Reader’s Notebook, 6/15/17
The Revenge of Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter – David Sax. I generally think whether astrology and people’s birth signs determine their personalities are both bullshit. However, as a Gemini, I’m often surprised about how much of who I am is about balancing two seemingly different emotions, interests, etc. Take me and gadgets, for example. I love new,…
Reader’s Notebook, 5/31/17
A little behind, so better catch up as I hit the summer reading season. No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach – Anthony Bourdain. I’m working through a number of shows I have stockpiled on the DVR, watching the Royals most nights, and still trying to read. But I do attempt to squeeze in an Anthony Bourdain show…
Reader’s Notebook, 5/4/17
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles As I point often, I amuse myself with my To Read list. I’ll read a blurb about a book somewhere, or see it on a Best Of list, or get a recommendation from a friend, and just throw it on my list and then forget why the book received acclaim. Which is kind…
Reader’s Notebook, 4/13/17
Book catch-up time. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini. As I mentioned in my last Reader’s Notebook post, somehow I never read this book. I know my wife read it. In fact, I bet there’s a copy tucked away somewhere around our house. Several friends read it and raved. I know it was on my list of books to read…
Reader’s Notebook, 3/23/17
I need distractions today. 9:40 pm tips for Sweet 16 games are complete garbage. Too much waiting. I’ll catch you up on my books to kill a little time. Finders Keepers – Stephen King. Book two in his Bill Hodges trilogy moves a little differently than the first. This one spends nearly 150 pages setting up two back stories –…
Reader’s Notebook & Thoughts On Travel
A slightly different format for this edition. But first, a note about my first abandoned book of the year. Boris Fishman’s Don’t Let My Baby Do Rodeo was on several Best Of lists for 2016, and thus was added to my To Read list. Somewhere along the line, I think I got the wrong idea what it was about. I…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/16/17
The Nix – Nathan Hill. My brother-in-reading Dave V. received two copies of this book over the holidays. He was generous enough to pass one of them my way. Quite the gesture, which I appreciate immensely! This is a great book. It’s also one of those books that makes me mad, as it is Hill’s first full-length novel. How can…
Reader’s Notebook, 2/9/17
Catching up on three recent reads. On Bullshit – Harry G. Frankfurt. “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit.” Thus begins what is, really, an extended essay in book form on the meaning of bullshit. I read a blurb about this somewhere over the holidays and thought it sounded like a…
Reader’s Notebook
First two books of the new year. The Association of Small Bombs – Karan Mahajan This is a complicated, if very good, novel. Beginning with a fictional terrorist bomb that explodes in a Delhi market in 1996, it follows the explosion’s effects on those it touched. That includes the men responsible for the attack, the parents of young brothers who…
Reader’s Notebook: #58
For my final entry of 2016, I’ll make my first attempt at my promised adjustment in how I share the books I’ve been reading. No more monthly entries, where I can barely remember the details of the book I read five weeks ago. Back to individual posts for each book. Or occasionally a small group of books. I began 2016…