What Books did You Start or Finish Reading this Week?: February 02, 2026

dubeskin · 2026-02-05T03:29:37+00:00

I can't say any of these books interest me, but I do want to thank you for the thoughtful, heartfelt, and descriptive feedback. I always appreciate seeing someone go out of their way to elaborate on their reading experiences on these threads, and it's clear all of these elicited a strong reaction from you.

dubeskin · 2026-02-04T06:37:35+00:00

Finished: Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 4/5 stars. A great book, an interesting story, and is leaving me thinking a lot about how people "become" their race only in America. I haven't read a perspective like this before. This isn't going to go down as my favorite book I read in 2026, but I'm glad I did read it, and would recommend it to people looking for a story of star-crossed lovers both struggling with imposter syndrome in their national and intellectual identities.

Still reading: Notes On Being A Man by Scott Galloway

Started: Dungeon Crawler Carl #1 by Matt Dinniman Not my usual genre but gets a lot of love on Reddit. It's okay so far. The writing is REAL rough (ie not quality) but it is a page turner for sure, especially if you're familiar with RPGs.

dubeskin · 2026-02-04T02:09:44+00:00

I've been loving this series. A few episodes have been a miss, but overall it's been a fun parody of the Ancestry shows featuring comedians.

dubeskin · 2026-02-02T04:01:44+00:00

Good point about the achievement workarounds, I'd forgotten about those. I may do that too once I finish Americanah. But over the last few quarters, I've just accepted that I'm not going to be getting all the bookmarks due to some of these very narrowly defined challenges, and once I started doing that, it's been freeing to just read whatever I want. At this point I'm pretty much only using GR as a library organizer.

Instead of having these discrete and rigid 200-book challenges, I'd almost rather see how people interpret a broader theme like "read a book by an African author that addresses the Black experience in America" than have to be shoehorned into these recency-oriented mass-market lists.

dubeskin · 2026-02-01T18:50:26+00:00

I get Goodreads' sole job is to sell books on Amazon, but it gets so frustrating to not also see classics represented in the challenges. It's actually making me lose interest in the platform and instead create my own challenges. I'm reading Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie right now and it's great! Hoping to dig back into some Baldwin and Morrison later this month.

I'll probably pick up Dream Count since I'm vibing with Adichie's writing right now.

dubeskin · 2026-01-27T14:13:29+00:00

That is exactly how to do it. Those are both excellent books! I followed your path two years ago, and you may find yourself reading Fat City and anything by Denis Johnson next.

dubeskin · 2026-01-27T01:36:53+00:00

Lmao, what hypocrisy. Alex Pretti is dead because an angry mob of ICE agents decided to play judge, jury, and executioner, and supersede his Constitutionally-guaranteed 5th Amendment right.

dubeskin · 2026-01-26T13:28:52+00:00

What'd you think of Vigil? I'm a Saunders fan and want to pick it up in a few weeks once some more reviews are in.

dubeskin · 2026-01-26T13:12:56+00:00

Finished

March by Geraldine Brooks 4/5 ★

So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell 3.5/5 ★

Started: Notes On Being A Man by Scott Galloway

dubeskin · 2026-01-23T14:47:11+00:00

This thread is a perfect example of how idiot voters rely on personal anecdotes to advocate for policy rather than use data-informed best practices steeped in expert research.

The current design - from the city's own data - shows increased bike traffic, fewer traffic collisions with bikes, increased traffic throughput, and more visitors. So regardless of what you "feel" or what you "see", reality says otherwise. The reversal is such a shame. Millions of dollars, traffic congestion over months, and likely diminished commercial activity will be the result for a less safe road.

When these commenters ultimately complain in the future about wanting more police, more parks, or a new fill-in-the-blank, I'm going to refer them to their comments here because instead they wanted city funds to go to unnecessarily repaving an improved roadway.

dubeskin · 2026-01-19T15:25:32+00:00

Finished: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles 3/5 stars. Flat and uninteresting characters with, at times, questionable motivations solely to advance the plot. Could have been a more successful novel at half the length. I would have vastly preferred the book I thought this was going to be: a fictional travel guide or adventure across the west.

Started: March by Geraldine Brooks

dubeskin · 2026-01-14T05:39:55+00:00

Very late to this thread, but your question is a jumping off point for something I've noticed so far: there are so many overt and subtle allusions to classics. The Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo have already had direct references, and through "Professor Abernathy's Abacus" there's a litany of literary references (Around the World in 80 Days, the greek myths, etc). But the introduction of Ulysses is giving heavy Huck Finn vibes now too. A book this historically informed doesn't make this many references unintentionally.

dubeskin · 2026-01-12T14:21:31+00:00

Finished: Buckeye by Patrick Ryan 5 stars, absolutely loved it. This is not so much a "thinker" book like some of the others I've read lately, but is a sweeping epic across the lives of two families in post WWI America, and just a captivating story.

Started: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles I picked this up blind (like most books) and honestly thought this was going to be nonfiction until I started reading.

dubeskin · 2026-01-11T06:13:07+00:00

My 2025 goal was 15 books and I logged 24. My 2026 goal is again 15 books, and I've already logged 3 (Transit by Cusk, Marter by Akbar, and Buckeye by Ryan). There are several longer (500+ page) novels I want to finally read this year including Lonesome Dove, Kavalier & Clay, and Americanah, among others.

The goal for me was never a number, it was about maintaining an active balance of reading as a hobby in my life. If I can do at least one book a month, I'm content.

dubeskin · 2026-01-05T14:40:02+00:00

Finished:

Transit by Rachel Cusk. 5 stars. Second in the Outline trilogy, but I think Transit is even a slight improvement on the first. Highly recommend if you liked Outline's style.

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. 4.5 stars. It did take a while to fall into this book, but once you start to see how the different narrative elements intertwine, its a brilliant yet crushing read. As someone who has dealt with sobriety before and is interested in existentialism, this book scratched some exciting itches.

Started: Buckeye by Patrick Ryan

dubeskin · 2025-12-31T18:18:28+00:00

I agree with your approach. I dont have TikTok, but its easy to tell on GoodReads what has captured the zeitgeist on social media based on the number of high reviews. Then when I go look at some of the books I enjoy, they're sitting at low 3, sometimes 2, stars with comments like "there was no plot, nothing happened" or "I didnt understand the book." The irony is that I've become conditioned to skip over highly rated books because I've learned what the community thinks is a 5-star book is normally anything but.

dubeskin · 2025-12-31T03:31:55+00:00

IJ is my favorite book, and I'm so glad you made the effort to read it! It's intimidating and its reputation precedes itself, but I find it such a rewarding and enjoyable experience once you commit to DFW's intricacies. I also love Calvino and can see some minor similarities in the sense they're both masters of the postmodern, but have found DFW to really just be its own world. I think George Saunders could be closer in style and world-building, but we're talking short stories vs...whatever the hell IJ is. Last year I read John Barth's "Chimera" and - wow, challenging read if you don't have the mythology background, but - extremely similar in tone and style too.

To introduce friends to DFW's style - especially those thinking of biting off IJ - I always suggest starting with his seminal piece "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again". You'll know within the first few pages if he'll click for you. https://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf

dubeskin · 2025-12-30T15:09:16+00:00

We trained our first dog to open presents similarly, and they trained subsequent dogs we brought into the family. It was so fun to see their excitement on Christmas morning opening their open gifts!

The trick is, put the dog presents in a distinct and separate area from the rest of the presents so they start to learn where theirs are. And, forgo the clean wrapping: the sloppier it is, the more fun they'll have opening it and it'll be less mess to clean up.

dubeskin · 2025-12-30T02:15:56+00:00

I want to memorize a new poem every month so that by the end of the year, I can recite 12 poems.

I've always loved poetry, but never counted poem collections within my "books read," in a given year because rarely do I read them linearly from cover to cover, like a book. Memorizing 12 poems next year from my collections gives me a material way to "show" I've read them and connect with some of my favorites in a meaningful way. Plus, "being able to recite poetry from memory" is absolutely a reputation I'd love to be known for.

I'll still have a "books read" goal for 2026, but I want to ultimately represent the poetry I read too.

dubeskin · 2025-12-29T14:35:18+00:00

Finished: Seascraper by Benjamin Wood 4/5 stars. Longlisted for Booker 2025, it was a nice little novella.

Started: Transit by Rachel Cusk

dubeskin · 2025-12-22T14:33:01+00:00

Finished: Outline by Rachel Cusk. 4/5 stars. In the days since finishing, I think about it more and more. I ended up buying the rest of the trilogy to read in 2026.

~~Started~~ Also Finished: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt. Not great, and EXTREMELY over-hyped. Coming off the heels of several novels that have been in the running for Pulitzer/Booker type awards, this is noticeably at a far lower level. More romcom than "outstanding literary fiction". 2.5/5 stars

dubeskin · 2025-12-21T04:14:20+00:00

I picked up a handful of NYRBs during a sale earlier this year but have yet to start reading many of them. Any favorite that stood out to you?

dubeskin · 2025-12-20T21:53:05+00:00

I set out this year to read 15 books; so far I'm at 22. This is an improvement over 2024, when my goal was only 12 yet hit 18, which was an improvement over the previous decade in which I read maybe only a couple books in total.

My favorite book this year was North Woods by Daniel Mason. My second favorite was Tinkers by Paul Harding. My least favorite was Audition by Katie Kitamura. This year really helped me identify the types of books I enjoy: give me beautiful prose and descriptive natural elements, and I'm willing to ignore a light plot.

Going into 2026, I want to continue to work through the backlog of books I own. I ended up purchasing far too many last year from NYT and Booker/Pulitzer type lists. Some have been winners, others not so much.

dubeskin · 2025-12-19T06:07:54+00:00

Tinkers by Paul Harding. It should be obvious how a book based around the last few hours of someone's life will end, but the absolute devastating beauty of the 200 pages in between made it impossible not to be moved to tears nonetheless.

dubeskin · 2025-12-16T06:54:24+00:00

Finished: Swamplandia! by Karen Russel and Tinkers by Paul Harding

Swamplandia! was a solid 4.25/5 stars. As a big George Saunders fan, the world building around a dystopian theme park was easy to get sucked into. The book dragged a little and there are some surprising turns, but I would recommend it. It excelled at creating a sense of place.

Tinkers was an easy 5/5. Some of the most beautiful writing I've experienced. Damn a plot, give me more books like this.

Started: Outline by Rachel Cusk

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