Tag / Jason Rekulak

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Prolific Authors – Two Books

It is time once again to take a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school.  This year, I’m once again on pace to set a new record for books read in a year, so I thought it would be nice to take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through August of this year. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 114 books, so there should be some movement over the past two years.  Without further ado, it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much over the years.  We begin today with the 40 authors I’ve read two times, one fewer than two years ago.

Laura Caldwell

I have no idea how I came across the work of this local author, but I must have enjoyed it enough to go back for seconds.  Unfortunately, she passed away in 2020, leaving behind a back catalog of fourteen novels and two non-fiction books.

Michael Chabon

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the most recent of the two works of his I’ve read.  I have another, Wonder Boys, waiting in the to read pile, so he rise up some day.

Matthew V. Clemens

The co-author, with Max Allan Collins, of the final two chapters of the Reeder and Rogers trilogy.

Ready Player Two – Ernest Cline

Ernest Cline

The man responsible for both Ready Player One and Ready Player Two.

Bill Clinton

The former president has co-written two novels with James Patterson.

Michael Connelly

The creator of Harry Bosch makes his first appearance thanks to his Renée Ballard spin-off series.

Laura Dave

I read my second novel from her, The Night We Lost Him, earlier this year.

Felicia Day

The first author here that I’ve happened to meet in person.

Cameron Dokey

She makes the list based on two entries in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series.

Warren Ellis

The comic writer, currently in exile after being called out for abusing women, makes the list thanks to two prose novels.

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Book 7 (of 52) – The Last One At The Wedding

The Last One At The Wedding – Jason Rekulak

After three years without contact, Frank Szatowski is surprised when his daughter Maggie calls him to tell her about her engagement.  After an uneasy dinner with Maggie and her fiancé in Boston, Frank returns to Pennsylvania concerned, but excited for the happy day.  When he arrives in a small New Hampshire town to attend the wedding at the groom’s family’s private estate, his concern returns.  As the weekend goes on, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family, but it’s difficult.  As events unfold, Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but can he without losing Maggie forever?

Jason Rekulak returns with The Last One at the Wedding.  Unlike his previous work, which fell more in the horror genre, this is more of a straight mystery and even landed on the nominee list for the 2024 Goodreads Choice Award for Favorite Mystery & Thriller.  While I liked the overall story, I felt like the stakes were kind of low, as the main character is on the periphery of the mystery and not directly involved.  That said, it was a solid, if not spectacular, effort and I look forward to more from him in the future.

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2023: The Year In Books

As 2023 comes to a close, my third full year of remote working, I managed to far surpass my previous records by completing a whopping 59 books, four books more than my previous high from last year and my third consecutive year completing the 52 books in 52 weeks challenge.  I completed the challenge in late November and surpassed last year’s total in mid-December.  I read (or listened) to 21,394 pages, by far my highest total of all time and only the fourth time I’ve passed 10,000.

Of those books, eleven were non-fiction and, of the remaining 48 novels, only four were tied to a TV show, either as the source material or as a tie-in.  None of the books came out of my dwindling “to-read” drawer, with 53 e-books and two audiobooks.  I continued to take advantage of my library card, which helped me procure 44 of the books I consumed throughout the year.

Over 61% of the books I read this year were by authors I had read before. The 22 authors that I read for the first this year were:

Selma Blair Stacy Willingham Gillian McAllister Chuck Klosterman
Gabrielle Zevin Ronan Farrow Matthew Perry Amor Towles
Jason Rekulak Emily St. John Mandel Bonnie Garmus Thomas Mullen
Naomi Hirahara Maitland Ward Busy Phillips Elliot Page
Jinwoo Chong Maureen Ryan Minka Kelly Britney Spears
Emily Henry Rebecca Makkai

Jennifer McMahon, Karin Slaughter, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Erle Stanley Gardner, Grady Hendrix, Jeffery Deaver, Laura Lippman, Ruth Ware, and Stacy Willingham were the only authors that I read multiple titles from during 2023.

18 of the books I read were released this year, while only five of them were released last century, with the oldest first published in 1934.

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Book 24 (of 52) – Hidden Pictures

Hidden Pictures – Jason Rekulak

Eighteen months sober, a young woman takes a job as a summer babysitter for a wealthy family in the suburbs.  But when mysterious drawings start showing up, drawings that appear to come from the hands of her young charge, she starts digging into the local urban legend of a young woman murdered in the cabin where she now lives.  However, she finds that the truth is much scarier, and everyone’s lives are in danger.

Hidden Pictures, by Jason Rekulak, landed on my radar after winning the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for Horror.  Aside from the small supernatural element, it is your standard thriller, with the young protagonist trying to figure out the mystery unfolding around her.  While the ending was a little shaky, I liked most of what Rekulak had to offer and look forward to trying his next offering some day.