Going Through The Bones
I’ve been doing some closet and attic cleaning this week. Digging through old boxes of stuff, looking for things that can/need to be thrown away, or items that can be sent to my sister-in-law for her up-coming garage sale. I dug through a huge pile of Far Side books that I’ll be flipping through in the next few weeks. Those…
Awkward Parenting Moments
There was a situation I ran into a few times before I became a parent that I never really knew how to handle. It always involved a child who had an older sibling who was either learning to read, or had just mastered reading. I would say to the younger child, “Let’s read a book,” and that child would soberly…
Reader’s Notebook, February 2010
28 days, three books. Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman – Jon Krakauer. Most of you should know Tillman’s story: an NFL player looking at a lucrative, long-term contract turned his back on professional football and joined the Army Rangers in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. After he died in combat in Afghanistan, he…
Reader’s Notebook, January 2010
A hot start to the new year. God Save The Fan – Will Leitch. Along with Bill Simmons, Leitch is one of the founding fathers of internet sports journalism. The creator of Deadspin, Leitch mainstreamed irreverence and snark in sports writing. The cover claims that this is his look at all the things that are ruining sports, from ESPN to…
Reader’s Notebook, December 2009, Part 3
The final installment in my review of December readings. Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music – Greg Kot. For months I’ve been mentally drafting an essay about how music changed over the last decade. As I thought about it, I’ve read numerous articles, columns, and now a book about the same subject. So I’ll try to share my thoughts…
Reader’s Notebook, December 2009, Part 2
Continuing my review of books read in December. Sharp Objects – Gillian Flynn. I’m sad to say I knew not of Ms. Flynn until this summer. That’s a shame, as she’s both a Kansas City native and a KU alum. And I only learned of her by chance; while visiting Kansas City there was a feature on her in the…
Reader’s Notebook, December 2009, Part 1
Upon finishing Infinite Jest in early December, I went a little nuts. I polished off five books in three weeks. A couple demand lengthy essays, so I’ll be dividing up my December entries into three posts. This is the first. The Book of Basketball – Bill Simmons.* (Note: I am writing this before reading of the New Yorker reviews of…
Books Of The Decade
I read a lot of books this decade. I love putting together lists at the end of arbitrary periods of time. Seems like a perfect excuse to share some of my favorite books I read over the past ten years. Please note that the focus is on the date read rather than the date published. There are a few in…
Reader’s Notebook
Done. I finished David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest late Sunday night. That’s three months to knock out roughly 1100 pages, for those of you keeping score at home. It took me about two months to get through the first half, and I flew (relatively) through the second half over the last four weeks. For comparison, I started Bill Simmons’ The…
Reader’s Notebook
In lieu of the regular Reader’s Notebook entries I provide monthly, it’s time for an update on my progress with Infinite Jest. I won’t lie: it’s been a slow go. And I’ll also admit for all the excitement of beginning the book in September, I was also kind of dreading it. I’m used to reading books that fall in the…