This is where you’ll find book reviews, reading lists, and other musings about literature.
I failed pretty miserably in my book-reading goals for last year. I did manage to reach my goal of reading 100 short stories, but fell far short of my annual goal of 25 books—ending up with only 19. In 2024, my resolution is to quit my job so I can have more time to...
Here are the books I read in 2022 that I liked enough to award five-star ratings in Goodreads....
Some of the best books I read last year: Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen; A Promised Land by Barack Obama....
Both Michelle and Barack Obama have written best-selling books, so I guess now we can call them a “power couple.” I recently finished reading A Promised Land, Barack Obama’s memoir of the first part of his presidency. And just a couple of months ago, I read Becoming, Michelle Obama’s telling of their family’s life...
For as awful a year as 2020 was, at least it was good for me in one respect: I read a number of great books last year. Here are the books I liked enough to give five-star ratings to on Goodreads in 2020: The Monkey Wrench Gang, by Edward Abbey. You will have read...
When I think about the books that are honored as the top reads in a given year, I usually find that I haven’t read even a tiny percentage of the “best” books listed. I’m a decent reader; I have an annual goal of 25 books in a year, and I usually get fairly close...
Ah, December. As the year winds down, all the major periodical publications start putting out their “Best of the Year” lists. And for me, the best of the “best” lists are the “Best Books of the Year” lists. This phenomenon means there’s no shortage of ideas for books to read. I’m not going to...
It’s been almost two years since I wrote one of these last five/next five book lists. A lot more than five books have gone down in that time; there’s no “catching up” here. But let’s jump in for a snapshot of where we are today. The last five books I’ve read, oldest to most...
Fifty years ago this week, on July 3, 1969, Rolling Stones guitarist and founder Brian Jones was found dead in his swimming pool. The death was ruled to be accidental, but to this day, conspiracy theories circulate that he was murdered. Jones had actually been forced out of the band earlier that year, and...
There’s a micro-genre of books that I’ve come to love: rock-star autobiographies. Many of the musicians I followed when I was younger have probably finished up the most interesting and/or lucrative portions of their music careers, and have turned to the written word as a different outlet. Having told stories through their songs over...
