March Books
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…
February Books
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…
January Books
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…
Purple Greatness
A combo piece this morning, taking one entry from my up-coming review of January books and combining it with the movie on which it focused. Let’s Go Crazy – Alan Light I shared the excerpt from this a few weeks back, and the book finally hit the library two weeks ago. I snatched it up and raced through it in…
December Reading List
Decembers tend to be big book months for me. December 2014 was no exception. I finished seven books and got most of the way through an eighth.[1] Thus my final total for the year was 57 books. I’m pleased with that effort. The Rise & Fall Of Great Powers – Tom Rachman I loved Rachman’s The Imperfectionists, which was a…
November Books
Another busy month. Four books, three of them good, two very good. I’ve been saying this for years, but I really should write down my thoughts on each one when I finish them, rather than waiting until the end of the month. My apologies for the disjointed thoughts and fuzzy memories on a couple of these. The Facades – Eric…
October Books
A rash of baseball books read between games and even during commercial breaks. Wild Pitches – Jayson Stark Stark has been one of ESPN’s baseball ‘insiders’ and columnists for nearly two decades, and had been covering baseball nationally long before that. This is a collection of his favorite columns from his ESPN years. I should have read the back cover…
September Books
Hawkeye: My Life As A Weapon – Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido As you know, if you follow along with these posts faithfully, I like to give graphic novels a try a couple times each year. In this case, I went with the trade paperback of a comic series I’ve heard praised in many places. Hawkeye was supposed to…
Reader’s Notebook
Indian Summer – Aaron Mahnke This was an impulse purchase for the Kindle before my Kansas City trip in late July. I’ve read another of Mahnke’s books, but it was a guide to being a freelancer rather than a novel. Between that and the cheap price, my expectations were low. It ended up being pretty solid. It begins with a…
July Books
Summerland – Michael Chabon As with The Fault In Our Stars, while Summerland is officially classified as a “young adult” book, it is really a book for all ages. Especially if you love baseball and have time to read in the summer. Summerland is a bit confusing at first. But that’s not unusual for a Chabon book. In this case,…