Olin Postlethwait > Recent Status Updates

I'm a John Williams simp, what can I say?

When the library e-book hold just came available, but you just started a 900 page book 😳

This book (as any book that follows a masterpiece) is doomed to disappoint. But at least it's shorter and easy to read.

Oops. Read almost 90 pages.

Felt dull and lifeless after finishing Shadow Ticket, lost and unsure of what to read next.

But like a sophomore English literature class for Stoner, this book has sparked an unexpected momentum to read 62 pages.

Even if I'm still infirm and drab similar to the main character.

100 pages into this pineapple and everything seems copacetic at Nuremberg Lanes.

And so it begins.

Just as I imagined I might have to sit and wait for Shadow Ticket to arrive, I stumble upon the perfect book to pass the time.

A gem of a story, and a revisit of an old favorite author, found at a bookstore in PGH last fall.

The opening pages describe a war torn battle field as only Italo could.

This read was supposed to last me the week until Shadow Ticket. It almost didn't last me the day 😅

I'm still technically on this app. A miracle has pushed me to finish this book. That miracle? A new Thomas Pynchon novel October 7th 🤩.

Commence the highway building!

One of Robert Moses biggest enemies apparently? Governor (eventually President) Franklin Delano Roosevelt. After Al Smith who gave Robert Moses even more power? Governor (eventually President) Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Like the slow but persistent progress to power of Robert Moses so does my slow but persistent consumption of this book continue.

Damn. This is quite the book.

This might not be the book I NEED to read to get me out of my reading slump. But it's the book I WANT to read to get me out of my reading slump.

Also this author's Wikipedia goes HARD.

I have finally made it to the section that so entranced me at the anti-profit bookstore.

Mechanization and Death: Meat

I guess I haven't marked this gem of a find (from an anti-profit bookstore in Pittsburgh) as currently reading yet.

But I haven't been on Goodreads much either. Alas, the timely chapter on the mechanization of farming brought forth parallels to my lives experience in more ways than one.

Onto the mechanization of bread.

Dusting off the cover of this non-fiction. I feel like I'm gonna like this one.

A. It's a wild departure from what I've been reading.

And

B. It's chock full of history and references to a real moment in time with real people. Hell we've already referenced the jail that Ken Kesey is held as the lobby of my favorite movie theatre (The Music Box ♥️).

I'm reading again 😯

It's feeling like fall ...🌚

Whoa. This book is a VERY compelling start. Alas, after this book I'm low on inspiration. It may finally be time for my third read-through of Infinite Jest...despite not finishing my reading goal before run number three.

Or the EQUIVALENT of 147...I've gotta update my version on Goodreads.

Welp. Here we are. Another year, another diversion from existing books I want to read, leading to inevitably another year that I don't finish my to-read list.

Alas, it's for good reason. Vonnegut is an unexplored entity who's imagination and pride has captured me similar to PKD. Which is exactly what I need at the moment.

180 pages in 12 hours, I think the reading slump is over (at least for now)

It's been slow going, but I'm nearing the end.

This book got CONSIDERABLY more interesting once I figured out it's in a post-apocalyptic setting. Though it still lacks the constant draw and momentum of a Thomas Bernhard novel.

So far, this book is adding up to be a poor man's Thomas Bernhard. Similar stream of consciousness but without that magnetizing momentum that draws you through several pars before you even realize.

So far just a mindless stream of loosely connected thoughts. None that can keep me focused for more than 2 pages or so :/