slumpsville

what in the bookless heck is going on in my brain?

Hi, all! Two newsletters in two weeks! What is this? Madness, probably. If you’re at Boskone this weekend have fun - I’ve never been, and the posts on Facebook about people getting ready to go are filling me with nostalgia for a con I have never attended. I’m sure there’s a word in German for that.

I don’t know what it is, but I’ve had a real hard time reading recently; my concentration is shot. When I am reading, I vacillate between fanfic and nonfiction. Currently I’m reading my second—SECOND!—book about crypto and crime. For someone who thinks crypto is silly, I sure do know a lot about it! I am laying this bout of lack of attention at the feet of the nasty flu I had in January. I began the last novel I was reading (Amongst Our Weapons, the most recent novel in the Peter Grant series) before I got sick, and it interrupted my flow with the book, so I got bogged down about halfway through when I picked it up again. It doesn’t help that somewhere along the series, all the ancillary material (there are several graphic novels and novellas that I have not read) started impinging on the main plots in a way that occasionally threw me for a loop. When the talking foxes turned up in, I believe, False Value, let me tell you—I was mad confused.

Still, I’ve had phases like this before, and at least I can read nonfiction—there’s still some narrative to be followed, if not plot. The book I’m on right now, Tracers in the Dark, is about the people who dedicated their scientific lives to figuring out how to track money along the blockchain, the ledger that tracks bitcoin transactions across the world. Some of them are tenacious IRS agents, some of them are just tech geeks, and the story author Andy Greenberg tells is just as compelling as any spy thriller.

There’s also a lot going on in my life at the moment—job changes in particular, which I hope to be able to share with you soon. I’m still working six days a week, which is its own commitment. I’m looking forward to the day in the next couple of weeks when I devour a book like I’m used to doing, and I have some good options: Edge Case by YZ Chin, I Am Homeless If This Is Not My Home by Lorrie Moore, Lapvona by Ottessa Moshfegh among them.

Have you ever been in a reading slump? I’d love to hear in the comments what book snapped you out of it.

WHAT I’M READING

As I said above, I’m currently reading Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg. I encountered the book in this excerpt in Wired magazine, which is a great read if you don’t want to read an 1100 page e-book about crypto criminals (understandable.) I’m also halfway through Amongst Our Weapons, which I think I am going to restart— at this point I can barely remember what happened in the first part of the book, it’s been so long. And I just joined a book club to read the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels, so I’m very excited to dive into those!

HOUSEKEEPING

My first novel, Marrying In, is available for purchase on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, and is coming soon to iBooks. If you’ve read it, consider leaving a review—that helps me and the book in the long run!

I’m available to hire for freelance editing services on Reedsy. You can find me on social media on Twitter, Instagram, the A Faster No Discord, and now TikTok. If you buy any of the books linked in this newsletter I receive a small commission at no cost to you.