[W]hen I was little and just learning how to read, I recall looking at the 10 page book that I had to tackle with dismay. It would take me forever! to get through that book. It was a slow, painstaking process, and by the time I made it through, I often felt discouraged. I remember my…
[O]ver on Medium, Hugh McGuire has an interesting piece asking, “Why can’t we read anymore?” The first line of the piece immediately triggered my skepticism radar: Last year I read four books. Uh-oh, I thought, this is going to be one of those pieces bemoaning the fact that there just isn’t anything good to read…
[I] have not written much about my reading lately, so I figured I should say something about it, now that the summer is rapidly coming to an end (the Little Man starts 1st grade on Monday!). The list of books I have read since 1996 has grown by about 7 books over the summer. 4…
[A]t the end of this year, my reading list will be twenty-years old. The list has evolved over time from simple, to complex, and back to simple. But over the course of the last two decades, it has always been available online in one form or another. When I started keeping the list, it was…
[Y]esterday I sat down to watch a Stephen King talk from back in January of this year. It took place somewhere in Florida and it was for a library down there. In the question and answer session that followed the talk, King was asked what his favorite Stephen King book was. I watched with interest,…
[O]bviously, we still have a month to go before summer officially begins, but a few nights ago, I jotted down the following list of books, all of which I am interested in reading in the near future1. The Fifth Heart by Dan Simmons (reading this now) Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin The Bully…
[I] have mentioned before how my favorite long-form nonfiction is the baseball essay. Reading those essays leads to all kinds of places. I was discussing these types of pieces with a friend of mine, and he recommended a recent book put out through The Library of America called The Top of His Game: The Best Sportswriting…
[I] wasn’t going to make a big deal about hitting 600 consecutive days of writing–which I will hit later today when I get my writing in. I’d promised that my next major milestone would come on August 23, 2015–that’s when I’ll hit 763 consecutive days. On that day, I will have more consecutive days of writing…
[I] have been having a lot of fun following along on Richard Chizmar1‘s Stephen King Revisited blog, as he attempts to re-read every Stephen King book in chronological order. After each book, he posts an article, as there usually several others as well looking at the work through various contexts. It’s been great fun, and…
[B]ack in the summer of 2005, I read James Clavell’s Shogun. I absolutely loved it. When I started listening to audiobooks 2 years ago, I sought out Shogun. The version Audible had at the time was narrated by David Case, and the reviews of the narration were pretty awful. Nevertheless, I bought it, and tried to listen…
[I]n regard to the last post on Stephen King books that I haven’t yet read, I got quite a few recommendations, and enough to change my mind about what I was thinking about reading next. Instead of Insomnia, I’m now reading The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub. Just in case folks were wondering what I…
[B]ack in November, as part of his 6-city tour for Revival, Stephen King came to the Washington, D.C. area as a guest of the Politics & Prose bookstore. I wasn’t able to attend, but last night, I watched the talk on YouTube. As often happens after I see Stephen King speak, I thought to myself, “Gee,…