Happy Thanksgiving to all! Hope your travels and gatherings are safe and enjoyable. The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe Somewhere I ran across an author/poster I follow who mentioned that they had recently read this book. In their blurb, they said something about not loving Wolfe’s writing style but still enjoying the book. I’ve never read any of Wolfe’s work…

Let the Right One In – John Ajvide Lindqvist I put several scary books on hold in late September and hoped one or two would come in before Halloween. This one actually came through after the holiday, but that was perfect as it takes place in the week before and after Halloween, 1981. In Sweden. So it’s a little weird.…

The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King – J.R.R. Tolkien I’ve thought about re-reading The Lord of the Rings for several years and finally pulled the trigger. Which was dumb. Given how focused I am on nostalgia, memories, and anniversaries, I really should have tackled it last year, the 40th anniversary of…

Going to fire off three quick summaries of recent books before we head to the airport. Middle of the Night – Riley Sager The Only One Left – Riley Sager I was not at all familiar with Sager’s work, but when I saw Middle of the Night pop up on multiple lists of must read new books over the summer,…

Trust Her – Flynn BerryThree years ago I read Berry’s A Northern Spy, about an unaffiliated Northern Irish woman, Tessa, who gets pulled into the conflict between the IRA and British authorities because of her sister. In this follow up, set a few years later, the siblings are settled in Dublin where they have carved out new lives with new…

Well, August was quite a month when it came to reading. I finished seven books last month. And that was with a vacation, the Olympics, paying more attention to baseball (at least some of the time), and watching the US Open mixed in. I guess I used my free time wisely. Also I read some very enjoyable books that kept…

Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic – Jason TurbowMy brother in books David V handed me a copy of this on my visit to Kansas City in June. It took me some time to work through my stack of virtual books to crack it open, and once I did, I realized I had read it before, back in 2017. Looking back, I loved…

City in Ruins – Don Winslow The final entry in Winslow’s Dan Ryan trilogy. Like the first two, it moves briskly. Also like the first two, that briskness makes it feel only partially formed. It was an interesting writing exercise, especially when compared to his Mexican cartel trilogy, cutting the story to the bone and eliminating anything that didn’t swiftly…

Chain Gang All-Stars – Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah I almost stopped reading this book twice, despite the critical acclaim it has received. The opening chapters seemed repetitive as Adjei-Brenyah slowly introduced a series of characters through similar sets of events. They are all convicted felons working to earn their freedom by participating in the Chain Gang All-Stars, a competition where inmates…

The Charm School – Nelson DeMille I had never heard of this 1988 book before. I was pleasantly surprised that despite its age, it held up pretty well. In fact, its age was one of the best things about it. The book is split into two halves. In the first, an American student traveling through the Soviet Union in the…