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!