• Daisy Jones and The Six
    • didn’t expect this to be first but hey my wife read it last year, I watched the show & it’s a quick read. Good story, good format
  • Birnam Wood
    • totally transforms from “literary fiction” to something else. Would be a great film, but probably moved to like rural Montana
  • Laser writer 2 by Tamara Shopsin
    • Quirky book about a quirky computer repair shop
    • Nice to have books like this from ppl who aren’t F/T writers
  • Masters of Atlantis by Charles Portis
    • Absurd bureaucracy. Like catch 22 or confederacy of dunces
  • Private Equity by Carrie Sun
    • exec asst to a billionaire!
    • so many good insights about work
    • wrote more about this: https://joshspilker.substack.com/p/we-need-more-writing-about-work
  • Talented mr. ripley by patricia highsmith
    • not sure this would work in the modern "era"
    • felt like he was going to get caught a few times
    • did you know this was a series of books?
  • "fates and furies" by lauren groff
    • enjoyed this immensely.
    • clever storytelling technique that doesn’t come off too gimmick-y
  • biography of x by catherine lacey
    • started this via audiobook last fall, stopped & then i picked up the paperback, & it made more sense for me
    • good format, not much resolution TBH
  • Splinters by Leslie Jamison
    • like a nice memoir, not a gripping one, not a “hit” memoir, some great sentences, a few beautiful ones
  • The Mezzanine - Nicholson Baker
    • Clever book good read, I liked the form
  • Among the Bros by Max Marshall
    • wow, southern frats are as bad as you think they are. well-written
  • “Where are Your Boys Tonight?” by Chris Payne
    • Emo oral history, super interesting & I sped thru it but I know enough abt Fall Out Boy now
  • "Crypto Confidential" by Nathaniel Eliason
    • crypto investment 'thriller'
  • "Foster Dad Explores the Cosmos" by nash jenkins
    • boarding school, drugs, sex, badness
    • too long tbh
    • good format / POV but it broke it a bit too much. would rather it have stuck to the investigative mode like "diary of x" and cut 200 pages
  • “Blue ruin” by Hari Kunzru
    • good novel abt art & friends, kind of anti-climactic end tho
  • “Help Wanted” by Adelle Waldman
    • Minor stakes but good character insights
  • “10:04” by Ben Lerner
    • Pls don’t follow me if you’ve never read this book
  • "Wellness” by Nathan Hill
    • lot of here, about marriage but a lot about art but I also liked the dissection of the promise of open hypertext didn't quite work
  • "Reboot" by Justin Taylor
    • pretty fast read, i liked the offhand commentary abt movies & TV shows
    • a few nice meta elements, too
  • The Guest by Emma Cline