Reader’s Notebook + The Masters Rewinds
The Second Life of Tiger Woods – Michael Bamberger There was a hole in Easter weekend: there was no live coverage of the Masters. Even in that long stretch when I didn’t have much interest in golf, the Masters was still must-watch TV. It was a sign that spring was close, the carefully manicured lushness of Augusta National giving hope…
Reader’s Notebook, 4/7/20
Well, I did it. I finished my pile of books I checked out from the library last night. I have a couple books on my Kindle that I’ve purchased to get through the next week or so. After that I guess I’ll start checking out ebooks from the library, which I kind of hate to do after learning about how…
Reader’s Notebook, 3/31/20
First off, in my last entry I mentioned that I had forgotten to include a book in my December updates. But I had also forgotten the book’s title, so I could not mention it at all. Fortunately the author of the book blurbed one of this entry’s books which jogged my memory. This is my official recognition that I read…
Reader’s Notebook, 3/11/20
An Honorable Man – Paul Vidich I’m on a bit of a Cold War kick right now; I believe reading about Chernobyl kicked it off. This is the first of several Cold War espionage thrillers I’m working my way through. It takes place in Washington 1953, in the midst of the Korean War and as the McCarthy hearings are getting…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/10/20
While reading one of these books, I had a memory of a similar book I had read recently. I looked into my Books Read list and could not find a match. I went back to reading, but the memory stuck with me. Soon I was checking again, and then looking through my Reader’s Notebook entries for the past few months,…
Reader’s Notebook, 1/23/20
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…
Reader’s Notebook, 1/8/20
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…
Reader’s Notebook, 12/3/19
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…
Reader’s Notebook, 10/30/19
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…
Reader’s Notebook, 9/19/19
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…