Reader’s Notebook, 12/6/18
Although we’ve been in the new house nearly six months now, and I’ve read over 20 books over that span, I don’t know that I have a favorite reading spot. Or at least I didn’t until about a week ago. We have a sunroom that had been my spot, but it’s also just off the kitchen and you can hear…
Reader’s Notebook, 11/20/18
Blowing My Cover: My Life As a CIA Spy – Lindsay Moran I found this book while doing some research on DB John, whose tremendous Star of the North I read earlier this fall. It was on a list of some of his favorite espionage books, and thus seemed worth the read. I did not enjoy it as much as…
Reader’s Notebook, 11/5/18
The World As It Is – Ben Rhodes This memoir by the former speechwriter and national security aide to President Obama has been on my list since it came out earlier this year. I had heard good things in several places about it. But I was not sure if I was ready to re-live the Obama years, or if I…
Reader’s Notebook, 10/16/18
I’ve been on a sports book tear the past couple weeks. Football, futbol, and golf. Big Game: The NFL in Dangerous Times – Mark Leibovich This book, by The New York Times Magazine’s chief national correspondent, arrived with nearly endless praise about a month ago. Promised as an investigation to the troubles the NFL faces in current times, it delivered…
Reader’s Notebook, 10/2/18
Righteous – Joe Ide I was a big fan of Ide’s debut novel, IQ, which I read earlier this year. I was very pleased to read an interview with Ide in which he confirmed he would continue writing about the lead character, Isaiah Quintabe, aka IQ, the Sherlock Holmes of south central Los Angeles. I did not know he had…
Reader’s Notebook, 9/17/18
A couple NYC trip books. The Secret of Golf – Joe Posnanski Joe has moved to a Patreon model for his online writing. As much as I love him, I feel like I’m already subscribed to about a dozen content services that I’m paying for each month, so I have not become a supporter of his site. Yet. I was…
Reader’s Notebook, 8/30/18
Man, how did I get so behind on these? Well, part of it is that my reading pace has remained slow in recent weeks. It doesn’t help that I have a stack of golf instructional books that are stealing time away from my proper reading stack. I’ll quickly run through some recent books. Notes from a Public Typewriter – edited…
Old TV + Reader’s Notebook
As I’ve documented here many times over the years, sometimes I get paralyzed by the many options I have for watching quality TV. There is a long list of shows that I need to go back and watch, but I’m always torn about where to start, whether to watch one to completion on its own or to start several at…
Reader’s Notebook, 7/17/18
Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen I’m a Springsteen fan. But not a super fan. I like large swaths of his music, think four of his albums are pretty amazing, and appreciate his role in American rock music. But I’m not deeply aware of his story, can’t quote his lyrics beyond his biggest hits, and have never seen him live.[1]…
Reader’s Notebook, 7/3/18
Our internet-less summer continues. Joyous times. We checked in with the fine folks at the Comcast store on Saturday. Golly, they sure had no idea why our request was still just sitting there without anything being done to it. The guy who helped us was the guy who put our initial request in three weeks ago. When we asked him,…