Reading

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

Finished reading: The Running Man by Richard Bachman 📚

Published in 1982, Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) envisioned a 2025 America that feels eerily familiar. I won’t spoil the ending, but it’s a scary example of King’s uncanny ability to predict future events. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Foster by Claire Keegan 📚

Another masterpiece from Claire Keegan, the master of the emotionally-charged short novel. The language is economical, yet lyrical. And moving. I did not want this one to end. ★★★★★

Finished reading: Vera, Or Faith by Gary Shteyngart 📚

Set in a near-future NYC, we follow Vera, an exceptionally gifted yet anxious child, through a dystopian landscape of far-right extremism, absentee parenting, cultural diversity, and hilarious yet ominous technology. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 📚

A warning that the corruption of power, the awful propensity for human barbarity, and the refusal to address legitimate grievances can lead to catastrophic consequences. This old classic offers modern day lessons. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell 📚

How is anyone ever to shut the eyes of their dead child? How is it possible to find two pennies and rest them there, in the eye sockets, to hold down the lids? How can anyone do this? It is not right. It cannot be.

★★★★★

Finished reading: Chess Story by Stefan Zweig 📚

A good chess story, but an even better story of the psychological dangers of extreme isolation and single-minded focus. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald 📚

A professor with a background in amateur falconry retreats from public life after the death of her father to train a goshawk. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: Things in Nature Merely Grow by Yiyun Li 📚

A heart-breaking memoir about losing two sons to suicide. There’s often little you can say to parent who’s lost a child. But sometimes the words from a fellow sufferer can get through. This book was one of those. ★★★★★

Finished reading: New York Sketches by E.B. White 📚

A collection of witty commentaries, short stories, poems, and essays, all originally published in The New Yorker, and each an ode to what I’m sure White would agree is the greatest city on earth. ★★★★★

Finished reading: Bag of Bones by Stephen King 📚

A reread of a classic ghost story set on a remote lake in western Maine. Like most King novels, the true horrors are all too human. ★★★★☆

Finished reading: On Boxing by Joyce Carol Oates 📚

Joyce Carol Oates might be the least likely person ever to write a book about boxing. And yet she did. Like me, she developed a lifelong appreciation for the sport, ultimately growing to love it, by watching fights with her father as a child. But it’s clear that she feels a natural disquiet with her own fascination with the sport, and the essays in this book circle and dance around that central premise: why, in our modern, civilized society, is boxing still a thing? ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: We Live Here Now by Sarah Pinborough 💙📚

The premise and setting had terrific potential, but one-dimensional characters, plot holes, and poor editing hobbled the story. It felt like a book written under the pressure of an unrealistic deadline. ★★★☆☆

Finished reading: The Best American Essays 2024 💙📚

I’m on an essay kick, and the latest “Best American” series provided a wide range of thought-provoking takes and introduced me to some new voices. I share my five favorite essays in the full review. ★★★☆☆

Nancy Pearl’s Revised ‘Rule of 50’:

When you are 51 years of age or older, subtract your age from 100, and the resulting number is the pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book … When you turn 100, you are authorized (by the Rule of 50) to judge a book by its cover.

💙📚

Finished reading: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 💙📚

A concise summary of the tactics used by totalitarian governments to suppress freedom and democracy. Clear examples from twentieth-century despots support each of the twenty lessons. ★★★★☆

Full review.

Finished reading: Maximum Bob by Elmore Leonard 💙📚

A recent New Yorker article by Anthony Lane prompted me to read this one, my first Elmore Leonard book. I enjoyed the pacing and dialogue and colorful cast of characters, all set in languid south Florida.

★★★★☆