Mark Twain, Ron Chernow

 Mark Twain by Ron Chernow

Started: January 26, 2026
Completed: July 9, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

It took a while to get through this book as it is so huge that I had to cycle through the library several times in order to listen to the whole thing.  I have a lot of respect for Chernow, but only the broadest of understandings of Twain.  My brother visited a Twain exhibit and brought back a book of his works which I have not yet read (though I had read Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, and Connecticut Yankee in my youth as well as other short stories like, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County").  What a knew of Twain you could fit in a thimble in comparison to this book.  I knew his era, but did not realize how many celebrities he knew all over the world--for that matter I was only vaguely aware that he had moved from Missouri to New York City.  I knew nothing of his wife or family (oddly, the last surviving member of which died only a few years before I was born) and had only heard peripherally about his interest in young girls (which seemed platonic from Chernow's perspective or at least only fantasy without any desire to actually act on his interest)--though disturbing in concept.  I was also completely unaware of his personal struggles and perspectives on religion.  I was aware of his role as a publisher from Chernow's Grant.  This book was so insightful and shed light on so much of Twain's life that I found it fascinating.

Angel Down, Daniel Kraus

 

Angel Down by Daniel Kraus

Started: June 15, 2026
Completed: June 18, 2026
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: My niece thought that this would be a book I would enjoy (and she gifted it to me!)
Media: Trade Paperback

Review:

My niece would like to have an honest review, which is kind of where I live.  

I did not enjoy this book.  The format is unusual (it is a stream of consciousness book) and the subject matter (in the World War I trenches) was pretty tough.  Moreover, I am trying not to read depressing books.  So, this book, just by virtue of the subject matter was tough for me.  Of course, I have read and enjoyed books that have all of those qualities.

*SPOILERS BELOW*

This book did not reward good behavior (for the most part).  The pair who jump over the trench wall (go over the top) and go to rescue (put out of his misery) the screamer are not particularly good people.  In fact, nobody in the novel is a decent person.  Everyone is busy pursuing his own thing and trying to grind down everyone else.  When push comes to shove, they each show their true colors and the angel is the worst of them all.  I just could not find a redeeming quality in any of the characters, the story line, or the theme.  Of course, war is horrible and each of the characters showed a characteristic of humanity that leads to war.  I just did not enjoy reading about how awful we are.

Stoner, John Williams

 

Stoner by John Williams

Started: June 4, 2026
Completed: June 8, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: The New Yorker
Media: Audio

Review:

This is a character study book.  The characters are all odd, but not dysfunctionally odd, just odd.  All of them seem to function within the world that they inhabit, but seem unable to traverse between their different worlds very well.  The book is a bit dour, but there is humor to be found.  The interactions seem so realistic to me that it seems Williams has created actual people who could exist nearby.  This book was well worth the read for someone who likes a good turn of phrase and complex character development.

Papyrus, Irene Vallejo

 

Papyrus:  The invention of books in the ancient world by Irene Vallejo

Started: May 26, 2026
Completed: June 4, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I had hoped that this book would be more about scrolls then books, but it was not.  Not that scrolls were lacking.  In some ways, this was a writer's adventure in writing and in others it was a bit of survey of surviving works.  I imagine that Vallejo will be inclined to add to the book as more of the Herculaneum scrolls are read.

1929, Andrew Ross Sorkin

 

1929:  Inside the greatest crash in Wall Street history--and how it shattered a nation by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Started: May 16, 2026
Completed: May 22, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: My mother
Media: Audio

Review:

This book adds humanitarian details to the crash.  I learned a little more of the big players and learned more about the role of copper stocks then I had previously known.

The Founding Myth, Andrew L. Seidel

 

The Founding Myth:  Why Christian nationalism is un-American by Andrew L. Seidel

Started: May 6, 2026
Completed: May 12, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: My wife recommended Seidel to me
Media: Audio

Review:

This is an excellent analysis of how completely wrong Christian Nationalism is about Christian influence on the founding of the United States.  To the extent it is possible to tie Christianity to the founding, those influences have been detrimental (e.g. slavery) and reversed.  The detail and methodical analysis is both useful and enlightening.

A World Appears, Michael Polan

 

A World Appears:  A journey into consciousness by Michael Pollan

Started: May 1, 2026
Completed: May 6, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: Cannot remember
Media: Audio

Words for which I sought help:

lacuna -- An empty space or a missing part; a gap

Review:

This book started by quoting Anil Seth's Being You which I have been struggling to read for a couple of years now.  Despite that daunting start, the book was highly readable and covered a lot of ground.  While I am not usually swayed by a personal journey, in this particular case it created a framework which allowed Pollan to go from concept to concept cleanly.  Well worth the time.

Family of Spies, Christine Kuehn

 

Family of Spies by Christine Kuehn

Started: April 27, 2026
Completed: May 1, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio Book

Review:

This story is personal to the author.  Her shame drips from the page.  The heart of the book is an interesting inside story of Pearl Harbor, just from the German/Japanese side.  The family shame, of course, is linked to that and Kuehn does a good job of making it clear that she is telling this story reluctantly.  She also clearly had help writing this book.  On occasion the same material is reiterated which seems to be happening a lot more than I had experienced in the past in non-fiction books.  It is not awful, just wasteful.

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with It, K.J. Parker

 

How to Rule an Empire and Get Away with it by K.J. Parker

Started: April 17, 2025
Completed: April 21, 2025
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I have enjoyed this series so far.  I did not enjoy this one as much as Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, but that may come from the move away from engineering to theater (both of which I dabbled with in college).  The protagonist's mother was fantastic, but she was only a small part.  The general approach of the book was the same as its prequel, but it was harder to buy that a playwright pulled off all the engineering.  Maybe it was also the novelty that grabbed me so strongly in the first one, but seemed to be missing from this one.  Still a good read!

84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff

 

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Started: April 17, 2026
Completed: April 17, 2026
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

This was a joy to hear (from Recorded Books).  Ms. Hanff is quite the character.  While this is a simple exchange of letters, it is also an exchange of humanity and genuine caring for people very separated.  This was a fun, simple, read.

What We Can Know, Ian McEwan

 

What We Can Know by Ian McEwan

Started: April 11, 2026
Completed: April 17, 2026
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I don't know what to say about this book.  It is well written.  It is composed of two very distinct parts told in two different voices.  They are (as one might expect) related.  The audio version surely helped.  I have to say, however, that the first part was not terribly compelling and I found the second part droll.  Yes, I said it.  I dunno why this is a book of the year.  It is complex and layered.  Maybe I just missed a bunch of stuff, so it gets the mild recommendation based on the quality of the writing which pulled it out of not recommended.  I will surely forget this book soon.

Hell's Heart, Alexis Hall

 

Hell's Heart by Alexis Hall is a retelling of Moby Dick as a science fiction novel

Started: April 1, 2026
Completed: April 11, 2026
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: I think I just saw a brief review of the book in a newly released list
Media:  Audio

Review:

There are things in this book that I liked.  There was a lot of sex and it felt like Hall seemed compelled to put in more sex, but opted not to do so.  The book itself, captured the feel of Moby Dick as it has frequently been retold, but missed the intimate detail of the process of whaling that was so fundamental to the original.  I'm not finding fault for that (and, surely, the original was painful to read in part due to this unending detail), but I'm just saying that I missed a nod to it.  Mostly, I didn't like the story...I didn't like how it felt 'constructed' instead of as a simple effort to retell a series of events.  I dunno.  Hard to nail down what I did not enjoy and capture it as one thing.

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City, K.J. Parker

 

Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City by K.J. Parker (the author is actually Tom Holt, but he writes fantasy under this pseudonym) is the first book in the Siege series

Started: March 24, 2026
Completed: April 1, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

I really enjoyed the writing style.  The protagonist is self-deprecating while at the same time being remarkably egotistical.  The situation was simultaneously silly and serious.  Even the ways some things were phrased caught me as funny while still being serious:  "She yawned so much it nearly tore her face."  These are not deeply thought out characters with immersive development, but this is a carefully crafted story.  Yes, several of the characters are shallow plot devices, but those devices are very effectively used.  A very fun read.

Heaven's River, Dennis E. Taylor

 

Heaven's River by Dennis E. Taylor is the next book in the Bobiverse series

Started: August 19, 2025
Completed: March 26, 2026
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

This is simply another great story.  I really enjoyed the way that Taylor continues to make this series fresh and useful.  It is truly an amazing series and I particularly enjoyed the way that Taylor is looking at how other possible intelligences might exist and how they might interact with humans in general and Von Neuman probes in particular.

The Fall of Carthage, Adrian Goldsworthy

 

The Fall of Carthage:  The Punic Wars 265-146BC by Adrian Goldsworthy

Started: 11/2/2025
Completed: DNF (March 26, 2026)
Recommendation: Cannot comment

Media: eBook
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I just could not get into this book.  The preface was quite large and provided a ton of information that I could not correlate to anything.  It was also quite boring.  I never even got to the start of any war.

The Everlasting, Alix E. Harrow

 

The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow

Started: March 16, 2026

Completed: March 24, 2026

Recommendation: Recommended

Recommended By: Nobody, I saw promise in The Once and Future Witches and I thought I would give Harrow another chance

Media: Audio book

Review:

I enjoyed this time travelling story which sort of explains the logic that sits behind the Back to the Future series a little better.  Harrow does a good job of telling a similar story repeatedly and yet is able to raise tension and expectation.  I also liked the way that she handled memory.  The short comings include the obviousness of how it had to end as well as the awkward love story.  The epilogue left me wanting as the dragon logic collapsed.

A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst

 

A Marriage At Sea: A true story of love, obsession, and shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst

Started: March 12, 2026
Completed: March 16, 2026
Recommendation: Mild recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody
Media: Audio

Review:

This is an odd book about an odd couple who had an odd experience.  How English.  The title is mildly misleading.  The couple spent their marriage at sea, they were not married on the high seas.  The only reason that they are known at all, I think, is that they were shipwrecked and eventually found in a raft near death.  Then, as one does, they built another boat and went sailing some more.  Their tale is mildly interesting.  It is not a swashbuckling tale, but more one of grueling survival.  Had I understood what it was when I picked it up, I think it is unlikely that I would have read it.  My mild recommendation is due mostly to there being no romanticization of their experience.  It is forthright, rugged, and rather unpleasant.

Theo of Golden, Allen Levi

 

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

Started: March 4, 2026
Completed: March 13, 2026
Recommendation: Highly recommended
Recommended By: The older of my sisters
Media: Audio

Review:

This book molds and retains an air of hopefulness.  Throughout, there is a sense of forgiveness and kindness to others.  There are rather distinct Christian religious overtones and, frankly, that is not overwhelming or particularly unwelcome.  It feels like any religion could have reasonably been substituted for Christianity insofar as this was not a book that espoused a particular doctrine, but rather the gentleness and respect for others that is espoused by almost all religions today (certain warrior gods clearly excepted).  As such, this book is both a study in humanity (humanness; benevolence) and in seeing people not simply as they are, but as they might be.  In that sense, this book is a beacon for how to treat one-another.

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother), Rabih Alameddine

 

The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine

Started: January 26, 2026
Completed: March 4, 2026
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Media: Audio
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

The plot line is pretty good, but I found the way the plot developed to be off-putting.  I am OK with a character who does not like himself, but a character who does not know himself?  A character who treats his own internal issues as laugh lines?  Meh.

Heart, Be at Peace, Donal Ryan

 

Heart, Be At Peace by Donal Ryan is a sequel to The Spinning Heart

Started: January 24, 2025
Completed: January 26, 2025
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: The Guardian

Review:

Ryan tells a story of several characters intertwined in a small Irish town.  Once again, he captures the multi-perspective story process well.  I enjoyed hearing the same events from different perspectives with overlapping events being sufficient to carry the story forward without simply retelling the story repeatedly.  Really enjoyed it.