by bill | Sep 27, 2026 | Read it in books |
Acquired:
Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon, Jorge Amado
Judgment on Deltchev, Eric Ambler
Passage of Arms, Eric Ambler
Yellow Dog, Martin Amis
Double Indemnity, James M. Cain
Rock, Chuck Klosterman
Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground, Richie Unterberger
Offloaded:
Progress Made:
Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
Do What You Fear Most: The History of the Velvet Underground, Richie Unterberger
Finished:
The Dark Frontier, Eric Ambler
Passage of Arms, Eric Ambler
We Can Build You, Philip K. Dick
I’m writing this a little earlier than usual as we are off on an international adventure for the nest few weeks.
I just finished Passage of Arms, which is absolutely top-drawer edge-of-the-seat Ambler. The Dark Frontier was a notch down. Judgment on Deltchev is queued up next, but I am trying, trying not to run through them all. October is likely to be a light reading month, as we will be traveling in Japan for most of it.
I had hoped to finish Vineland before the trip, but that now seems unlikely. You can’t force-feed Pynchon; either you’re in the mood or you aren’t.
(more…) by bill | Sep 2, 2026 | Read it in books |
Acquired:
The Dark Frontier, Eric Ambler
Galactic Pot-Healer, Philip K. Dick
A Beginner’s Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations, Pico Iyer
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension, Earl Mac Rauch
Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, Et Al: A Compendium of Evils, The Reno Kid with E.M. Rauch
The Best of Stanley G. Weinbaum, Stanley G. Weinbaum
Offloaded:
John Buchan, The Courts of the Morning
Blade Runner, Philip K. Dick
Progress Made:
The Dark Frontier, Eric Ambler
We Can Build You, Philip K. Dick
Vineland, Thomas Pynchon
Finished:
Here Lies, Eric Ambler
The Divine Madness of Philip K. Dick, Kyle Arnold
Another Green World (33 1/3), Geeta Dayal
Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick & Roger Zelazny
Late one sunny, ennui-laden August afternoon, I decided to finally tackle the project of rereading Vineland. Ever since One Battle After Another came out last year, I’ve been mildly vexed by the question of what on Earth it had to do with Pynchon’s book, upon which it was supposedly based.
So far I see nothing, save maybe a vague resemblance between Leo DiCaprio’s burnout dad character and Zoyd Wheeler, Vineland’s hapless hippie protagonist. But it’s a fun read, definitely in the “Pynchon lite” category with Inherent Vice and Shadow Ticket. I don’t mean that as a knock on those books — in fact I prefer them to the doorstoppers. I’d read more of them; does 88-year-old TP have any left in him?
Here Lies did indeed pick up the pace with the advent of WWII. Most of Eric Ambler’s war stories involve moviemaking; he served in the Army Film and Photographic Unit. There are numerous entertaining tales with appearances by the likes of David Niven, Carol Reed, and John Huston (the latter was apparently a maniac who casually risked his own life as well as other people’s). After the war the book just kind of stops. Ambler lived another 50 years after that, but apparently he found none of those years worth writing about. (Here Lies was published in 1985.) Or maybe he was planning a second volume that never materialized?
(more…) by bill | Aug 2, 2026 | Read it in books |
Acquired:
Our Friends from Frolix 8, Philip K. Dick
We Can Build You, Philip K. Dick
Murmurs of Earth, Carl Sagan
Offloaded:
Night Soldiers, Alan Furst
The Undying Fire, H.G. Wells
The Nuns of Sant’Ambrogio, Hubert Wolf
Progress Made:
Another Green World (33 1/3), Geeta Dayal
Deus Irae, Philip K. Dick & Roger Zelazny
Nocturnes, Kazuo Ishiguro
Finished:
The Russian Girl, Kingsley Amis
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Philip K. Dick
Night Soldiers, Alan Furst
Once again I find myself in the awkward position of writing about a book kindly recommended by a friend, not to mention a reader, and having to say that I found it… well, not disappointing exactly. Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers is elegantly written, impeccably researched, a class act all around, and I do not regret the time spent reading it. After a bit of a slow start, it moved right along. It just didn’t scratch that special itch the way Eric Ambler’s books do.
Fortunately there are a dozen or so Amblers I haven’t read. I got a bit bogged down in Here Lies, his autobiography, especially in a section about his time in the lamp manufacturing industry; but I am persisting and should get through it this summer. I must say I’ve been surprised at how much Ambler, whose novels are lean, mean, suspense machines, has let this thing meander. Editing your own life is hard, I guess. Hopefully we will get to WWII soon and things will pick up a bit.
Flow My Tears was, I believe, PKD’s last book before his religious experience/breakdown of 1974. So it’s still relatively “normal” sci-fi by his standards, though a weird-ass piece of work by anyone else’s. Reality-bending, drugs, paranoia, showoffy classical allusions, an ending that leaves you scratching your head — all the trademarks are there. It went down quick, and like Voyager slingshotting around a planet, I went right on to Deus Irae. Which, I just now learned, had a strange and tangled history:
Dick started the novel, and then he realized that he did not know enough about Christianity to finish it. He asked science fiction editor and author Ted White to collaborate on the manuscript with him, but after reviewing the manuscript, White never began the work.
Zelazny found the manuscript in White’s home in early 1968, read it, and then contacted Dick about working on the project. Work proceeded sporadically over several years as each author, in turn, forgot about the book. The novel was completed quickly, though, in the spring of 1975, after the publisher, Doubleday, demanded either the manuscript or repayment of the advance paid to Dick. The editor discovered that Zelazny had sent photocopies of a number of the manuscript pages and demanded the originals according to Doubleday’s policy; much to Zelazny’s chagrin, he was required to send in pages stained with cat urine. Zelazny said later that he always wondered what the editor made of these pages.
And finally there is the Eno book, which has been fun to read and has gotten me back into listening to Another Green World, an absolutely unique and wonderful album. In case you haven’t heard it lately:
by bill | Jul 1, 2026 | Read it in books |
Acquired:
Night Soldiers, Alan Furst
Offloaded:
The Razor’s Edge, W.S. Maugham
Against the Country, Ben Metcalf
Progress Made:
Here Lies, Eric Ambler
The Russian Girl, Kingsley Amis
Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford
The Courts of the Morning, John Buchan
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, Philip K. Dick
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Selina Hastings
Finished:
Cause for Alarm, Eric Ambler
A Scanner Darkly, Philip K. Dick
Only an idiot believes that he can write the truth about himself.
—Eric Ambler
I have been simultaneously reading biographies of three authors, and you might well ask, isn’t that confusing? It is, but this approach fits my short attention span. And I have been learning things.
(more…) by bill | Jun 3, 2026 | Read it in books |
Acquired:
Here Lies, Eric Ambler
Passage of Arms, Eric Ambler
Martin Amis: The Biography, Richard Bradford
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Selina Hastings
Vigil, George Saunders
Absurdistan, Gary Shteyngart
Offloaded:
The Intercom Conspiracy, Eric Ambler
Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
The Emperor of Ice Cream, Brian Moore
Pagan, W.F. Morris
Progress Made:
Cause for Alarm, Eric Ambler
The Courts of the Morning, John Buchan
The Secret Lives of Somerset Maugham, Selina Hastings
Finished:
The Intercom Conspiracy, Eric Ambler
Other People, Martin Amis
The Razor’s Edge, W.S. Maugham
The Woman Who Married a Bear, John Straley
“D’you remember how Jesus was led into the wilderness and fasted forty days? Then, when he was a-hungered, the devil came to him and said: If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But Jesus resisted the temptation. Then the devil set him on a pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down. For angels had charge of him and would bear him up. But again Jesus resisted. Then the devil took him into a high mountain and showed him the kingdoms of the world and said the he would give them to him if he would fall down and worship him. But Jesus said: Get thee hence, Satan. That’s the end of the story according to good simple Matthew. But it wasn’t. The devil was sly and he came to Jesus once more and said: If thou wilt accept shame and disgrace, scourging, a crown of thorns and death on the cross, thou shalt save the human race, for a greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Jesus fell. The devil laughed till his sides ached, for he knew the evil men would commit in the name of their redeemer.”
Isabel looked at me indignantly.
“Where on earth did you get that?”
“Nowhere. I’ve invented it on the spur of the moment.”
—W.S. Maugham, The Razor’s Edge
The Razor’s Edge is an odd duck of a book. It’s structured like a memoir, with Maugham narrating in the first person, but all the other characters are either composites or wholesale inventions. W.S. himself was coy about which it was, and who if anyone might have served as models, with the result that several people have made dubious claims of serving as the basis for the pivotal character of Larry.
(more…) by bill | May 8, 2026 | Read it in books |
Books Acquired:
Background to Danger, Eric Ambler
The Schirmer Inheritance, Eric Ambler
Pagan, W.F. Morris
Books Offloaded:
Progress Made:
The Woman Who Married a Bear, John Straley
Books Finished:
Background to Danger, Eric Ambler
Pagan, W.F. Morris
Vera, or Faith, Gary Shteyngart
[Ed. Note: This was supposed to be published three days ago, but I neglected to click the button. Oops!]
“A legend is the highest scientific statement when it is the only statement available,” the Cameroi said. “We are the people who live according to reason. It makes a good life, but it lack salt. You people have a literature of Utopias. You value their ideals highly, and they do have some effect on you. Yet you must feel that they all have this quality of the insipid. And according to Earth standards, we are a Utopia. We are a world of the third case.
“We miss a lot. The enjoyment of poverty is generally denied to us. We have a certain hunger for incompetence, which is why some Earth things find a welcome here — bad Earth music, bad Earth painting and sculpture and drama, for instance. The good we can produce ourselves. The bad we are incapable of, and must import. Some of us believe that we need it in our diet.”
—R.A. Lafferty, “Polity and Custom of the Camiroi”
That bit comes from a story in the June 1967 issue of the sci-fi pulp Galaxy, which has been among my non-book reading lately along with The New Republic, The Onion, and the Sunday New York Times when I can get it.
April was a good month for book reading, though none of it happened in the last week and a half, when we were in New Orleans. Between Jazz Fest and evening trips to restaurants and clubs, the consumption of music, food, and drink became a full-time job. In fact I am still a bit worn out, so I’m going to keep this short.
(more…)