The Book Count 2026

[Greg]

January

Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne Jan 2, 2026 Rating B
Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite Jan 3, 2026 (Book 1 of a series) Rating B
Spying on the South by Peter Horwitz Jan 4 , 2026 Rating B

[Greg]

Walking with Ghosts by Gabriel Byrne

Actor Gabriel Byrne writes this atmospheric and sort of surreal memoir about his early life growing up in Ireland. If you are looking for great snippets about his work in film, keep looking. Although there are a few good snippets about his interactions with other actors, notably Laurence Olivier. He also cops to being confused about he was able to make love while still in a full suit of armor in Excalibur. Mostly the book is a stream of consciousness look at growing up. It is left up to the reader to piece the story together into a complete whole. There are some horrifying bits especially his time as an altar boy. But there aren't a lot of facts about what where and when.

It's an interesting read but I don't it really pierces the veil of Byrne's life.

[Greg]

Murder by Memory by Olivia Waite

I don't know that this book stretches to Novella length. I read it in a sitting. It's a weird Victorian Space Opera. The sensibility of Austin with a bunch of high tech. Something maybe Carriger would write. It's a sapphic mystery about the spaceship's detective, on a centuries long trip,  suddenly being roused from storage into a body not her own. She must figure out what has happened and why. But the trip to the solution happens very quickly. We are just settling into the world and the environment when the mystery is solved. There is another book in this series but I think it is equally as short.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Dungeon Crawler Carl, by Matt Dinniman

Stupid title, HUGE FUN. G-Man, who hates all things fun, should probably pass on this series.

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There Is No Anti-Memetics Division, by Qntm

Hard to fight brain-plagues, etc, when your existence is constantly being edited.

Very enjoyable, tightly written, tense with some humor. Recommended.

[Greg]

Spying on the South by Peter Horwitz

The clickbait title suckered me in. In the precis for the book, ostensibly it was supposed to be about Frederick Law Olmsted's journey through the South to report on conditions there in the lead up to the Civil War. Granted, FLO, didn't know there was to be a Civil War but he wanted to find ways to bridge the divide between the Slave states and the Non-Slave states. So, he journey south all the way to Texas to get a better understanding of what people felt down there. If you don't recognize the name Frederick Law Olmsted, he was part of the team that designed Central Park. Closer to home, he was one of the original commissioners that ran the Yosemite Grant. He was instrumental in writing a report on how the park should be run. Side note, part of the report was suppressed or mislaid because moneyed interests didn't like some of his plans. On the negative, he also made sure there would be no forest fires in the valley, an idea which ruined the ecology of the park for many years. But I digress.

This was the guy who was going to write about the South. And part of that journey would later influence his feelings about the need for egalitarian public spaces. That's not quite what we got. Instead, it was a travelogue by Horwitz who used Olmsted's route as kind of a template for his own journey. He visited the places Olmsted visited and talk to the current residents in those places about their modern experience. Now, Horwitz took his trip in 2016 in the run up to the eventual election of Tr***. There were parallels to Olmsted's fractured country and our own current fractured country. But most of the book was Horwitz's experiences and that's not really what I wanted. I was curious about Olmsted for his ties to Yosemite. I got Horwitz.

It took me a long time to get through this book. I kept putting it down in favor of lighter fare. Every time i went back to it, I was just mad that I was reading about Horwitz and his journey rather than Olmsted.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Dungeon Crawler Carl series, by Matt Dinniman

Almost through book 2 and I can see why this is a monster hit.

Characters are slowly deepening, action is unabated. All good fun, no G-Man allowed!

[Greg]

Eff you! I'm 36th in line for the one copy of Dungeon Crawler Carl they have in the San Joaquin library system.

[Greg]

The most magical time of the year has arrived: Zip Book Requests, where the library buys books you request and ships them to your house. I just ordered the latest Max Gladstone since it wasn't in their system.