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Recent non-fiction recommendations

At the beginning of this year I scoured the best of 2021 non-fiction lists and began working reading several books that seemed appealing. Not all of them are worth recommending (and are not mentioned here), but all of the following are worth your time.

How to read 100 books a year

We’re still early in the New Year when people are actively pursuing resolutions. “Reading more” often shows up on lists and I thought I’d share a proven method for reading 100 books a year. There are just three steps, and if you follow them you’ll be well on your way:

Best nonfiction books of 2021

I like to dive into nonfiction the way I dive into TV series. That is, I let others test the water first and look for recommendations from a number of sources. I went through several nonfiction best-of-the-year lists for 2021 and came up with the following books I plan to read at the beginning of this year. I have finished...

Review of The Hollow Places

After recently divorced Kara moves into her uncle’s home she discovers through a hole in a wall a portal to an alternate and mysterious reality. This is the beginning to T. Kingfisher’s horror novel The Hollow Places, a story that moves at a quick pace but offers too few spine-tingling scares.

Review: The Deserter

Nelson DeMille is back with another thriller, sharing writing duties with his son, Alex DeMille. In The Deserter, Army criminal investigators Scott Brodie and Maggie Taylor are trying to track down elite Delta Force officer Captain Kyle Mercer, who walked way from his post in Afghanistan.

Review: Janis

A brief review: Daisy Jones and the Six

Review: The Warehouse

Review: I Like to Watch

Review: Recursion

Review: Once More Unto the Breach

Review: Working with Color

A history book for comedy wonks

Review: The Parisian

Review: The Light Years

Review: Beginning Pen & Ink

Review: The Wolf and the Watchman

Review: The River

Review: Territory of Light

Review: The Plotters

Review: The Dreamers

Review: An Orchestra of Minorities

Review: She Lies in Wait

Review: World's Best Whiskeys

Review: Lessons From Lucy

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of books I read in November. Haruki Murakami’s Killing Commendatore and Stephen Markley’s Ohio were the two best books of the month. In fact, those are the only two books I would definitely recommend. Unless you’re an aspiring diarist, in which case you should read Writing Down the Bones.

Review: When the Pipirite Sings

When the Pipirite Sings presents the collected poems of Haitian poet and doctor Jean Métellus, who wrote primarily in French. The collection most notably includes the first English translation of his signature work by the same title. 

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of brief reviews of books I read in October. Virgil Wander will probably make it to best books of 2018 list.

Review: The Frolic of the Beasts

Review: Virgil Wander

Very short review of books

A roundup of brief reviews of books I read in September. There were a number of good books from the month and it was heavy on sci-fi. Cherry is among the best books I’ve read this year and one to get you thinking. Fans of funny science fiction should start reading the Murderbot Diaries immediately. 

Review: Boomer1

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of brief reviews of books I read in August. Looking back it was a good month. Depending on where your tastes lie, I’d recommend everything but The Butcher’s Boy. But if I had to pick one, it would be The Line Becomes a River, which is a good look at what happens along our southern border and would be...

Review: The Line That Held Us

Review: The Third Hotel

Review: Drink Beer, Think Beer

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of brief reviews of books I read in July. An American Marriage is worthy of the praise it’s received this year and A Terrible Country is an interesting take on live in Putin’s Russia.

The best new books from the first half of 2018

Here is my list of the best new books from the first half of 2018. I’ve listed them in the order I would most recommend them to someone. But if you’re inclined, read them all.

Review: A Terrible Country

Andrei Kaplan is coming off of a failed relationship, low on cash and struggling to find an academic job when his brother asks him to do a favor. Kaplan accepts and heads to Russia where he will take care of his ailing grandmother in her Stalin-era, Moscow apartment.

Review: Number One Chinese Restaurant

The characters of Number One Chinese Restaurant all inhabit a planet orbiting the Beijing Duck House. A fire at the suburban Washington, D.C restaurant upends the equilibrium and tensions between family and coworkers come to the surface.

Very short reviews of books

A round up of brief reviews of books I read in June. David Lynch’s biography Room to Dream and Stephen King’s The Outsider are new to bookstores and worth reading.

Review: Room to Dream

The inscrutable auteur David Lynch has delivered a number of memorable films that enthrall and confuse viewers. In Room to Dream we get to peek behind the camera to see what drives the visionary director and artist.

Review: The Art of Map Illustration

Four artists share their techniques for mapmaking as well as samples of their work in The Art of Map Illustration. The book is full of beautiful illustrations by each of the artists, who employ a variety of media including pen, ink, watercolor and digital.

Very short reviews of books

David Itzkoff’s compassionate biography of Robin Williams stands out among the books I read in May. David Sedaris’ wickedly humorous collection of essays is also worth picking up.

Review: The Shepherd's Hut

Jaxie Claxton lives a miserable life in rural Australia, stuck with a savage father he hates. Then one day a violent accident leaves him with no choice but to pack what he can carry and strike out on foot as a fugitive.

Review: Calypso

David Sedaris has mastered the ability to be dark, charming and funny at the same time. His latest collection of essays, Calypso, revolves around gatherings at his North Carolina beach house, the Sea Section. Sedaris deftly handles a variety of topics including  middle age, shopping, gay marriage, language and family tragedy.

Review: Robin

An intimate new biography of Robin Williams tells the story of the meteoric rise, frenetic life and the sad final days of the comedian. In Robin, New York Times writer David Itzkoff gives us a look at the creativity that fueled Williams’ seemingly spontaneous and endless comedic riffs. But he also tells of Williams’ substance abuse,...

Review: Warlight

In the aftermath of WWII 14-year-old Nathaniel and his sister are left in the care of a mysterious man they nickname The Moth and his possibly criminal cohorts. Warlight follows Nathaniel’s adventures with this eccentric lot and his efforts to discover why his mother seemingly abandoned him.

Very short reviews of books

The original, and surreal, Spaceman of Bohemia is highly recommended. The Mars Room and I am, I am, I am area also among my favorites from April.

Review: The Mars Room

Rachel Kushner’s new novel The Mars Room is a heartbreaking and unsparing look at a life gone sideways. From a young age Romy Hall became acclimatized to life on the street in San Francisco and seemed like someone who could navigate the fine line between survival and self-destruction. But a bad history with an obsessive strip club...

Review: Gateway to the Moon

Mary Morris’ latest novel, Gateway to the Moon, combines a coming of age story with historical fiction to explore ideas of identity and how history echoes across time.  The remote New Mexico community of Entrada de la Luna is rooted in the history of the Spanish inquisition and converesos, or crypto-Jews, who fled from persecution. But the...

Review: The Sun Does Shine

In 1985 Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with the death of two men in Birmingham, Alabama. Hinton was certain that because of his rock-solid alibi, everything would be cleared up and he would soon be released. But due to an ineffective and unmotivated defense attorney and a criminal justice system indifferent to the plight of a poor,...

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of very short reviews of books I read in March. The Sun Does Shine is one of the books you must read this year. Everything else I read in March was also solid and worth your attention.

Review: Feast Days

Written in a brutally honest tone, Feast Days recounts the story of Emma, a young woman who moves with her husband from New York to Brazil, where he works as a financial analyst. While protests rattle the country, Emma tries to find where she fits in, immersing herself in the arts scene, lunching with other expat wives...

Review: Sometimes I Lie

Amber Reynolds lies in a hospital bed, unresponsive and seemingly in a coma. But Amber can hear everything that is said around her.  She remembers an accident but has trouble unraveling the exact circumstances that put her in the hospital. As she listens to conversations and slowly begins to remember events, Amber becomes suspicious of her...

Very short reviews of books

A roundup of very short reviews of books I recently read. Lincoln in the Bardo and Panorama are worth your attention.

Review: The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore

Kim Fu’s novel The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, digital galley) alternates between the stories of five young women who experienced a traumatic event at camp while girls. Unfortunately it reads as a disparate collection of unrelated stories, with the camp experience being the only thing connecting the women.

Review: Panorama

Television news pundit Richard MacMurray is in the middle of examining his life in Washington, D.C., when he finds out his estranged sister was aboard Panorama Airlines Flight 503, which crashed in Dallas with no survivors. Her death leaves MacMurray as the only living relative of her young son, Gabriel, and just another of the characters in...

Very short reviews of books

This is a roundup of books I recently finished, but which I did not give a full review.

Review: The Which Way Tree

Rarely does a book so quickly grip me in its first pages, but The Which Way Tree has done it with a harrowing story of survivalon the Texas frontier during the Civil War. Bringing to mind the tight narratives of Charles Portis, the novel weaves a story of violence, survival and frontier justice.

Review: Eternal Life

Dara Horn’s Eternal Life (W.W. Norton & Company, digital galley) is a touching story of faith, loss and family. The story’s heroine, Rachel, made a deal with God in Roman-occupied Jerusalem to trade her death for the life of her first-born son. Now, 2000 years later, Rachel struggles to find continued meaning in her never ending life.

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Books for the drinking hour

Below is a roundup of books that will get you in the mood for happy hour. The two best, Trappist Beer Travels and Rum Curious, offer a mixture of history and reviews that will leave you feeling smarter about your drink choices.

UNSUB review: A fast-paced thrill

Meg Gardiner’s psychological thriller UNSUB moves at a fast pace as the heroine, Detective Caitlin Hendrix, becomes obsessed with the Prophet, a killer who reappears after a 20 year hiatus. Inspired by the Zodiac Killer, UNSUB (Dutton, digital galley) pits Hendrix against a serial killer who enjoys taunting police.

Strangers in Budapest: A slow-paced mystery

In this slow-paced thriller an American couple starting a business in Budapest meet an elderly man hunting the son-in-law he believes murdered his daughter.

Manhattan Beach: A sweeping look at war time New York

During the Great Depression, young Anna Kerrigan regularly accompanies her father on his work as a union courier. But one morning he walks out the door and disappears, leaving Anna and her mother to take care of Anna’s disabled sister.

'Paradox Bound' is a road-trip through time

When a book’s description mentions time travel I’m usually hooked. And because I thoroughly enjoyed Peter Clines’ 14 and The Fold, I enthusiastically jumped into his latest, Paradox Bound (Crown Publishing, digital galley).

DeMille introduces a new character in 'The Cuban Affair'

Key West charter boat captain Daniel “Mac” MacCormick is made an offer he has every intention of refusing: Sail his boat to Cuba under the guise of a fishing tournament and recover cash and documents hidden during the revolution. But the lure of a $2 million payday is more than he can resist, and he takes the bait.

'The Heart's Invisible Furies' is an ambitious story of one man's life

Cyril Avery is adopted at birth and raised by eccentric and well-to-do parents who make it clear that he is not a real Avery. Nonetheless he perseveres, practically raising himself in their sprawling Dublin mansion. The ambitious novel The Heart’s Invisible Furies (Hogarth Press, digital galley) follows Avery’s entire life from the...

'When the English Fall' shows how to handle the apocalypse with dignity

After a powerful solar storm destroys electrical devices and causes civilization to crumble, an Amish farming community in Pennsylvania helps by supplying food to a neighboring town. But as things deteriorate, the outside world encroaches on their isolated society.

Steampunkalypse: A review of 'The Clockwork Dynasty'

While doing field research and trying to unlock a mystery from her childhood, anthropologist June Stefanov makes a startling discovery: For millennia automatons have lived among us, hiding their presence while trying to understand the nature of their own existence. But their time is drawing to an end and Stefanov may be a key, if unlikely, ally in their survival.

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Review of new August fiction: 'Mrs. Fletcher' and 'See What I Have Done'

Mrs. Fletcher

'Rescued from ISIS' a disappointing telling of a compelling story

In 2013 former soldier Dimitri Bontinck’s 18-year-old son, Joe, fell under the sway of a radical Islamic mosque and traveled to Syria from Belgium to take part in that country’s civil war. Rescued from ISIS (St. Martin’s Press, digital galley) recounts his many harrowing trips into Syria to find and ultimately bring his...

Review: 'The Late Show' introduces a fierce detective

Michael Connelly introduces a new detective in The Late Show (Little, Brown and Company, digital galley), a fast moving police procedural that is hard to put down. Renée Ballard works the LAPD overnight shift, responding to everything from burglaries to homicides. Because she has to hand off all of her cases at...

Review: In 'Amatka' words can literally destroy

In Karin Tidbeck’s dystopian fantasy Amatka (Knopf Doubleday, digital galley), words have the power to build, heal and destroy. Literally.

Apollo 8 book review

Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon By Jeffrey Kluger ★★★★★

Book recommendations for April 2017

Book recommendations from January, February and March 2017

From the first quarter of 2017 I recommend Celine and Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.

The Princess Diarist only partly delivers on the title

I was warned right in the title that Carrie Fisher would share her diary. On that she doesn’t disappoint. But the title kind of promises details about life on the set of the first Star Wars movie. On this The Princess Diarist falls short.

Carrie Fisher: I had to comport myself with something approaching dignity

Had I known it was going to make that loud of a noise, I would’ve dressed better for those talk shows and definitely would have argued against that insane hair (although the hair was, in its own modest way, a big part of that noise). And I certainly wouldn’t have ever just blithely signed away any and all merchandising...

Books I read in 2016

This is a complete list of the book I finished in 2016 and my Goodreads rating. I read exactly 100 books this year, which was my goal. All of the 4 and 5 star books are highly recommended.

Best books of October 2016

These are the three best books I read in October. They are all recommended.

Books I read in 2015

This is a complete list of the book I finished in 2015 and my Goodreads rating. I read 102 books this year. My goal was 80, but once I was underway I picked up some steam and got to more than 100. All of the 4 and 5 star books are highly recommended.

Photographers against COVID-19

Photographers are selling limited edition prints for € 100 each to raise funds for “All United Against Coronavirus,” a French effort to support COVID-19 research and relief.

Martin Parr interviews Alec Soth

Martin Parr has a fairly new YouTube series in which he has casual conversations with photographers. In the most recent segment Parr sits down with Alec Soth, who discusses his beginnings as a photographer and his most recent work, I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating.

Toward the end of the discussion Soth touches on photo ethics...

A video tour of André Kertész exhibition in Toronto

Gallery owner Stephen Bulger gives an 11-part video tour of “A Life in Photographs,” an exhibition of André Kertész (1894-1985) images in Toronto. Each video is fairly short and they are a surprisingly intimate and captivating look at Kertész life and work.

Ginger simple syrup and old fashioned recipe

After looking at multiple recipes for ginger simple syrup, I have developed and tested the consensus best recipe and included a recipe for a ginger old fashioned below.

Copywriting tips for your Shopify store

I recently began the process of refreshing the copywriting on my Shopify-hosted business to boost traffic and improve conversions. The project includes updating product descriptions, product category pages and creating new landing pages for search engines.