Dan Pinkerton (Author of Democracy of Noise)

Dan started reading Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series by Eliot Asinof	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Mar 15, 2026 01:42PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan finished reading Texasville: A Novel (Duane Moore Book 2) by Larry McMurtry	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 21, 2026 09:52AM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Texasville by Larry McMurtry. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan entered a giveaway Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1) by Colson Whitehead (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 16, 2026 06:17AM · like · see giveaway · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan started reading Texasville: A Novel (Duane Moore Book 2) by Larry McMurtry	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jan 13, 2026 05:25PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Texasville by Larry McMurtry. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan finished reading Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Dec 18, 2025 08:06PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan rated a book really liked it The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Steven Millhauser seems like he should check all the boxes for me. Much of his work is subtly fantastical or magically realist. His prose is always stylish. His stories are imaginative. And his mode of storytelling is unique, often employing a collec ...more
Nov 29, 2025 03:43PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan rated a book it was amazing All Fours by Miranda July (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
It makes sense that the cumulative star rating of "All Fours" is around 3.5, as I imagine readers will either love or hate this book. I personally loved it, though I'd be hesitant to recommend it widely. For one thing, "All Fours" is fairly plotless. ...more
Nov 29, 2025 11:36AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of All Fours by Miranda July. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — All Fours by Miranda July <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan rated a book liked it If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
More than anything, "If Anyone Builds It" caused me to question why I was so anxious to read this book in the first place. The sign of a good nonfiction book for me is that I'm always recounting facts about it to the annoyed people around me, but I f ...more
Nov 18, 2025 12:46PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan rated a book it was amazing The Endurance Artist: Lazarus Lake, the Barkley & a Race with No End by Jared Beasley (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Beasley did a great job with what was likely a very difficult subject: Gary Cantrell aka Laz Lake, someone with no fixed identity, someone who has been notoriously cagey with reporters, loose with facts, and silent about his private life. Surprisingl ...more
Nov 14, 2025 01:29PM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of The Endurance Artist by Jared Beasley. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — The Endurance Artist by Jared Beasley <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">
Dan rated a book really liked it Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum by Michael J. Fox	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is a light read, a fun book - it's always great to hear Michael J. Fox's voice - but there isn't much new or revelatory here. "Future Boy" will likely put you in the mood to watch "Back to the Future" again, but if you're already a fan of the fi ...more
Nov 10, 2025 07:21AM · like · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Future Boy by Michael J. Fox. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Future Boy by Michael J. Fox <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Dan started reading

Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series
by Eliot Asinof

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan finished reading

Texasville: A Novel (Duane Moore Book 2)
by Larry McMurtry

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan entered a giveaway

Harlem Shuffle (Ray Carney, #1)
by Colson Whitehead (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan started reading

Texasville: A Novel (Duane Moore Book 2)
by Larry McMurtry

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan finished reading

Wynne's War
by Aaron Gwyn

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan rated a book really liked it

The Knife Thrower and Other Stories
by Steven Millhauser

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Steven Millhauser seems like he should check all the boxes for me. Much of his work is subtly fantastical or magically realist. His prose is always stylish. His stories are imaginative. And his mode of storytelling is unique, often employing a collec Steven Millhauser seems like he should check all the boxes for me. Much of his work is subtly fantastical or magically realist. His prose is always stylish. His stories are imaginative. And his mode of storytelling is unique, often employing a collective first person ("we") narrator, a chorus of townspeople, which then enables him to tell stories in a different way, not so much linear and plot-driven as circular, swelling, or accumulative narratives. However, his preoccupations or themes start to call attention to themselves and become redundant. Over and over, there recur turn of the century carnivals, amusement parks, and department stores. This collection starts out strong with the title story. At this point, the carnival is still new. The collective narrator consists of an audience who attend the performance of a traveling knife thrower whose antics become increasingly violent and criminal. It's a thrilling story, because the stakes are high. The following story, "A Visit," is strange but somewhat less effective. The narrator visits an old friend in the country who has married a frog. "The Sisterhood of Night" involves a town where girls sneak out at night to do, well, no one knows, which becomes the story's conflict. It's a narrative reminiscent of "The Virgin Suicides." Some of Millhauser's stories have a musty, dated feel to them. The middle of the collection is taken up with flying carpets. Automatons make repeated appearances. There are likewise recurrences of young teens struggling to fall asleep on summer nights and sneaking out to witness or participate in strange things. A couple of the later stories are, or are close to, historical fiction set in Western Europe. "The Dream of the Consortium" seems like a likely precursor, or is strongly derivative of, "Martin Dressler." The same boy begins working in his father's tobacco shop, then becomes a hotel clerk, and finally owns a gigantic department store with numerous subterranean levels. The idea of the underground recurs in "Paradise Park" and in "Beneath the Cellars of Our Town." Thematically, Millhauser seems to be saying that beneath the normal, ordinary affairs of our lives are deeper, subconscious levels where sometimes sinister or at least unexplained phenomena occur, and there's always a risk in digging too deep. The final story, "Beneath the Cellars," calls to mind Calvino's "Invisible Cities. The idea of being underground also echoes Murakami. In his effort to tether the real world to the fantastical, Millhauser can become tedious, specifically when he's listing detail upon detail. One writer he is not inspired by is Hemingway. For example, a shingle isn't merely a shingle here; instead, it's a red asphalt shingle. The reader gets bogged down in description, and the action, which can be minimal to begin with, grinds to a halt. I will continue to read Millhauser, but not really out of love for his work, more in admiration for the singularity of his style. ...more

Dan rated a book it was amazing

All Fours
by Miranda July (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

It makes sense that the cumulative star rating of "All Fours" is around 3.5, as I imagine readers will either love or hate this book. I personally loved it, though I'd be hesitant to recommend it widely. For one thing, "All Fours" is fairly plotless. It makes sense that the cumulative star rating of "All Fours" is around 3.5, as I imagine readers will either love or hate this book. I personally loved it, though I'd be hesitant to recommend it widely. For one thing, "All Fours" is fairly plotless. The protagonist, a fictionalized version of the author, comes into some money after a blurb of hers (she's a writer and artist) is used in a whiskey commercial, so she decides to go on a cross-country drive to New York. This is where the plot, such as it is, starts to unravel. She only gets about twenty miles from home when she settles into a room at a roadside hotel and decides to spend all her earnings redecorating the room. This is the point I knew I was in July Land. As a reader, I felt tense about the protagonist's choice. She didn't clear this with the hotel owner. She lied to her husband, Harrison, and her son, Sam, convincing them she continued on to New York. Then she strikes up a semi-sexual relationship with a young local dancer named Davey who is currently working at Hertz and whose wife is the interior decorator of the hotel room. I loved that nothing in "All Fours" was expected: the detour to the hotel room, the interior decorating scheme, the fact that the relationship with the younger dancer is never consummated. The protagonist initially finds Davey and his dancing silly, so she herself is surprised by the depth of the relationship and the steps she'll take to advance it, despite her faithful husband and child at home. Trust and betrayal are recurring themes in the book. Despite the silliness of the initial detour to a cheap hotel and the impulsive decision to redecorate the room, "All Fours" captures real emotions in a way that few other books do. Maybe the very fact that the book isn't plot driven allows readers to become more invested in the protagonist, who attributes her sudden attractions and feelings to being perimenopausal. There's certainly an element here of youth slipping away. And while the protagonist remains convinced that bodies should do what they want, including casual relationships outside of marriage, she is deeply hurt when the tables are turned by Harrison and when she's rejected by a woman she enters into a relationship with. There are emotions involved. And what will be the end result of all of this on their child, Sam? Sam is carefully non-gendered ("they" pronouned) throughout, and is fed a healthy diet that frankly sounds horrible for a kid, but this all seems ironic, as the self-absorption of Sam's parents overshadows their choices about Sam's school lunches. There's also a theme about fame and wealth. The narrator is, as she describes it, "semi-famous," but is jealous of Harrison's client, who is more famous (Harrison's a record producer), and part of the reason Davey is attracted to the narrator is because he recognizes her. Eventually, his own fame eclipses her own, and the book ends with her meeting a famous singer who wanted to talk with her, but not for the reasons she suspected. There's a lot going on here. "All Fours" begins with July's trademark comedy but opens up into something deeply felt, with clever writing throughout. ...more

Dan rated a book liked it

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All
by Eliezer Yudkowsky (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More than anything, "If Anyone Builds It" caused me to question why I was so anxious to read this book in the first place. The sign of a good nonfiction book for me is that I'm always recounting facts about it to the annoyed people around me, but I f ...more

Dan rated a book it was amazing

The Endurance Artist: Lazarus Lake, the Barkley & a Race with No End
by Jared Beasley (Goodreads Author)

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Beasley did a great job with what was likely a very difficult subject: Gary Cantrell aka Laz Lake, someone with no fixed identity, someone who has been notoriously cagey with reporters, loose with facts, and silent about his private life. Surprisingl ...more

Dan rated a book really liked it

Future Boy: Back to the Future and My Journey Through the Space-Time Continuum
by Michael J. Fox

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

This is a light read, a fun book - it's always great to hear Michael J. Fox's voice - but there isn't much new or revelatory here. "Future Boy" will likely put you in the mood to watch "Back to the Future" again, but if you're already a fan of the fi ...more

Dan’s Year In Books

Dan Pinkerton’s Followers (5)

Dan’s Bookshelves

Dan’s Friends (8)

Dan Pinkerton

Goodreads Author

Learn more
Ask the Author

Combine Editions
Dan Pinkerton’s books

Dan is Currently Reading

rss
Dan’s Recent Updates

See a Problem?

Preview — Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof

See a Problem?

Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry

See a Problem?

Preview — Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

See a Problem?

Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry

See a Problem?

Preview — Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn

See a Problem?

Preview — The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser

See a Problem?

Preview — All Fours by Miranda July

See a Problem?

Preview — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

See a Problem?

Preview — The Endurance Artist by Jared Beasley

See a Problem?

Preview — Future Boy by Michael J. Fox

Dan’s Friend Comments

	Democracy of Noise it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 3 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Green Mountains Review (Volume 29, Number 1) by Dan Pinkerton (Goodreads Author) (Contributor), Giuseppe Taurino (Contributor), C.A. Kaufman (Contributor) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Dan’s Year In Books

Dan Pinkerton’s Followers (5)

Dan’s Bookshelves

Dan’s Friends (8)

Dan Pinkerton

Goodreads Author

Learn moreAsk the Author

Combine EditionsDan Pinkerton’s books

Dan is Currently Reading

rssDan’s Recent Updates

See a Problem?

Preview — Eight Men Out by Eliot Asinof

See a Problem?

Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry

See a Problem?

Preview — Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

See a Problem?

Preview — Texasville by Larry McMurtry

See a Problem?

Preview — Wynne's War by Aaron Gwyn

See a Problem?

Preview — The Knife Thrower and Other Stories by Steven Millhauser

See a Problem?

Preview — All Fours by Miranda July

See a Problem?

Preview — If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Eliezer Yudkowsky

See a Problem?

Preview — The Endurance Artist by Jared Beasley

See a Problem?

Preview — Future Boy by Michael J. Fox

Dan’s Friend Comments

Learn more
Ask the Author

Combine Editions
Dan Pinkerton’s books

rss
Dan’s Recent Updates