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  "description": "Keeping a running list to hold me accountable ",
  "path": "/books/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-01-17T16:33:53.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.poorlydrawnarsenal.com",
  "tags": [
    "Suggest a book!",
    "shirts, mugs, posters, stickers, etc."
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  "textContent": "_Updated May 15, 2026_\n\n _My rating system: 5 stars means that was the perfect book, 4 stars is I enjoyed and would read that again, 3 stars is it was okay, 2 stars is it was bad, and 1 star means no._\n\n## Currently Reading\n\n _Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8: Parade of Horribles_ by Matt Dinniman\n\nSuggest a book!\n\n## Read\n\n _2026_\n _God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater_ by Kurt Vonnegut 4/5\nI enjoyed\n\n _Cat's Cradle_ by Kurt Vonnegut 4.25/5\nCat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin played in my head the entire time I read this book.\n\n_Dead Wake_ by Erik Larson 3.5/5\nThis man fills his book with exposition. In his other book I read, _The Devil in the White City_ , it had a nice pay off. In this book, it didn't really work.\n\n_Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 7: This Inevitable Ruin_ by Matt Dinniman 4.75/5\nAll six books are leading up to the event that happens in this book and the author absolutely nails the landing.\n\n_Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism_ by Sarah Wynn-Williams 4/5\nI didn’t need convincing that Mark Zuckerberg sucks but this helped solidify that thought.\n\n_The Thursday Murder Club_ by Richard Osman 4/5\nA fun who dunnit.\n\n_The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America_ by Erik Larson 4/5\nThere’s kind of three story lines in this book and there’s two I found more interesting than the other.\n\n_A Game of Thrones_ by George RR Martin 4.5/5\nI enjoyed the TV series a lot (until the end). I'm sure this will end better. I hear George R. R. Martin is writing the last two books really quickly.\n\n_The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer_ by Harvey Karp 4/5\nThe Five S’ are the Five D’s of dodgeball but for sleep\n\n _Fahrenheit 451_ by Ray Bradbury 4.25/5\nThis is rather fitting given the current times, even if you exclude the whole authoritarian government part of the book. A main storyline is that books have become obsolete because technology has made our attention spans shorter. That said, I read this on an iPad as Ray Bradbury intended.\n\n_Harlem Shuffle_ by Colson Whitehead 3.75/5\nFirst part of the book is a bit of a slog. Final third is great. I would recommend his _The Nickel Boys_ or _The Underground Railroad_ before this one.\n\n_The Memory Police_ by Yōko Ogawa 3.75/5\nNot exactly sure what to say about this book. It’s a mix of _1984_ and _Fahrenheit 451_ , but set in Japan. It’s a slow read, but interesting.\n\n_The Eye of the Bedlam Bride: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 6_ by Matt Dinniman 4/5\nThe Harry Potter series got me into reading as a kid, I think this series brought me back into reading as an adult.\n\n_The Hike_ by Drew Magary 3.75/5\nHad a very satisfying ending, but the way the author wrote dialogue annoyed me.\n\n_Everything is Tuberculosis_ By John Green 3.75/5\nEverything really is tuberculosis\n\n_Slow Horses_ by Mick Herron 4/5\nWhat the TV show is based on. Pretty much exactly everything that happened in season one of the show but goes a bit more in depth about the side characters.\n\n_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ by Douglas Adams 4.25/5\nA re-read. I love me some Douglas Adams\n\n _The Butcher's Masquerade: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 5_ by Matt Dinniman 4/5\nThe Harry Potter series got me into reading as a kid, I think this series brought me back into reading as an adult.\n\n_The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World_ by Robin Wall Kimmerer 4/5\nA short book which argues that we can learn from nature a better economy than capitalism.\n\n_Catcher in the Rye_ by JD Salinger 3/5\nI read this as required reading as a teenager and I hated it. I found Holden Cauflied angsty and annoying. Re-reading it as an adult, I now understand that kid just needed therapy. Still don’t love it.\n\n_Good Omens_ by Terry Pratchett and someone else 4/5\nThe middle of this book is a bit slow but it has a good pay off. Gonna just pretend that only Terry Pratchett wrote this.\n\n_Dune Messiah_ by Frank Herbert 3.5/5\nThere's a forward at the beginning of my copy of the book from the authors son explaining why _Dune Messiah_ is a misunderstood book, and the book very much reads as a book that needs a forward explaining why it's a misunderstood book.\n\n_Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile_ by Aaron Naparstek, Doug Gordon, Sarah Goodyear 4/5\nI live in a very walkable city (by American standards) and I still need to own a car. This book explains how we got here and what we can do about it.\n\nPiranesi by Susanna Clarke 4/5\nThis book is good, but almost impossible to describe.\n\n_Under the Whispering Door_ by TJ Klune 4.5/5\nA slow start, but ultimately a lovely book about death and meaning of life.\n\n_The Danish Way of Parenting_ by Iben Dissing Sandahl and Jessica Joelle Alexander 4/5\nAn informational book on raising kids\n\n _Project Hail Mary_ by Andy Weir 4.5/5\nA lot of the science either flew over my head or I had to re-read a bunch to understand. Still a good book.\n\n_Demon Copperhead_ by Barbara Kingsolver 4.75/5\nI'll hold my hands up and say that as a city kid, books about rural America don't usually grab me, but this book did. Probably the closest I've been to giving a 5.\n\n_The Color of Magic_ by Terry Pratchett 3.75/5\nI enjoyed this book, but I’ve been told that this is not where you should start your Discworld journey and I can see why.\n\n_Breakfast of Champions_ by Kurt Vonnegut 4.5/5\nThis was a re-read. I like Kurt Vonnegut.\n\n_Erasure_ by Percival Everett 4/5\nThis book features a book within a book which is fun. I didn't realize until after that the movie _American Fiction_ is based on this book.\n\n_You Should Be Grateful: Stories of Race, Identity, and Transracial Adoption_ by Angela Tucker 4.75/5\nBy far the best book on adoption I have read.\n\n_The Gate of the Feral Gods_ by Matt Dinniman 4.25/5\nThis series is really good. Highly recommend.\n\n_The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder_ by David Grann 4/5\nIf you want to read nonfiction that reads like fiction, this author is your guy.\n\n_Lucky Day_ by Chuck Tingle 4.25/5\nSurprisingly hopeful book about human existence. Also, very gory.\n\n_Interior Chinatown_ by Charles Wu 4/5\nA delightfully creative book. Written in the style of a screenplay.\n\n_The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption: Helping Your Child Grow Up Whole_ By Lori Holden with Crystal Hass 4/5\nA purely informational book which I read for reasons 👀\n\n _Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It_ by Cory Doctorow 4/5\nThis is a good book about how the internet became bad. It’s demoralizing and then oddly hopeful at the end.\n\n_The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 3_ by Matt Dinniman 4.25/5\nThese books are just a lot of fun to read. After book 2 was a lot of set up, this one the wheels have started moving (literally).\n\n_Unreasonable Hospitality_ by Will Guidara\nI read this for professional development at work. I'm not going to review things that I read for work, but it is a book I finished.\n\n_North Woods_ by Daniel Mason 3.75/5\nVery technically impressive, every chapter is written in the popular style of the time period it takes place in, but that made it hard for me to get into the book. Glad I finished it though.\n\n_Slaughterhouse Five_ by Kurt Vonnegut 4.5/5\nThis was a re-read but Kurt Vonnegut writes like my brain thinks.\n\n_Killers of the Flower Moon_ by David Grann 4.5/5\nI like the way this guy writes non-fiction. It reads like fiction.\n\n_Carl's Doomsday Scenario_ by Matt Dinniman 4/5\nEnjoyable, but felt like set up for the next book.\n\n_The God of the Woods_ by Liz Moore 4.75/5\nVery good book. Could easily see this being an HBO series adaptation in a few years.\n\n_Pedro Páramo_ by Juan Rulfo 3/5\nI know I read a well written book, but I couldn’t tell you anything that happened.\n\n_James_ by Percival Everett 4.75/5\nThere was one small twist near the end that I didn’t particularly like, but outside of that nearly a perfect book. Feel free to email me if you’ve read it and want to know what I didn’t like\n\n _Dungeon Crawler Carl_ By Matt Dinniman 4.5/5\nThis author reminds me a lot of Douglas Adam’s writing. A fun read.\n\n_I Who Have Never Known Men_ By Jacqueline Harpman 4/5\nA good book, just wanted to know more about the world.\n\n_Small Things Like These_ By Claire Keegan 4.75/5\nI went into this without reading a summary of the book and I think that’s the correct way to do it.\n\n_Untamed_ By Glennon Doyle 4/5\nI agree with everything she’s saying. My criticism is that I think it’s a lot easier to do what she’s suggesting when you have a lot of money than it is for every day people.\n\nPoorly Drawn Arsenal is free, but there are other ways to support what I do.\n\n****Share the newsletter:**** tell your friends (or your enemies) about it.\n\n****Buy some merch:**** I put a lot of my drawings onto shirts, mugs, posters, stickers, etc. This helps keeps the lights on at PDA Headquarters and you get something in return. Neat!\n\n****Leave a Comment:****leaving a comment just lets me know that you like what I’m doing which is sometimes hard to know when you are sending out emails into the ether.\n\n\n## Comments",
  "title": "Books I’ve Read",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-17T22:43:38.987Z"
}