u/RaucousApplesauce

21. THE GUEST by Emma Cline (2023)

Only finished one book in June, but I’m midway through a few that I’ll complete this month. I read and enjoyed Cline’s debut novel, THE GIRLS, back when it came out and found her sophomore effort to be a similarly brisk, engaging read. It packs a lot of tension into a small package — I found myself making this face 😬 a lot as our protagonist Alex makes a series of increasingly poor decisions. Would make a great four episode limited series.

17. STAY TRUE by Hua Hsu (2022)

I’m generally not drawn to memoirs, but I read an excerpt from this book that piqued my interest. Based on the excerpt I thought the book was primarily going to be about Hsu’s relationship with American pop culture as both a bridge and dividing line with his Taiwanese parents. It’s not *not* about that, but it’s also a moving story about friendship, finding oneself in college (Hsu is just a couple years older than me), the power of mixtapes, and grappling with tragedy as a young adult. Very enjoyable.

18. THE REMAINS OF THE DAY by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)

To me, there are few feelings greater than the dawning realization that the movie you’re watching, the album you’re listening to, or the book you’re reading is going to be among your favorites. It’s especially thrilling when you have that experience with art that’s outside of your usual tastes or comfort zone (e.g. the Ewan McGregor/Renee Zellweger two-hander “Down With Love” or Carly Rae Jepsen’s album “E•MO•TION”). Well, I can add this languid, reflective novel about an English butler at the end of his career to that list. Ishiguro loves an unreliable narrator (as do I), and here his protagonist Stevens’ internal monologue reckons in real time with his understanding of duty, service, and the stories we tell ourselves. I found it to be profoundly moving and captivating. It’s a masterpiece.

19. LOST LAMBS by Madeline Cash (2026)

A rare instance of me being on top of the literary zeitgeist! Cash’s buzzy debut novel is an unapologetically weird (the gnats!) and very funny shaggy dog tale that is remarkably self-assured for a 29-year old. At its heart it’s a story about a family on the brink of dissolution, set among a cast of characters and circumstances that are extremely of our time. The first great Gen Z novel I’ve read. I’m already looking forward to what Cash does next.

20. FIERCE DESIRES: A NEW HISTORY OF SEX & SEXUALITY IN AMERICA by Rebecca L. Davis (2024)

This is a really fascinating and well-researched survey of how sex, gender identity and expression, and sexual orientation have shaped — and have been shaped — by American culture throughout our history as a nation. I like to think of myself as fairly well-steeped in this aspect of American history (at least from the 20th century on), but there was a lot here for me to learn. I found the chapters on Anthony Comstock (truly one of America’s great villains!) and activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya to be particularly interesting.

I ordered a book about forced arbitration (a real beach read, I know!) and Bookshop.org sent me a future candidate for the pod instead.

Please enjoy this context-less passage from the first page I opened to.

Fantastic Sunday night show at the Egg in Albany. Sam and the band sounded terrific, and I loved hearing the new songs as well as updated arrangements of the classics to fit the five-piece band on this tour. I’ve been a fan since The Creek Drank the Cradle but this is my first time seeing them live and I’m very glad I did!

12. JUST MERCY: A STORY OF JUSTICE & REDEMPTION by Bryan Stevenson (2014)

This is one of many “work books” that I keep in my office, but it’s far from a dry legal tome. Stevenson does a masterful job weaving the story of his legal representation of a wrongfully convicted man with chapters about some of the systemic issues in our criminal and family legal systems. Importantly, it’s deeply humanizing and client-centered, which is the North Star for public defense representation. A recommended read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike.

13. V. by Thomas Pynchon (1963)

The first time I read V. was on a trip to California 16 years ago, so I thought it was fitting to revisit it on my most recent trip to the Golden State. This was the book that got me into Pynchon and it was a rewarding re-read. It’s stunningly self-assured and ambitious for a debut novel, and while it doesn’t rise to the highest heights of his later works the template is set: underachieving protagonists who get in over their heads, discursive conspiracies, prescient social satire, and the goofiest character names in the biz. Great stuff.

14. GIRL ON GIRL: HOW POP CULTURE TURNED A GENERATION OF WOMEN AGAINST THEMSELVES by Sophie Gilbert (2025)

An insightful critique of late ‘90s/‘00s pop culture and the myriad ways in which it was infused with a pervasive misogyny that continues to shape American society today. Much of Gilbert’s focus is rightfully on the negative impacts the culture of tabloids, Girls Gone Wild, and reality TV had on women who came of age during the new millennium, but I’ve given a lot of thought about the ways that pop culture overtly or subtly shaped my worldview in my late teens and twenties. Highly recommend this to my fellow elder millennials, especially the men.

15. THE SWIMMERS by Julie Otsuka (2022)

The first third or so of this slim novel had me in its grips — ostensibly a story about a group of swimmers at a public pool whose routines are upended by a mysterious occurrence. It’s clear early on that this framing is a parable for the “real” subject of the book (I won’t spoil it here) and had Otsuka stuck with that framing I think I would have enjoyed it more. Instead, the subtext becomes text and the rest of the book dispenses with metaphor in favor of the literal (and by some accounts that I read, virtually a memoir of Otsuka’s own experiences). Admittedly, the subject is one that hits close to home for me, but my critiques stem more from the structure than an aversion to the subject. By contrast, Kazuo Ishiguro’s THE BURIED GIANT addresses similar themes and was one of my favorite novels of the 2010s. Ultimately not for me, though on the strength of the first part of the book I’m into exploring more of Otsuka’s work.

16. THE FLOATING OPERA and THE END OF THE ROAD by John Barth (1958)

This is Barth’s first two novels in a single volume, so I guess I have to count it as one book read. THE SOT-WEED FACTOR is a top five novel for me, so I was psyched to dig deeper in Barth’s work. Ultimately, both books hew closer to mid-century modernist literature than the post-modernism Barth would come to master. Which is fine! But they didn’t quite have the frisson I was looking for. THE FLOATING OPERA was the more interesting of the two; THE END OF THE ROAD felt like a lesser, more goyish Philip Roth novel. Glad I checked them out, but probably won’t revisit them.