I believe I’ve mentioned a time or two (or three) that I spent nearly a month wading through a beast of a book. Now I have to write about said beast. Cripes. The good news (for me at least) is that despite the time spent on that book, I remain at book-a-week pace for the year. The Woman Who Lost…

A bit of a slower, more relaxed reading month in August. Part of that is simply because I’m roughly halfway through a fairly massive novel that locked down the last couple weeks of the month. But still on book-a-week pace for the year overall. 100 Things Royals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die – Matt Fulks My step-dad…

Up, Up, & Away – Jonah Keri Keri’s first book, The Extra 2%, was destined to disappoint. Its focus was the small market, small budget Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays and their rise to become perennial contenders in the American League East. That was a problem, because it was impossible not to compare it to Michael Lewis’ Moneyball, his look at…

Will Not Attend – Adam Resnick A first-class collection of short stories by the former writer for Letterman and producer of The Larry Sanders Show, among other entries on his résumé. They are all utterly ridiculous – some to the point where you wonder how far the truth has been stretched in them. But most, especially those that feature his…

At first glance, it was a light month. Two books?!?! What the hell? Ahhh, but the truth is more complex. One book took nearly three weeks to read. And in spare moments I was also reading books about photography. So, fear not. I knocked out my obligatory five books in May. I just won’t bore you with the details of…

Station Eleven – Emily St. John Mandel I ended March with a disappointing semi-apocalyptic novel, Black Moon. As I was finishing it, I got the notice from the library that my hold on Station Eleven had come in. It was much better. Mandel goes to the Stephen King well to find the source of her apocalypse: a super flu that…

Three months into the year, 15 books completed. My meager math skills tell me that puts me on pace for 60 books this year. I imagine that pace will slow a bit. March was a bit of a mixed bag. A couple books I really enjoyed. A couple duds. And one re-read from way back. The Flamethrowers – Rachel Kushner…

The shortest month of the year did not slow me down at all. Five books plus one leftover from January. Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri I forgot to include this in my January list. Probably because I had a hard time thinking of what to write about it. Not that it’s a bad book. It won the freaking Pulitzer…

The Martian – Andy Weir As I mentioned in my December wrap up, this is the book I began in 2014 but finished on Jan. 1, 2015. I destroyed this book. Once I started it, it was hard to put down. In fact, I started it after midnight on Dec. 30 when I could not sleep. I went downstairs, flipped…