The One Hundred Nights of Hero

 The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg (2016) 224 pages 

I read this on Libby. I like the color scheme of the art and the fantasy of this setting, an alternate land called Early Earth. "In the tradition of the Arabian Nights" is the perfect way to summarize this book. The author is British so cheeky describes the sense of humor in these feminist folk tales. Cherry and Hero outsmart the wicked suitor, Manfred, like Shahrazad delayed the vengeful Sultan, with stories. Hero wins over the guards and others with her stories in a world where women are supposed to be illiterate and powerless. She subverts all expectations.                        

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and B. Traven

 The Treasure of the Sierra Madre by B. Traven (1935) 313 pages

I listened to the audiobook on Hoopla narrated by three voices. I love the movie version from 1948 and have been curious to check out the source material. The book has a lot more background information, but not about the three main gold prospector characters. Instead, the author paints a picture of Mexico, its bandits, its socio-religious conditions, and other backstories about people craving gold. The plot with Dobbs, Curtin, and Howard is nearly identical to the movie. Howard is the knowledgeable old-timer. Dobbs and Curtin first meet on an oil drilling contract and then go searching for gold in the mountains. Trust and saving each others' lives eventually devolves into paranoid distrust and murderous intentions. Dobbs, in particular, has an epic descent into madness over his greed for gold.

B. Traven: Portrait of a Famous Unknown by Golo (2024) 144 pages

This graphic nonfiction is translated from French. I was curious to learn more about the author of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. The enigma, B. Traven, remains an enigma. He used many pseudonyms through the years. Golo uses Traven's novels to piece together what his life experiences might have been. It gets into the weeds of German politics between WWI and WWII. One of his novels is about the terrible conditions working shoveling coal on a steam ship, and so, it is thought it is based on his lived experience, a job that allowed him to escape Germany and the rise of Naziism. When he begins living in Mexico I was much more engaged in the life story. He wrote many novels set in Mexico. The art of the graphic novel is fairly busy (especially on the color montage pages), so I didn't find much clarity about the man.

The Incredible Kindness of Paper

The Incredible Kindness of Paper by Evelyn Sky (2025), 256 pages 

If you enjoy Hallmark movies, but want them to be even more saccharine sweet, this is the book for you. No judgement if you just want a nice story that ends in happiness (we could all use a bit of that), but this was just a little bit too over the top for me. Although - it has renewed my interest in origami.

The Marlow Murder Club

The Marlow Murder Club by Robert Thorogood (2021), 384 pages

Murder is afoot in the sleepy town of Marlow. Never fear as septuagenarian Judith Potts is on the case. If you love cozy British mysteries, this is right up your alley. Overall, I did enjoy it, but it isn't a favorite. I have also already read The Thursday Murder Club and it is almost impossible to not compare the two. The MMC feels a bit heavier and less fun the then The TMC. The characters didn't feel as original and I enjoyed the relationship between the characters more in The TMC. But, if you love The TMC and have zoomed through the series and looking for something similar, definitely check out The MMC. 

That's What Friends Are For

That's What Friends Are For by Wade Rouse (2026) 344 pages

Four gay men, ranging in age from their sixties to early eighties, are living together in Palm Springs, in a pink house once owned by Zsa Zsa Gabor. They came out as gay in times when people were even less tolerant than they are today, and each of the men has been wounded along the way. They call themselves the Golden Gays, and they even put on shows regularly, modeling them after the Golden Girls TV show that aired from the late 80s to the early 90s. Teddy, who runs a vintage clothing shop, plays the role of Dorothy. Barry, who is an actor who never made it big, writes the shows for the Golden Gays and plays the role of Blanche. Sid, the oldest at eighty-one, is still working ten hours a week as an attorney. He was once married to a woman and has adult children and now grandchildren. He plays the role of Sophia. Ron keeps the house running and the others fed, as well as tends to various civic boards in the city. He plays the role of Rose.

Even now, as best friends and housemates, they have secrets from each other. The novel sets them in motion, and as we see their lives unspool, it's hard not to care about them a whole lot. I highly recommend this book.

This Inevitable Ruin

 

This Inevitable Ruin by Matt Dinniman, 870 pages.

Floor nine of the dungeon means Faction Wars! And, for the first time in history, the rich and powerful aliens who come to the dungeon to play games with their lives can die too. In this seventh book of the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, the chaos is escalating as the system AI goes of the rails and pandemonium spreads outside the dungeon. 

I was really looking forward to this floor, and in some ways it met my expectations, and in some it didn't. On one hand, the out-of-dungeon politics are really interesting, and this book does a great job crystalizing a lot of details of the larger scale plot. On the other, I do feel like this book got a little bogged down in the logistics of a many factioned war, and it often felt less fun and breakneck than many of the other books because of it. I did still enjoy this book, and I will be reading more of the series. I'm excited to be almost caught up!

 

The Secret Public

 

The Secret Public: How Music Moved Queer Culture From the Margins to the Mainstream by Jon Savage, 784 pages.

This hefty book does pretty much what it says on the cover, tracing the intersection of queer history with music and pop culture. More specifically, from 1955 to 1979. I found this book a little lacking in focus, although supposedly about music, it also spent quite a bit of time on Hollywood and Andy Warhol. I'm also not entirely sure why the author decided to stop in 1979 after the fall of disco, when I think the 1980s might be one of the more interesting decades for this topic. 

That being said, it was still very informative, and I do feel like I learned a lot. This is indisputably a slow book, but everything in it is also thoroughly researched. I think I would recommend this more to people interested in the pop culture of the 1950s-1970s than anyone else. 

The Edge

The Edge (The 6:20 Man #2) by David Baldacci, 417 pages

While Baldacci does tend to be a bit formulaic and his character writing, to me, a little stilted, I did enjoy this follow-up to the 6:20 Man. I actually think it is better than the first book. It was a good twisty mystery with some heft. Baldacci even gives a shout out to his second cousin (former Governor of Maine). I do wish he would lay-off the ex-military, but super nice guy tropes. If you enjoy this genre of books, I think you will enjoy The Edge.

Transported

 Transported: The Everyday Magic of Musical Daydreams by Elizabeth Margulis, 240 pgs. © 2026

I saw the author speak at Left Bank two months ago and was really interested to read this. I've enjoyed reading other works about the latest scientific discoveries of music research. This one didn't quite hit the mark for me. Margulis is the director of the Music Cognition lab at Princeton so she's definitely in her wheelhouse, but a lot of this book reads like an extended version of a grad student's final paper. She relies on a lot of pop culture reference to illustrate her points about some of the latest research, probably to make it easier to understand for the layperson. And while connecting and quantifying imagination with music and daydreams is really interesting, it seems like a field that's still in it's infancy. That is to say maybe this book should've been written when there were more conclusive findings that actually pointed to answers. Still, there are some interesting takeaways, like how people in a group can hear a new piece of music and imagines similar themes and images--or how music can call forth autobiographical memories more readily in dementia patients. It's an interesting field, I'm sure there will be more to learn as research continues. 

The Unteachables

 The Unteachables, by Gordon Korman, 288 pgs. © 2019

Another night time read with my kiddo. Korman's definitely got a style and he knows how to cater to this age group but also make it fun for adults. Each chapter switches to a different character so that helps make the narrative interesting while also developing the plot. This particular story focuses on a band of misfit school kids who get a new teacher at the end of his rope--it's a fun premise that really gave me some Bad New Bears vibes, if anyone remembers that movie 😂