CITY OF GLASS (Auster, 1985)

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First of three in Auster's collected NEW YORK TRILOGY: a certain affinity with / understanding of Quinn's plight – like the fictional Auster, I would have done the same thing as Quinn, especially in those periods of post-project / post-life ennui. While an incalculable number have attempted to elevate the detective novel to literary prominence, few have risen above their own pretensions: Auster nails it and then some. One of my favorite books from one of my favorite writers. Will return to the trilogy for GHOSTS, the second, after chipping away at the to-read stack a bit more: wonderful way to transition between books.

THE ADVENTURES OF DICK TRACY, DETECTIVE (Big Little Book No. 707, December 1932)

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Filed under: a very very very very very good mail day: the first (in spite of the spine number) Big Little Book ever produced, December 1932, the product of a single print run testing out a new type of narrative delivery system amidst the throes of the Great Depression, featuring the object of my second obsession, the titular detective, is now in my hands (minus ten opening pages and a spine, but I don’t care: it’s lived a well-loved life and now I can give it a home):

To put its place in history into perspective: the titular character was only a year old; FDR had been elected in a landslide but had yet to be inaugurated (for the first time); and both of my grandfathers – whose influences sent me on the lifelong obsessions represented in this tiny package – were eight, quite possibly the same age I was when they collectively triggered this obsession.

I'll be writing more about this treasure, both its history and its creative (and personal) significance to me, in Sunday's newsletter but I wanted to record its date of arrival here.

Oh, this is a good day.

CASTE: THE ORIGINS OF OUR DISCONTENTS (Wilkerson, 2020)

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I've been reticent to write this one not because I'm cowed by the subject matter and my own lack of life experience in it (read: my middle-aged white-guy-ness), but because my own words are insufficient to extol the virtue of anything Wilkerson so powerfully (she is a staggeringly brilliant writer – between this and THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS, her voice is a gift to reading and undestanding) says; indeed, my bracketing system got a workout (!, especially) as Wilkerson tore off the blinders of a centuries-old systemic design to reveal the depths of this country's ongoing crimes against humanity.

Side note: intrigued to see what Ava DuVernay does with her film adaptation, especially since CASTE doesn't seem to be the most filmic of Wilkerson's two works (WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS – equally essential – takes that honor).

Anyhow: read it / absorb it / internalize it / do better; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here.