Just A Peck 0028 // 2025: Favorite Reads

Just A Peck

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JOURNAL

This week I drove down to the Twin Cities for a series of work meetings. If 10-year-old Justin could see our offices, he would absolutely freak out.

Justin and Gandalf

On Saturday, we attended the soft relaunch of Zeitgeist brunch with friends. Of the many things we lost during the pandemic, Zeitgeist brunch is way up my list. It’s so good to have it back! The food and drinks were great, but the best part was a restaurant full of people we know and love.

Zeitgeist Brunch
Zeitgeist Brunch
Zeitgeist Brunch

After brunch, we played board games including a boxed escape room with a final clue so ridiculous it required using a bright light and sewing glasses. (We didn’t have a jeweler’s loupe.)

Justin reading boxed Escape Room cover

Then Jody and I took a (very cold) hike at Hartley while waiting for Four Mile Portage to set up at Northern Waters.

Hartley hike

We ended the night with Northern Waters sandwiches and good music.

Four Mile Portage at Northern Waters

What I watched this week:

  • Repo Man (1984). A big cult movie blind spot for me. Messy and hilarious. Cartoonish punks, early 80s comedy trappings, Emilio Esteves and Harry Dean Stanton. "Plate o' shrimp", generic packaging labels, and a 1964 Chevy Malibu with radioactive aliens in the trunk.
  • 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple (2026). The second half of last year's 28 Years Later. Ralph Fiennes and Jack O'Connell are so good in this. As with most good zombie movies, the humans are the true nightmare. Alfie Williams plays a smaller part, but he and Erin Kellyman are great. Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, and Teletubbies.
  • In the Mood for Love (2000). One of the all-time greats. It has been thirteen years since I last watched this, and it's even better than I remembered. Gorgeous, wistful, slow-motion longing. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are brilliant. Wong Kar-Wai is a genius.

What I’m reading this week:

  • FINISHED: Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City (audiobook), by K.J. Parker -- Recommended by a friend. A fun, fantasy engineering romp--kind of like The Martian, where we watch our protagonist repeatedly try (and meet with varying levels of success) to solve an endless series of issues related to his city being under siege. This author was new to me, but after finishing this one I'm interested enough to try his Engineer Trilogy.
  • FINISHED: Dungeon Crawler Carl (audiobook), by Matt Dinniman -- Everyone has been talking about this series, so I decided to finally give it a try. It's my first experience with this subgenre of LitRPG, which I have learned blends traditional genre elements with game mechanics like stats, levels, quests, and skills. The book was funny and exciting in the way that good role-playing sessions often are. I'm not sure these are exactly my cup of tea, but I'll definitely give the next one a try.
  • FINISHED: Muybridge (graphic novel in translation), by Guy Delisle. I absolutely loved this. I thought I knew the story of how Muybridge's work led to early cinema, but I knew only a fraction of the story about this fascinating, brilliant, complicated man. Well-researched and even more expertly presented, it walks us through an era of wild technical advancement and how it intersected with horse racing, photography, painting, newspapers, murder, cinema, politics, logistics, and business rivalries. Highly, highly recommended.
  • Clay's Ark, Butler
  • Middlemarch, Eliot
  • Hollywood: The Oral History, Bassinger, Wasson

MEMORIES

Five Years Ago:

One of the great joys of our 33 year marriage was being able to watch Jody teach during lockdown. I’m in awe of her, and I feel like I got to witness mastery every day from my desk right above where she was working. It was like seeing an olympic athlete perform feats that seem impossible, while also managing to provide love and learning to her “classroom” of 2nd graders over Zoom.

Jody teaching via Zoom

Ten Years Ago:

Our talented friend Amber painted the beautiful triptych that still hangs in our living room. (This was actually Dec 31st 2015, so slightly more than ten years ago, but I didn’t have room to put it in the newsletter a couple of weeks ago.)

Amber and her triptych

2025: FAVORITE READS

This was a busy year, so I didn’t get to do as much reading as I would have liked. But even given that, it’s hard not to be grateful as I look back over the books I did manage to read this year, and am able to find so many that I loved. Here are those favorites:

The Mountain in the Sea
The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler. This was the reading highlight of the year for me. As I posted when I finished it: A propulsive, intelligent, hopeful, *beautiful* novel of ideas (AI, sentience, semiotics, conservation) with cyberpunk influences. I ordered the author's other books immediately along with a bunch of nonfiction referenced in the acknowledgments, and then emailed him personally to let him know how much I loved it.
Montaigne
Montaigne by Stefan Zweig. This tiny, beautiful biography of Montaigne (which draws parallels between the the Catholic-Protestant conflicts of Montaigne's time with the rise of totalitarianism in Zweig's time) felt especially relevant this year. Self-examination, intellectual freedom, tolerance, and critical thinking. It led me to buy another biography and a collection of Montaigne's essays.
Mythago Wood
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. Recommended by my friend Seth. I don't read a ton of fantasy, but this was a subgenre (Mythic Fiction?) that I didn't realize existed. A novel exploring how our stories, myths, and legends both reflect who we are and shape who we are, echoing back in a feedback loop of storytelling and meaning-making generation after generation across millenia. I really enjoyed it.
The Lottery
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson. This was one of our book club picks. I had read most of Shirley Jackson's novels, but the only short story of hers that I'd read before was the same one everyone has read, "The Lottery". This 75th Anniversary collection is full of gems that, especially when read together, are almost as powerful.
Jaws Log
Jaws Log (Expanded Edition) by Carl Gottlieb. In preparation for The Shark Is Broken, I reread Carl Gottlieb's account of the making of Jaws. It was originally published nearly simultaneously with the release of the film, so Gottlieb's often humorous stories are still fresh in his memory. The expanded edition was published 25 years later and is filled with fascinating follow-up footnotes addressing many things that only became clear at a distance.
Every Man for Himself
Every Man for Himself and God Against All by Werner Herzog. I listened to the audiobook version of Herzog's memoir because it is narrated by Herzog himself. However awesome you think it might be to hear Herzog tell you his life story, it's even better. However wild you think those stories might be, they're even wilder.
Shadow Ticket
Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon. After giving up on Vineland, I pivoted directly into a second Pynchon because it was our book club pick. I enjoyed this quite a bit, and our book club conversation was great. It's always humbling to read Pynchon. Every once in a while you catch a glimmer of something three levels below the surface and realize that he's doing things so complex that even your careful, diligent reading is still missing riches in the deep.
Red Team Blues
Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow. I've supported the crowdfunding efforts for Cory's Martin Hench books, but I hadn't had the chance to read one until this year. Apparently they work backwards, so in this first one, Martin Hench (a forensic accountant) is in his late 60s, and is dealing with high-tech financial crimes involving billionaires, money laundering, cryptocurrency, shell companies, and very dangerous people. The subsequent books move backwards in time to 2006 and then 1986. In addition to being a highly-informed activist and an engaging writer, Doctorow is also technical. So his books are spot-on and insightful.
Codebreaker
Codebreaker by Jay Martel. My friends wrote the kind of book I would have gone nuts over as a kid. Codes, puzzles, and spies. Even though it's YA fiction, I still had a blast with it as an adult. I hope they sell a million copies of this. Tell all your friends.

2026 is already off to a better start from a reading perspective. I’m excited to have a more open calendar relative to previous years.

Here’s to more great books in 2026!

MY FAVORITE QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"There is consolation in the fact that missing out is an inexorable side effect of the richness of human life. It reflects something wonderful: that there is so much to love and that it is so various that one history could not encompass it all. Even immortality would not suffice: your biography must have a determinate shape that differs from other eternities you could have lived. You still miss out.

So tell yourself this: although I may regret regret, desire that no desire go unfulfilled, I cannot in the end prefer to have desires that could be fully met. The sense of loss is real; but it is something to concede, not wish away. Embrace your losses as fair payment for the surplus of being alive."

-- Kieran Setiya

That’s it for this week. Stay safe, friends. Thanks for reading!

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