2026.2.2 - "Gonzo, the Life of Hunter S. Thompson," an oral history by Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour and "Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century," by Hunter S. Thompson
  So they're separate biographies about Thompson. Kingdom of Fear was written while Thompson was still walking around at the end of the 2000s, but afterwards he went through a bad hip and a broken leg, and when he realized he was crippled and unable to write anymore, he killed himself. Honestly, I can respect that. If you're not going to be useful to the people around you anymore, I wouldn't want to get senile either, although elderly people can be uniquely skilled.
  Hunter was an old school Kentucky boy from the 60s, which makes a lot of sense, as he was a riotous outlaw and rabidly individual. He was one of the old guard who remembered what "Freedom" used to mean in the U.S. before Gen Z was raised in the police state. Through his tough guy act, he was also a great listener and a southern gentleman with a passion for justice and the U.S. He said to his friend Ralph, who drew his abstract portraits in Fear and Loathing, that he would oppose his U.S. Citizenship because he didn't deserve it. 
  When faced with the Hell's Angels or the war in Korea, he wasn't so tough and definitely preferred life.
  Personally, Hunter S. Thompson is as American as Mark Twain. They were spokesmen and prophets of their eras, and their dramatic celebrity personas swallowed them. But still very witty. For Hunter, his life depended on his persona, and a good part of his persona was also the astronomical amounts of drugs he was reliant on, even though they hindered and crippled his writing ability. He was someone who never wanted to appear weak. When he was on the drugs, which was always, he was a confident rebel, but they say that he was full of fear and a "vortex of wrath" and indignation, which fueled a lot of his writing. His writing would disregard fact in search of truth. "Everything he wrote was true, but he pretended it wasn't," unlike the others, vice versa.
  And his writing power is undeniable, if ludicrous.
  "There is no such thing as Paranoia, only Ignorance."
  He also randomly capitalizes words... and messes with typeface in his own book. I'm sure he was an influence on House of Leaves.
  Personally, my ma told me Johnny Depp's "Captain Jack Sparrow" character was pure Thompson, and I distinctly remember the poster with the crazy neck, so he's always been a myth in the background for me. 
  P.S. - Oh yeah! He also ran for Sheriff on the Freak Power ticket and almost won... They created a retro-legal gray area in Aspen basically by controlling the Sheriff's office. Local politics for the questionable win?
  
  
"The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky," translated by David Margarshack.
  Dostoevsky is great, but full of rambling. Books full of rambling. They were paid by the page at times.
  White Nights - Prototype Notes from the Underground, with a happy romantic ending for a guy who gets snubbed at romance.
  The Honest Thief - Story about a guy who repents on his deathbed.
  The Christmas Tree and a Wedding - Very good, about 1800s society and marriage. A horrible arranged marriage set decades in advance, for a sum of money.
  The Peasant Marey - A memory for Dostoevsky, explains his fondness for the common peasants of Russia. SHOULD HAVE BEEN SET IN HOUSE OF THE DEAD, but is not.
  A Gentle Creature - It has a very odd taste. The whole book is a revisitation of a failed marriage, that this eccentric man caused by being unnecessarily cold in a marriage of necessity to a wife he truly does admire... What can I say, people are weird, it could very well happen. Personally, it's a captivating tragedy.
  Notes from the Underground - What can I say?! Redefined me, slapped me with reality of who I was, and am going to be otherwise... The Crystal Palace is a great symbol of the monument of perfection in the industrial age, a symbol of Modernism, and it shows up in Watchmen, only to be crushed to ordinary "thermodynamic miracles."
  The Dream of a Ridiculous Man - Yin to the yang of Notes from the Underground. It beats it with optimism. I'm reminded of a theological lesson, that the reason humanity is doomed is because we are ALL Adam, and we would all eat the apple. We're doomed because we're fundamentally the same and repeat the same mistakes, and the only cure for the Ridiculous Man is to just be ridiculous and love all these crass human fools. Actually, that reminds me of "The Peaceful Warrior, which I also read.
  
"House of the Dead," by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  It's basically a memoir about his time in the Siberian Gulag posed as fiction, and he gets fuzzy on this too. Frankly, it's a miserable hellhole, but the prisoners set up their own little society inside, with their own twisted hopes and dreams, even if it's just to have some vodka and to get whipped for it. It's a lot like the outside world, just purified into "Jailer" and "Jailed." Dostoevsky is a nobility prisoner, but he wants to be with the rough peasants, which in Russia are just called the "Unfortunates," and taken care of by peasants outside the jail. They just happened to have that one rush of passion and finally murdered their wives along with whoever they saw. Yes, and it's a lot like "One Flew the Cuckoo's Nest," -- if these people are crazy, aren't we all? Thinking back, these people basically prefer to stay in jail and don't openly rebel, and when they get released it's Shawshank Redemption, it's hard to adjust to a completely different kind of life. The jailers go along with their charges (who they're afraid of because they outnumber and outmuscle the jailers) on holidays. Gosh, this sounds like society is a prison, and the free life is inconceivable for people in the system.
  
  2026.01.06 - Trejo, by Danny Trejo, Mark Twain's Other Woman, by Laura Skandera Trombley
  Sorry, I'll be back in a sec.