★★★☆☆ | Essays | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A cranky, comical book of essays written in the last years of Vonnegut’s life. He is depressed about the state of the world and our short-term minded treatment of it. He reminds you that everyone, even those experts in power only just got here, like everyone else and no one really knows anything.
…★★★★☆ | Sports | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A great collection of essays and fight recaps over boxing’s storied history. Some of these I had read before (Shadow Box by George Plimpton, The Fight by Norman Mailer and Four Kings by George Kimball). Gene Tunney’s essay about fighting Jack Dempsey was amazing.
I began to wish I had more time to think and read and talk to people, to stop writing so much and with such assurance. Columnists have to write with assurance because they are paid to raise The Truth.
— Robert Lipsyte
★★★★☆ | Essays | Audio | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A wonderful collection of essays across a variety of topics. I read her essay “Three Fathers” in the New Yorker a while back, but it’s so much more engaging to hear Ann read it aloud in her own voice. Her writing reminds me of my own if I were better — and that it’s possible to write and essay and still be impactful.
…★★★☆☆ | Science Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A comfort read with some interesting themes:
I respect the neutral gender treatment in the novel, but it kept throwing me off during my reading.
…★★★★☆ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A painful book for me to read — the story of a father losing his 17-year-old son. Mr. Ives – a religious and kind family man – spends the remainder of his life grieving. He relationship with the love of his life withers, he takes no more joy is in existence, he loses faith in God. Some 35 years after his son is murdered, he regains some of his faith through dreams, travel and forgiveness of his son’s killer. It’s a dark, melancholy book. I worried for myself as I watched Mr. Ives grieve over the decades following the loss of his son.
★★★★☆ | Science Fiction | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I enjoyed the writing of this story more than I expected to. I guess I have a weakness for time travel and Universe as Simulation books.
A key theme of the book was the powerful but morally corrupt Time Institute — a secret government agency that developed and used time travel technology to preserve itself without regard for the moral good it could do. The main protagonist joins the agency and uses time travel to safe a life which gets him in huge trouble.
…★★★★☆ | Psychology, Grief and Loss | Digital | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
A boating friend gifted me this book after he learned about Connor’s passing. The author’s 26-year-old son died in a climbing accident. He wrote the book as therapy for himself and as a way to help other dads who have lost a child.
The most important takeaway is something I already knew but was good to be reminded: if Connor could somehow communicate with me from the other side, he would tell me to heal up and find a way to be happy again. He would want me to miss him of course, but he wouldn’t want me to give up living. I know that is true.
★★★★☆ | Fantasy | Digital | Borrow | StoryGraph | Goodreads
An interesting book. After you die, you go to a city where you live so long as someone remembers you from the living world. At this city, life seems to go on as it did on Earth. People work, go out to eat, read books, complain about “life”, and all the while seem not to be amazed at this life after death.
…The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin BrockmeierRead More »
★★★★☆ | Mystery-Suspense | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I can’t remember the last 300+ page book I read in nearly a single sitting. What a terrific story, so well told. So many tie ins to my life: Mallory the protagonist, 18 months sober, the early death of her sister in a car accident.
Books like these remind me of the true joy that comes from reading a good story. I’d give it five stars but for the zany, frumped up ending. This story demanded a simpler, more elegant way to finish such a smooth, entrancing beginning and middle.
★★★★★ | Literary Fiction | Print | Own | StoryGraph | Goodreads
I enjoyed this book so much more than I expected. Perhaps it’s the grief I have been feeling that has opened up new emotional channels. I found myself tearing up at multiple points in reading this book. I really cared for the characters: Lily, August, May, Rosaleen, these beautiful, wise women.
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