27 and 1/2. Ever so slightly ahead of my one per week goal for the year. *Clockers-Richard Price *10:04-Ben Lerner *Lexicon-Max Barry *Inherent Vice-Thomas Pynchon *Killing Yourself To Live-Chuck Klosterman *The Ask-Sam Lipsyte *The Moving Target-Ross McDonald (re-read) *American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America-Chris Hedges *The Death of Sweet Mister-Daniel Woodrell (re-read) *Rule of the Bone-Russell Banks *Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance-all by Jeff VanderMeer *The Forever War-Joe Haldeman *Blank Spots on the Map: The Dark Geography of the Pentagon's Secret World-Trevor Paglen *The Barbarous Coast-Ross McDonald *Home Land-Sam Lipsyte *The Wycherly Woman-Ross McDonald *The Crying of Lot 49-Thomas Pynchon (re-read) *The Glass Key-Dashiell Hammett (re-read) *The Drowned World-J.G. Ballard *Station Eleven-Emily St. John Mandel *Election-Tom Perrotta *The Wasp Factory-Iain Banks *Fay-Larry Brown *Stoner-John Williams *Sideways-Rex Pickett *No Place To Hide-Glenn Greenwald (halfway-through) My favorites among things that were new to me were the VanderMeer trilogy, Station Eleven, both Lipsyte books and Lexicon by Max Barry. Sideways is a fine movie which I thoroughly enjoyed but the novel basically sucks. The plot is very close to the movie but the writing . . . uggh, over the top, trying too hard, over-written, using big/obscure words when simple words would do just to impress us with his huge vocabulary I guess. Stoner, Wasp Factory, and 10:04, I enjoyed them but none lived up to the hype I had heard/read about each beforehand. If you don't know Ross McDonald but like Hammett and Chandler you should get your hands on some a.s.a.p. He's their more prolific, but less known little brother.