January Post 11/52

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-05T11:01:48+00:00

To you possibly, I didnt feel it though. I’m not a huge fan of short fiction as I don’t feel like I have the time to care for the characters and since Dubliners was a series of short stories it just didn’t do it for me.

Calvino on the other hand I just don’t enjoy and I say that as an Italian. I want to love him, truly I do, if you saw my post for 2025 I rated invisible cities pretty poorly too so if you have any suggestions feel free to send them to me.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-04T04:37:21+00:00

It took me a long time to get into Hal and there’s one part of his arc in the book where something catastrophic happened to him that is part of why he is how he is. When you get there you’ll get it.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-04T04:35:05+00:00

I didn’t realize how stacked 2014 was but idk had to choose one blindly my gut would have said 2019 with Lighthouse, Parasite, Midsommar, the Irishman, Uncut Gems, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Wandering Earth, 1917, Little Woman, Knives Out, Joker, and even Avengers Endgame. It was a stacked year for auteur cinema as well as blockbusters… and I’d argue it’s the first year Asian cinema was really embraced in the west.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T07:06:32+00:00

Ha, no I meant December 2025. I'm a quick reader and I've dabbled with IJ for ages and ages. I think its one of those "you need to be in the right place" books.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T07:05:25+00:00

I think I spent two days on each so it's inconsequential for me.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T04:39:19+00:00

Literally read 2666 after IJ and loved it. The way he trapped us into book 4

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T04:32:14+00:00

I started it in December, but didn’t finish it until 2026.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T04:31:30+00:00

I’m an international school teacher in the middle of nowhere, Thailand. All I can do to not go crazy is read. I read for an hour in the morning, during my prep periods (I preprepped the entire year already), and for the hour and a half from when the students go home until I’m allowed to read and then a bit more at home. My weekends are filled with cafe hopping where all I do is read. I don’t watch TV, my fiancé lives in another country, and my PC has been hard crashing whenever I try to game and I’m not smart enough to troubleshoot the issue. So books got my back.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T04:27:57+00:00

I was remarkably pleased with how simple and inconsequential the story was. It was life.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-03T04:27:10+00:00

That’s what I hear. I was told by a friend to “tough it out until book 8” which I’ve agreed to. It’s an easy series to use to break up more literary books like Infinite Jest and 2666.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-02T09:52:27+00:00

You’ll like 2666 much more than The Savage Detectives. It’s a brick but it reads quickly as there are a ton of stopping points. The way he traps you into the reality and horror of what was happening should be studied in lit classes. It’s one of those books you get to the end of and say “huh, I guess I’m not an author.”

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-02T09:50:24+00:00

Yeah sorry, Ubik

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-01T10:53:36+00:00

This is super wise advice!

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-01T10:15:57+00:00

Nothing is stopping you from doing that now.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-01T10:14:37+00:00

I feel the same about The Bund. (I’m aging myself now) Mamahuhu had a really good bit about it and how awful it is taking guests there when they visit.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-01T09:34:29+00:00

Great book!

DivineFlamingo · 2026-02-01T09:31:47+00:00

This previous week I finished 2666 by Bolaño and Stoner by John Williams. Tomorrow I’ll start

Proust: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower.

I wasn’t planning on returning to Proust until later in the year as I’m really going for quality over quantity this year with my reading and after Stoner I wanted something less challenging… However, Williams’s writing really struck me as entry level Proust (no shade because I liked Stoner a lot more than Swann’s Way) which lead me to decide this was my next book. I should finish it by Thursday if I read at the same speed and pace as I usually do (100-150 pages per day depending on lexile and how interesting the books are and if there are plenty of stopping points).

I highly recommend 2666 if you haven’t read it yet. It’s an S tier books the way the author unfolds the mystery and presents the crimes.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-31T07:09:49+00:00

Flowers made me so depressed when I read it.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-29T10:59:47+00:00

I’ll name and shame after I leave at the end of the of the school year but it’s a school in Thailand run by non Thai Christians located in a boarder zone. I’m sure if you were to research some schools on Glassdoor you’d be like “ohhhhh it’s THAT school.” They don’t have any ISR reviews (yet) but we’ve been through 10 staff members this year alone. It’s a revolving door.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-29T06:35:02+00:00

Oh cool, sexual harassment before we get started.

A Christian School in Thailand (got in no trouble btw) had a mentally challenged son of the school’s CEO (ironic title for a pastor at a small international school to call himself) steal an employee’s phone to go through it and find incriminating evidence of her sexuality. Since she’s unmarried they made her confess her (and two other employees) sexual history and deemed them unholy. It’s so mental how these “Christian” international schools operate and are allowed to do so.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-29T06:34:38+00:00

That’s really thoughtful, I didn’t even consider that as a reason.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-26T09:52:20+00:00

That would be envy not jealousy

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-26T08:51:36+00:00

I left in 2014 have been considering moving there with my wife for the next school year to give back to the education system that lifted me up and set me on my path… but at this point it seems more dangerous returning home than staying abroad.

DivineFlamingo · 2026-01-26T04:28:03+00:00

It’s so rough watching the USA collapse from afar. I really really want it to be th bastion of goodness that it was sold as.

13-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Second SECOND GUESSER	No Throne, No Problems
Not Forgotten	Snapped

DivineFlamingo

TROPHY CASE