I started 2020 off with two excellent reads. Midnight in Chernobyl – Adam Higginbotham This is, quite simply, one of the best works of non-fiction I’ve ever read. It is a highly detailed, yet brisk, accounting of the 1986 meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the then Soviet Union. Higginbotham provides quick summaries of just about everything that…

Time for a final 2019 wrap up, this time the books I read last year. To start quick summaries of the final four books I read in December. Killing Floor – Lee Child I’ve seen the Jack Reacher books in airport bookstores, at grocery stores, and in other locations over the years that made me dismiss them as just another…

A whole mess of books to share. I’ve been putting this off because I was having a hard time writing about a couple of them. I think you’ll be able to guess which ones as you work your way through the list. The Last Stand of Payne Stewart – Kevin Robbins This is an unlikely book for me to both…

As is my norm, I am behind on sharing my books with you. So here we go… Normal People – Sally Rooney I hate when a book lets you down. I was really enjoying this book as I worked my way through it. And then the final quarter or so ruined most of that good will. Normal People is centered…

Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions, 1983 and 1984 – Duane Tudahl This book has been on my list since it first came out a couple years back. At some point I got the Kindle sample and loved the chapter that I read. I just kept putting off diving into it because it seemed like such a big…

Crap. Once again I’ve fallen behind on accounting for my books. It’s not like I’ve been blowing through them, either. I’m still on, roughly, book/week pace. But it’s been taking more more like 10-12 days to knock out most of these. The bigger problem is I had four straight books I had on hold at the library come in, so…

I Love You, Michael Collins – Lauren Baratz-Logsted This is the second book that L has read for her book club that I’ve gotten sucked into. It is a wonderful book. It is written as a series of letters from 10-year-old Mamie in Connecticut to the sometimes forgotten member of the Apollo 11 crew. Her letters begin in the school…

My last two books both came from the same list, GQ’s The 31 Best Beach Reads, According to Your Favorite Writers. Both were solid recommendations. The Municipalists – Seth Fried Drew Magary suggested this novel, which he described as “…a sci-fi novel that reads like flawlessly researched nonfiction.” That’s a pretty good take. The book is set in the not-so-distant…

My reading pace has slowed a bit in recent weeks. The two books below go back to our trip to San Diego, so it looks like I finished just three books in June. Time to get back on my usual pace, I guess… Paper Tiger: An Obsessed Golfer’s Quest to Play with the Pros – Tom Coyne A Course Called…

A few books notes for you. Northland: A 4000-Mile Journey Along America’s Forgotten Border – Porter Fox Fox travels the border between the United States and Canada from east to west, beginning on the coast of Maine and ending on the beaches of Washington. Along the way he hitches rides with fishermen in Maine and on a cargo barge that…