Quite a long time ago, I read The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, where the author, a liberal New Yorker, spends a year of his life attempting to literally follow every command in the Bible. I remember enjoying it, so when I saw The Unlikely Disciple (2009) by Kevin Roose, it sounded both interesting and familiar. It turns out, it was familiar for a good reason. Kevin Roose was A.J. Jacobs’s intern, and was the student Jacobs took with him when he visited Jerry Falwell’s […]
Tragedy at war on the high seas
I have a vague memory of one, lonely sentence in my high school history text book declaring the sinking of the Lusitania as one of the reasons the United States eventually joined WWI. The interesting stuff is always in the details, but like most high school history courses, there weren’t any more details. Then I noticed Dead Wake (2015) by Erik Larson. I’d read The Devil in the White City, and even though Larson’s narrative style was sometimes distracting, it was a fascinating story. I figured it […]
Outlander/Last of the Mohicans Remix
I stumbled on the MacKinnon’s Rangers trilogy by Pamela Clare while looking for Clare’s more contemporary work.Untamed (2008) is the second book in this series and involves the second MacKinnon brother–Morgan. Morgan and his two other brothers are Scottish, but grew up in the wilds of America after the Battle of Culloden decimated their clan. Now that Morgan’s older brother Ian is happily settled with a wife and child, Morgan is in charge of the Rangers: a separate, elite armed force set up to support the […]
Secrets make no friends, and they might just ruin your marriage
I’ve decided that I like Liane Moriarty. After reading and really enjoying Big Little Lies, I decided to move on to The Husband’s Secret (2013). Like Big Little Lies, The Husband’s Secret focuses on the intertwined domestic lives of middle-class, Australian suburbanites. Although I found Big Little Lies slightly more interesting with its incredible characters and snark, I was still impressed withThe Husband’s Secret. In fact, I’ve been enjoying Moriarty so much, I will definitely read other books by her. (This is actually a certainty since I’ve already read […]
Consent is a pretty low bar, try to hold out for enthusiasm
Jon Krakauer is my favorite non-fiction writer. He is passionate about his topics, always maintaining a careful attention to detail that I appreciate. So I was shocked when I was walking through the airport back in May and found a new book by Krakauer, Missoula (2015), on the shelves. How did I not know about this? I guess I should admit that I dreaded readingMissoula when I learned that the subject was a rash of acquaintance rapes on a college campus, The consequences and attitudes surrounding rape are not […]
Two parts Last of the Mohicans and one part Outlander
I chose the least embarrassing cover I could find to use for this review of Surrender (2006) by Pamela Clare. The plain, bare chest seemed a little less ridiculous than my other options. NPR’s list of 100 Swoon-Worthy romances reminded me that I hadn’t read a good romance in quite some time. Pamela Clare’s I-Team series made the list under the romantic suspense category, but Surrender was the only Pamela Clare book I could get immediately from the library. So I found myself reading an old-school romance […]
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