Book report for August 2026

Completed

• Lonesome Traveler, Jack Kerouac. The usual Kerouac ride. When he was at his best, he was acutely observant, brave in his willingness to see how far he could stretch a sentence, and forthright about the dinginess of so much of his life. To this reader’s relief, this time out he refrained from romanticizing squalor and aimlessness, and delivered two exceptional chapters—one on being at sea, the other on working as a fire lookout in the Cascades—that redeem the tedium of other parts.
• Owls and Other Fantasies, Mary Oliver. I have never read anything written by Mary Oliver that I didn’t like, and never read an essay of hers that I didn’t admire. She is never poor, and frequently superb.

• Valuable Humans in Transit, qntm. Clever stories from the author of There is No Antimemetics Division, who goes by Sam Hughes in the rest of his life. Uneven but enjoyable.

In progress

• These Truths, Jill Lepore. It’s taking a while because I stop every three or four pages to make notes. I am constantly impressed by Lepore.
• The Best American Essays 2007, David Foster Wallace (ed.).
• Grendel, John Gardner. Been on my shelves forever and a year, finally getting a read.

• Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry, Jane Hirshfield. More assiduous note-making slowing my progress. It’s worth it. I love this sort of book.

Abandoned

• Visions of Cody, Jack Kerouac. Retelling of On the Road that was promising for its first 60 pages; then the author lost control as he was prone to do. By pg. 94 I had hit the “life’s too short” threshold.
• Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, Geoff Dyer. I enjoyed Dyer’s fictional But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz, but his reputation as an essayist baffles me. A dozen pieces into this anthology, I’d had enough. No insight, no interesting prose, no merit at all that I could see. As I’ve already noted, life’s too short.
• The Last Movement, Robert Seethaler. A fictional account of a battered Gustav Mahler wrestling with one last composition sounded like something I’d take to. But after 30 pages of not one sentence I could’t have written myself, I quit. See last sentence of two previous notes.