January 2022

 Had a good first month of 2022.

So here are the January reads:

• Rogue Protocol, by Martha Wells. Yep, kept up Murderbot. 
• Three Novels, by Nina Berberova. Can't remember who reviewed this (Neglected Books, maybe?) but it sounded great so bought it. Great cover, too. The three novels are really novellas. I think my favorite was The Resurrection of Mozart.
• Slaughterhouse-5, by Kurt Vonnegut. Out-freaking-standing. Will watch the film, someday. But the clips I saw...boy oh boy, so '70s.
• Exit Strategy, by M. Wells. Murderbot continued.
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk. I started to get annoyed at it and then the ending. Really good book.
• The Gallery, by John Horne Burns. Can't decide if I like this one or one of two others this month. This one is in my favorite genre of war novels. This one is unique and wonderful.
• Campusland, by Scott Johnston. Great satire on our current state of universities. I unfortunately have experience, through two of my kids, with at least two of the situations that Johnston brings up in this book.
• Ten Years in a Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books, by Nick Hornby. This one took me a while, but because I'd just read a few of his articles every few days.
• Player Piano, by K. Vonnegut. Strange. His first novel (?). One of the best scenes which explains today.
• Peter Pan, by J.M Barrie. Why did I wait this long to read this great book?
• The Falcon and the Snowman, by Robert Lindsey. Crazy story. Surprised me when I realized near the end that the story was real!

Speaking of Murderbot, yes, I'm planning on reading more. But when I finished #4 I learned that there is a #4.5, a short story written by Wells. And I've had it on a library hold for weeks, but it just came in a few days ago. It's only 19 pages long, but you'll be damn sure I'm going to count it. ;)

Now, for the January buys:

• The Children of Men, by PD James. Read this decades ago and loved it. Looking forward to reading it again.
• Whiteout, by Ragnar Jonasson. 99 cents, can't pass it up. 
• People of the Book, by Geraldrine Brooks. Haven't read a bad review of any Brooks book. Can't pass this one up.
• Zodiac, by Neal Stephenson. Any chance I get to buy a Stephenson book for two bucks or less, I do it. Love his writing.
• Slaughterhouse-5. So here's the deal. I chose this for our family book club. I read it from a library eBook loan. Then it expired. Then my wife wanted to read it, and it was on a weeks-long hold at the library. So I bought this in Kindle version. This is the only book in January I bought at full price ($8).
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, by Vonnegut. This is the next recommended Vonnegut book after Player Piano.
• PG Wodehouse Collection v.2: The Blandings Collection. One Audible credit for all the Blandings books read by Stephen Fry?! Hell yeah, sign me up!
• Gulag: A History, by Anne Applebaum. THE history of the Soviet's gulag system. 

Not bad, considering.