Everything Winslow releases is an immediate but for me. He’s not some great author, but I never fail to have a good time reading his books. The Rhode Island gangster book he came out with last year was good too, I think he’s making that into a series or at least writing a sequel.

Based on your profile picture, I'm going with New Zealand.

I haven’t read it since it was first released in English, but from what I recall the whole thing came together in the last part, but part 4 was a bit of a grind. I liked it a lot when I read it, but I was much more interested in long, loosely structured books at that age.

Watch for smoke from the corner of your eye. Be ready to act quickly.

Guess.

I love the feeling of owning the books that I like to read or just like having many books to create a small library in my room

Since I, like OP, have ground to a halt mid-book (a true rarity for me, I assure you), would you be so kind to encapsulate what Bolaño posits regarding said systems, in the context of connecting the murders to "broader society"?

In other words, is your first name Cliff? Can I see your notes? ("Cliff McGilla, Gorilla-at-Large" is pretty fabulous, just saying)

I prefer renting, however I love buying books when I am at a used bookstore and they are reasonably priced. If it was on my “To Be Read” list and I find it at a bookstore for less than 3 bucks, perfect! If not, to the library I go.

Oh! Speaking of multimedia I don’t ever see people mention this but his sister who performs under the name Poe is a musician and has an entire album inspired by House of Leaves. Apparently Danielewski even wrote many of the lyrics

I want to own every book i read. I have a sentimental attachment to it. They are also tokens of what i have learned

I prefer to buy books so I can support the author and publishing industry. If it's a book I'm not sure about or if I didn't like that author's previous works, I get it from the library or a thrift bookstore. If I don't like a book when I'm done with it, I just gift/donate it. I think it's a really special feeling to be able to own a book and be able to pick it up whenever I want or to display it.

That's why listening to scary audio books are so intense. You can't flick your eyes to the bottom of the page and see what happens. You are stuck at the pace of the author and it is freaky. Highly recommend The Shining on Audible.

I actually think The Mysterious Affair at Styles is a good place to start. It is more spare than her later novels, but you can see all the elements that characterize her mysteries. I didn't find it boring at all, and she does cleverly trick the reader, which is essentially her signature style.

I loved house of leaves. It's a pretty good critique of postmodern media. I would argue it's not merely deconstructive but attempts to posit solutions without a return to modernity.

I think Danielewski gets a lot of misplaced hate for making postmodernism not only accessible but enjoyable. It's quite a bit more optimistic, empathetic, and kind compared to other lit fic. His books have a naive earnestness which is distinct from the sort of distanced cynicism of Don DeLillo or Will Self. The backlash against him feels very similar to the backlash against Bruno Latour and I suspect it's for similar reasons.

You can certainly not like Danielewskis style, which includes so much multimedia it can come off as gimmicky, but I think it's hard to argue that he's not effective with it. His Familiar series was super interesting and I'm sad that it was cancelled.

I have never read it, but have seen a lot of comments about it pertaining to B. Traven. What is the connection to him?

The one about the murdered prostitutes (or something, long time since I read it)? That was the worst. It was just repeating itself 20 times.

This is the most boring book I have finished. And whenever I think about the worst books I know, this comes to mind. It was one story in there that was interesting. The rest, not so much.

Oh man Danielewski is another tough one for sure. I have house of leaves but I’ve never taken the plunge, I hear so many conflicting things

A WEEK?? do you have any tips? I'm an enthusiastic reader but it takes me months to read one. What are you doing, setting aside full days to do nothing but read?

I like buying physical copies but starting to run out of room 😂

It depends on what I want to read. For newer titles, I rent maybe 95% of the time. Just a couple of weeks ago I went to my library and rented an entire series that just came out last year. Thankfully I have multiple well-stocked libraries in my county to make this possible, since I prefer holding physical books.

If I want to read a book that's been out for a while, I buy maybe 50% of the time. If I know there's a high chance that I'll like it and I can find it for a low price secondhand, I'll add it to my home library. Ebay and thriftbooks are great for getting super cheap books. I also tend to pick up random books for a buck on clearance at half price books or at a library donation bookstore.

20-30 books doesn’t sound too bad. I’ve got about 300 books and half of them are unread. I’m building a personal library. I would like to see my read vs unread percentage stay around 50 percent.

I've tried to read it 2 or 3 times, and every time I think I get somewhere into the second part and just fall off. It's been probably more that 15 years. But I'd still like to finish someday, haha.

I only buy books that are not available to borrow from the library. Unless it’s some very special book that I want as a reference or to write notes in, then I can justify buying a book. My library also has the option of suggesting books for the library to purchase. So far I’ve done this once and they actually purchased it within a week or so. I know that doesn’t solve your desire to write notes in a book, but you could possibly keep a journal and make references to page numbers and edition/publication info.

Haha I meant to have a space between struggle and bus, whoops. It's not a real thing, it's slang for an imaginary bus representing perpetual struggle. Like, if you're having a really crummy day and nonsense just keeps getting thrown at you, you're driving the struggle bus.