Under a Black Rainbow

  MARCH  (1 book | 266 pgs) 05.) The Genocide House by Robert Kloss (Novel, 266 pgs) | 2/5 * March remains an incredibly tough month for me; mom's birthday comes at the beginning of the month, mine in the middle, then the anniversary of her passing near the end. There is no part of the month where her absence is not felt despite my trying to simply get through it all.  But this month has been especially tough, both personally and professionally. I won't expand on the personal stuff, though it weighs relatively heavy. But professionally, I'm getting my ass handed to me on a daily basis. The education I'm getting is good; the realization that I'm still not at the level I want to be...is frustrating. And that's all on me, I'm finding.  There is a mountain of things I need to learn in order to be half as good as I want to be at my job. And though I still love the work, it has been a really, really hard month. Some of that is work related, a fair amount remains e...

JANUARY  (0 books | 0 pgs) N/A FEBRUARY  (4 books | 1,023 pgs) 01.) The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Novel, 487 pgs) | 5/5 02.) At the Mountains of Madness (for Beginning Readers) by RJ Ivankovic (Novel, 142 pgs) | 5/5 03.) Mothmeister: Sinister and Spiritual Post-Mortem Fairy Tales by Mothmeister (Art, 272 pgs) | 5/5 04.) House of Rot by Danger Slater (Novel, 122 pgs) | 2/5 * The start of this year has made it hard for me to focus on reading. Rather, the state of the world on a daily basis has made it difficult for me to focus on anything other than prepping for worst case scenarios in a number of situations (fiscal, physical, occupational, etc). But getting to finally finish Zafon's first entry in the Cemetery of Forgotten Books series was really nice as I truly love his prose.  March is a wide open month with not a lot happening across its weeks, so hopefully I'll find more time to read through the new books I bought while in Portland, along with several ot...

  "Nobody heard him, the dead man, But still he lay moaning;  I was much further out than you thought And not waving but drowning. Poor chap, he always loved larking And now he's dead It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way, They said.  Oh, no no no, it was too cold always (Still the dead one lay moaning) I was much too far out all my life And not waving but drowning." *     *     * I've always loved this phrase from British poet Stevie Smith. The first time I heard it was my freshman year of college, but not in one of my class lectures or from any of my books. There was a band that came and played on campus by this name. They were loud and screamy and they were just my vibe at a time when I was listening to a lot more punk and emo. You can find their stuff here on their Spotify page .  I've been trying to put together a coherent something about the absolute lunacy that has been this year, but I think the phrase says it nicely, and c...

Grand Total:  104 Books | 25,349 Pages *     *     * JANUARY  (11 books | 2,115 pgs) 01.) This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno (Novel, 258 pgs) | 5/5 02.) Gateways to Abomination by Matthew M. Bartlett (Stories, 145 pgs) | 2/5 03.) The Strange Thing We Became by Eric Larocca (Stories, 119 pgs) | 4/5  04.) Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (Stories, 241 pgs) | 5/5 05.)  Anthony Bourdain Remembered (Nonfiction, 208 pgs) | 4/5 06.) Suicide: An Anthology (Nonfiction, 250 pgs) | 5/5 07.)  Bauhaus by Magdalena Droste (Art Book/Nonfiction, 96 pgs) | 4/5 08.)  From the Neck Up and Other Stories by Aliya Whitely (Stories, 320 pgs) | 4/5 09.)  We Can Never Leave This Place by Eric Larocca (Novel, 104 pgs) | 3/5 10.) You've Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric Larocca (Stories, 236 pgs) | 4/5 11.)  Contagion and Other Stories by Brian Evenson (Stories, 138 pgs) | 2.5/5 FEBRUARY  (16 books | 2,485 pgs) 12.) Where the Deep Ones ...