I rediscovered my reading mojo over the past few weeks. It helped that I found a book I had been trying to locate for a year or more, and then two other great reads on top of that. Walk This Way: Run-DMC, Aerosmith, and the Song That Changed American Music Forever – Geoff EdgersFirst is the book I’ve been trying…

My reading pace has fallen way off over the past month. I tried to start a book I was very much looking forward to reading but couldn’t focus and gave up. That lack of focus is most of the problem. Where I’m usually itchy and nervous if I’m not reading in my free time, I currently lack the motivation or…

Three highly lauded books have kept me busy the past couple weeks. Disappearing Earth – Julia Phillips The last part of a book is so important to how readers feel about the entire story. This is an example of a book that was elevated by a nearly perfect ending. It begins with the disappearance of two young sisters from Petropavlosk,…

I’ve accumulated five books that require discussion. I’ll try to make this quick, but you know me, so strap in. *The Match: The Day the Game of Golf Changed Forever* – Mark Frost I knew nothing about this book or the event it covered until I heard a discussion of it on a podcast. The focus is the 1956 match…

Death in Her Hands – Otessa MoshfeghI read Moshfegh’s Eileen a few years back. After I started this one I had to go back and read my summary of it to recall that it was an odd little book. This one was odd, too. It is the story of a Vesta Gul, a widowed, 80-something woman who lives in an…

The Cold Dish – Craig JohnsonThis is the time of year when I abandon my To Read list and seek out Best Summer Reads type lists online. One such list suggested this book, which was a nice spin on the detective procedural. Walt Longmire is a sheriff in a small town in Wyoming. He is in his 50s, widowed, and…

The Border – Don Winslow For an author, finishing a trilogy has to be difficult. Especially when you didn’t set out to write a three-book series to begin with. This is the final entry in Winslow’s excellent Power of the Dog series, in which he unfurls the epic story of the rise and fall of a Mexican drug empire and…

Say Nothing – Patrick Radden Keefe My brother-in-books Sir David and I often share recommendations with each other. I don’t know that he’s ever pushed a book as hard as he did this one. I think he got a little nervous he had oversold it, but this turned out to be a great recommendation. Keefe provides a thorough but quick…

Point B – Drew Magary God damnit, Magary has done it again! (I feel like he would like that opening line.) If you can’t immediately place the name, Magary is the all-around excellent writer responsible for things like his annual take down of the Williams Sonoma Christmas catalog, the best mailbag on the internet (once on Deadspin now on Vice),…

I worked my way through my stack of library books a few weeks ago, so it’s down to the Kindle and re-reading a few books I have around until the physical library opens again. Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name – Vendela Vida With the transition to Kindle books, I’m finding recommendations in odd places. Someone on Twitter recommended…