Just finished Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer, which was quite good. Which should surprise no one, as it did win a Pulitzer, so basically I agree with the canon-making powers that be.
It occurred to me that I had not gone and updated my Amazon list. I have strict instructions on it that people should sort it by priority and buy me the books ranked highest, but some people don't see that note and breeze right past it. In general I probably am too quick to add books to the list, so that there are a lot of half-baked choices on it. I am impressionable and easily swayed by a positive review, forgetting of course that reviews are just modest emanations of the book-industrial complex, coming to sucker readers like me into purchasing their beguiling wares.
Thankfully, I have instructed Mary not to buy me any books this year, since I have a rather substantial backlist of unread books on the shelf behind me, to say nothing of ones elsewhere in the house. What I really need is a new reading lamp for the reading chair up here in my study. The Journal had an add for one that is said to be killer, but then Mary said she wanted to pick it out. Then she just burst in here saying she didn't know what I wanted and I needed to help her figure that out. So I better get on that.
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