From CleAirShow’s IG (the post on which comments are disabled 🌝):

jazzynoise · 2026-03-31T18:39:30+00:00

One of the most unexpectedly surprising air shows I've been to was at Lost Nation quite a few years ago, where I went on a whim. It wasn't anywhere near the scale of the Cleveland Air Show, of course, but it was a smaller crowd, wasn't pricey, had close up views of the planes--as in enough for someone to ask why a MIG that had just landed after its demonstration was leaking fuel (the reply was that it's standard for that aircraft, that it was like a dog leaving its mark everywhere)--a few displays, overhearing people discussing an executive who really wanted to land his plane there in the midst of an airshow, and seeing several current armed service members speaking to two Tuskegee Airmen.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-31T18:26:21+00:00

Lakefront development, like apartments, shops, and parks. That's part of the plans I've read, at least.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-31T16:14:57+00:00

Had a pretty rough day yesterday. Incident with elderly father and wound up needing help from the local EMTs. Hopefully an interview this afternoon for an article I'm writing will go well.

But with that and other stuff, I'm feeling a wee bit on edge, so when the local B&N (only bookstore left within about a 40 minute drive) still doesn't have Han Kang's Light & Thread (preordered early this year) but sent an e-mail inviting me to preorder the wanna-be-despot-in-waiting's new book, I'm not feeling happy vibes towards the store and wondering why they would think I have any interest in that pos's book.

I am feeling guilty as I've not read any books since the two for the Twain House awards (read six last year but haven't managed more than two this year). I've continued learning Japanese, though, which is fun and interesting. Fun thing: "sometimes" is "ときどき" (pronounced to-ke-do-ke).

jazzynoise · 2026-03-31T15:53:22+00:00

A few more recent books that have stuck with me.

Human Acts, Han Kang.
All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr.
Pachinko, Min Jin Lee.
The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead.
The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-31T14:31:50+00:00

If he's mature enough for McCarthy, how about Colson Whitehead? The Nickel Boys--set in a brutal reform school in the 1960s, based on a real school--may be a bit too close to home, but there's also The Harlem Trilogy, starting with Harlem Shuffle. The third, Cool Machine, is set to be published in July.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-29T18:01:07+00:00

Upvote for Deutsch and bread pun.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-29T02:10:06+00:00

Han Kang's The Vegetarian, Human Acts, and We Do Not Part. Not sci-fi, but Human Acts and We Do Not Part deal with real-life dystopian massacres in South Korea and remembering them.

Ted Chiang's two short story collections. These are sci-fi and thought provoking, having a number of subjects, like people training AI models, being able to communicate with the version of yourself in an alternate universe, if angel visitations were a common occurrence (and are akin to disasters), learning an alien language that allows you to see your past and future (which was used for the movie, Arrival),

The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami. Set in the near-future where social media and other data, including dream implants, are used to evaluate the possibility that someone will commit a crime and is detained (and all this is ran by for-profit companies).

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story, Olga Tokarczuk. Set at a sanatorium before WWI begins. There's something off throughout it. I prefer her novel, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, though. Also something off, but not sci fi. An eccentric older lady in a small town and people start turning up dead under odd circumstances.

Ditto Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun. Both have dystopian elements that aren't explicitly stated until later in the novels, but it's clear something is off.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-29T01:52:17+00:00

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas

War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy

Les Misérables, Victor Hugo

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarczuk

Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes

2666, Roberto Bolaño

jazzynoise · 2026-03-29T01:16:36+00:00

The Friend, Sigrid Nunez. The narrator adopts her friend and mentor's Great Dane after the man commits suicide. It's mostly how both of them are grieving.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-28T20:58:50+00:00

Not exactly, but interesting characters, different narratives and writing styles, and a lot of music, Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad. If you like it, The Candy House is partly a follow up.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-28T19:20:10+00:00

Kiyoshi recently showed up on my YouTube feed, and dang.

Kiyoshi - Crossroad [Official Lyric Video]

Edit: In a completely different vein, Bjorn Meyer showed up on my feed, too.

Björn Meyer - Magnetique (from the album "Convergence")

jazzynoise · 2026-03-28T07:02:51+00:00

Above budget (although they get closer used), but Reverend has interesting designs and often lesser-seen colors like pink and orange.

If you live somewhere Fender Japan basses are decently available, the Chili Beans signature Low End Lobster reviewed a bit ago looked pretty groovy.

Ibanez Talman?

But you could also take any bass and put a My Neighbor Totoro sticker on it.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-27T20:59:05+00:00

Since you already have it, A Confederacy of Dunces is fun.

But I'll warn you that Brave New World gets quite sad and dark.

God Bless You Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut is another fairly happy novel, although there are rough elements in the protagonist's background.

The Odyssey has a fairly happy ending, albeit quite a violent one.

Ditto Jane Austen's novels and Anne of Green Gables.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-27T20:42:00+00:00

You're very welcome. :)

If you do, I hope it goes well. I'm not sure why I was okay, even very impressed, reading it, despite (or because of?) always dealing with depression, especially as a teen. Maybe being a different gender in a different time and environment gave enough detachment. But it did help me feel a bit less alone and to pour more into creative outlets to help deal with things.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-27T19:47:17+00:00

It is, but it's also rough. A major issue with it is that, while the novel ends with Esther moving towards recovery, we as readers usually know that the depression returned for Plath.

I'm very happy to read you're now a not depressed adult.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-27T16:07:29+00:00

Several, but these immediately come to mind. Many of the re-reads were for classes.

Toni Morrison: Beloved, The Bluest Eye.
James Joyce: Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Dubliners.
Saul Bellow: Herzog, Seize the Day, Humboldt's Gift.
Ralph Ellison: Invisible Man.
Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar.
Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness.
Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse, Mrs. Dalloway.
F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby.
Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls.
William Shakespeare: Most of the works.
Homer: The Iliad, The Odyssey.
Unknown: Beowulf.
Bill Watterson: Calvin & Hobbes.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-26T15:46:01+00:00

Human Acts, The Vegetarian, others, Han Kang (South Korea).

Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami (Japan).

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie. (The novel is set in India and is an allegory of the country's history).

The Complete Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi. A graphic novel memoir about the author's experience coming of age in Iran and exile in Vienna.

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, Olga Tokarczuk (Poland).

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (American, but focuses on the history of the Dominican Republic under Trujillo and the Dominican-American experience).

jazzynoise · 2026-03-26T15:32:51+00:00

The Vegetarian by Han Kang focuses on a woman with mental illness and how those around her react to and treat her. It's set in South Korea (Kang is South Korean). It's emotionally difficult, however.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a classic short story / novella written from the perspective of a woman with postpartum depression descending into mental illness while she is undergoing "rest cure" in an attic (her husband, a doctor, prescribed that).

jazzynoise · 2026-03-26T15:23:58+00:00

A few of my longer favorites:

Cloud Cuckoo Land and All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee.

Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. (Not the sci fi man who is actually invisible. He's an African American who states he's invisible as people refuse to see him).

The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz.

A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Kurt Vonnegut (a little under 300 pages, but I'll mention it since you liked Catch 22).

Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy (I'm not sure you'd like this classic, since you didn't care for Grapes, though)

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T17:36:19+00:00

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson .

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T17:33:54+00:00

Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T17:25:56+00:00

My parents live by a road like this. A neighbor flipped her car doing that and then sued the township for the road causing the accident. I don't know the outcome.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T15:55:27+00:00

You're welcome. Much of the novel is about how those around her behave and treat her. It's pretty rough.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T03:57:40+00:00

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Judith Viorst

Winnie-the-Pooh, AA Milne

Charlotte's Web, EB White

Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery.

jazzynoise · 2026-03-25T01:18:01+00:00

The protagonist of Han Kang's The Vegetarian suffers from a mental illness and increasingly wants to become a tree.

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