I had no idea

 When I downloaded The Falcon and the Snowman years ago, for $1.99 no less, I thought it would be a good fiction read sometime in the future. I put it on my BookTube for their latest spin and the number I had it by was picked. So when I finished Player Piano, I opened Falcon.

Within a few dozen pages I thought it was odd. Anything in quotes was couched with "he'd reflect years later," or something similar. About half-way through I thought the author was pretty clever writing this novel like it was non-fiction. It was only at the very end that I began to realize this 70's era spy game had, in fact, really happened.

I'd seen the film in the 80's and recall liking it. (Learned a long time ago that just because I liked a film in my younger days doesn't mean it's still good; I present The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh into evidence.) Figured it was based loosely on real espionage cases, but never did I think it was real. Sure enough, it was.

As dear reader(s) know, I don't like looking up or Wikipediaing peoples and places before or even while reading, likewise I don't read introductions to books. I save all that for the end. Sure as sh!t, the minute I finished, I looked the main character, The Falcon, up. He's still alive. That's all I'll say as to avoid spoilers. And yes, he's very much into falconry. 

And yes, I see the irony of everything I've written above after seeing the subtitle on the cover above.

After Falcon, I picked up A School for Fools, by Sokolov. Ugh! Stupid stream of consciousness writing. I hate that. Wish I'd known that's how it was written before I put it on my TBR and had it pop up for my Reading Randomizer for 2022. Oh well. I also then picked up The Abstinence Teacher, by Perrotta. (Oh how I loved his Election; read it years ago on a minibus in Kyrgyzstan en route from Bishkek to Karakol.) I got it out of the library a week ago after reading in Hornby that it was good. Gave it a good 30 pages, and could see that it was going to be yet another Right vs. Left book where of course one side is (always) wrong and stupid and humorless and the other is ever so smart and educated and never-wrong. Bleck. 

Back to my Kindle, to the myriad books my wife and I have accumulated over the years, and then I thought: Mieville. He's never done me wrong. At least, not after the three of his I've loved. So I started Embassytown. And. I. Love it! Phew! Thought I'd be without a book for a while.