Check out our readings lists from 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014
The Playground (finished, working on review)
Before the Night Comes (Brazil) Currently reading author/journalist Matt Roper's 4th book chronicling his work with the young Brazilian pre-teens and teens caught up in sex trafficking all along the BR-116.
Hamnet (currently listening)
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (currently reading)
Jayber Crow (currently reading).
New Boy (on the list)
Meh
Tomcat in Love & America Fantastica. So do I recommend Tomcat in Love or its philosophical sequel/Trump takedown America Fantastica? Well, after I finished Tomcat and jotted down some key quotes from it that captured some superb writing, I tossed it in the trash. It had previously sat on my bookshelf for the last decade unread. Aside from great technical writing there was little of redeeming value in its pages. It’s billed as laugh out loud funny, and it is humorous satire, but the overall narrative describes a sad, disturbed, self-absorbed, unrepentant man’s life. A man who is unable to holster his own desires, both mental, and otherwise–as the novel wears on, it becomes apparent that the central character is clinically sick. It’s hard to read a novel where there’s no one to cheer for. I was reminded of Anne Lamott’s advice in her incredible book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life in which she quotes author Ethan Canin’s seminal advice: “Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.” Read my full review here.
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