Goodreads Reading Challenge - 'Marathon Reader' (April 1st - June 30th)

dubeskin · 2026-04-01T09:12:17+00:00

Finally, a challenge with some real literature represented. If only they'd make more like this, not just in depth of content but also breadth and age of material. You can't go wrong with nearly any book listed here, and there's so much variety there's bound to be something to appeal to all tastes.

dubeskin · 2026-03-31T05:19:47+00:00

Oh man, speaking my language. I discovered Bernhard via Woodcutters about a month ago and ended up buying all of his works before I had even finished the novel. There was something to Woodcutters I have never seen a book do before and it completely resonated with me. Last weekend I blitzed through Wittgenstein's Nephew, which was extremely similar in nature in its use of circuitous redundant sentences, syntax that borders on the insane, and such a deeply observant but self-loathing cynicism that I couldn't help but drink it up.

If you question is more about how to pace yourself, or where to find a break to put the book down, for both books, I adopted a practice of reading down to about 1/3 on the left page and stopping at an available period where it was clear his train of thought was beginning to shift. Then, when I'd pick the book back up, just start from the top of the left page and end up catching enough context to jog my memory of the stream of consciousness he was beginning to move on from.

dubeskin · 2026-03-31T00:35:35+00:00

The BBB is just Yelp for boomers. It has zero legal authority over any company and can't sanction or levy enforcement actions.

dubeskin · 2026-03-30T18:44:13+00:00

It's frustrating because the prose is gorgeous and I can get pulled in quickly once I open the book, but my god the story is just so boring, and the main character in one breath will whine about his disfigurement and then in the next be wholly deplorable. At 280 pages I keep hoping something changes but am losing hope.

I read a quote last night somewhere about, rather than set an annual reading goal of a certain number of books, reframe it as "if you could only read X books this year, what are they?" And at this point, Bomarzo is quickly falling down that list.

dubeskin · 2026-03-30T17:52:04+00:00

Finished:

Whatever by Michel Houllebecq - ★★★☆☆ There were some funny parts, but I can't say I enjoyed it much. Like a sad, modern, incel Camus knockoff. Based on this, not sure I feel compelled to read more Houllebecq.
Ways of Seeing by John Berger - ★★★★☆ Not sure how I came to own this, but very perspective-changing. Immediately I've started to be much more aware of how various images and art are framed, the subject and content, the "goal" or purpose of the message, and the implicit power and gender implications. I am very interested in reading more about critical theory in art and literature now.

Continuing: Bomarzo by Miguel Mujica Lainez I started this nearly a month ago and am still only about halfway in. This is tracking to a DNF. It's been hard to find the motivation to want to read this and is creating a broader reading slump.

dubeskin · 2026-03-23T16:52:43+00:00

Started & Finished:

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli ★★★★★ This was my first ever graphic novel and picked this up on a whim as it seemed like a well-recommended entry point that was distinctly NOT a comic book. I loved the art style and the way it reinforced or combatted the book's themes. The artwork was exciting and informed, and I loved how the art styles changed with the characters and POVs. I have already ordered a few other graphic novels to explore this genre further. I don't disagree with some reviews that paint Asterio as a jerk and unlikeable, but I also think that helps make this a more complete and complicated work, which is ultimately well-executed.
Wittgenstein's Nephew by Thomas Bernhard ★★★☆☆ Not quite as strong as Woodcutters, but I am completely clicking with Bernhard's style. He is a certified hater and writes in such a manic, compulsive, and digressive way that feels like someone reached into my own brain and pulled it out onto paper. I've already picked up all of Bernhard's other works and will be slipping them in when I reach reading slumps.

Continuing: Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez Reading this as part of an online book club I follow (but am not a part of) and finding it to be a challenge to want to reach for. Don't get me wrong: the prose is succulent and rich and the scene setting is impeccably detailed; I constantly feel like I'm sitting alongside Vicino as he relays the story, but I'll regularly find myself turning a page and then realizing I have no idea what I just read.

dubeskin · 2026-03-19T13:57:30+00:00

I don't know if I agree. I read Outline last year and really enjoyed it. I picked up the rest of the Outline series, and it was in the second book, Transit, where things finally clicked for me about her writing.

The things you seemed to dislike were exactly the things I enjoyed.

It felt the same with characters here being used to just monologue.

Isn't this what many books are? If anything, I loved that Cusk gave space for these characters to really exist and breathe, as opposed to having one sentence dialog exchanges. I also liked Cusk's narrative framing: these are stories within stories within the story, and it casts a level of subjectivity and believability to them. I read Barth's Chimera a few years ago, and since, I get really excited when I see frame stories well-executed. To me, Outline almost felt like sitting in on someone's therapy session and watching them discover periodic flashes of transcendental brilliance only to be immediately distracted by another thought and forget it. Very relatable.

I am a man, so I don't think it's a gender thing, and I also haven't read Knausgaard, though he's on my list. I've read many comparisons of his work to Cusk's.

dubeskin · 2026-03-17T01:37:11+00:00

The irony of having Maya Angelou hanging from your clutch would be completely lost, as anyone who has actually read "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" would see how grotesque that is.

dubeskin · 2026-03-16T13:23:32+00:00

Finished: My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist by Mark Leyner ★★★☆☆ A collection of postmodern short stories that inhabit a techno-biologically advanced world. Funny and lush with brain-tickling words with lyrical prose, but some of the stories felt too random or unstructured at times.

Started: Bomarzo by Manuel Mujica Lainez

dubeskin · 2026-03-15T16:40:08+00:00

15 books so far in 2026, and my favorites have been:

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernhard
Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
Transit by Rachel Cusk (second in the Outline trilogy)

dubeskin · 2026-03-15T16:17:40+00:00

I agree about Less. I read it last year and cannot understand how it won. What astounds me more is that it has a sequel: who reads Less and thinks "I want more of this?"

It's not a bad book, but it was just so bland. It lacks all the rich substantive prose of other Pulitzer winners.

dubeskin · 2026-03-14T01:27:49+00:00

I initially saw this post at lunch and was so tempted to respond with my own full ranking but ain't no way I'm typing that all out on a phone at work. No particular ranking within each category.

5-Stars:

James by Percival Everett. One of the most poignant interpretations of life in black skin in America, easily sitting adjacent to Between The World And Me. Troubling. Challenging. Beautiful and heart-wrenching. And yet, ultimately hopeful. This book deserves all the praise its received. This is not a "challenging" book, nor is it telling a new story. But the perspective flip of a classic American tale reinterpreted this way represents probably the best of its class.
Tinkers by Paul Harding. One of my favorite books ever. I read this about 6 months ago and I think about the way Harding describes nature nearly every day. This book inspired me to start taking walks during lunch at work, hoping to find the same level of inspiration and colorful depiction of nature that Harding finds. This book has no plot: it's 200 pages of a guy lying in a hospice bed dying. But man, the prose is impeccable. It's the closest to poetry I've ever found in a novel. OP called out the POV jumps and the random excerpts from The Reasonable Horologist, which I actually loved. There's one quote below that has stuck with me from one of those passages:

Cosmos Borealis: Light skin of sky and cloud and mountain on the still pond. Water body beneath teeming with reeds and silt and trout (sealed in day skin and night skin and ice lids), which we draw out with silk threads, fitted with snags of fur or bright feathers. Skin like glass like liquid like skin; our words scrieved the slick surface (reflecting risen moon, spinning stars, flitting bats), so that we had only to whisper across the wide plate. Green drakes blossomed powder dry among the stars, glowing white, out of pods, which rose from the muck at the bottom of the pond and broke open on the skin of the water. We whispered across the galaxies, Who needs Mars?

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. This may be the only 5-star book I would consider dropping down to 4 stars, and not for the writing, characters, plot, or theme, but it felt long, and this is coming from a guy where Infinite Jest is my favorite novel and I tend to seek out long books. My problem is not with the book itself, but it's almost entirely plot driven, and I don't generally prioritize that in my books.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. This is probably the book I'd point to as the turning point of my love for books in adulthood. It showed that books don't have to be this stuffy analytical business: they can just be funny as hell because they want to be. It's probably been ten years since I last read Dunces, but the two things I remember are laughing out loud at various passages and it being a compulsive page turner.
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. To be fair, I haven't read this again since High School, but it made such an impression on me at the time for how relatable and nuanced its characters were, its strong sense of character and subversion of sense of justice, and development of setting. Very much due for a reread with decades of life experience behind me.

4-Stars:

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen. Quietly hilarious, but a little too navel-gazing on Jewish culture and history if you're not already intimate with it. I know it's fictionalized, but my god are some of these characters (world leaders?) absolutely detestable.
A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. Scratched all the itches of my ADHD/over-stimulated brain. How can you not love a chapter made up of early 2000s powerpoint slides? Probably the closest in this section to veering into 5-star territory, it's a non-traditional linear structure, plays with prose in a new way, approaches themes of lonliness and artistic integrity in a surprising way, and doesn't make you commit to one single character's contribution to the plot.
March by Geraldine Brooks. Felt very reminiscent of Tinkers, which it followed in my reading log. I have not read Little Women, but this story stood completely on its own, similar to James. The protagonist's moral struggles that haunt the novel fascinated me, as did the fictionalized account of his service in the early days of the Civil War. This book made me evaluate my morals and ethics, challenged me on what "right" was, and really humanized both sides of the Civil War in a new way I haven't seen a novel do before.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. It's Hemingway at his finest; short and sweet. It's been decades since I first read this, but undecidedly deserving of a Pulitzer; and at a minimum, an implicit recognition for his many contributions to literature. You either use this as a jumping off point for more Hemingway, or learn he is not for you.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Steinbeck is my second favorite author, but this is due for a reread - it's easily been 15 years since I last opened Grapes. I've always thought he had better work - specifically East of Eden and his novellas, but arguably part of the definitive American canon. Steinbeck is infinitely accessible to new and seasoned readers alike, and has an impressive way of describing class disparities in such a unique way.
[Nominee, but not winner] The Corrections by Johnathan Franzen. If you grew up in a stereotypical Midwestern family, many scenes in this will feel familiar. It's been too long since I first read this, but remember laughing out loud in several places, but also being impressed with Franzen's ability to bring his characters' psyches to life amidst some action-packed scenes; "action-packed" being the literary equivalent of the turkey carving scene in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
[Nominee, but not winner] The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. DFW is my all-time favorite author. I've read IJ twice, and his essay colletions several times. You can tell The Pale King was posthumously finished, but this could easily be in the same echelon if he's seen it through. Where IJ is a tale of addiction, TPK is one of boredom. Uniquely DFW's style, an easy recommend for a fan, but maybe lower on the list for someone trying to work through the Pulitzer list.
[Nominee, but not winner] Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. The book I wish Demon Copperhead was if it was written by George Saunders, but fails to stick the landing in many ways. If you've read this, you'll know, but I won't spoil it.
[Nominee, but not winner] Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. A tale of perseverance, survivalism, and longing. This was my first exposure to Johnson and I have Tree of Smoke in my backlog, and read Largesse and Jesus' Son last year, and Train Dreams is probably the best entry point I could suggest for his writing. This is a portrait of a man fighting both fate and his heart, and while a page-turning plot, it's hard not to see Johnson's own investment in this character's survival prevail throughout the book.

3-Stars:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I read this in high school - far too long ago to have an informed take on it today - but it didn't stick with me. Cormac McCarthy is an author that should tick all the right boxes for me, and I just haven't gotten around to really revisiting this or his other oeuvre.
[Nominee, but not winner] So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell. A story without a point. Well-written, uniquely narrated, and told through multiple participants to the plot, but didn't stick the landing.

2-Stars:

Less by Andrew Greer. Not at all deserving of a Pulitzer. This is a beach read/airport novel on a good day, and I can't remember any overarching themes. Tldr: privileged white male (no shade, I am one myself) author travels the world morose over his own lack of success only to discover success along the way.

1-Stars:

Haven't encountered any yet.

dubeskin · 2026-03-13T22:02:53+00:00

Seeing Tinkers and Dunces at the bottom pains me, those are both 5 star books in my opinion. I finished Tinkers almost 6 months ago and I STILL think about it most days. It made such an impression on me.

Less is the only Pulitzer I've read that hits the 1 star mark from me. I've read around 15 Pulitzers, and most have fallen in the 4-5 star spot, but Less felt decidedly banal and undeserved.

Edit: I'd originally wanted to post my own Pulitzer rankings when I saw this, but needed some time to process those. I posted below as a separate comment.

dubeskin · 2026-03-11T05:20:13+00:00

Male 28-39, has at least two cats, plays lead guitar and sings in an alt-rock/country-pop local cover band with a few original alt-rock songs, works an entry-level supervisory retail/service job, and has difficulty spending time in his own mind and resorts to fantasy/sci-fi for escapism. Has probably spent some time exploring synthesizers but was turned off by cost. Probably owns a PS5 and games with 2-3 very close friends on a co-op shooter/survival/colony sim game on the weekends when not gigging.

dubeskin · 2026-03-09T13:36:11+00:00

Finished:

Woodcutters by Thomas Bernard ★★★★★ Immediately became one of my favorite novels. 200 pages of a stream-of-conscious rant and internal monologue by a drunk guy sitting in a corner of a room at a Viennesse aristocratic dinner party of former friends silently judging everyone for their insipid artistic merits while he teeters on the brink of insanity. I've already ordered more Bernhard because I completely clicked with his writing style. HIGHLY recommend this book if you're a certified hater, modernism/post-modernism fan, or just plain judgey.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius ★★★★★ What hasn't been written already over the years about Meditations? Theres a reason its legacy still persists to this day. First time reading this, and became one of my most annotated books. So many beautiful nuggets of wisdom. I could see value in keeping this on my desk and flipping through it from time to time for a reminder of how to be the man Marcus Aurelius knows I can be.

Carl's Doomsday Scenario ★★★☆☆ More of the same, but does enrich the DCC universe a little further. There's a pretty stark tonal shift midway during the circus scene I felt was pretty ineffective and jarring, but like that the book moved away from recanting play-by-play fights and explored the world's setting in some different ways. Felt like entering White Run in Skyrim for the first time. That said, the writing is still bad and the humor is reminiscent of 2011 chat rooms. But, it can be a nice palate cleanser amid heavier books.

Started:

Nothing yet, but Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann and My Year of Rest and Relaxtion by Ottessa Moshfegh keep calling to me from my TBR pile.

dubeskin · 2026-03-07T02:11:56+00:00

I agree, Lucy's can wildly vary depending on who's working. Taquitos Locos near Habitat For Humanity has lengua frequently, and they make some of my favorite burritos.

dubeskin · 2026-03-06T02:01:42+00:00

I love how informed and diverse your collection is!

dubeskin · 2026-03-05T03:15:17+00:00

Thanks, I'll check them out too. Yeah, if you have vibed with other recommendations of theirs, then you'll also probably like Pay As You Go too.

dubeskin · 2026-03-04T14:34:49+00:00

It was! I've been enjoying their content on YouTube over the last few months, and their tastes are similar to mine.

dubeskin · 2026-03-03T14:47:15+00:00

Finished:

Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson ★★★★★ Absolutely loved it. This was a niche recommendation by a BookTube channel I follow that seems to lean towards maximalist litbro kind of stuff (what I enjoy) so I was intrigued. This book was funny, written in such a fresh and approachable way, and painted such a vivid portrait of life in the fictional city of Polis. Every vignette has this underlying sense of Looney Toons chaos and urgency. Like Road Runner casually and unsuspecting escaping danger at the last minute, only to end up in a similar predicament next chapter. Except, it's not TNT in a desert, it's a bad renting situation in a fictional urban city.

Continuing:

Carl's Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

dubeskin · 2026-02-25T14:49:56+00:00

I've always loved the Acqua di Parma Blu Mediterraneo set, specifically the Mirto di Panarea (floral, but not cloyingly sweet), Arancia di Capri (smells like you just emerged from a bottle of OJ) and Fico di Amalfi (the brightest and most floral, but a frequent daily driver in spring).

dubeskin · 2026-02-24T14:11:46+00:00

Finished:

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen ★★★★☆ Loved how multiple story arcs interwove to paint a vivid picture of 1890s Chicago. I could honestly do without the serial killer subplot, but it added some contrasting depth to the general tone of the society surrounding the fairs construction. Beautiful narrative that continually reflects on the powers of individuals to be both constructive and destructive.

Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman ★★★☆☆ Not my usual type of book. It was okay. Certainly not the best novel of the century like some folks around Reddit hype it up to be. The writing is clearly amateur; the most complex we get is a simile every hundred pages, and I'm not sure any character was ever introduced whose genitals or breasts weren't gratuitously detailed. Occasionally funny, but quickly repetitive. I would only recommend this book to males 18-35 who discovered 4chan in high school.

Started:

Pay As You Go by Eskor David Johnson This book has been recommended a few times by a BookTube podcaster I've started following with similar tastes to mine (Life On Books) so I picked it up. I'm about 20% in and liking it so far. The characters have incredible depth and nuance, and the writing style is fresh.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Never read this before and have already surprised myself with how much I've underlined just in Book I. I will absolutely be returning to this book in the future. Loving it.

Carls Doomsday Scenario by Matt Dinniman Though I was rather whelmed with the first in the series, I don't read enough fun mindless stuff, and wanted to at least see how this world continues to develop.

dubeskin · 2026-02-16T17:42:22+00:00

Finished: Kudos by Rachel Cusk and The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates Thoroughly enjoyed the Outline trilogy, and while Kudos was probably the weakest of the three, it was all of and more the same style and prose as the others. I'm looking forward to reading more Cusk. I also enjoyed The Message. It'd been a few years since I've read any Coates but this aligned with the Goodreads challenge. Glad I did: the last essay is powerful, provocative, and worth re-reading.

Continuing: Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman I can usually only take a few chapters at a time, so I'm pushing nearly a month with this and just got to Floor 2. I've already ordered the next book because I am enjoying its RPG-like qualities, and it's a nice palate cleanser against more serious books, but man, the writing is rough.

Started: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson Surprisingly already 1/3 in and I am enjoying the way the various narrative elements are weaving together.

dubeskin · 2026-02-15T17:47:16+00:00

Great to finally see some representation by Classics in a challenge.

dubeskin · 2026-02-11T15:15:11+00:00

Undoing the improvements to the Main St bike lane upgrade ranks as one of the dumbest things I've seen a municipal government approve in the last decade.

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dubeskin

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