Books Acquired:
Journey into Fear, Eric Ambler
Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green

Books Offloaded:
Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green
The Wonder Effect, C.M. Kornbluth & Frederik Pohl

Progress Made:
A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick
The Undying Fire, H.G. Wells

Books Finished:
Journey into Fear, Eric Ambler
Everything Is Tuberculosis, John Green
Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon

I was basically finished with Shadow Ticket in the first few days of the year, but for whatever reason I waited a few weeks to read the last chapter. Not because I expected some big twist or dramatic ending — Pynchon doesn’t really do that — or even because I was enjoying it and didn’t want it to end, though I was and didn’t. But something within me wanted to keep it suspended unresolved in midair, like The Sopranos.

Which is pretty much what I got anyway — ST ends with a letter from one of the supporting characters to the protagonist, wrapping up very little and broadly hinting at some idea of a sequel. Which may be something TP is planning, or just his idea of a funny way to end what may or may not be his last book. In any case, that concludes for now my sojourn to Pynchonland; Mason and Dixon is still out there, awaiting a chance encounter on some fateful day.

It was right when I had set aside Shadow Ticket that Everything Is Tuberculosis arrived unexpectedly in the mail, courtesy of Brother Cecil. This was not a subject I had known I was interested in, and in fact I was not really aware TB was still a thing. But Green is an excellent writer and his book was very illuminating and I ran through it in short order, then passed it onto the next person via the free box at my favorite cafe.

Around this time I had read something about Eric Ambler being the father of the modern suspense novel, with particular reference to his book Epitaph for a Spy. So I started poking around the local bookstores and ended up with a copy of Journey into Fear, which I devoured in about three days. This is right in my sweet spot: a page-turner where every chapter ends with a little zig or zag, but also Britishly highbrow enough that you feel smart reading it. There will be more Ambler in my future.

Thus emboldened I re-engaged with A Scanner Darkly, which is a tricky read: Often entertaining, full of postmodern whimsy and black humor, but with an undercurrent of the bleakest despair. In this weird midwinter we’ve been having — for the last week it’s been sunny and in the high 50s, about as close as Humboldt ever gets to actual summer — I’ve gotten about halfway through. We’ll see what the future holds.

Finally, I read a quote somewhere (forget now where) from The Undying Fire that really struck me, and since I’ve been meaning for ages to read some Wells, I tracked down a copy. I had a bit of buyer’s remorse upon discovering it is “a twentieth-century version of the story of Job,” a concept which interests me very little. But then I started it and found it oddly riveting. It is really one long talky argument about the Big Questions, but the man has a Knack and I’m getting pulled along without much effort. I’m gonna get back to it right now.