Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon

 

Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon

Started: 11/11/2025
Completed: 11/14/2025 DNF
Recommendation: Not recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By:  Nobody, just decided I should probably read something by Pynchon.  After hearing about him on the John Larroquette Show (many years ago), I've had a mild interest in finding out what his books are like and I think I just picked this one up because it was recent.

Review:

I gave up a little over half way through.  There was so much '30s slang, I had trouble figuring out what was going on.  It was just "dame" (a woman) or "heater" (a gun), but everything seemed to have a slang term.  It took me quite some time to figure out that there was a discussion of bowling when Pynchon described something like using a 10 foot path instead of the normal 14 for spear chucking.  He may be a great author, but, to me, he was just cryptic.  He was so deeply enmeshed in a manner of speaking that I could hardly follow the story.  My go to with this sort of thing is Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.  The dialect coupled with what were surely intended to be cultural references that I simply did not get undermined what should have been funny (the "Al Capone" of Cheese and the whole silly concept of Big Cheese being made manifest through mergers and buy outs that had transformed Wisconsin and the world).  Because of all the slang it was hard to grab the story (which seemed to involve the supernatural) as distinct from the silly (people with romantic entanglements with lamps).  I just wasn't enjoying it.

The Frozen River, Ariel Lawhon

 

The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon

Started: 11/5/2025
Completed: 11/11/2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is an interesting book.  It is easy to think of the past as a pure time, but evidence always speaks to reality.  This book, based on some historical fact, detailed murder and rape not long after the founding of the United States.  The story is engaging and well told and I enjoyed Lawhon's effort to fill in the blanks.  The protagonist is surely more modern than the times would have allowed, yet still, somehow, fits within the period.  The protagonist is also not perfect and Lawhon does a good job of showing that cleanly and without having to invoke surprising twists or artless descriptions.  The use of the fox as a way to show shifts of fortune is clever and pleasurable.

Bad Company, Megan Greenwell

 

Bad Company:  Private equity and the death of the American dream by Megan Greenwell

Started: 10/28/2025
Completed: 11/5/2025
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is a story that arguably started with Toys 'R Us, but was likely a story before that (we just didn't know).  Private equity has been about buying companies and selling off their assets to derive short term profits.  Arguably, there have been some times when private equity was successful (Hilton Hotels or Dell) the turn-arounds are remarkably rapid (5 years or so), with shocking frequency companies purchased by private equity end up in bankruptcy within 7 years.  This book looks a few industries and some specific examples rather than try to evaluate the whole market (which has been well done by a large number of papers cited in the book).  Private equity (think Black Rock or Bane Capital) has been horrible for the companies they have sucked dry.  They do this by borrowing the money to take over the company (a leveraged buy out) in the name of the company they are buying (Toys 'R Us incurred the debt for the buyout, not the private equity company, KKR, I think, that did the buyout).  Then they sell the real estate to another private equity component who leases the real estate back to the original owner (sale lease back; more debt for the company while the sale proceeds are distributed to the private equity company).  It is pretty horrible stuff and it is part of the reason that hospitals (particularly rural hospitals) are failing.  They are also deep in multi-family real estate (like apartment complexes that are poorly run and poorly maintained).

We Ride the Storm, Devin Madson

 

We Ride the Storm by Devin Madson is the first book of the Reborn Empire Series and I think I picked it up because I thought that this might be the kind of book that one of my nieces would enjoy.  I am going to give this a try, but, wow, I'm not sure what I saw first time round.

Started: October 15, 2025
Completed: November 1, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Kobo

Review:

So this book, while gory, is mostly intrigue.  Some of the gore is probably appropriate, some of it is sort of built into the mythos, and some of it is gratuitous.  Most of the characters do not evolve particularly, but this is the first book in a five book series and I get the feeling that this book sort of sets up the background stories.  The plots are good and while all the twists are not truly hidden, they are interesting when they happen.

Moderation, Elaine Castillo

 

Moderation by Elaine Castillo

Started: October 24, 2025
Completed: October 28, 2025
Recommendation: Not recommended

Media:  Audio
Recommended By: The Atlantic

Review:

I don't know what to say, but this wasn't at all my cup of tea.  The cool 3D worlds were boring.  The intrigue was no fun.  The character interaction was boring.  I did not like it.

A Far Better Thing, H. G. Parry

 

A Far Better Thing:  I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse by H. G. Parry.  I enjoyed The Scholar and the Last Faery Door, so I thought I would give this one a shot.

Started: October 12, 2025
Completed: October 24, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

It would have been better if I had realized that this was a sort of retelling of a A Tale of Two Cities.  This should not be a shock to anyone reading this review (and if it is, you're welcome).  So it should be clear where this book is headed.  Nonetheless, this is a good trip and I enjoyed it.  I got as attached to the characters as one should and enjoyed the development of several of them.  There were a couple of characters who were clearly foils and embodied their stereotypes to the fullest.  No harm in that.  The fairy pieces were interesting and well crafted, although the author created a fairy world that she could then not adequately describe which didn't leave much to the imagination so much as leave a little extra mystery.

The Sirens' Call, Chris Hayes

 

The Sirens' Call:  How attention became the world's most endangered resource by Chris Hayes

Started: October 12, 2025
Completed: October 18, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended

Media:  Audio
Recommended By: Barrack Obama

Review:

I do not follow Chris Hayes closely (perhaps that is sideways music to his ears), but I was quite surprised to see a reference to Epictetus show up in this book.  There is no reason a news anchor should not be well educated (and many reasons why they should be), but this borders on someone who actually has an interest in philosophy and his interest in other topics (like Death of a Salesman) could be a side-effect of having acted or could be a side-effect of a deep education.  I dunno what it is, but I like it and I think he would make an interesting person with whom to speak outside of the context of what he does for a living.

I wonder about the particular type of utopia he has in mind.  SPOILER ALERT.  I'm not sure that the return to a directed way of looking at the world (such as a physical copy of the New York Times or a vinal album) is where we are headed.  Surely there will be pockets of people who will use this kind of method to view the world and, perhaps, it will not be dwindling pockets.  In the end, however, I wonder if they will be sufficiently large to function as a brake on the rest of society.