• 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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 9/10/19

    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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 7/30/19

    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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 7/17/19

    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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 7/2/19

    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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 6/18/19

    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…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 5/21/19

    Oh snap, somehow I’ve gone over a month without an RN entry. I’ll blow through my last four books to get caught up. The Sisters Brothers – Patrick DeWitt This is a tremendous and lovely tale of two West Coast gunmen – brothers Charlie and Eli Sisters – who prowl Oregon and California for a regional crime boss during the…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 4/17/19

    Through a combination of laziness last week and being super busy this week I haven’t caught you up on what I’ve been reading over the past month. Black Leopard Red Wolf – Marlon James This book arrived with massive hype. James’ last novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings captured nearly every major book award and was one of my…

  • Reader’s Notebook, 3/20/19

    The First Major: The Inside Story of the 2016 Ryder Cup – John Feinstein Years ago I used to read a lot of Feinstein’s books. His A Season Inside is one of my all-time favorite sports books.[1] But, over time, I found his books to basically be the same format with different details. There were little moments that would appear…