Reading

Check out my separate reading blog for an index of book reviews and ratings.

Finished reading: Blindness by José Saramago 📚

What would happen if blindness became a contagious epidemic? That’s the premise of this bleak novel where humanity is thrust into a newly dystopian reality. Grim reading, but a powerful message. ★★★★☆

Full Review.

Finished reading: Rage by Richard Bachman/Stephen King 📚

In a quest to read every single novel that Stephen King ever wrote, there must come a time when you reach the very dregs. ★★☆☆☆

Full review.

Finished reading: Joe Country by Mick Herron 💙📚

Jackson Lamb is as disgusting and brilliant as ever, and the Slow Horses must work together to save one of their own. This one is the darkest of the books, with an ending that hints at even more trouble ahead for the Slow Horses. ★★★★☆

Full Review.

Finished reading: The snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen 💙📚

A grief-driven slog through the Himalayan mountains with a narrator who’s hard to like, and yet parts of it were incredibly moving. I still can’t decide if I hated it or loved it. Maybe a little of both. ★★★★☆

Full Review.

Finished reading: Far Side of the World by Patrick O’Brian 💙📚 (Book link)

A comfort reread. This one is surprisingly dark—a mutinous crew, storms, murder, and castaways. But, as always, the enduring friendship of Aubrey and Maturin carries the book and warms my heart. ★★★★★

Currently re-reading: Far Side of the World by Patrick O’Brian 💙📚

Ah, the Aubrey/Maturin novels. This is my 4th time through the 20-volume series, known as a circumnavigation by O’Brian aficionados. I love these books so much. I wrote this tribute after my third voyage. Books can be dear friends.

Finished reading: Tinkers by Paul Harding 💙📚

Universal themes run through this spare novel—fathers and sons, memory, mental illness, the mystery of existence—but the storytelling felt disjointed, and I never found the thread to connect many of the fragmentary passages. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: Being Mortal by Atul Gawande 📚

A sobering look at the inevitable and merciless certainty of our mortality. No matter how much we exercise or how carefully we eat, death is unavoidable—and growing old is not for the faint of heart.

Old age is not a battle. Old age is a massacre.

Gawande, a practicing surgeon, argues doctors are good at fixing specific ailments but often do more harm than good with a dying patient. Not an easy read, but the lessons are essential for all of us. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Firestarter by Stephen King 📚

Seeing the awful movie many years ago spoiled me from reading this book until now. As with most Stephen King novels, the depth of characters and human themes transcends the genre. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Nonesuch by Francis Spufford 📚

This novel had all the elements of a terrific story: a strong, conflicted female protagonist, a menacing Nazi villain, Narnia-like magic, time travel, all set in wartime Britain. Sadly, the book couldn’t live up to the premise. ★★☆☆☆

Finished reading: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood 📚

Finally read this dystopian classic. Five years ago it would have felt wildly imaginative; now it feels all too plausible. Atwood’s prose is cinematic, her warning timeless. ★★★★★

Finished reading: Hidden Potential by Adam Grant 📚

A breezy book about the importance of character, persistence, and passion in how we learn, grow, and ultimately reach our goals. Not much new territory explored here. Some interesting stories, but probably better as a TED Talk. ★★☆☆☆

Finished reading: The End of the Affair by Graham Greene 📚

This classic novel explores the fine line between love and hate in post-war London.

I have never known a woman before or since so able to alter a whole mood by simply speaking on the telephone, and when she came into a room or put her hand on my side she created at once the absolute trust I lost with every separation.

Short chapters, crisp prose, suspense-novel feel, but the real punch is in the questions it raises: fate vs. free will, faith vs. doubt, romantic longing vs. jealousy’s corrosiveness. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson 📚

Housekeeping is a novel, yes, but also a ruminative meditation on grief, loneliness, and memory. A book to take slow and let it flow over you. The perfect ending made up for the challenging parts. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: My Ántonia (Great Plains Trilogy, #3) by Willa Cather 📚

A literary classic set in rural Nebraska during the 1880s. It’s a coming-of-age story of friendship, romance, and small-town values, but also a quiet meditation on place and memory. I enjoyed this one. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: A Marriage At Sea by Sophie Elmhirst 📚

Ordinarily, I’m a sucker for first-hand accounts of enduring the perils of the open ocean on a small boat. This wasn’t that. ★★☆☆☆

Finished reading: The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad 📚

A great book to establish or reinvigorate a journaling practice. I got a lot out of this collection of one hundred writing prompts. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King 📚

Wide range of styles, but most of these stories were just okay. My favorite was UR, a novella about a Kindle with access to the multiverse. Fun references for Dark Tower fans. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: Raising Hare - A Memoir by Chloe Dalton 📚

Chloe Dalton rescues a baby hare and, in raising it, finds her way back to herself. Luminous, meditative nature writing. I loved this one. ★★★★★

The Guardian just released a list of the 100 best novels of all time. I like how they arrived at the list. It’s interesting to click through and see who voted for which book. As it turns out, I’ve read just 35 of these. I sense a shuffling of my TBR list! 📚

Finished reading: The Good Life by Jay McInerney 📚

The second book in McInerney’s Calloway saga. Not as ambitious as Brightness Falls, but moving all the same. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: The First Forty-Nine Stories by Ernest Hemingway 📚

Rereading Hemingway one story a night — pure, punchy prose with deep emotions tucked just below the surface. Favorites: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Hills Like White Elephants, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Departure(s) by Julian Barnes 📚

This latest novel from Julian Barnes resists easy classification — memoir, literary analysis, meditation on friendship, memory, and the finality of death. Dark wit throughout, melancholy just beneath, but somehow still hopeful? Like I said, hard to pin down.

It seems to me that humans are often so busy living that they forget they are human – or at least forget what it is to be human, and what its consequences are – and therefore what it means to be dead.

Barnes says this will be his last book. I hope he’s wrong. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Roads of Destiny by O. Henry 📚

Twenty-two stories, all good, and nearly every one ending with a trademark twist. The language is wonderfully vivid:

I never saw him looking so much like a tiger-lily. He was as beautiful and new as a trellis of sweet peas, and as rollicking as a clarinet solo.

After the first ten stories the formulaic style becomes a little tiresome, but there’s real genius here. Best dipped into when the mood strikes. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin 📚

This classic Nebula and Hugo award winner drops you in the deep end of an alien world — strange vocabulary, gender-fluid inhabitants, a perpetual chill you can almost feel. The world-building is astonishing; the writing borders on poetry.

Light is the left hand of darkness and darkness the right hand of light. Two are one, life and death, lying together like lovers in kemmer, like hands joined together, like the end and the way.

The ideas on gender and society still feel fresh and important. A good read. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan 📚

One new story (and two reprints) from Claire Keegan, the master of compressing so much into so few words. Men behaving very badly ought to be the sub-title here. As with all of her stories, these will haunt you long after you finish. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed 📚

A wonderful collection of essays written by Cheryl Strayed as part of an advice column under the pseudonym “Dear Sugar.” Terrific, heartfelt advice on just about every aspect of life. I loved it. ★★★★★

Finished reading: The Hustler by Walter Tevis 📚

A fun read for anyone with a passing interest in pool or gambling or gritty city life. Or if you’ve seen the movie with Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason. ★★★★☆