What We’re Reading

Its title is a classic understatement. Read my story about my experience working with the author click here >

Reading for the second time what I believe to be my all-time favorite book.

Books Read in 2022

The Lincoln Highway, Amor Towles 3
How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith 5+
Cloud Cuckoo Land, Anthony Doerr 5
We Own This City, Justin Fenton 5+
Silverview, John le Carre 4
Catalyst, Louise Clarke and David Kean 5+
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Honoree Fanonne Jeffers 5++
Bewilderment, Richard Powers 5+
Legendary, Tommy Breedlove 3

The Great Glorious Goddamn of it All, Josh Ritter 4
The Storyteller, Dave Grohl 4
Influence is Your Superpower, Zoe Chance 5+
Invisible Child, Andrea Elliott 5++
Intimacies, Katie Kitamura 5
We Were Never Here, Andrea Bartz 1
Indigo, Padgett Powell 5
Lost & Found, Kathryn Shultz 3

The Naked Don’t Fear the Dead, Matthieu Adkins 2
Empire of Pain, Patrick Radden Keefe 5+
10:04, Ben Lerner, 5
Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama, Bob Odenkirk 5+
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, Julian Rubinstein 5++
Love in the Time of Contagion, Laura Kipnis 2
The Leopard, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa 3
Shackleton, Ranulph Fiennes 5
Walking the Bowl, Chris Lockhart and Daniel Mulilo Chama 4
Somebody’s Daughter, Ashley C. Ford 2

Index, A History of the, Dennis Duncan 3
The Fred Factor, Mark Sanborn 3
Run Towards the Danger, Sarah Polley 2
When I’m Gone, Look For Me in the East, Quan Barry 3
Bomb Shelter, Mary Laura Philpott, 3
Write for Your Life, Anna Quindlen, 4
The BBC, A Century On Air, David Hendy 5

Tell Me Everything, Erika Krouse 3
Riverman: An American Odyssey, Ben McGrath 2
Build, Tony Fadell 5
Hello Molly!, Molly Shannon 5
The Adventures of Herbie Cohen, Rich Cohen 4
The Candy House, Jennifer Egan 3

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn 5+
The Interrupted Journey, John G. Fuller 4
Sea of Tranquility, Emily St. John Mandel 2
Directed by James Burrows, James Burrows 4
Watergate: A New History, Garrett M. Graff 5++

Four Treasures of the Sky, Jenny Tinghui Zhang 4
Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris 5+
Pay Dirt Road, Samantha Jayne Allen 1
Road Trips, Head Trips and Other Car-Crazed Writings, Jean Lindamood 3
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? Seamus O’Reilly 3
Young Mungo, Douglas Stuart 5
Life Ceremony, Sayaka Murata 2
All That Moves Us, Jay Wellons, 5
Afterparties, Anthony Veasna So 2

The Perfect Other, Kyleigh Leddy 4
Love Marriage, Monica Ali 4
The Church of Baseball, Ron Shelton 5+
Operation Shylock, Philip Roth 3
The Spymasters, Chris Whipple 5
Swerve or Die, Kyle Petty 5

I’d Like to Play Alone, Please, Tom Segura 4
Mindreader, David J. Lieberman 1
Survival of the Fastest, Randy Lanier 2
Oh William!, Elizabeth Strout 4
Hannah’s War, Jan Eliasberg 2
Nightcrawling, Leila Mottley, 3
The Novelist, Jordan Castro 5
The Rare Find, George Anders, 4

Notes On Your Sudden Disappearance, Alison Espach 5
Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan 5+
Profiles in Ignorance, Andy Borowitz 5+
Foreverland, Heather Havrilesky 2
The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man, Paul Newman 5++
Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, Maddie Mortimer 4

Like a Rolling Stone, Jann S. Wenner 4
The Trees, Percival Everett, 3
Us, Terrence Real 5
Surrender. 40 Songs, One Story Bono 5+
This is Happiness, Niall Williams 5++
Glory, Noviolet Bulawayo 3
Liberation Day, George Saunders 5+
Simple Dreams, Linda Ronstadt 4
Newsroom Confidential, Margaret Sullivan 2
Trust, Hernan Diaz 5++
Stay True, Hua Hsu 4
Indelible City, Louisa Lim 5
If I Survive You, Jonathan Escoffery 5
A Heart That Works, Rob Delaney 5+++
A Giant Win, Tom Coughlin 5
Olga Dies Dreaming, Xochitl Gonzalez 3
Desolation Peak, Jack Kerouac 3
Dirtbag, Massachusetts, Isaac Fitzgerald 2
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin 5+
Inside Voice, Lake Bell 5++
The Rabbit Hutch, Tess Gunty 4
The Latecomer, Jean Hanff Korelitz 5+
Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta, James Hannah 5+
The Philosophy of Modern Song, Bob Dylan 5+
Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami 5

Full Reading List (2021)

The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett 5
Want, Lynn Steger Strong 5
Tokyo Ueno Station, Yu Miri 4
Luster, Raven Leilani 5+
Leave the World Behind, Rumaan Alam 2

Washington, Ron Chernow 5+
The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger 5+
The Death of Vivek Oji, Akwaeke Emzi 3
A Promised Land, Barack Obama 5+
The Great Eastern, Howard A. Rodman 5

Anxious People, Fredrik Backman, DNF
The Moth and the Mountain, Ed Caesar 5
The Blue View, Rodney Muterspaw 4
Think Again, Adam Grant 5
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders 5+++

The Infinite Game, Simon Sinek 3
The Office of Historical Corrections, Danielle Evans 4
No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood 4
Fooled by Randomness, Nassim Nicholas Taleb 4
The Disappearing Act, Florence De Changy 0

Cleanness, Garth Greenwell 2
The Lying Life of Adults, Elena Ferrante 5
No Rules Rules, Reed Hastings, Erin Meyer 5+
Homeland Elegies, Ayad Akhtar 4
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami 4

Scaling Global Change, Erin Ganju 3
Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell 5
The Ten Faces of Innovation, Tom Kelley 3
The Hidden Habits of Genius, Craig Wright 4
The Cold Millions, Jess Walter 5

Ratline, Philippe Sands 5+
The Twelve Lives of Alfred Hitchcock, Edward White 4
The Lady Whose Mouth I Set On Fire, Dr. McNonymous 3
The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen 4
The Hard Crowd, Rachel Kushner 4

Death in Mud Lick, Eric Eyre 4
The Best of Me, David Sedaris, 5+
How Lucky, Will Leitch 5
In Persuasion Nation, George Saunders 4
Civilwarland In Bad Decline, George Saunders 5

Pastoralia, George Saunders 5
Infinite Country, Patricia Engel 4
The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara 5+
Chasing the Light, Oliver Stone 4
The Light of Day, Judy Batalion 5+

The Third Pole, Mark Synnott 5
Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told? Jenny Diski 4
Yearbook, Seth Rogen 5
The Serious Guide to Joke Writing, Sally Holloway 3
First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami 4

The Wreckage of My Presence, Casey Wilson 3
Klara and the Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro 4
Wild Blueberries, Peter Damm 5+
Managing the Professional Services Firm, David H. Maister 5
Philip Roth, Blake Bailey 5

Collision Course, Greimel and Sposato 4
At Night All Blood is Black, David Diop 4
The Bomber Mafia, Malcolm Gladwell 5
My Friend Anna, Rachel DeLoache Williams 3
How to Lead a Value-Based Professional Services Firm, Don Scales & Fran Biderman-Gross 0

Libertie, Kaitlyn Greenidge 3
The Hero Code, Admiral William H. McRaven 4
The Sunset Route, Carrot Quinn DNF
The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream, Dean Jobb 4
Razorblade Tears, S.A. Cosby 4

We Begin at the End, Chris Whitaker 4
Great Circle, Maggie Shipstead 5+
Battle For the Big Top, Les Standiford 4
Seven Perfect Things, Catherine Ryan Hyde 2
The Lost Pianos of Siberia, Sophy Roberts 3

A Sense of Self, Veronica O’Keane 3
The Killer Across the Table, John Douglas and Mark Olshaker 4
Suppose a Sentence, Brian Dillon 4
Noise, Daniel Kahneman, Oliver Sibony, Cass Sunstein 4
The Story of More, Hope Jahren 5

Meat Eater’s Campfire Stories. Close Calls, Steven Rinella 2
Undisruptable, Aidan McCullen 1
Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford 2
Writing, Written, Stephen Dixon 5
Patrimony, Philip Roth 5

The Five Wounds, Kirstin Valdez Quade 5
My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones 3
The Almost Legendary Morris Sisters, Julie Klam 4
Based on a True Story, a Memoir, Norm Macdonald 5++
All The Frequent Troubles of Our Days, Rebecca Donner 5+

Travels With George, Nathaniel Philbrick 3
Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner 5
Beautiful World, Where Are You? Sally Rooney 4
A Calling For Charlie Barnes, Joshua Ferris 5+
Facing the Mountain, Daniel James Brown 5+

The Last Black Unicorn, Tiffany Haddish 2
A Carnival of Snackery, David Sedaris 5+
Mike Nichols, A Life, Mark Harris 5+
The Boys, Ron Howard & Clint Howard 5+
Going There, Katie Couric 5+

Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead 4
Taste: My Life Through Food Stanley Tucci 5++
Talk to Me, TC Boyle 4
Welcome to Dunder Mifflin, Brian Baumgartner 3
Matrix, Lauren Groff 3

All About Me!, Mel Brooks 5+
Who We Meet Along the Way, Brandon Tosti 0
Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, Mark Seal 5+
Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen 5++
Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner 5+

How Beautiful We Were, Imbolo Mbue 5+
On Juneteenth, Annette Gordon-Reed 4

Full Reading List (2020)

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe 5+
Mostly Dead Things, Kristen Arnett 5
Night Boat to Tangier, Kevin Barry 4
Midnight in Chernobyl, Adam Higginbotham 5
The Guest Book, Sarah Blake 1

Empire of the Summer Moon, SC Gwynne 4
Range. Why Generalists Triumph, David Epstein 3
Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson 5
Tightrope, N. Kristof and S. WuDunn 4
If You Tell, Gregg Olsen 3

Fight of the Century, Michael Chabon 5
Churchill, Walking With Destiny Andrew Roberts 5++
A Very Stable Genius, Philip Rucker & Carol Leonnig 4
Girl, Woman, Other Bernadine Evaristo 5

Leadership Strategy and Tactics, Jocko Willink 4
The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson 5+
American Dirt, Jeanine Cummins 2
Invisible People, Alex Tizon 5
Bookmarked, Wendy W. Fairley 4
Deacon King Kong, James McBride 5

Long Bright River, Liz Moore 3
Processed Cheese, Stephen Wright 2
Normal People, Sally Rooney 5+
The Cactus League, Emily Nemens 4
Trust Exercise, Susan Choi 2

The Adventurer’s Son, Roman Dial 4
Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellman 4
Doxology, Nell Zink 3
In the Dream House, Carmen Maria Machado 2
Solitary, Albert Woodfox, 5+

Disappearing Earth, Julia Phillips 3
Underland, Robert Macfarlane 3
The Big Goodbye, Sam Wasson 4
Grand Union, Zadie Smith 2
Franchise, Marcia Chatelain 4

Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker 4
Heart Berries, Terese Marie Mailhot 4
Apropos of Nothing, Woody Allen 5++
A Long Petal of the Sea, Isabel Allende 3
The End of October, Lawrence Wright 5

My Dark Vanessa, Kate Elizabeth Russell 5
How to Pronounce Knife, Souvankham Thammavongsa 5+
Topics of Conversation, Miranda Popkey 2
Nobody Will Tell You This But Me, Bess Kalb 5

wow. no thank you. Samantha Irby 4
The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe 3
The Buddha and the Badass, Vishen Lakhiani 1
How To Be An Anti-Racist, Ibrahim X. Kendi 5
Future Value, E. Longenhagen & K. McDaniel 4

The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton 2
Springsteen on Broadway, Bruce Springsteen 5++
Tokyo Ueno Station, Yu Miri 3
Savage Son, Jack Carr 3
Think Like a Rocket Scientist, Ozan Varol 4

Sorry For Your Trouble, Richard Ford 3
What’s Left of Me is Yours, Stephanie Scott 4
Heroes, Stephen Fry 5
The Biggest Bluff, Maria Konnikova 5++
Begin Again, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. 4

Last Couple Standing, Matthew Norman 5
Unspeakable Acts, Sarah Weinman 2
Caste, Isabel Wilkerson 5+++
White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo 5
The Guest List, Lucy Foley 1

Notes on a Silencing, Lacy Crawford 5
The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre 5+
Intimations, Zadie Smith 4
El Jefe, The Stalking of Chapo Guzman, Alan Feuer 4
If it Bleeds, Stephen King 4

Antkind, Charlie Kaufman 5+
Idiot, Laura Clery 1
The Discomfort of Evening, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, 4
How to Lead, David Rubenstein 3
Memorial Drive, Natasha Trethewey, 4

Sheryl Crow Words and Music, S Crow 5
Broken, Don Winslow 4
It’s a Long Story: My Life, Willie Nelson 5
Putin’s People, Catherine Belton 4
A Short Move, Katherine Hill 2

Had I Known, Barbara Ehrenreich 3
Then the Fish Swallowed Him, Amir Ahmadi Arian 5
Enemy of All Mankind, Steven Johnson 3
Eat The Buddha, Barbara Demick 3
The Stranger in the Woods, Michael Finkel 3

The Moment of Tenderness, Madeline L’Engle 3
How to Write One Song, Jeff Tweedy 5+
The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, Christopher Beha 5+
Is This Anything?, Jerry Seinfeld 5
This Mournable Body, Tsitsi Dangarembga 3

Billion Dollar Loser, Reeves Wiedeman 4
Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart 5++
The Shadow King, Maala Mengiste 2
Monogamy, Sue Miller 3
Such a Fun Age, Kiley Reid 2

Tequila Mockingbird, Tim Federle 5
150 Glimpses of the Beatles, Craig Brown 4
Homegoing, Yaa Gyasi 3

Full Reading List (2019)

Transcription, Kate Atkinson 2
Dear Los Angeles, David Kipen 5
A House for Mr. Biswas, V.S Naipul 4
The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner 5
Valley of Genius, Adam Fisher 4

Blowing the Bloody Doors Off, Michael Caine 4
Power Ball, Rob Neyer 5
The Library Book, Susan Orlean 5+
Zucked, Roger McNamee 5
American Prison, Shane Bauer 4

A Place For Us, Fatima Farheen Mirza 4
Orbiting The Giant Hairball, Gordon MacKenzie 3
Dreyer’s English, Benjamin Dreyer 5++
The Source of Self-Regard, Toni Morrison 4
Heavy, Kiese Laymon 5

Three Women, Lisa Taddeo 5+

Men Without Women , Haruki Murakami 5

The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead 3

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami 5+

The Opposite of Loneliness, Marina Keegan 5

Outside Looking In, T.C. Boyle 5

Catch and Kill, Ronan Farrow 4

Our Man, George Packer 5

Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain 4

The Woman in the Window, AJ Finn 2
You Know You Want This, Kristen Roupenian 5
These Truths, Jill Lepore 5
Bowlaway, Elizabeth McCracken
The Night Tiger, Yangsze Choo 3

The Largess of the Sea Maiden, Denis Johnson 5+
American Spy, Lauren Wilkinson 3
Lake Success, Gary Shreyngart 5+
The Parade, Dave Eggers 4
Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday 5

Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom, David W. Blight 5*
The Unwinding of the Miracle, Julie Yip-Williams 5
Hold Fast Your Crown, Yannick Haenel 3
Ikigai. Giving Every Day Meaning and Joy, Yukari Mitsubishi 4
Ikigai. The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life 2

The Lager Queen of Minnesota,  J. Ryan Stradel 4

She Said, Jodi Kantor & Megan Twohey 5

The Travelers, Regina Porter 3

Chances Are, Richard Russo 4

Me, Elton John 5+

Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart 4
Hattiesburg, William Sturkey 4
Survival Math, Mitchell S. Jackson 5+
Once Upon a River, Diane Setterfield 2
Killing Commendatore, Haruki Murakami 5+

An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma 5
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, Alexander Chee 4
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki, Haruki Murakami 5+
The MVP Machine, Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchik 5+
Furious Hours, Casey Cep 5+

Erotic Stories For Punjabi Widows, Balli Kaur Jaswal 3
The Way of All Flesh, Ambrose Parry 5
Legacy, James Kerr 5+
Ikigai, Ken Mogi 3
Deep River, Karl Marlantes 4

Mrs. Everything, Jennifer Weiner 3

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong 5

Fleishman Is In Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner 5+

The Monk of Mocha, Dave Eggers 5+

The River, Peter Heller 4

Know My Name, Chanel Miller 5+++

Talking To Strangers, Malcolm Gladwell 4

Full Reading List (2018)

The Essex Serpent, Sarah Perry 4
Rogue Heroes, Ben Macintyre 5
Ghacher, Ghochar Vivek Shanbhag 4
milk and honey, rupi kaur 5
The Idiot, Elif Batuman 4

Ghosts of the Tsunami, Richard Lloyd Parry 5
The Alienist, Caleb Carr 5+
The Undoing Project, Michael Lewis 5
What it Means When a Man Falls From the Sky, Lesley Nneka Arimah 5
Leonardo da Vinci, Walter Isaacson 5

Half Empty, David Rakoff 4
Skin and Other Stories, Roald Dahl 5
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, Arundhati Roy 3
The Stowaway, Laurie Gwen Shapiro 5
An Instance of the Fingerpost, Iain Pears 5+

Personal History, Katharine Graham 5+
Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Joan Didion 4
Only Killers and Thieves, Paul Howarth 2
On Writing, Stephen King 5+
The Relive Box, TC Boyle 5

Notes On a Foreign Country, Suzy Hansen 3
The Lock Artist, Steve Hamilton 4
The Great Alone, Kristin Hannah 2
Going For a Beer, Robert Coover 4
The Heart is a Shifting Sea, Elizabeth Flock 3

Grant, Ron Chernow 5
Russian Roulette, Michael Isikoff 4
Look Alive Out There, Sloane Crosley 5+
An American Marriage, Tayari Jones 5
The Sandman, Lars Kepler 3

Feel Free, Zadie Smith 4
The Overstory, Richard Powers 5
Enzo Ferrari, Luca Dal Monte 4
I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, Michelle McNamara 4
Cloudbursts, Thomas McGuane 5+

The Only Story, Julian Barnes 4
A Long Way From Home, Peter Carey 3
Warlight, Michael Ondaatje 5+
The Destiny Thief, Richard Russo 4
Calypso, David Sedaris 5++

Robin, Dave Itzkoff 5+
The Female Persuasion, Meg Wolitzer 3
Bad Blood, John Carreyrou 5+
Miss Ex-Yugoslavia, Sofija Stefanivic 5+
Futureface, Alex Wagner 3

Reporter, Seymour M. Hersh 5+
Meaty, Samantha Irby 4
Florida, Lauren Groff 4
Heads of the Colored People, Nafissa Thompson-Spires 4
Astroball, Ben Reiter 5+

Beta Ball, Erik Malinowski 3
Laura & Emma, Kate Greathead 2
How to Change Your Mind, Michael Pollan 3
Dopesick, Beth Macy 3
The Extra 2%, Jonah Keri 3

Social Creatures, Tara Isabella Burton 1
Homo Deus, Yuval Noah Harari 5++
Factfulness, Hans Rosling 5++
Indianapolis, Lynn Vincent and Sara Vladic 5
The Death of Truth, Michiko Kakutani 4

American Kingpin, Nick Bilton 5+
Back Talk, Danielle Lazarin 4
Fruit of the Drunken Tree, Ingrid Rosas Contreras 4
Bibliophile, Jane Mount 4
Belichick, Ian O’Connor 5

The Fifth Risk, Michael Lewis 5+
Measure What Matters, John Doerr 5++
The Mars Room, Rachel Kushner 4
Washington Black, Esi Edugyan 5+
Where the Crawdads Sing, Delia Owens 4

In the Distance, Hernan Diaz 5+
Our Man in Charleston, Christopher Dickey 3
The Great Believers, Rebecca Makkai 2
Flights, Olga Tokarczk 2
Heartland, Sarah Smarsh 4

Us Against You, Fredrik Backman 3
Creative Selection, Ken Kocienda 5
The Long Take, Robin Robertson 5+
Educated, Tara Westover 5++
Becoming, Michelle Obama 5++

City of Devils, Paul French 3
Everything Under, Daisy Johnson 3
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene 5
Less, Andrew Sean Greer 5+
Leadership During Difficult Times, Doris Kearns Goodwin, 5

There, There Tommy Orange 5+