To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee ★★☆☆☆

“Let the dead bury the dead.  

Let the dead bury the dead.”

That was an exhausting journey through ugliness.  

Elric of Melniboné: The Elric Saga Part 1 by Michael Moorcock ★★☆☆☆

Poor Cymoril.  A practical noblewoman with the misfortune to fall in love with Eric - a skinny, asthmatic philosophy major addicted to a paranormal blend of meth and dark magic.  An albino prince completely unwilling to listen to reason.  

The stories are Eric getting into trouble for not listening to Cymoril.  Eric running away and proclaiming he misses and loves Cymoril - while impregnating Oone the Dream Thief.  Eric accidentally killing Cymoril, like she told him he would.  Eric destroying everything in sadness and then sleeping around some more.   

Sometimes classics let you down :(

Double Indemnity by James M. Cain ★★★★★

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco ★★★☆☆

That just about sums up the book.  

An impressive level of research and love of history went into this book.  But if you don’t share Echo’s niche love of medieval ecclesiastical history the book is tear-out-your-hair frustrating.  

The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell ★★★★½

The Dead by James Joyce ★★★☆☆

A boring dinner party ends with a poignant moment - that is all.   

It did add some depth of emotion to Emily Prentiss at the end of Demonology, S4E17, Criminal Minds.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré ★★★★★

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John LeCarré ★★★★☆

A Murder of Quality by John LeCarré ★★☆☆☆

Call For the Dead by John LeCarré ★★★★☆

The Long Walk by Stephen King ★★★★★

I walked all eleven hours of this audiobook and I highly recommend you do the same. 

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt ★★★★★

All best sellers should be this good.

Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber ★★★☆☆

An ethnology professor specializing in primitive superstition stumbles upon his wife’s occult hobby. As Norman (for Normal?) loses his secular certainty his life unravels. 

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman ★★★☆☆

"I didn’t know how realistic a picture they had of their future. Their lack of a future, that is." 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty ★★★★☆

“You don't blame us for being here, do you?  After all, we have no place to go.  No home... Incidentally, what an excellent day for an exorcism...” 

The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell ★★★★★

“I was naked before God and I was raped." 

I'm trying to remember a book that traumatized me this much and failing.

Patriot Games (Jack Ryan #1) by Tom Clancy ★★★★★

If there’s anything better than classic Clancy I have yet to find it. Damn but this was good, a perfect balance of action, intrigue, and investigation. Listed as the first Jack Ryan adventure, the old girl holds up well.

Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach ★★★★★

“Ecotopians have the feeling of never being alone.” 

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ★★★★★

Welcome to America, every day, every headline, a dystopia. That Fahrenheit 451 reads like it was written last month should be a chilling thought. The intolerance of minorities, the screaming social media, the anti intellectualism, the unmoored anger...

Not for the first time, or the last, I want to gather all my books and leave the country.

The Elementals by Michael McDowell ★★★★☆

90% southern family drama

10% horror