Ex Libris Kirkland

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First Written 2014
Genre Fiction
Origin US
Publisher Algonquin
ISBN-10 1616204516
ISBN-13 978-1616204518
My Copy library audiobook
First Read January 14, 2025

The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry



Picked it up because I loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

Noted on January 14, 2025

Sweet fiction that structurally (and thematically) is very much like A Gentleman in Moscow, which was published a couple of years later IIRC. It's lighter, sweeter, not concerned with history, but the beats are pretty similar.

Noted on January 14, 2025

[This weirdly is exactly my experience both as a high school XC runner and then also trying to run again a 39 year old]

A.J. had run cross-country on his high school’s team and then at Princeton. He picked up the sport mainly because he had no skill for any other sport aside from the close reading of texts. He never really considered running cross-country to be much of a talent. His high school coach had romantically referred to him as a reliable middleman, meaning that A.J. could be counted on to finish in the upper middle of any pack. Now that he hasn’t run for a while, he has to concede that it had been a talent. In his current condition, he can’t make it more than two miles without stopping.

Quoted on January 14, 2025


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
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