Just wanted to pop in and plug an online bookstore that I recently came across: https://bookshop.org/
A percent of each purchase goes to supporting independent bookstores. They have an impressive catalog. The turnaround isn't what you get from Amazon, but it supports a good cause.
Finished Stephen King’s The Institute yesterday.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
Big King fan here. I enjoyed this one too and I'll also say I enjoyed the Outsider. A lot of King's recent work is quite good. In my opinion 12/22/63 is one of the top 5 books he's ever written. I just downloaded If It Bleeds on Audible which is a set of four novellas. Looking forward to it.
Agreed on all counts. I enjoyed both the Institute and the Outsider, and 12/22/63 might be my favorite King novel.
I like that he has written a bunch of books that are not part of a series. I generally prefer to have all new characters in the books I read. That said, I am eyeing the Bill Hodges trilogy for later this year.
I loved the Bill Hodges trilogy and would definitely recommend all three books.
The one King set I haven't read is the Dark Tower series. I just haven't been about to bring myself to begin such a long series. I've heard if you can get past the first book the rest is incredible. Have you been through them?
I tried the first book and didn't make it through, but that was 30 years ago. I think I am a bigger fan of King's newer stuff now than I was of his older stuff as a teen.
I have been reading a bunch of speeches and letters by Abraham Lincoln. Picked up the Dooms Day Book by Connie Willis earlier today at random and about 1/3 through it.
I don't read much King these days, maybe I should try again from the sounds of it. The Dark Tower series is definitely worth the time if you like his work. I started to tire of it a little after books 2 and 3 but then came Wizard and Glass, my favorite of the series and I was drawn back in. Eagerly awaited the rest from that book on. I remember thinking it was not ideal to read The Wind through the Key Hole so much later after finishing the series. I think it would be better to read them straight through now for the first time.
"That young man has an extra step on his ladder the rest of us just don't have."
A few recent completions:
One the NBA front, I read David Halberstam's "The Breaks of the Game", considered by many to be the first book about the modern NBA if that era started with Magic and Bird. He was embedded with the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1979-80 season, a few years removed from their NBA title just as the team is being dismantled. The embryo of the modern NBA in terms of free agency, player empowerment, agent power is all here.
A great contrast is kind of a 2020 version of Halberstam's classic...Ethan Sherwood Strauss' "The Victory Machine" about the recent Warriors dynasty. Strauss' book is no narrative of wins and losses, it is an examination of the up-to-the-minute modern NBA where sneaker companies are more important employers than teams , and about how modern billionaire owners, quant-driven front offices and emotionally evolved coaches try and predict the emotional swings and moods of mercurial megastars. It is a quick read but is really interesting.
I also read a book club type fiction, Ann Patchett's "The Dutch House" about a set of baby boomer siblings in suburban Philadelphia who grow up taking care of each other with mismatched parents, an evil step parent, a cast of other household staff, all within the titular domicile. It's an interesting story that moves and satisfies but doesn't thrill.
I had two kids under five once and I am sure I did not do much reading then either. Your time will come if you remain curious.
Here is one I will probably not finish - Edison by Edmund Morris. I like biography and this is by a respected Pulitzer Prize winning author. However Morris is prone to unpredictability as in having a narrator in his bio of Ronald Reagan. In Edison his first chapter covers the end of his life and the last is his birth and early life. It is presented backwards and I found it quite confusing. However, it is instructive, well researched, and engineer types will find how he worked and ran his labs interesting. I did not realize how completely self educated and totally deaf he was. It is about an unusual and most significant life but it does not "ring my bell." Keep reading.
I read this a few months ago and -as an engineer - I did enjoy it. But I'm with you on the format. Presenting a life story from death to birth can get pretty confusing especially with someone like Edison who had long, complicated activities throughout his life. Fascinating story, but you have to be willing to get past the hurdle of it being told in reverse.
Finished the audiobook for Ghost Soldiers this weekend, great content.
On to Takeoff this weekend if the weather cooperates!
(I read all day, every day, for work — really find it hard to do for pleasure unfortunately. But audiobooks are great for really long walks and hikes)
Just finished Malcolm Gladwell's latest book, Talking to Strangers. It was interesting, but not as interesting as his Outliers book. Talking to Strangers talks about how we really can't tell when someone is telling the truth or lying to us. It was timely in that it talks about problems with police making assumptions based on someone's behavior that are merely guesses, and can lead to bad outcomes.
Next up for me is also Takeoff. Then maybe back to Stephen King. I do most of my reading on an exercise bike, so it takes me a while to finish books.
Finished Dooms Day Book. Solid read. One would not need to be a sci fi fan to enjoy it.
Now reading The Gunslinger and listening to How To Be An Antiracist. Filling in with a collection of letters and speeches by Lincoln.
I read this a long time ago. I was working directly with veterans then and was interested in learning this history. A lot of the volunteers at the Durham VA were WWII vets. One in particular with whom I chatted a lot - I knew he had been a POW held by the Japanese (he chastised me for owning a Toyota). He did not talk much about his experiences - he would get very emotional. But sometimes he told some amazing stories. He told me that he had been in the hospital in the Philippines when the Japanese came in, and that that was the only reason he was not part of the Bataan death march. He was one of the prisoners taken to Japan by boat, a nightmare in itself. I asked him if he had read Ghost Soldiers. He said he couldn't, but later his daughter did give him a copy and he would read a few pages and then put it down for a while. We were in the hospital lobby one day when a scrawny little bent-over man with liver spots all over his bald head skittered by, waving to us. My friend pointed to him and said, "He marched." He said it so nonchalantly that I did not grasp at first his meaning. That little old man had survived Bataan. Gave new meaning to what I had read.
Continuing my pandemic reading semi-fixation, I've started Lawrence Wright's The End of October, came out only a month ago, it's about a pandemic that is first detected in Asia, of course. Not sure who's responsible yet, but I'm betting there'll be a lot of paw and wing pointing between the pangolins and the bats. Rather prescient book, I must say.
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey.
I know this is not everyone’s typical enlightened reading, but let me explain:
My dad worked a minimum wage job, while also farming, and attending night school to complete his high school(+) education (which was rudely interrupted by WW II). He was a huge fan of Zane Grey westerns, and managed somehow to collect a full set of Zane Grey novels. After his long days of work and studying, and after the rest of the family had turned in (parents and 3 kids in one bedroom) he would sit and read a few chapters by kerosene lamp before he would also turn in. After my dad passed away, I inherited his book collection.
Since the covers of the books were a cream color, you can tell which of the books were his favorites by the amount of farm dirt on the cover. I will periodically pick one of his favorite Zane Grey books and read it. It feels as though I’m connecting with my dad. I miss that great, hard working, family man. RIP, Daddy.