Reading Archives - Page 2 of 24

A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst

June 1, 2026 / Reading, Travel

I thought I was getting a modern-day account of a shipwreck at sea. But instead, the author rehashes a fairly well-known account from the 1960s of a couple enduring the sinking of their sailboat after colliding with a whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

The book focuses on the marriage between this English couple as they struggled to survive at sea and later under the pressure of media interest in their story. The husband is an introverted pessimist with asshole tendencies. The wife believes things happen for a reason and everything will work out if only they keep a positive attitude.

It is not so much the feats of endurance that keep people alive as the absence of surrender.

Elmhirst circles back so often to this idea that the couple’s ultimate survival hinged on a positive attitude, that I guess that’s the main point of the book. I’m sorry, but these sailors made so many errors in seamanship that it’s shocking they survived at all. The author admits in the afterward that she’s never stepped foot on a sailboat. She doesn’t know port from starboard, stem from stern. Who writes a survival at sea story without having sailed?

I am clearly not the target audience for this one.

The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad

May 31, 2026 / Reading, Uncategorized, Writing Guides

Suleika Jaouad is a true believer in the power of journaling. Here, she shares 100 mini-essays by notable writers and artists, with tailored journaling prompts after each. You read the short essay, then respond to the prompt in your journal. The prompts are organized into ten sections that plumb the depths of human experience. Jaouad introduces each section with perspectives from her own life, many sharing how her journal helped her navigate her battles with cancer.

Every morning for the past four months, I read one of these short essays and answered the journal prompt as I sipped my coffee. For some, I wrote a few paragraphs. For others, I carried on for two or three pages. Often, how I thought I would approach a prompt changed as I wrote in surprising ways. This is one of those special books that gives back what you put into it.

Any collection of one hundred essays is bound to have its share of duds. No exception here. There were a few that felt rushed, or pointless, or disconnected from the journaling prompt. And the included essays from Jaouad’s family and friends felt indulgent. But most found a ready pathway to my subconscious through the power of quiet reflection with pen and paper.

If you’re looking for a book to help you start a journal or reinvigorate an existing journaling practice, this is a great choice.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

May 24, 2026 / Horror, Reading

My multi-year quest to read the entire Stephen King catalog continues with this 2015 short-story collection. I listened to this one, which included a bonus story (Cookie Jar) not in the original print edition.

King shows his range of writing styles in this collection. There are straight-up horror stories, mysteries, a western, a creepy noir story, a sparse, depressing story that felt very much like a Raymond Carver story, and a short epic poem.

My favorite was UR, a novella featuring an e-reader that taps into books and news stories from millions of parallel universes. This is a must-read for any diehard Dark Tower fans.

In looking back over the twenty other stories, there were two really good ones (A Death and Summer Thunder), but the majority were just okay. King wrote introductions for most of the stories, which I often liked as much as the stories themselves. There were some terrific insights into how he approaches the craft of writing. Our generation’s greatest storyteller makes it look effortless, but, as he says in one introduction, “easy reading is the product of hard writing.”

I’ve now read all twelve short story/novella collections King has written (so far). For me, this one ranked near the bottom in terms of overall enjoyment. My top two recommendations in this category are Night Shift and You Like It Darker.

Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton

May 23, 2026 / ★★★★★, Memoir, Nature, Reading

Chloe Dalton, burned out from a hectic career as a crisis-management policy expert, leaves London to work remotely near her family in the English countryside. She stumbles upon a helpless baby hare and rescues it from certain death. Thus begins a story of how this woman raised a wild hare.

Underlying the wonderful and often humorous stories of coexisting with this wild animal, we watch an adrenaline-addicted professional find balance and peace through a connection with nature. Thoreau had Walden Pond; Dillard had Tinker Creek. Dalton makes a meditative study of a Buddha-like hare within a few acres of wild English countryside. Buried within her observations of the hare and its environment are subtle lessons: let go of any illusions of control; find the joy and serenity in the present moment; and understand that your place is within the natural world, not outside of it.

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The Good Life by Jay McInerney

May 14, 2026 / Literary Fiction, Reading

New York City may be the greatest city on earth, but it’s sure tough on marriages. That seems to be the theme that runs through The Good Life, book two of the Calloway saga. The Calloways are now in their forties, raising twins, and still struggling to keep up with the frenzied and moneyed lifestyle of Manhattan.

The novel is set just before and a few months after September 11, 2001. That terrorists could so dramatically disrupt New York, and could do so again at any moment, serves as a midlife crisis accelerator for Corinne and Luke, who meet as volunteers at Ground Zero. They form a special, once-in-a-lifetime bond and must balance their own desires with the needs of their families in a war-torn city.

I loved Brightness Falls, the predecessor to this one, which wrestled with such big themes that I felt it was one of the very best American novels of the past century. This one, with its modest scope and almost cliched theme, was merely good.

The First Forty-Nine Stories by Ernest Hemingway

May 6, 2026 / Literature, Reading

I’m slowly making my way through a reread of the Hemingway canon. I read many of these stories in college, but I’ve never read all of them straight through like this. This time, I read just one story a night, letting it sink in, and then ruminating over it in my journal the next morning.

These stories are, of course, pure Hemingway: short, punchy sentences; deep emotions tucked just below the surface; a palpable disdain for characters who aren’t manly enough, especially those who relinquish their masculinity to a woman’s charms. Such persistent misogyny felt wearisome by the end of forty-nine stories.

My favorites from the collection: The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Cat In the Rain, Fifty Grand, Hills Like White Elephants, A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, and Fathers and Sons.

I’m sure there are stories here that would have alarmed readers when published, but the world has moved on since the first half of the 20th Century. I wonder how a modern-day Hemingway would shock readers today. I’m pretty sure Papa would have found a way.

Departures by Julian Barnes

April 17, 2026 / Literary Fiction, Reading

Julian Barnes’ latest book, Departure(s), is difficult to classify. It’s part memoir, part literary analysis, part diary, and part meditation on friendship, memory, and the finality of death, while still leaving room for the story of how the narrator (unreliable?) introduced two friends at Oxford, and how, after a 40-year gap, he brought those same friends together again with hopeful intentions. Unlike a novelist’s artistic godlike designs, we are soon reminded that there are few happy endings in life. Things happen for no reason. Or don’t. And death is cruel and final.

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.

Along the way, we are treated to glimpses of the author’s private life: his adoption of a dog, his insomniac writing in the middle of the night on his IBM Selectric typewriter, his eccentric journaling practice, the many vagaries of aging, his battle with cancer, and his grief of losing his wife of thirty years. There is a continual flow of dark wit, though melancholy lies just below the surface of almost every page.

Barnes turned eighty when this book came out. He says it will be his last, preferring to have the final word, and dreading the potential for dying in the saddle, mid-sentence. And yet, I can’t help wondering if he might still have more to give us. Earlier this year, he married his former publisher and long-time partner. This seems like an optimistic act. If not another book, we can at least hope he finds peace and love. We should all be as lucky.

Roads of Destiny by O. Henry

April 12, 2026 / Literature, Reading

I got the idea to read some O. Henry during our time last year in Manhattan. While wandering around Gramercy Park, we happened upon Pete’s Tavern, where the author allegedly scribbled out his stories, including his famous The Gift of the Magi.

The twenty-two stories in this collection were all good. My two favorites were A Retrieved Reformation and Friends in San Rosario. The language is peppered with slang and colorful metaphors:

I was coming out of a printing-shop one afternoon with a batch of fine, sticky prospectuses when I ran against Denver coming round a corner. 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.

Almost every story included the trademark twist in the last few lines. After reading the first ten stories, this became predictable and a little tiresome. I got the feeling that O. Henry cranked out these stories on a deadline in the smoky confines of that old tavern, probably after a few beers. There’s genius here, but it’s formulaic. It’s maybe best to dip in and out of these stories when the mood strikes, not straight through like I did.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

April 11, 2026 / Reading, Science Fiction

This classic science fiction novel drops you in the deep end of the pool from the start. There’s strange new vocabulary and culture to learn from an alien race on the planet of Winter. Even stranger is the gender fluidity that all the inhabitants of the planet possess, except for the rare sexual deviants born exclusively male or female.

I love the elaborate world-building of truly successful science fiction writing. Le Guin brings this world alive by tapping into all the senses of what being on this frigid planet is like: the perpetual chill, the descriptions of the mountainous terrain, the unique architecture designed for the deep cold of long winters, the strange smells and tastes of alien food, and the many different kinds and even sounds of snow. The immersive descriptions for a completely imagined world is astonishing. Couple this with luxuriant writing that flows with such rhythm, bordering at times on poetry. Even if I didn’t always understand the vernacular, I marveled at the language.

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So Late in the Day by Claire Keegan

March 29, 2026 / Literary Fiction, Reading

Claire Keegan is fast becoming my favorite living author. This latest book features three short stories, though just the title story is new. The others were reprinted from her earlier two collections of short stories (Antarctica and Walk The Blue Fields, both of which I now have on order).

A theme connects these stories, as hinted by the book’s subtitle: “Stories of Women and Men.” Indeed, each story depicts an unhappy encounter between the sexes with unsettling consequences.

My favorite was So Late in the Day, where a man reflects on his sad life on what should have been his wedding day. He treated his fiancée horribly, but can’t seem to accept responsibility for his deplorable behavior once she broke off the engagement. A flashback to a breakfast with his family when he returned home from college will haunt me for a long time.

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