View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View Last 5 Columns or Column Index)

MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.  https://booktoot.club/@nagletx. (Mastodon) and nagletx.bsky.social. (Blue Sky). See also my annotated list of litbloggers/book reviewers.

My Personville Press sells literary titles (mainly short stories) at budget prices (and several freebies). Gradually I have been doing “elevator pitch” videos on YouTube summarizing several of these ebooks in three minutes or so.

Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited and NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Here is my article about methods and search queries I use to locate ebook deals. See also: Indie Author Spotlight, Interviews by RJN,

Note about Reviews

As I was compiling a list of a chronological list of my columns, I totally forgot that I had started a different category, Robert’s Raves and Reviews which would link to book reviews by myself and others. I only did two or three of those columns (it seemed easier to roll everything into my Robert’s Roundup column. But book reviews often can be readable and interesting for their own sake (quite apart from the book), so I think I will do more of these. I recently created a list of book bloggers and book reviewers which should allow me to read more reviews (which I’ll link to at the bottom of this post). Stay tuned.

It’s actually a big deal, but I’ve decided to stop buying ebooks from Amazon whenever possible. Practically speaking, a lot of books and authors are discounted only on Amazon, so I have no choice but to buy things there sometimes. I’m spending maybe 75% less on Amazon.

Mini-Report: Armadillo in Austin

For once in a blue moon, I am attending a writers’ conference — ArmadilloCon 2026 in Austin, A lot of the authors are also on bluesky and many have domains (unlike literary authors, who have trouble figuring those things out).

Actually I will focus more on sci fi authors than normal.

Armadillo Authors

Rudy Rucker is a distinguished mathematician, computer scientist, sci fi author who will be attending. I am currently reading “Mad Professor” story collection. I’m also browsing through his Complete Stories. If I can get access to it, I might also read through his Collected Essays.

Other authors and Organizations

• Tachyon Publications, a nice well-established publisher of sci fi,
• Josh Rountree. (Home) Austin-based scifi/horror author; mainly story writer
• William Ledbetter (Home, W), Dallas-based sci fi

Critics/Editors/Etc

• Paul Weimer (from Nerds of a Feather) Reviewer, critic,

Articles and Essays

Collection of interviews with SF authors from the 1970s on Tangent Online. Included Ray Bradbury, Alfred Bester, Clifford Simak, Ben Bova.

Speaking of Zachary Gillan, here’s a longish piece he wrote for Ancillary ROB connecting weird fiction to fighting fascism.

The lack of this closure is one of the hallmarks of weird fiction. The inexplicability and productive ambiguity emphasized within the mode ensures that the unsettlement of the narrative is mirrored for both character and reader, avoiding closure for either, thereby channeling Robert Aickman’s dictum that an effective piece of weird fiction “must open a door, preferably where no one had previously noticed a door to exist; and at the end, leave it open, or, possibly, ajar.” Weird fiction doesn’t enclose discordant energies or possibilities; it thrives in their ungraspability.

Jesse Hudson’s index of SF book reviews on Speculiction is exhaustive .

Emily Barton has an insightful essay about the importance of plot in novels. She also links to a great essay by John Barth (a former teacher of mine), “Incremental Perturbation: How to Know whether you’ve got a plot or not.” (PDF)

Media / Podcasts

Here’s a delightful and penetrating 1995 radio program & interview featuring Barbara Kingsolver and Mary Lee Settle. (58 minutes, YT)

4 hours of Norton lectures with Borges(with subtitles even though they are unnecessary)(YT). Here’s another lecture 48 minutes (YT) and an interview with William Buckley (YT).

Quite randomly, I noticed several YT lectures with poetry professor & critic Helen Vendler. Here’s a 60 minute lecture of Wallace Stevens (YT) and a two part video lecture about poetry (Part 1, Part 2)

I’ve been watching podcasts/video interviews with Eric Maisel (Home) who is a counselor with a background in working with creative types. He’s an existential wellness coach; here are some talks (YT 1, YT2, YT3, YT4, ) Probably others as well. His blog has lots of short posts on the creativity/coping process.

Coode Street Podcast is a distinguished SF podcast that’s been around since 2010. Mostly author interviews, but also general topics. This year, Kelly Link and Jeffrey Ford discuss Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles

Under the Radar

Primal Urge by Brian W. Aldiss.

Winter Run by Robert Ashcom. Acclaimed novel of 1940s Virginia boyhood.

Man in the Orange Suit and other Stories by Don Auber.

Sneaker Wave by Jeff Beamish.

Charity Girl: A Nellie Bly Novelette by David Blixt.

Book of Dead Birds Novel by Gayle Brandeis. (Home, Interview), Winner of Bellwether Prize. With great beauty and lyricism, The Book of Dead Birds captures a young woman’s struggle to come to terms with her mother’s terrible past while she searches for her own place in the world. While the writing can be breezy and lightweight for such gravitas, the plight of the mother and daughter is still heartbreaking. (Kirkus)

Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk by Johnny Bush. Memoir of Texas musician Johnny Bush (who wrote “Whiskey River” and sang and performed with several country bands).

Amigoland by Oscar Casares.

Hell or High Water by Joy Castro.

This is the Way Novel by Gavin Corbett.

Opium and Other Stories by Geza Csath. I’d actually read this book in college. It’s a classic story collection by this Hungarian author known for pessimism and dark imagination. (He killed himself at 31). Angela Carter wrote, “Csáth’s short stories are and extraordinary, uneasy mixture of sentimentality, sadism, and sexual repressions—nasty tales, not dissimilar to some of the fictions of the contemporary United States and United Kingdom, both countries in which the collective dream has, latterly, also broken down under the impact of too much reality. During Csáth’s lifetime Sigmund Freud, the scrutineer of dreams, built up the enormous hypothesis of the unconscious in Vienna, the greatest city of the empire, which encompassed Hungary, Csáth’s homeland, more and more uneasy. It is difficult to read Csáth, a specialist in ‘nervous disorders’ himself, without thinking of Freud’s analysis of the subtext of human experience…. [An] opium addict and therefore a specialist in dreams, [Csáth] wrote short stories comfortless as bad dreams, sometimes decorating them languorously with art-nouveau impedimenta of lilies, lotuses, and sulphurous magic, at other times relating them in the cool, neutral language of the case-book. He was also a doctor. No real contradiction here; the medical profession not only offers a free access to narcotics but often, since it involves considerable exposure to human suffering, implicitly invites their use.”—

Dungeon Crawler Carl: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 1 by Matt Dinniman. This LitRPG novel was talked about glowingly at ArmadilloCon (esp. the audiobook version).

Three by Echenoz by Jean Echenoz.

Myself with Others: Selected Essays by Carlos Fuentes. (I actually read this book too in print form, but wanted a digital copy).

The Cosmology of the Wider World by Jeffrey Ford. (W, Home) Story about a Minotaur (!?) In his review of the novel, Tony Keen writes, “Unusual, red of claw, and, at 173 pages, refreshingly short, The Cosmology of the Wider World is a charming divertissement that should appeal both to the regular SF audience and to those who enjoy the fantastic but affect not to.” (Another review on Speculiction). Here’s a YT panel discussion of Ford’s works (YT, 51 minutes) Strangely, his first trilogy “Well-Built City” is not available as an ebook even though an audiobook is available. Zachary Gillan has written a nice discussion about reading the trilogy at the eve of American fascism. FYI I just listened to a nice interview with Ford on Coode Street Podcast.He’s a lot of fun and is proud of his story collections. I ended up buying Best of Jeffrey Ford (181K words!) for $4 directly from the PS Publishing website (in UK). This compilation is available at Kobo and PS Publishing, but not Amazon — horray!

Kissing the Virgin’s Mouth by Donna M. Gershten.

The House Gun by Nadime Gordimer. Mixed reviews, but second-rate Gordimer is still first rate fiction. “Nadine Gordimer, too, in her most recent novel, The House Gun, has written astutely about post-apartheid violence in her parable of a white man who murders his lover and then is defended in court by a black lawyer.”

Symbiography: A Novella by William Hjortsberg (W, Obit)

History on a Personal Note: Stories by Binnie Kirshenbaum (Home, W). (In RR #46 I also obtained Disturbance in One Place (still on sale) Here’s an interview with Mary Wang on Guernicamag. BK on separating fiction from memoir: It takes courage to write memoir, to expose your vulnerabilities to the world, to risk being judged or the subject of gossip. To write fiction takes patience and fortitude to fend off the assumptions that our novels are memoirs. Of course, this doesn’t always happen. Along with the aforementioned speculative fiction, I doubt anyone thought that Tolstoy was Anna Karenina or that Flaubert was Madame Bovary. Even when he made the claim, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi,” what he meant was that we all are Madame Bovary, that in one way or another, we all are dissatisfied with our lives. Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary are Istina.

Birds of Paradise Lost by Andrew Lam.

Two novels by Joan London: Gilgamesh and Good Parents.

Fake Creativity: a Novel by Blake Loch.

Awakening by Joseph Lyttleton.

Human Nature by Kate Marvel.

Angel Maker: Short stories of Sara Maitland. 1996). Kirkus says, “The metaphysics of feminism and the baroque influence of the late Angela Carter are weighty presences in this generally accomplished collection of 30 stories by British author Maitland (Ancestral Truths, 1994), etc. A suave, amused narrative voice–sometimes first-person, sometimes omniscient, unafraid to address the reader directly–is a virtual constant in these witty, skillfully woven tales, whose variety and vitality are compromised chiefly by a recurring (and off-putting) impression of smugness.”

Sharpshooter Blues by Lewis Nordan.

Herodotus and the Question Why by Christopher Pelling. In the fifth century BCE, Herodotus wrote the first known Western history to build on the tradition of Homeric storytelling, basing his text on empirical observations and arranging them systematically. Herodotus and the Question Why offers a comprehensive examination of the methods behind the Histories and the challenge of documenting human experiences, from the Persian Wars to cultural traditions.

Dominique’s Journey by D.J. Pratt.

Woman with the Bouquet by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt. (translated from French). (I have several of this author’s collections). Kirkus says of this story collection: llluminating stories about the everyday—self-image, problematic relationships, the need for love—marred only by Schmitt’s unfortunate tendency to use heavy-handed irony in the stories’ conclusions.

The Escape by Adam Thirlwell.

Pleasure House by Kitty Thomas. Unapologetic Smut.

Portable Promised Land Stories by Toure. (Home, W) First story collection in the mythical Soul City . “Agreeably shocking, sharply perceptive, quite funny.” Kirkus. Toure is mainly an African-American journalist and music writer based in NY.

LBJ’s Neglected Legacy: How Lyndon Johnson Reshaped Domestic Policy and Government by Robert H. Wilson and others. (UT distinguished prof who was Deputy Assis Secretary of Defense under LBJ. )

Wild Fox Ridge: A Multi-Voice Literary Epic Across Time, Death, and Desire by Xuemo. (Home)

Blink and its Gone

Music: A Subversive History by Ted Goia.

Planet Funny by Ken Jennings. A pleasantly academic journey through the evolution of the American style of comedy.

Space between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson.

Complete Stories by Bernard Malamud. Been waiting forever for this collection to be discounted.

Library Purchases/Printed Books/Creative Commons

Standard Ebooks has been compiling a free download of winners from the Prix Femina—Vie Heureuse. Here’s a complete list of winners.

The Far-Away Bride by Stella Benson  (1892-1933) (W) 1931, Public domain. Fadedpage has a collection of her stories.

Thompson’s Cat by Robert Moore Williams. (W) PG Classic public domain sci fi novel from the 1950s about a space crew who land on an abandoned planet and find it overrun by insects. Seemed aimed at the younger reader.

Links to Older Columns

I have had fun revisiting old Robert’s Roundup Columns and seeing what books were coming onto my radar. My link to my columns shows the full text of my last 6 columns. That’s helpful for the person casually surfing this blog, but frankly it’s hell on my WordPress database. That makes it cumbersome to go to my archives.

To solve this problem and partly to make older columns easier to access, I have created an Index of all my Robert’s Roundup columns.

View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.  https://booktoot.club/@nagletx. (Mastodon) and nagletx.bsky.social. (Blue Sky).  See also my annotated list of litbloggers/book reviewers.

My Personville Press sells literary titles (mainly short stories) at budget prices (and several freebies). Gradually I have been doing “elevator pitch” videos on YouTube summarizing several of these ebooks in three minutes or so.

Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited and NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Here is my article about methods and search queries I use to locate ebook deals. See also: Indie Author Spotlight, Interviews by RJN and an Index of All my Columns.

Taking a Look Back

I just realized that the numbering of my columns is off by 1. This is actually the 60th Robert’s Roundup Column I wrote; the first one was specific to Smashwords and was unnumbered. I’m going to revisit the ebooks I obtained for each column. That column was particularly remarkable:

Introduction

Here’s a Gemini AI query I did about non-Kindle ebook platforms globally. Here’s another AI query about whether kids have a strong preference for more recent children’s books over classics (and things their parents recommend). The answer seems to be yes, especially because more recent books have more graphics and have more diverse themes (like handling emotional regulation, racial diversity and eco-awareness).

I never explained why I list some of my ebook purchases as Under the Radar and others as Blink and It’s Gone. Basically Blink and It’s Gone are ebooks which are rarely discounted. 90% of the time, these are books by known authors publishing by well-known publishers. In contrast, the Under the Radar titles are often by indie authors or self-published titles which I obtained either for free or for less than $1. In fact, some of the Under the Radar authors are very distinguished; sometimes a major publisher is publishing them, but for one reason or another, the prices are low and generally stay that low.

Frankly though, I pay a LOT MORE ATTENTION to the indie authors on Under the Radar than I do with the Blink and It’s Gone authors.

I produced two more “literary elevator pitches” for Jack Matthews ebooks. I show up myself in both videos near the end, but primarily it features Jack Matthews audio.

Articles/Essays

Some random reddit guy has been posting longish reviews of novels from each decade: the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, the 2010s, and the 2020s.

Humorist Dave Barry writes his own version of Nolan’s Odyssey movie.

David Wallace-Wells has second thoughts about the recent Atlantic article about reading habits:

You might assume, especially given social stereotypes and caricatures, that the reading decline would be concentrated among the young, with that turn away from books and toward phones therefore spelling doom for future literacy. You might think the problem would be exacerbated by schools and universities turning away from demanding reading curriculums and the arrival of artificial intelligence to do our reading for us. But in fact, young Americans are — according to this survey, at least — reading more than they did a couple of decades ago.

In 2003, for instance, Americans ages 15 to 24 read 8.4 minutes a day; in 2016 they read 7.8 minutes a day; and in 2022 they read 11.7 minutes a day. Also in 2003, those between the ages of 25 and 34 were reading 9.6 minutes a day; in 2016 that group read nine minutes a day; in 2025 they read 10.2 minutes a day. If these numbers represent a crisis, it doesn’t appear to be a new one.

Among Americans 65 and up, the base line is higher and the decline in time spent is larger, too: For decades, at least, the bulk of the country’s reading has been done by Americans in their golden years. In 2003, older Americans read on average just under an hour each day — 58.5 minutes. By last year, that had fallen nearly by half, to roughly 32.4 minutes each day, a drop that represents the lion’s share of overall reading declines. To the extent that we can talk about the decline of reading as a mass phenomenon, it seems concentrated not among the next generation but among the previous ones. The pattern may seem counterintuitive, but it echoes some other findings about social media use and disinformation: For all the hand-wringing about the effects of new technology on kids, the impacts may be just as corrosive, if not more so, on their grandparents. (Perhaps this is one reason The Wall Street Journal recently declared that “Dad Books Are a Dying Breed.”)

Death of a bookseller/rebel. Lam Wing-Kee was a Hong Kong bookstore owner imprisoned and who later denounced mainland China for keeping him locked up for 8 months. Here is a link to a longer profile Alex W. Palmer did of him in 2018.

Thurber Prize for American Humor (W). A surprisingly useful list.

I jokingly like to claim credit for helping to “discover” the literary talent of Joy Castro (because I begged her to submit a story to the undergraduate literary magazine of the university I attended (Trinity U). She has since established herself both as a literary academic and prolific author. Here’s a story she published a while back (titled “Betrayed”) about a trip she took down to Port Aransas and recalling an earlier trip she took there with an old boyfriend. Here’s a video (YT) of a talk & reading Castro gave about how her Cuban grandfather in Key West had worked a cigar factory as a lector. The lector’s role was to read aloud novels and leftist political ideology while the workers rolled tobacco into cigars. She used this setting as an inspiration for her 2023 novel ONE BRILLIANT FLAME (which she reads excerpts from). Here’s her website, Wiki page and a good long interview she did in 2020 with craftliterary.com

Under the Radar

Happiness: Ten Years of N+1. (Collection of essays from the influential lit journal).

Metamorphosis: Climate Fiction for a Better Future. (Edited by Grist).

New Stories from the South 2010: Year’s Best by Amy Hempel.

Gone like a Goldfish by Anonymous.

Two books by W. Royce Adams (Home,) Scar Songs (short stories about males at various stages of life) and As Time Goes by (a reflection on aging). Amazingly, Adams is a 94 old retired English professor who started writing actively after retirement. He wrote several books for young readers including an adventure series based around a mythical place called Rairarubia. Here’s a reading of Adams talking about As Time Goes By (YT) Here’s a promotional vid about one of his Rairarubia books. (YT) Here’s a better organized list of his writing credits and awards.

Group Sex Novel by Ann Arensberg. (W, Obit) Despite the racy title, it’s a more mundane but satirical look at publishing and sex. (First chapter was great). Her first novel Sister Wolf won the National Book Award for best novel in 1981.

In Session: Dark Female-Led Novel by Laine Ashford.

March Book (Poetry) by Jesse Ball.

Rental Sister Novel by Jeff Backhaus. A young Japanese woman is hired by a man’s wife to break down the walls between them.

Clear: A Transparent Novel by Nicola Barker. Strange tale of real-life magician David Blaine who sits suspended in a transparent box. It’s fiction!

Augustus Carp, Esq. by Himself, Being the Autobiography of a Really Good Man
by Henry Howarth Bashford. Comic 1924 novel about a conceited oaf.

Infinity in the Palm of Her Hand: A Novel of Adam and Eve By Gioconda Belli. Noted Nicaraguan journalist writes a meditation on the Adam-Eve story. Prolific author/poet rarely translated into English, but this FSG book was translated in many languages. PW wrote, ” The unfolding of knowledge and humanity is both primitive and breathtaking in Belli’s view. And without abandoning the timeless biblical story, Belli manages to introduce a modern Darwinian element that’s both stark and eloquent. Belli tackles Genesis with perception-rattling gravity. ” Alan Cheuse does a NPR review (with audio)

Running the Rift: A Novel by Naomi Benaron. Story about a gifted runner in Rwanda who overcomes political turbulence to become a marathon runner. Bellwether Prize winner. Kirkus: “where Benaron shines is in her tender descriptions of Rwandan’s natural beauty and in her creation of Jean Patrick, a hero whose noble innocence and genuine human warmth are impossible not to love.”

Cleopatra Dismounts: A Novel by Carmen Boullosa (W)

Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff. Jewish teenage boy in the 1970s deals with growing up, sex, etc.

Defenestrate by Renee Branum (Home). A brother and sister fascinated by the idea of defenestration move to Prague and grapple with family myths. I think “falling” is the book’s recurring metaphor. Lots of positive press from NYT, New Yorker, etc.

Furious Future Stories by Algis Budrys.

The Price of a Haircut by Brock Clarke. Stories.

Voyage of the Morning Light: A Novel by Marina Endicott.

Like Flies from Afar Novel by K. Ferrari.

Valleyesque: Stories by Fernando A. Flores.

One Day at a Time: and other stories by A.K. Frailey.

Rat in the Kitchen: A Comedy Crime Novel by Rick Gene.

Groceries by Matt Gibson.

Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein.

Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild by Lyanda Lynn Haupt. Essay about common creatures you might encounter in one’s backyard (or a field across the street). Insightful, informative.

Camel Bookmobile Novel by Masha Hamilton.

The Casualties Novel by Nick Holdstock. (Home) Some sort of apocalyptic mystery taking place in Edinburgh about a man who likes finding the secrets of the city’s residents. Polarized reviews, but some highly positive (See here and here) Holdstock is a journalist and China expert who has written both nonfiction and fiction.

Don’t I know you? by Marni Jackson. (Home) Imaginary encounters with celebrities by a noted Canadian journalist and humorist.

Underdog by Anne Joyce.

Balls by Nanci Kinkaid. Satirical look at football coaches and their wives. Kinkaid wrote the excellent Verbena novel.

Immediate Family Novel by Ashley Nelson Levy.

Big Time by Fritz Leiber.

Doctor Robert by Bobby Lopez.

Anomalous Events in an American Suburb by Ross Myers.

Trail of Crab Tracks: A Novel by Patrice Nganang. Camaroonian novelist. Book was named a New Yorker Best Book. A Trail of Crab Tracks becomes a singularly complex interrogation of the relationship between thought and action, between writing and the world.” ―Kristen Roupenian,

Lightning Song by Lewis Norden.

All the Houses a Novel by Karen Olsson. Daughter returns to Washington DC to care for a sick father who was involved in a political scandal.

Without a Dowry and Other Plays by Alexander Ostrovsky.

Francis and the Women: A Novel by Siggy Patton.

All you never said by H. Pearce.

Erratic Facts by Kay Ryan (poetry).

Mother Country Novel by Irina Reyn. 2019 Ukrainian novel about a Ukrainian mother living in NYC and facing all sorts of problems taking care of her child and making a living. “Mother Country is a beautifully envisioned, morally urgent novel set at the disputed borderlands of a divided family and country. Irina Reyn is a superb chronicler of America, Ukraine, and all points between, resulting in a book of uncommon power and purpose.” – 

Crompton Divided by Robert Sheckley. Comic novel about a man whose psyche is divided into three parts on 3 separate planets. “Rickety, but full of inspired and often pointed foolery.” (Kirkus)

A Curable Romantic novel by Joseph Skibell.

Man in a Cage by Brian M. Stableford.

I look for You in the Crowd Novel by Michael J. Vaughn. Also Semiprecious.

Dream Merchant: Novel by Fred Waitzkin.

Self-Portrait with Russian Piano Novel by Wolf Wondratschek. Story of a jaded pianist who reflects on language, art, politics, etc. Reviewed by actor Ethan Hawke of NYTBR: It is at once egoless, sly, profound, funny, authentic and utterly mysterious―without ever seeming to break a sweat . . . An immense humility encompasses the novel. In a world that shouts, this book is a song played softly, and slowly.

Moon Goddess’s Smile by Catherine Wu.

Night of the Avenging Blowfish: A novel of Covert Operations, Love and Luncheon Meat by John Welter. Comic novel about a secret agent

Sex Academy: Three Book Collection Fun and Filthy Noellas by Lucy Xane.

Blink and It’s Gone

All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women (Edited by Enid Shomer).

Steps by Jerzy Kosinski. National Book Award winner, 1969. Novel of power, libido and morality. “By some miracle of training, which recalls the linguistic bravado of Conrad and Nabokov, he is already a master of pungent and disciplined English prose. Simply as a stylist, Kosinski has few equals among American novelists born to the language. And I have also become convinced, after reading Steps, that he is one of the most gifted new figures to appear in our literature for some years.” (Irving Howe)

Lightning Song by Lewis Nordan. Southern novel by noted Southern humorist.

Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past can help us survive the climate crisis by Michael Mann. This 2023 in-depth study of earth science, paleoclimatology, the historical record and climate policy by leading climate scientist Michael Mann is a must-read. I have been tearing into this ebook. (I wish I’d studied these topics back in college!)

Siren and the Seashell and Other essays on poets and poetry by Octavio Paz.

Debriefing: Collected Stories by Susan Sontag.

Library Purchases/Printed Books

Several collection of (public domain) folk tales by Cyrus MacMillan: Canadian Fairy Tales and Canadian Wonder Tales.

I also bought another copy of Susan Sontag‘s Against Interpretation which I plan to write about.

Podcasts/Media

Today (August 4, 2026) is when Ray Bradbury’s famous story “There will come soft rains” takes place (from the Martian Chronicles). Here’s a great radio version of the story — with sound effects, etc. (YT).

View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.  https://booktoot.club/@nagletx. (Mastodon) and nagletx.bsky.social. (Blue Sky).

My Personville Press sells literary titles (mainly short stories) at budget prices (and several freebies). Gradually I have been doing “elevator pitch” videos on YouTube summarizing several of these ebooks in three minutes or so.

Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited and NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Here is my article about methods and search queries I use to locate ebook deals. See also: Indie Author Spotlight, Interviews by RJN,

Alphabetized Book Lists! This may sound like an obvious thing to do, but for my last Robert’s Roundup, I decided to alphabetize all the ebooks by author’s last name. I don’t have anything against alphabetization per se, but at the same time, I think that it favors the Adams over the Zelenskis. Actually I didn’t think too much about it, but eventually found it to be really really annoying to constantly be double-checking that I didn’t already mention a title (I have made that mistake several times before).

Rant: AI Authors

I saw a video of a small ebook distributor complaining about the number of AI-produced ebooks being submitted, and I guess that KDP and other ebookstores are experiencing the same problem. Today, an ad for one of my press’s ebooks was going to run on an ebook newsletter, but as it turns out, it appears alongside an “author” of sexy ebooks who published 10 ebooks in one year. (Humorously, the author photo on Amazon is a photorealistic portrait of a nude man with dangling penis. How on earth can real authors compete with the torrent of polished but low-quality ebooks being published today?

I am actually fairly tolerant about using AI tools to produce stories as long as you are upfront about what is being done. For example, I think it makes perfect sense for an interactive story to be AI-assisted for some of the story branches — as long as a human supervisors and monitors for quality.

But it becomes more difficult to advertise or to browse through titles if low quality AI titles are competing for your attention.

Update. Now it appears that Draft2Digital is charging authors and publishers $12 a year who list their books because of the added burden of having to vet and weed out AI titles. Major bummer.

Under the Radar

New World: a novel by Chris Adrian

Secret Miracle: The Novelist’s Handbook. by Daniel Alarcon.

The View from Highway 1 by Michael J. Arlen. (W) 1976 essay collection by a noted TV critic.

In Darkness and Light by Tudor Alexander. (Bio) Here’s a video (YT) of his being interviewed for an earlier novel. Alexander is a Romanian-American who writes novels about the immigrant experience, starting from the end of WW2 to Cold War.

A Better Angel: Stories by Chris Adrian.

The King’s Rifle: A Novel by Biyi Bandele.

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ All-Time Greatest Hits a Novel by Mark Binelli.

Nubian Prince: Novel by Juan Bonilla.

Phantoms on the Bookshelfs by Jacques Bonnet, James Salter.

Harder They Come: Gripping Survivalist Thriller of Fathers and Sons, Mental Illness and Violence in California by T.C. Boyle.

This Three Pound Universe: Half a Life in 14 Quirky Essays by David Boyne.

Through Stranger Eyes: Reviews, Introductions, Tributes and Iconoclastic Essays by David Brin. I’ve been following the blog of this sci fi novelist for a while.

Jade Cat a Novel by Suzanne Brogger

Serpent Box a Novel by Vincent Louis Carella

An Archaeology of Sympathy: The Sentimental Mode in Literature and Cinema by James Chandler.

Me Cheeta: The Autobiography by Cheeta (aka James Lever). A talking monkey who used to appear in movies recounts his Hollywood experiences. (This was nominated for a Booker!).

Acceptance: A Novel by Susan Coll. Satirical story about college admissions.

Cat’s Pajamas and Witch’s Milk by Peter De Vries. Also the Vale of Laughter.

Hibernaculum by Anthony Doyle.

Martin Duberman Reader.

Dating Your Mom by Ian Frazier.

Animal Husbandry and other fictions by Jeff Fleischer. (Home). He’s a Chicago-based journalist who mostly writes books about politics for younger audiences, but this is in fact literary fiction.

The Process by Brion Gysin (W) Author who pioneered the cut-up method of fictional creation (which influenced William Burroughs). One reviewer called it “a rambling, breezy, keef-laced, picaresque tale ostensibly centered on a black professor self-exiled in the Middle East where he seeks…well, exactly what he seeks isn’t exactly clear. Truth, power, wealth, immortality, the ancient mysteries, the meaning of life–a continuing source of the best dope…or perhaps all of the above.”

Snake on a Red Velvet Throne and other Stories by Bess Hendrick.

St. Ivo by Joanna Hershon. (Home,) From a NYT review: “The book does not grant us a neat, circular ending, and Hershon is not afraid of ambiguity. But for me, these aspects function as a part of the novel’s charm: fiction full of complexity, devoted to reality.” Other writings 7 Fascinating books about cults. Writing and Improv Classes, For COVID reading, she recommended Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes by Phyllis Grant.

Alt Sagas: Stories by Jean Huets. Speculative stories by poet and editor who also has published several books about tarot cards (!?)

King and Raven by Cary James. Authorian tales.

Ridley Inn: A Seaside Story by Tsvi Jolles (Home) A serious-minded fairy tale for children about a girl at a seaside inn.

Void by Nathan Kuzack. (Home) Sci fi/fantasy story about an insurance worker who finds his world is vanishing (literally!)

Facades by Eric Lundgren. First novel about a missing opera singer and her husband’s attempt to find her. (interview)

Rembrandt’s Hat by Bernard Malamud (Stories). Always one of my favorite authors, this is a later collection. I’ve read Magic Barrel, but the Collected Stories has never been discounted.

Birthright: A Near Future Novel by Max Malterer.

Capacity: Poems by James McMichael.

The Animal Claim: Sensibility and the Creaturely Voice by Tobias Menely. Literary study of 18th century poetry and how it affected politics and philosophy.

Astonishing Splashes of Color by Claire Morrall. (W) Booker finalist about a quirky middle-aged lady coming to terms with death, miscarriage, marital issues. Title is Peter Pan reference to a woman who has “never has grown up.”

Conscious and Verbal: Poetry by Les Murray. Famed Australian poet.

Fracture a Novel by Andres Neuman. (W) Acclaimed novel by Argentine novelist about an elderly survivor of the recent Fukashima nuclear earthquake disaster.

Bedlam Burning by Geoff Nicholson.

Waterloo by Karen Olsson. (Austin-based author).

40 Sonnets by Don Paterson. (Home, ). Lots of video readings and lectures: Readings, Sonnet Structure, Saints Talk: Why Bad Metaphors Destroy Everything, 1 hour reading,

Everything belongs to the future by Laurie Penny. (Bio, substack)

Scruffy Little Devils by Andras Polgar

Story of B (Ishmael series book 2). by Daniel Quinn. Sequel to Ishmael book (which won a major literary prize in the 1990s). A priest is assigned to investigate a darkly charismatic preacher.

Two humorous books by Terry Ravenscroft.

You Wanna Get Outta Here by Andrew W.G. Rees. Canadian poet.

God is a Tequila Worm by Tim Rousseau.

The Scalpel and the Butterfly: The War Between Animal Research and Animal Protection by Deborah Rudacille. (Home, W), Informative and thought-provoking nonfiction book by a science author who graduated from the same JHU writing program that I did. All her titles sound great.

Life in Culture: Selected Letters of Lionel Trilling by Lionel Trilling, Adam Kirsch. (NYT review) Includes letters to A. Ginsberg, Barzun, Edmund Wilson, Sontag, Saul Bellow, etc.

Lavender by Michael J. Vaughn.

Thirty Day Question by Joshua A. Walker. A suicidal man encounters a strange old man who offers a different perspective.

Bit Between my Teeth: Literary Chronicle of 1950-1965. by Edmund Wilson. Essays, interviews, etc. Wilson’s Axel’s Castle was published in 1931, entering the public domain soon. I was a big fan of Patriotic Gore, his study of Civil War literature.

Quiet Invasion by Sarah Zettel. I bought this scifi novel by mistake. Scientists discover an alien artifact on Venus, causing political disruption on the colony established there. Aha, I see from her domain that Zettel started out writing sci fi, but branched out into several different genres (fantasy, suspense, historical).

Blink and It’s Gone

Musical Brain and Other Stories by Cesar Aira. (W) A very highly-acclaimed story collection by Argentine author. “Aira, with his fuga hacia adelante or “flight forward” into the unknown, gives us imponderables to ponder and bizarre and seemingly out-of-context plot lines, as well as thoughtful and passionate takes on everyday reality. ” Another review says disparagingly, “This frustrating group of fantastical short stories strikes me as having great imagination but weak execution.” RJN: I plan to read this. Sounds like Man who Fell from an Airplane or Monterroso?

Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor.

Tremble: Erotic Tales of the Mystical and Sinister by Tobsha Learner.

Wind-Up Bird Chronicles: a novel by Haruki Murakami.

Endling a Novel by Maria Reva. Prize-winning novel

Mabinogion Tetralogy: Prince of Annwn, Children of Lyr, Song of Rhiannon by Evangeline Walton. This translation of the famous Welsh tetralogy (which inspired Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series of children’s books) is supposed to be highly readable.

Mike Royko: The Chicago Tribune Collection 1984-1997 by Mike Royko. This ebook has 9900 pages and is the single largest ebook I have ever heard of. I’m a big fan of the newspaper columnist Mike Royko and plan to read at least part of the ebook.

Literary Articles and Essays

The Baffler has a long series of articles about the lack of financial rewards for the writing profession. Depressing and sobering because the contributors were by most standards extremely successful for their books, yet barely made enough to survive.

NYT has a long series about How to Be Cultured. These are just annotated recommendation lists which by virtue of it being the NYT, seems important. (Time Magazine used to devote special issues on similar themes). The value comes from the big names they are able to corral who will contribute their favorites, with occasional surprises here and there. Here are AIDS-era novels, Books that Encapsulate 5 Countries, American Characters and Unsung works by Famous Authors. Also pretty clever: a list of book recommendations for each decade of life. For me, a 60 year old, It suggests Kindred by Octavia Butler and two public domain works by Nella Larsen: Passing and Quicksand.

Here’s a nice profile of Siri Hustvedt and Paul Auster, the ultimate literary couple.

Andrew Porter (Home, W) is a short story writer who teaches creative writing at Trinity. Here’s the title story from his 2023 collection THE DISAPPEARED, which is about a man dealing with the unexplained disappearance of his college friend. It’s a great thoughtful story (BTW, avoid reading the longish introduction by Kristopher Jansma (Home, W) until after you read the story itself).

In a recent Bomb interview, AP writes:

“In almost every story, the main character is having to face the fact that some version of life as they once knew it has disappeared and that they are no longer the same person they were at that time, and there’s a strange mixture of emotions that comes with this acceptance—confusion, fear, disorientation, sadness. I wanted to focus on characters grappling with these types of moments in their lives and wanted to present various ways of coping or coming to terms with these new realities. So that was the preoccupation in this book, but more generally, I think I just enjoy stories that explore absences and mysteries and unanswered or unanswerable questions. I’m intrigued by the idea of things that were once there vanishing, and what one has to do to accept and move on in their absence.”

Rant

On a self-publish reddit, a film critic and new novelist wondered why book reviewers respond to unsolicited review requests with requests for payment. He mentioned that such a practice would be unheard of in the film world. I wrote a long response:

*****************

That is not a common practice — though it does happen. More common is that book review services will charge a sum (50-500$) to do a sponsored review.

Reading and reviewing a book takes a lot more time and effort than writing a review of a movie. At the same time, there’s a shortage of bona fide book critics who will read and review books compared to the number of books being published.

I’m sure you know already that paying gigs for film criticism are rare compared to what it was 20 years ago. It’s even more rare for book criticism. Also, a higher percent of book critics are authors themselves — who often have better things to do than write reviews. Imagine if the sizable percent of people who wrote movie reviews were other film directors and screenplay writers.

There are certainly ethical challenges in asking for money for reviews. But I certainly do not begrudge the meager compensation that book critics (or movie critics) feel that they are entitled to for their efforts. In many ways doing publicity for movies is a lot easier than doing publicity for books. Movies have shiny actors willing to promote the projects and easier access to multimedia tools. Books usually have just the author himself to talk about a book project. In the podcast world, I guess that authors make excellent guests — and that might put them on the same level as movie people. Generally though, book reviews are more crucial to a book’s success than movie reviews are to a movie’s success.

Another thing. Although some movies have esoteric audiences, sometimes book genres are difficult for readers and even sophisticated readers to talk intelligently about. Reading a book that uses techniques or themes alien to you can feel like torture. But with movies, all you have to do is turn on the video player for 2 hours and pay attention and watch people and landscapes and listen to the soundtrack. I can hate the movie itself and still find the experience of watching the movie to be pleasant enough or relatively painless. I love books, and I finish a much higher percent of movies than books.

(By the way, I looked up the original poster, His name is Marty MacDaid (Home, Substack) and he has written Murder in Beltova, (KU) a murder mystery with a Baltic theme.

View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.  https://booktoot.club/@nagletx. (Mastodon) and nagletx.bsky.social. (Blue Sky).

Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited and NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Here is my article about methods and search queries I use to locate ebook deals. See also: Indie Author Spotlight, Interviews by RJN,

My 1965 Project articles have been coming slowly. But here’s a long essay about 1965 children’s books. Here’s an “Elevator Pitch” video I did for Alberto Balengo’s Minor Sketches and Reveries (YT). I think it’s my best so far.

I plan to do a 1965 essay about Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation. I bought and read and reread it from cover to the cover in college and am re-reading it again. Annoyingly, I must have given the book away and can’t find a cheap copy (or ebook). Astonishingly the county library only possesses a single copy. I have several digital editions of SS essays with some of the essays, but not all.

Under the Radar

Mother of Red Mountains: A Novel of a Woman’s Journey Through Revolutionary China by Apple An.

Glimmer by Sam Aleks. Young girl traumatized by a fire dives into painting to assuage her guilt about the death of her brother.

Pink Tuxedo. by C.D. Acosta. Clever colorful futuristic tale of a college introverted student who shuns social interaction but attends a concert and is drawn into a crazy plot.

Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles by Fabio Bartolomei.

Notorious Dr. August: His Real Life and Crimes (Novel) by Christopher Bram.

Imagining More and other Stories by Panayotis Cacoyannis. Prolific British-Cyprus author. I keep meaning to read his stuff; all sounds interesting.

Karl Marx and the Lost California Manifesto: a novel by Scott D. Carlson (I). This new satirical work of pseudo-history imagines that Karl Marx travels to California during the Gold Rush in search of gold. Plaudits from both Kirkus and BookLife.

Stone Fields: love and death in the Balkans by Courtney Angela Brkic. Anthropologist’s memoir of exhuming bodies in Bosnia during the Yugoslav war in the 1990s.

How to Be Human by Paula Cocozza. Debut novel by London journalist about marriage, suburban claustrophobia and foxes. Here’s a brief interview. Which author she thinks is underrated? Leonardo Sciascia – there are reasons why he is hard to read in Italy, given the way he turned against those who prosecuted the mafia, but he is inexplicably un-feted in the UK. I love his clean sentences, and the quiet surprise of his endings. Also L. P. Hartley. I’ve recently re-read The Go-Between and am bingeing on the others.

By the Shore: A Novel by Galaxy Craze. Tickled by this name, but apparently this ex-actress and YA author uses that name. First novel was well-received.

Confession of the Lioness Novel (W) by Mia Couto. Two haunting interwoven diaries surrounding a village woman whose sister was killed in a lioness attack and the marksman hired to kill the lioness. Cuoto is a noted author from Mozambique who writes in Portugese, and this was a Booker finalist. FSG has published translations of the Sands of the Emperor trilogy Inspired by a real-life event. “Couto renders the politics of everyday living poetically but his focus on the status and treatment of women displays a stout refusal to look away from a harsh reality – fiction brings us closer to the truth here than mere facts ever could. In a society that has learned to respond to the unspeakable with silence, the people have lost their souls and, rather than providing a reliable source of stability, tradition is shown to be oppressively distorted by earthly misdeeds and the caprices of the spiritual realm.” (2015 Review by Ellah Allfrey)

Creatures of the Air: Music, Atlantic Spirits, Breath, 1817–1913 by J.Q. Davies

Damage Control: Stories by Amber Dermont. Rice U. creative writing teacher. Videos: Reading at ABR, Also a 1 hour reading on Vimeo.

Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs Novel by Matthew Dicks.

The Chastity Plot by Lisabeth During. Overlooked Sanskrit fiction.

Irrational Numbers Stories by George Alec Effinger.

In the Walled Gardens Novel by Anahita Firouz. (Home) “First political novel about star-crossed lovers in Iran during the last days of the shah.” (Kirkus). Written in 2002.

Forty Days at Kamas Book 5 by Preston Fleming.

Copenhagen Papers: An Intrigue by Michael Frayn.

Two Dreams and Two Hollows by Gary Gautier.

Woman who is the Midnight Wind Stories by Terence M. Green. 10 stories of speculative fiction by Canadian author. Shucks, he died a few months ago. (Website).

Hot Damn! Alligators in the Casino by James W. Hall. Humor columns.

Yonder Stands Your Opinion by Barry Hannah.

Night Garden by Polly Horvath. Newbery Prize author of children’s books.

Accidents: A Novel  by Yael Hedaya. Israeli author who created (for Israel) a TV show which was adapted into the HBO series In Treatment.

Adventurist: Novel by J. Bradford Hipps. Programmer/fiction writer who graduated from UH’s creative writing program. Protagonist is a software engineering dealing with love and family. “The Adventurist” activated most of my cranial pleasure centers. It’s a brisk and polished and somehow very American novel. It moves confidently, that is, until it can no longer pretend to do so. It delivers to the reader internal wounds that will fail to clot. (Dwight Garner, NYT). (YT)

End of Alice by A.M. Homes. British tale of sexual dalliance/flirtation between an older man and a way-younger teenage girl.

Wilderness Run a Novel by Maria Hummel. Stegner Fellow

House of Lords and Commons: Poems by Ishion Hutchinson.

Transition – Novel by Luke Kennard. (Interview).

Crossways by Sheila Kohler.

Manual Puig and the Spider Woman: His Life and Fiction by Suzanne Jill Levine

Gone with the Mind by Mark Leyner. Inventive fictional autobiography by noted humorist. “Dazzling, hilarious, heartfelt, and entirely mind-blowingly original, Mark Leyner’s fictional memoir Gone with the Mind confirms the author’s status as one of the most singular, wild-ass, and brilliantly fearless voices in American literature…There isn’t a convention Mark Leyner does not shatter, nor an aspect of twenty-first century culture…he does not reexamine and render fresh. Quite possibly the first literary work of genius, comic and otherwise, of the new millennium.” (Jerry Stahl)

Abundance: A Novel  by Amit Majmudar. Indian family saga.

A Garden for Ignatius A Novel of Absurd Comedy and Redemption (The Mittelschmerz Cycle) by M.D. Markham. (Free for a short time!) Just started reading this comic novel written in the spirit of John Kennedy O’Toole. The novel “is a celebration of the difficult personality, a critique of societal impatience, and ultimately, a heartwarming tale of finding one’s proper ground.”

Fellow Mortals Novel by Dennis Mahoney.

Ad Nauseam: A Survivor’s Guide to American Consumer Culture. By Carrie McLaren & Jason Torchinsky.

Well by Matthew McIntosh.

Book of Love: Story of the Kamasutra by James McConnachie.

Margo’s Cafe by Tom Milton.

True Grit by Charles Portis. Texas author Clay Reynolds raved about this novel.

Another One Bites the Past by Vladimir Provorov. A famous rock singer has an odd concert experience in 1973 and meets a mysterious stranger. What is going on? Here’s a nice review.

Knee-Deep in Wonder: A novel by April Reynolds. A dazzling first novel about four generations of fear and longing in the deep South. By a philosophy/creative writing prof. This novel won a first novel award.

Playing in Time: Essays, Profiles, and Other True Stories by Carlo Rotella

Needle in a Timestack and Other Stories (2019) by Robert Silverberg. Humorously, RS released different versions of this story collection over several decades.

Private Lives of Garden Birds by Calvin Simonds.

Freedoms We Lost: Consent and Resistance in Revolutionary America by Barbara Clark Smith.

Night Life of the Gods by Thorne Smith. “Thorne Smith’s comic genius mixed weird science with mythology, bootlegged alcohol with a chilly eye for the hypocrisy of the very Americans he was entertaining. At worst, sentimental; at best, like a New Yorker cartoon wrapped round a knife.” (by M. John Harrison).

Devil Take the Blues: a Southern Gothic Novel by Ariel Slick. Fort Worth novelist. A devil tells a woman that her sister will be murdered, and so she tries to intervene. (I, Interview, )

Perv: A Love Story by Jerry Stahl. Bawdy and hippie coming of age tale of growing up in the 1970s. Stahl is a prolific author and screenwriter. I’m sure this volume will be wild and fun.

Three Poems by Hannah Sullivan. Winner of 2018 TS Eliot Prize.

Cleopatra’s Nose: 39 Varieties of Desire by Judith Thurman. Literary essays originally published in the New Yorker.

The World has changed: Conversations with Alice Walker.

Silence and Silences by Wallis Wilde-Menozzi

Sexual Awakening (4 Novellas) by Lucy Xane.

Blink and It’s Gone

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. Well-known comic novel.

Magus by John Fowles. I started reading this 1965 novel but find it awkward to read with glasses. Totally glad I could find the title discounted, though I had to wait a long while.

 Memory of Fire Trilogy: Genesis, Faces and Masks, and Century of the Wind  by Eduardo Galeano.

Tales of the Night by Peter Hoeg. Parallel stories taking place in the same day in 1929.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. Classic Texas novel discounted to 4.99.

The Hunger Angel: A Novel by Herta Müller. Post WW 2 East European historical novel. Nobel winner.

Best of Me (Compilation) by David Sedaris.

Shucks, I dilly-dallied too long and didn’t grab The Mabinogion Tetralogy: by Evangeline Walton when it was still 2.99. (Update: Finally snagged it!)There are other translations, but this one is supposed to be highly readable and fun.

Radicalism of the American Revolution by Gordon Wood. Milestone history book.

Library Purchases/Printed books

Rabbit at Rest by John Updike. I have been eager to read this for over a decade. Now I found a large-print edition!

Literary Articles and Essays

Here’s a nice collection of college reading lists. Here’s another and another. Here’s another much longer list.

Here’s an interview with author M. John Harrison. Here’s a list of his Top 10 favorite novels.

Here’s a collection of reddit threads about obscure Sci Fi. Here’s a summary of book recommendation threads.

Michael Silverblatt’s Rules for Reading

1. Sit. If you’re lying down you’ll fall asleep.
2. Read at least 100 pages in your first session with a new book. You must get well in.
3. If you’re reading for pleasure, finish a book before starting a new one. Don’t keep three or four going.
4. If your eyes get tired, try cotton compresses with witch hazel – they’re soothing and refreshing.
5. Read a book about a country you’ve never visited.
6. Ask close friends to name their favorite book, one that changed their life or one that accompanied a change in life. You will learn not just about the book, but about the person who recommended it. 
7. Don’t be embarrassed to keep a vocabulary list. Reading without understanding is not a virtue.
8. Don’t torture yourself to read out of duty. A great book has an obligation to enrich and alter your life. There are certain books you’ll find you’re not ready for. Please suspend your judgement of them. it took me seven years and six tries to read [William] Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.
9. If you can’t discard preconceptions that come from bad classroom experiences – for example, A Tale of Two Cities and Silas Marner are not [Charles] Dickens’ or [T.S.]Eliot’s best works – if you’ve X’d them out of your list, you’re missing something of pleasure. You’re ready now. Try them.

Here are 11 Los Angeles authors recommended by Silverblatt:

1. “Visitations” by Mitch Sisskind (Brightwater Press)
2. “Blood Lake” by James Krusoe (Boaz Publishing)
3. “Guide” by Dennis Cooper (Grove Press)
4. “Maps to Anywhere” by Bernard Cooper (Penguin)
5. “Crown of Weeds” by Amy Gerstler (Penguin)
6. “Dear Dead Person” by Benjamin Weissman (High Risk)
7. “I Been in Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All the Pots” by Susan Straight (Hyperion)
8. “Chinchilla Farm” by Judith Freeman (Norton)
9. “Sea of Cortez” by John Steppling (Sun and Moon)
10. “We Find Ourselves in Moontown” by Jay Gummerman (Vintage)
11. “Round Rock” by Michelle Huneven (Knopf)

Multimedia/Podcasts, Etc

This video (which is also available as a podcast and on YouTube) is hilarious. Dave Barry and Carl Hiaasen are two of the funniest people in USA.

Personville Press Deals

View Previous Roundup and Next Roundup (View All)

MAILING LIST: I just started a mailing list for my publishing company. Will mail out every 2 months and will include excerpts from my Robert’s Roundup columns and other random stuff.  https://booktoot.club/@nagletx. (Mastodon) and nagletx.bsky.social. (Blue Sky).

My Personville Press sells literary titles (mainly short stories) at budget prices (and several freebies). Gradually I have been doing “elevator pitch” videos on YouTube summarizing several of these ebooks in three minutes or so.

Abbreviations: KU means Kindle Unlimited and NYP means “Name Your Price” (that’s an option on Smashwords and other booksellers). If you’d like to submit an ebook to me for review or mention in this column, see my instructions here. Here is my article about methods and search queries I use to locate ebook deals. See also: Indie Author Spotlight, Interviews by RJN

By the way for the month of November, I’ll be focused mainly on the 1965 Project, a look back at cultural gems from that year.

Indie Author Spotlight

hello

Under the Radar

Thunderstroke: a Poetry Memoir by Terence Ang.

Athenian Women Novel by Alessandro Barbero. Drama set in ancient times written by a classical history scholar.

Friendly Fire Stories by Alaa Al Aswany.

Beetlebum by Christian Basso.

One Fell Soup: Or I’m Just a Bug on the Windshield of Life by Roy Blount.

The Wrong Heaven by Amy Bonnaffons. (I)

AI of the Beholder: Art by Dr. Joshua Cunningham.

Deviation a Novel by Luce D’Eramo. WW2 memoir of an Italian girl who learns about Nazi atrocities.

American Master: A Portrait of Gore Vidal: James Edmonds.

Wakefield Novel by Andrei Codrescu.

Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick.

Illusions of Time: Selena’s Tale by Sabina Dazdarevic.

Moral Underground: How Ordinary Americans subvert an unfair economy by Lisa Dodson.

American Master: a Portrait of Gore Vidal by James Edmonds.

Misadventure of Justin Hearnfield Novel by Dan Elish.

Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck. German novel about a literature professor who attempts to help refugees.

Book of Jonah by Joshua Max Feldman.

Hope Verdad Presents: Short Stories with a Twist by Francesca Flood

Gorgeous East: A Novel by Robert Girardi.

First Contact (In Her Name) by Michael R. Hicks.

Cutty, One Rock: Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained by August Kleinzahler. (poetry).

In a perfect world by Laura Kasischke. (W)

Walking Backwards: Poems 1966-2016 by John Koethe.

The Swimmer: Poems by John Koethe.

Bobcat and other stories by Rebecca Lee.

Take me Home Novel by Brian Leung.

Land End’s: New and Selected poems by Gail Mazur.

My Family and Other Hazards: A Memoir by June Melby.

Points of Departure: Stories by Pat Murphy.

Dog’s Breakfast by Tom Navratil.

This is your life novel by John O’Farrell. (W, ) Also The Best a Man Can get. He’s a British humor writer and actor. See his satirical news website Newsbiscuit.

You Knew the Price (Vol 2) by Susan Kaye Quinn.

Two books (which are first of two separate series) by Texas sci fi author E.M. Rensing: Source Code and Lighthouse of Kuiper.

All Flesh is Grass by Clifford D Simak. (1965).

Fling: Commanding 21st Century Stories by Justin Taylor. Also, Everything Here is the Best Thing Ever: Stories

Triumph of the Sparrow: Zen Poems by Shinkichi Takahashi.

Land of Steady Habits by Ted Thompson.

Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers by Astra Taylor. Book accompanies documentary with same name.

Naked Girl by Janna Brooke Wallack. Ignore the misleading title. It’s about a motherless girl in the 1980s Miami beach and capricious father who strive to survive under harrowing circumstances. “Wallack cleverly walks a tightrope in her writing, balancing the horrors with a child’s unwavering imagination and naive sense of wonder…a distinctive and emotionally rich voice delivering succinct observations…An endearing and fascinating perspective on a uniquely volatile and dangerous childhood.”  Kirkus.

Haitian Trilogy: Plays by Derek Walcott.

Another Life by Derek Walcott.

Scar Tissue: Poems by Charles Wright.

All at once: Prose Poems by C.K. Williams

Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers by Frances Wilson.

To Name Those Lost Novel by Rohan Wilson.

The One that Got Away Stories by Zoe Wicomb.

Chickamauga: Poems by Charles Wright. (W) Pulitzer finalist.

Three Ways to Disappear by Katy Yocom.

Blink and it’s Gone

Meander, Spiral, Explode: by Jane Allison. Book about the art of writing.

Insatiable: Porn, a Love Story by Asa Akira.

French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles.

Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau. (1965). Won Pulitzer.

Station Island by Seamus Heaney.

April Fool’s Day Novel by Josif Novakovich.

Julia by Sandra Newman. That’s the retelling of the 1984 novel from the perspective of Winston Smith’s lover Julia Worthing. A brilliant premise.

The Fortunate Pilgrim by Mario Puzo.

Literary Articles and Essays

Jessica Pressman talks about electronic literature.

A reddit thread about nonnovelists who write novels. Curiously, even though I love Steve Martin as a comedian, I never have been tempted to read his fiction. I would consider reading novels by John Sayles or John Darnielle (of Mountain Goats). Also Ayoade on Top by Richard Ayoade.