Category: Books
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Weekly Reflections #17
In which we melt into anarchy. Reading: Finished The Dispossessed yesterday. I don’t know. It was totally fine. One of those polemics cleverly disguised as a novel. There were moments, but only moments, of real characters and plot, and a lot of characters serving as mouthpieces for what felt like a college seminar’s philosophical debate.…
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The Inner Game
I finished reading The Inner Game of Tennis by W. Timothy Gallwey this morning, which is one of those books where if you get into the arena of mental models, performance, and general satisfaction, tends to get referenced quite a bit. So after it sat on my shelf for a year or two, I finally…
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Weekly Reflections #9
In which we return from a break. A few notes from our 3-year delayed honeymoon in New Zealand: Speaking of which, I finished 4 books on the trip/in the last day or so. I think my favorite was Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid (now a show on Amazon Prime). It’s a…
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Recommended: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
As we were walking the dogs earlier today, I said to my wife: “I like this book, and for any other author, it’d be the best thing they did, but I don’t think this one lives up to Little Fires Everywhere.” Then I read the last third of the book this afternoon and I take…
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Recommended: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
This is my favorite book I’ve read thus far in 2023. I am not a literary critic, so I’ll just keep this to a loose plot summary and what I think makes this novel great. Quick Synopsis: Two college students resume their friendship after an acrimonious friend breakup in their early years. We watch this…
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Weekly Reflections #7
I had a nightmare this week that I became a lawyer again. On a related note, I got a sleep aid from my doctor (pretty lightweight antihistamine that also controls anxiety) for the first time in my life. It’s great. When I need to take it (once or twice a month, usually), I fall asleep…
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Weekly Reflections #6
Reading: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin; Holacracy by Brian J. Robertson; Buddhism, Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen Watching: Still watching The Last of Us and Poker Face as they come out. The big headline is that our good friend Andrew Helms helped produce Stolen Youth: Inside the Cult at Sarah Lawrence,…
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Favorite Books of 2022
This is a short list of my favorite books I read in 2022 (not necessarily released this year). I’ll add a short blurb if I have anything insightful to say about the book, but I’m not a literary critic and I struggled in all of my (3) college English courses so you can take everything…
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Recommended: Under the Whispering Door by TJ Klune
Six months ago, we had tornados in the area, and we (Michelle, the dog, and me) found ourselves huddled in the closet, waiting out the warning. I may have said something like “I’d be okay dying like this,” which did not elicit rave reactions. To state the obvious: talking and thinking about death is unpleasant.…
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What I’m Looking Forward to This Week
Listening to the new Animal Collective record (I think my favorite song so far is Strung With Everything), new Spoon record Friday Super Bowl Sunday! Seeing Zach & Daniel Wednesday I’m reading a really lovely book right now called Under the Whispering Door and it’s kind of like a warm hug right before I go…
The Minimum Blues 