue to see the wealthy feud and consolidate wealth throughout the 2020s.
If We Burn is on my shortlist for favorite books of 2023.
More Better Deals By Joe R. Lansdale Mullholand Books, 2020
A smoldering tale of love, murder, and racial passing set in 1960s Texas. Ed Edwards is a used car salesman. He’s White passing, in a racist town, and breaks local law when he sells cars to Black people. His life is bleak until he goes to repossess a Cadillac owned by Nancy, the sultry drive-in theater owner. Well, really, her husband owns it, and he’s a deadbeat, so they hatch a scheme to kill him and cash in the life insurance policy! There’s gore, a ransom, jealousy, passion, and an unhappy ending. A treat for fans Joe R. and James M.
Comics
Panel from Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang — Credit: Silver Sprocket Press
Of Thunder & Lightning By Kimberly Wang Silver Sprocket, 2023
A debut comic about battling God mascots with incredible artwork. A fight between the Kabbahlah’s Sefirot tree versus the Norse Yggdrasil.
Page from Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang — Credit: Silver Sprocket Press
Wang’s fight choreography reminds me of Astro Boy, FLCL, Akira, and Dragon Ball Z, with dynamic paneling and page layouts and the use of white space that makes the scale seem bigger.
Page from Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang — Credit: Silver Sprocket Press
The characters remind me of Disney’s Pinocchio (1940), cute, emotive and elastic. And the colors! Two-toned fans rejoice because the red deepens the landscape and heightens the characters’ emotions.
Page from Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang — Credit: Silver Sprocket Press
Admittedly, the plot is confusing, so I appreciated it when the characters turn chibi and explain what’s happening. Perfect for rereading. Here’s a link to buy it!
Page from Of Thunder & Lightning by Kimberly Wang — Credit: Silver Sprocket Press
Movies
Godzilla chases a boat in Godzilla Minus One (2023) — Credit Toho Studios
Godzilla Minus Zero (2023) is a remake of Godzilla (1954) that directly confronts Japan’s fate after World War II. A kamikaze pilot fights Godzilla. This is the perfect premise for a Godzilla remake, and it’s fully realized. The empathic portrait of our cowardly hero and the firebombed rubble of Tokyo build into the perfect motivation to kill Godzilla. And my favorite character, Godzilla, looks incredible. She’s present for the entire movie with highly detailed rendered models that harken back to the 50s and 60s designs. Glorious!
So, what does Godzilla really mean in this context? In the 1954 film, she seems to be an ancient consequence of using nuclear weapons. Her “atomic breath” is the literalization of dropping an atomic bomb, and Godzilla destroys Japan in the same way the Allies did. Yet in Godzilla Minus One, the monster is awake before the dropping of the atomic bomb. Perhaps the tests seen in Oppenheimer (2023) woke her up? A soldier claims Odo natives knew of Godzilla for centuries. Its presence kills deep-water fish. Of course, Japan does present itself as a victim of WWII when the historical truth is the country was an aggressor that tried to colonize China. Is Godzilla a reaction to colonialism? Does he come out of the ocean and eat colonizers? I hope so. One of the best Godzilla movies ever and a personal favorite of 2023.
Pile of the Week
This week’s pile goes to the books I got at Bart’s Books in Ojai, CA. Definitely my favorite outside bookstore. Some Wall Street mafia connections, 80s cyberpunk shorts, the next volume of a manga I’m reading, and a strange book about a criminal’s corpse that I intend to write about.
Io Saturnalia to you and yours!
My latest book pile from Bart’s Books in Ojai, CA — Credit: the author
On Wednesday, November 22nd, 2023, it will be sixty years since they shot Jack K! Kennedy is one of my reading obsessions, and I surround myself with many piles of books on the topic.
My haters claim this is proof of my insanity.
Yet more than half a century later, many people have no idea what happened on 11/22/1963 or why an American president was assassinated. This post doesn’t discuss who killed him. Instead, it asks why was he killed?
The JFK assassination is talked of in hushed tones, like God or the universe. The truth is that historians understand the general shape of the event. It’s not that complicated.
Six decades later, all will be revealedin this (long) blog post
The Classics
Here are three non-fiction books that explain why John F. Kennedy was assassinated and the consequences for American foreign policy. All three are well-sourced and conclude that JFK’s assassination wasn’t an accident.
JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass Touchstone, 2010
The author lays out his argument on the first page in the simplest possible terms:
On [America’s] behalf, at the height of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy risked committing the greatest crime in history, starting a nuclear war.
Before we knew it, he turned toward peace with the enemy who almost committed that crime with him [the USSR].
For turning to peace with [Russia], Kennedy was murdered by a power we cannot easily describe. Its unspeakable reality can be traced, suggested, recognized, and pondered… (ix).
Or even simpler. Why was Kennedy killed? He didn’t want to escalate tension with Russia, but industry and military leaders wanted him to do so. JFK got in their way.
Here’s a timeline sketching some specifics:
April 1961 — The “Bay of Pigs,” a botched invasion of Cuba, almost started a nuclear war against Russia. This event is satirized in Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.
1961–1963 — Kennedy realized this could have killed millions of people. CIA director Allen Duelles planned the invasion, so JFK fired Duelles. JFK advocated a measured approach to intervening in “3rd world countries,” meaning countries that weren’t decidedly capitalist or communist.
1961-1963 — At the same time, a group of rich and powerful people, including Allen Dulles and the CIA, J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, oil drillers, capitalist industrialists, mafia cartels, and corrupt union leadership like the Teamsters’ Jimmy Hoffa, all independently had reasons to dislike Kennedy. How they conspired together (evidence shows they did) is debatable. The military and oil industry realized Kennedy would not govern in their interests to protect American trade hegemony. He would not “fight Communism” and sabotage the USSR or countries with socialist governments. He got in the way.
11/22/1963 — This group conspired to assassinate John Kennedy. Then, they assassinated his brother, Robert Kennedy. After numerous failed attempts, they finally capped JFK on 11/22/1963 and RFK on 6/5/1968.
See, it’s not that complicated. Much of the bunk analysis on the Kennedy assassination seeks to litigate who killed him and how they specifically did it, with or without Oswald. What’s more consequential and more straightforward to prove is the numerous reasons why Kennedy was killed.
The book’s title refers to the concept of “The Unspeakable.” The violence states commit to maintaining economic control.
Douglass further explains the Unspeakable in the context of the Cold War,
In our Cold War history, the Unspeakable was the void in our government’s covert-action doctrine of “plausible deniability,” sanctioned by the June 18, 1948, National Security Council directive NSC 10/2. Under the green light to assassinate national leaders, overthrow governments, and lie to cover up any trace of accountability — all for the sake of promoting U.S. interests and maintaining our nuclear-backed dominance over the Soviet Union and other nations.
JFK’s assassination could be understood as anti-democratic aggression coming home. JFK didn’t listen to key leaders in the military-industrial complex, so they decided he needed to die.
JFK’s assassination could be understood as America’s anti-democratic aggression coming home.
The book sources over 2000 footnotes to make this argument, ranging from public archives, FOIA’d FBI archives, interviews, the Warren Commission, and more.
Touchstone, a division of Simon and Schuster, published it. The author is a respected Catholic peace activist.
My point is that any writer arguing the idea Lee Harvey Oswald “acted alone” is arguing irrationally, ignoring well-documented evidence to the contrary, and selling a false narrative for a specific reason. We’ll see this in action when surveying contemporary releases.
This book is affordable and available on Hoopla and Amazon Audible Plus, and you can borrow a copy from the free library on Archive.org.
Dallas ’63 By Peter Dale Scott Open Road Media (Reprint), 2015
Since the 2016 Trump Election, the idea of “The Deep State” has been relegated to right-wing discourse. But the concept was invented by a far-left, pacifist poet and historian, Peter Dale Scott, to explain the Kennedy assassination. In his book Dallas ’63, he argues why the assassination can be understood as a structural deep event, a framework for other significant events in 20th-century history. He writes,
By “structural deep events” I mean events that are never fully understood, arise out of ongoing covert processes, have political consequences that enlarge covert government, and are subsequently covered up by demonstrable omissions and falsifications in historic records. Here the assassination in Dallas can be compared to later structural deep events, notably Watergate and 9/11.
Let’s break down this definition: what is a Structural Deep Event?
“Events that are never fully understood” — An event that is impossible to understand fully is essential to a “deep event.”
“Arise out of ongoing covert processes” — The agencies and businesses that did this still exist, and it is still in their interest to obscure the actual reasons behind this event.
“have political consequences that enlarge covert government,” — There are many consequences. An overarching consequence of post-1945 deep events is that the American military-industrial complex allocated more resources and got a bigger yearly budget.
“ …and are subsequently covered up by demonstrable omissions and falsifications in historic records” — 60 years after the event, the assassination is “covered up” by hyper-focus on Lee Harvey Oswald and the day of the murder. It omits CIA and FBI involvement and the reasons why rich businessmen wanted Kennedy dead.
“Here the assassination in Dallas can be compared to later structural deep events, notably Watergate and 9/11.” — Some of the same people involved with the JFK assassination were involved with the Watergate break-in and the response to the 9/11 attacks. This is why understanding the JFK assassination is vital if a reader wants to understand history after 1945.
Structural deep events affect how states govern and how resources get distributed. It takes nuance to understand the reasons for JFK’s assassination, and that nuance reveals how global society has operated under American hegemony since 1945.
The historical blindness to JFK would obscure countless other historical events, like the downfall of the USSR and the destabilization of Africa and South America.
This book is excellent. It’s $3 on Kindle from the Forbidden Bookshelf series, and you can borrow a copy for free from the free library on Archive.org.
Albarelli takes the argument a step further and claims the JFK assassination was a coup. Rightwing elements in America overthrew a popular, democratically elected leader who favored liberalism, government oversight, international restraint, and democracy. Here’s the introduction explaining the book’s thesis:
“Esteemed historians have argued that November 22 was a “systemic adjustment” more than a coup. Albarelli makes the case that the assassination was indeed a coup d’état by demonstrating that among the planners and perpetrators were mutinous elements within US intelligence, military ranks, and industry who held immense power and influence sufficient to overturn the democratic election of John F. Kennedy and get away with it. He presents persuasive evidence — much of it ignored or misunderstood previously — to prove that the assassination cabal, including holdovers from Hitler’s Third Reich and Texasbased powers, passed deadly judgment on Kennedy’s platform, which at its core was a commitment to full democracy on a global scale.” (xiii, Roadmap)
Astute readers will see similarities between 11/22/1963 and a right-wing American coup attempt on 01/06/2021.
Or was January 6th a structural deep event? Can it be both?
This gets to the larger truths of these events. The forces that assassinated Kennedy didn’t go away; in fact, they only became more powerful. Structural deep events increased in frequency in the 21st century.
Albarelli goes for the throat and convincingly argues that assassinating JFK was a right-wing coup. America’s military killed the president and set the country on a course toward global fascism.
This book is new, so consider buying it or the audiobook and demand your librarian get a copy.
In Libra, DeLillo says the CIA did it. This is reductive, and the author probably wouldn’t put it that way, but if you read it, the novel blames the CIA. Is this novel disinformation? Yeah, probably. It treats fact like fiction and vice versa, adding more confusion and obfuscation to an already misunderstood yet deadly serious historical event.
But once we get over objecting to its very existence, there’s much to admire about the novel. Scholars write how it employs “historicity” to make sense of a complex event through fiction. It’s using the power of narrative to bring closure to the restless brain. It weaves in historical characters like Oswald and offers an empathetic portrait detailing all his strange proclivities and brush-ups with intelligence agencies.
But what’s left out?
Interestingly, while the CIA seems culpable, the novel doesn’t direct blame on Allan Dulles, the former Director of Central Intelligence. The man planned the Bay of Pigs. Kennedy fired him, he held a grudge about it, and Dulles arguably had the means, motive, and opportunity to kill the president. Few men have that, but more men held that grudge against JFK than all the other presidents except Lincoln, Garfield, or McKinnley (the other assassinated presidents).
The book mentions Dulles once, “The DCI, Allen Dulles, was spending the weekend in Puerto Rico, delivering a speech to a civic group on the subject ‘The Communist Businessman Abroad.’” That does sound like something he’d do.
The DCI is an acronym for the Director of Central Intelligence. The DCI is mentioned three times. Most significantly, the narrator considers the Director’s relationship to foreknowledge of extra-legal operations.
Knowledge was a danger, ignorance a cherished asset. In many cases, the DCI, the Director of Central Intelligence, was not to know important things. The less he knew, the more decisively he could function. It would impair his ability to tell the truth at an inquiry or a hearing, or in an Oval Office chat with the President…
Do we think the novel’s narrator is credible? I find it hard to believe a director of a top-down agency wouldn’t know about an assassination attempt on the president of his own country.
Notice specifically the three CIA agents are made up, or pseudonyms, probably composite characters. Is fictionalization a clever way to avoid a libel lawsuit? When one Googles the names, it’s honestly hard to distinguish that these are fake characters, made-up guys. Are these three characters written into the historical record, or does Google just suck?
Also, notice the 1988 publishing date. DeLillo knew a lot before the JFK Act and Oliver Stone’s film. Interesting… One could waste a lot of time trying to unravel what he made up.
American Tabloid By James Ellroy 1995, Alfred A. Knopf
The mass market edition of James Ellroy’s American Tabloid — Credit: Knopf, and Ebay
This is one of my all-time favorite novels. Is it disinformation? Yeah, probably, but it gets closer to the heart of the truth than DeLillo, even if it blows smoke on some false fires.
The novel says the FBI did it. Kinda. The author also employs three composite characters to show the players how the assassination came to be, interspersed with real characters like J. Edgar Hoover leading the FBI. Those characters include a hardened criminal and hired hand of Howard Hughes, a quiet but calculating FBI agent, and an FBI agent on Kennedy’s security detail (remember that now).
All three of these characters are obsessed with compartmentalization. Hiding what you know and how you know it from everybody, including yourself. This seems like how powerful people can justify their actions.
Did you know somebody tried to kill JFK in Chicago weeks before he got killed in Dallas?
It sure wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald. This lends significant validity to the idea that it wasn’t just “one guy” who wanted the American president to die. A whole network of guys planned JFK’s assassination, and Dallas was the attempt that worked.
11/22/1963 By Stephen King 2011, Scribner
The mass market cover of Stephen King’s 11/22/63 — Credit: Scribner
Even Stephen King gets in on the fun with 11/22/1963. The prolific author has written over 65 novels, and this one is easily one of his worst. The Time Traveler’s Wife’s Husband sorta solves JFK’s murder, gets distracted, and falls in love. This novel is pure schmaltz. I suppose it’s significant because it proves “JFK fiction” is a subgenre, a trend, that sells books and offers more smoke to cover up the real fires.
“60th Anniversary” Books
With the above context, I survey some of the new books released for the anniversary.
The only new book I finished. The Enchanters is about the Enchantress, Marilyn Monroe, History’s Greatest Bait Girl. The second Freddy Otash novel, an existing historical person, a scumbag paparazzi private-eye blackmailer who spied on the stars and JFK, apparently, throughout the 1960s. This book investigates the relationship between Monroe and Kennedy and probably goes into whatever was in Otash’s archives that he always threatened to publish up until his death. Otash was a known liar, but he also loved photographic evidence. The conclusion is funny, climatic, and probably not true. It’s Ellroy’s best novel in a while, uniting all his strange passions, but I’m not sure it brings the reader any closer to the truth on the JFK assassination like American Tabloid. Still fun!
In my search for new releases, this one is the best bet. Poulgrain focuses on Dulles’ intervention in Indonesia and includes a timeline that dates back to the 1850s oil industry. Looks good.
The jury’s out on this new book about Jack Ruby. From the blurbs, I think the book will say Ruby was crazy, but it does grapple with his mafia and police ties. I’ll check this one out eventually.
The Final Witness is getting the most buzz. It’s by the bodyguard next to Kennedy on his detail. I suspect it will contain the least relevant information of any book on this list and has the highest likelihood of being disinformation. In the intro, Landis confesses he read nothing on the topic until 2013, picking up The Kennedy Detail, another account by secret service agents that doesn’t seriously consider the geopolitical context of the event. This is rehearsed and probably approved by the agency. The author claims he wrote the book to discredit the Zapruder film. Ah… I didn’t read the rest.
American Confidential: Uncovering the Bizarre Story of Lee Harvey Oswald By Deanne Stillman 2023, Melville House
The author studies Lee Harvey Oswald through his mother and sides with the Warren Commission. I don’t find this contribution useful at all. The argument pathologies historical figures to draw contemporary conclusions instead of considering populations, institutions, resources, or power.
Overemphasizing Oswald and his mother suggests that society should know a killer’s motive from his psychiatry, that the inner thoughts of a crazy person are paramount knowledge for us readers. Nope. Crazy’s crazy. And hey, Oswald’s mother didn’t commit a crime. Sure, she’s dead, and yeah, she probably was a bad parent, but why subject her life to intense scrutiny?
The author does this to argue that Lee Harvey Oswald was a toxic white male mass shooter. Conveniently ignoring, he only shot one guy who happened to be the dang president! The introduction directly compares LHO to a mass shooter. Stillman shoehorns the past to serve a contemporary argument. Even if we assume LHO “acted alone” and killed Kennedy, political assassinations have political contexts! Personal contexts are irrelevant. Oh, was Oswald’s mom sad that her crazy son went crazy? I’m sure she was! Investigating his mom is the same trauma porn impulse of Dr. Phil. This argument flattens the world into the same canned story: one lone wolf killer must be identical to another. Pay no attention to that hungry pack of wolves watching and manipulating the crazy wolf. I won’t be reading more of this.
Book Pile of the Week: Strangest Kennedy Crossovers
Let us end on something silly! I’ve found three very strange JFK Fan Fiction on Archive.org. I haven’t read any of them, and I am unlikely to do so, but they all look hilarious, and you can find them on Archive.org.
Sherlock Shoots JFK, From AIComicFactory.com
Sherlock Holmes, the Master Detective himself, finds out who did it! Or, did he do it? I have no idea. You’ll have to read to find out.
If anybody’s gonna find out who killed JFK, it’s LAPD Lieutenant Columbo! The LAPD is definitely not implicated in any Kennedy assassination plots; don’t even ask!
Welcome back to Piles. How are my homies in the northern hemisphere adjusting to the 5pm sunset? Cold days and long nights are better when you have piles of books to read.
Immerse yourself in piles.
Books
Considering two new releases this week, both are out on Tuesday, November 14th.One is critical of business, and the other is critical of the state.
The Bill Gates Problem by Tim Schwab — Credit: Metropolitan Books, Macmillian
The Bill Gates Problem: Reckoning with the Myth of the Good Billionaire, By Tim Schwab Metropolitan Books (owned by Macmillian), 2023
An eye-opening read about the Gates Foundation. The world’s biggest charity functions nothing like a charity but a private equity investor or wealth management fund. Tim Schwab builds on his reporting for The Nation to make a compelling argument against the public relationships narrative spun by the Gates Foundation. In the 1990s, Gates branded himself as a technology whiz kid. Then, in the 2000s, he was pushed out of Microsoft and sued for monopolizing the tech industry. Schwab argues that Gates brought that same monopoly impulse to pharmaceuticals, charity, and international relations. He cites the peculiar statistic that since Gates started “giving his money away,” he’s only gotten richer. And yes, the book details Gates’ close, personal friendship with Jeffery Epstein! I felt this book incisively proves billionaires should not exist. This book has incredible research and reporting and directly challenges one of the world’s most influential people. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in politics and power.
Gator Country by Rebecca Renner — Credit: Macmillian
In 2017, a multiyear Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission investigation into egg poaching exposed alligator farm turf wars over the coveted eggs that feed the hide fashion industry. State undercover operatives opened an alligator farm in DeSoto County to hunt down poachers and wildlife law violators roiling an aquaculture industry dependent on annually re-stocking its pens from eggs.
So the FWC put on a sting operation not so different from the DEA, FBI, or any other state government police agency!
Renner’s book details the operation and the context of poaching in Florida. She’s from the region, understands the landscape, and sympathizes with the people who have no jobs and need to forge to survive. She interviews sting victims and presents their perspectives and perspectives of the agents who conducted the sting.
You’ll like this book if you like rural true crime that isn’t simple or moralistic. It reminds me of last year’s Tree Thieves by Lyndsie Bourgon, which examined how impoverished Californians poach Redwoods and the state’s response. Perhaps I’ll write something longer about this…
Pile of the Week
And finally, the coveted Pile of the Week Award goes to…
Spotify has given some users 15 hours of free audiobook content every week. I’m writing a list of recommendations for you now. You get a free Audible credit if you have the right Spotify plan. Check! It’s clutch!
Thank you, Metropolitan Books, Macmillian, Image Comics, and NetGalley, for this week’s Advanced Reader Copies.
Follow me and get this newsletter every week! If you want more reading recommendations, consult the Tsundoku archive:
To start November, we are considering some new releases: a cozy fantasy sequel, an expose into the parole system, and a pile of the week toward the future.
Books
Both these books come out Tuesday, November 7th, 2023. Thanks, MacMillian and NetGalley, for providing a free copy in exchange for a review.
Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change By Ben Austen MacMillan, 2023
A harrowing read. Austen’s book considers the parole system alongside the growth of the American prison industrial complex from the 1970s until the 2010s. As more states built prisons, they stopped offering those convicted of parole and granted far fewer releases. The author profiles Johnny Veal, a prisoner sentenced to 100–199 years for allegedly killing a Chicago police officer with a rifle, a notorious police death in 1970. The book exposes discrepancies in Veal’s case, making it seem quite likely he was framed and had nothing to do with the murder. Also profiled is Michael, a man who gets parole and reintegrates into society. The author concludes with a passionate plea for the re-enstatement of parole hearings to allow for a space where prisoners can advocate for themselves.
Correction: Parole, Prison, and the Possibility of Change — Credit: MacMillan
Bookshops & Bonedust By Travis Baldree MacMillan 2023
I love Viv the Cozy Orc Barbarian! She’s a lovable lesbian who’s prickly on the outside but loyal and loving when you get to know her. I loved her debut in 2021’s Legends & Lattes and couldn’t wait for Baldree’s prequel. It delivers! Set long before Viv started her coffee shop. She’s a daring adventurer fighting a necromancer. After an injury, she rests in a town with a cozy bookstore owned by a ratkin and her little griffin doggy (from the cover). Viv can’t just sit around and do nothing! To keep occupied, she fixes up the bookshop, solves necromancer mysteries, and falls in love! Romance prequels are fun to see loves that could have been. I also love the titular bone dust character introduced halfway through. I’ll write more about this one, but no spoilers just yet! If you think you’d like a cozy fantasy, try this!
Bookshops & Bonedust — Credit: MacMillan
Comics
Dead Seas By Cavan Scott (writer) and Nick Brokenshire (artist) IDW Comics, 2023
Pages, a panel and the cover of Dead Seas — Credit: IDW
Prisoners on a floating ghost ship! Dead Seas reminded me of a grimy 1980s exploitation movie. It’s as if Ghostbusters and Con Air teamed up to invade Speed 2.
Page from Dead Seas — Credit: IDW
The prisoners wander the ship and try to collect ectoplasm for pharmaceutical companies, and I love how the ghosts and monsters look in this book (see below). Nick Brookshire’s illustrators are incredible, taking full advantage of the ship and spectral moods, and there’s more on his website.
Page from Dead Seas — Credit: IDW
The story really kicks in halfway through with monsters and big boat action, taking full advantage of the ocean setting. Fun stuff!
Panel from Dead Seas — Credit: IDW
I really enjoyed this. Thank you, IDW and Netgalley, for the review copy.
Pile of the Week
Lord help me, I’m back on Ebay. I meant to sell a box of books but bought more: some hardcovers, two little paperbacks, and a Superman comic. Now, I can procrastinate on selling the other ones by reading these!
What did you read this week? What’s on your piles?
Tsundoku is a Japanese word for acquiring reading materials and letting them pile up without reading them. Welcome to my weekly reading blog, Halloween Edition.
OooOOoooOOOoooOoooOOo!!!! [said like ghost]
Happy Halloween! Best holiday ever! Long live the dead!
This week, we consider my favorite horror novel from 2023, some great Halloween-y medium pieces, a perverted stoner cartoon witch, and my coveted Favorite Pile of the Week Award… goes to rocks?!
Need a Halloween read? How to Sell a Haunted House is perfect. I couldn’t put it down! When parents die, splitting an estate sounds like a living nightmare! In Grady Hendrix’s newest novel, estranged siblings figure out how to sell their dead parent’s house, but things are complicated because demonic puppets haunt the house! Aunt Honey says, “There’s always drama once money’s involved.” And that’s true, relatable, and scary without the puppets. The sibling relationship was perfectly rendered, how their childhood and parent traumas impacted their adult lives. I appreciated the smaller cast than Final Girl Support Group or Vampire Bookclub because Hendrix dug deep and considered family, death, free real estate, and all the excellent horror novel stuff. It’s also got a clear moral: beware of Pupkin!
Zachariah Bassett’s visualization of Pupkin: Credit — Zachariash Bassett
Comics
Megg, Owl, Werewolf Jones and Jaxon Jones, by Simon Hanselmann — Credit: Fantagraphics
Megg and Mogg are a Halloween treat! A witch, a werewolf, a cursed black cat, a boogeywoman, but they’re all normal and have relatable mental problems. You can read tons of strips on his Instagram. Plus, all the collections are on Hoopla.
But be forewarned!
These funny comics evoke a horrific sense of dread, of the hopelessness of 21st-century life, how trying to be a person who feels monstrous. Funny, vulgar, sad, relatable: it’s those good comics!
Pile of the Week
This weekend, my partner and I stranded ourselves on an island. Here, you can see a pile of rocks used to block the wind for a fire pit. Now that’s a helpful pile! It received the Pile of the Week award.
A pile of rocks for making a fire — Credit: Author’s Photograph
Did you read or write anything about Halloween this week? How about a pile? Do you want me to show me a pile? Go ahead, show me in the comments!
Tsundoku is a Japanese word for acquiring reading materials and letting them pile up without reading them. Welcome to my (second) weekly pile recap blog.
Stick Around To The Conclusion To See My Raw, Unadulterated Piles
Books/Audiobooks
A Philip Marlowe mystery, some strange horror, and a work of Marxism.
The Second Murderer By Denise Mina 2023, Mulholland Books
Raymond Chandler’s been dead for 69 years, and The Second Murderer is the sixth “authorized” Marlowe novel. Chandler wrote seven. How does Denise Mina’s new rendition stack up?
I liked The Second Murderer! A twisty story told by a voice-y Marlowe in a steamy, political 1940s LA. Mina does a fantastic imitation of the Marlowe voice. Her Phil’s still dry, quippy, mean, honest, and fiercely loyal to unspoken ideals.
Marlowe is summoned to a mansion on Santa Monica Boulevard by a rich, wealthy oil-drilling family. They want him to find their missing daughter and offer good money plus expenses. Marlowe’s too smart. He sees their motive. They want to hire a two-bit, one-man private eye outfit because they don’t want to find the girl. They think he’s a bum. That’s the perfect motivation for Marlowe to prove them wrong!
That is, until a familiar fling from Farewell, My Lovely, gets in Marlowe’s way. It’s more fun if I don’t tell you who it is. She started her private eye firm with Daddy’s police contacts in Bay City, and the rich jerks hired her, too. Marlowe and her compete to find the girl and also maybe fall in love? She was my favorite part of the book, and if there’s a sequel, I hope she returns. Marlowe also visits some LA neighborhoods he never frequented much, Skid Row, South Central, and a little lesbian bar Raymond Chandler would have never known existed.
It’s interesting to see how Marlowe adapts over time. This book seems written with women readers in mind, with a romance subplot, a majority of women cast, and historical discussions of lesbianism. Marlowe’s stories were initially published in men’s fiction magazines (Black Mask). It’s impressive how the character’s voice is so enduring it can appeal across time and audiences.
Mina’s interpretation also makes much more sense than Chandler’s original novels. Chandler would combine three stories into one book, so they don’t really make sense. The twist in The Lady in the Lake is so silly you’d think it was a joke. The best one, A Long Goodbye, was not a story-combination novel; ithas a “literary” plot (i.e., no plot). It’s mostly drunk people talking. It’s fantastic, one of my favorite novels of the 20th century.
In his letters, Chandler said he obsessed over the Marlowe voice and character, not the plot. He was exactly right to do that. That’s why people are still reading and writing Marlowe almost a century after publication (well, 75 years). If you like Marlowe or mysteries, check out Denise Mina’s The Second Murderer.
The Second Murderer by Denise Mina (2023) — Credit: Mulholland Books
Negative Space By B.R. Yeager 2020, Apocalypse Party
I find B.R. Yeager’s writing intoxicating, like a weird new drug your friend told you about that you can weirdly buy at the gas station, even though this drug is hardcore and messes you up. Reading him feels like being possessed by a language ghost. His two novels get at the strange suburban feeling of liminal loneliness, and the less you know, the better, but I have a longer piece about both that I’ll post this week.
Negative Space by B.R. Yeager — Credit: Apocalypse Party
Marx’s Literary Style by Ludovico Silva 2023, Verso
I loved this 1973 essay about Marx by Venezuelan poet Ludovico Silva. His close reading of Marx brings the 150-year-old books to life. Silva suggests we consider the way Marx wrote, not just the topics and ideas he wrote about. If you are a Marx reader, this is a must-read, and I give it my most dialectical recommendation.
Marx’s Literary Style by Ludovico Silva — Credit: Verso
Conclusion: Raw, Unadulterated Piles
This is a blog about piles. But where are the piles?
Where are the piles? I Haven’t Seen Any Piles.
OK, let me show you some piles.
A Tale of Two Piles — Credit: Author’s Photo
The books on the left are the ones I’m writing about for Medium.com. The pile on the right is for a fiction project about boxing, all to be read.
And yet, there are more piles no one can see. Digital piles of audiobooks on Libby and Hoopla, NetGalley ebooks, posts, and internet articles: a beautiful, mountainous pile of the mind. I’ll keep thinking about piles, but I want to see your piles in the meantime!
Thanks for reading! Follow for more writing about books.
Do You Keep Your Books In Specific Piles? Show Me The Piles! I Want To See Your Piles!
NickyAdmin: This is the second reading piles newsletter from Medium, 10/08/2023
This is the first Book Pile, or Tsundoku, reading recap from 10/1/2023. It was inspired by the word Tsundoku. Wikipedia defines Tsundoku this way,
Tsundoku (積ん読) is the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. The term is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. A stack of books found after cleaning a room.
That is what this newsletter seeks to describe. My book piles.
Books/Audiobooks
Doppelganger
by Naomi Klein 2023, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
What a strange book. half memoir, half manifesto with a premise that sounds like a joke. Naomi Klein is often confused for Naomi Wolf, and that launches an exploration into the double in culture, latent fascism, and COVID-19 denialism.
I wrote a longer post about this book for From the Library and this site. Check it out here.
LINK
Credit: Santa Monica Press
Freewaytopia
By Paul Haddad 2021, Santa Monica Press
A history of Los Angeles through our highway system! This book is amazing. I learned so much. During and after WWII, the government of California, through the Department of Transportation (Cal-Trans), built highways as possible to move tanks and jeeps to the Navy ports. In the 50s and 60s, white communities LA communities welcomed highway expansion and development, but Black and immigrant communities were frequently displaced and had their houses taken from them. By the 1970s, with expensive gas prices, terrible traffic congestion, lingering construction, and no more Federal funding, everything changed. Even white communities soured on freeways. By the 80s and 90s, they outright rejected them. Cal-Trans officials told the author they would never build another freeway in Los Angeles again. This great non-fiction book has so much to love, and I hope to read more histories that thoughtfully consider planning and urban development. If you’re interested in Los Angeles history, this is a must-read.
Credit: Beacon Press
Villains of All Nations
by Marcus Rediker 2005, Beacon Press
A class-conscious exploration of pirates! Rediker argues that pirates were villains of all nations because they disrupted capital flows and colonialism. The Golden Age of Piracy coincides with the truces between Britain, Spain, and France. Pirates didn’t just pillage booty. They also burned British warships, freed slaves, and took revenge against Navy officers who wronged them. On British Navy ships, rations were small, and generals were abusive. When the Dutch, British, and French Navies pillaged Africa and sold slaves, they were not seen as pirates, and the sailors on the ship were paid a flat wage. Pirates offered an alternative. They flattened hierarchies. Every pirate got a share of the booty, even the injured ones, in an early form of social security insurance! Pirates even had their own pigeon argot for communicating with sailors at port. The author carefully considers how pirates might have been villains to nations and capital flow, but they were proletarian and a more egalitarian alternative way of living for soldiers of the eighteenth century. This book is amazing. If you like pirates and class-conscious history, you gotta read it.
Short Statement of Purpose
I always wanted to write a newsletter where I briefly write about the books I read that week and share my passion for what I’m reading with others. If that’s of interest to you, this is such a newsletter! I welcome you into my book piles. Hello.
