Read

Reading is a free education. When I was young I read a lot, mostly adventure books mixed with a healthy dose of western lore. Good guy, bad guy, gold, a woman, lots of shooting and then good guy kills bad guy, gets girl, finds gold and scores the amazing property with a river running through it. I couldn’t get enough. During school my reading fell into the more predictable categories of course books, homework and research, and reading became a grind of sorts, not the mind-adventure it had once been. A few years ago I made a decision to delete my social media accounts, stop going online unless I absolutely had to and read as much as possible. Last year I read eighty books. Something strange happened. My brain changed. My focus changed, and believe it or not, I actually began to feel more intelligent. The more I read the more I feel like I’m finally beginning to understand things, as each day I move through a written world of love, war, adventure, history and the human diaspora.

Read: The Road

This is an old school book. Written in 1907. Jack London’s “The Road” is about his life as a hobo. Jumping trains, begging for food, escaping the railroad “Bulls” and enduring the rough aspects of life on the rail. It … Read More

Read: The Survival of the Bark Canoe

So, am I going to build a bark canoe? Probably not. Would I like to? Yes, I would actually. Working with my hands isn’t something I’ve done since my youth, and even then it was mostly manual labor jobs. But … Read More

Read: Patagonian Road

My singular question about this book is the title. I’m not entirely sure why the title is what it is because the author travels solo from Guatemala to Argentina with the ghost of Paul Theroux as her only guide, so … Read More

Read: Draft #4

I love John McPhee. I’ve posted a few of his books on this site, and can promise I’ll be posting more in the future. He’s intelligent, funny and his writing is so honed it makes me sick to think of … Read More

Read: The Razor’s Edge

I know. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. I’ve read this book about a hundred times. And I will read it again. One of my all time favorites. Not only do I like the period and … Read More

Read: Rancher, Farmer, Fisherman

This book is a bit deceiving in the sense that I thought I would be reading about three individuals but the fishing chapter is actually broken out into several people including a riverman, shrimpers on the gulf and a fisherman … Read More

Read: Unbelieveable

This book is a train wreck, which is why I read it. You know going in what you are about to find, most of which has already been well played out over the past year, but the small behind-the-scenes details … Read More

Read: The Hour of Land

Okay, The Hour of Land is rocketing to the top of my “books of the year,” list. I’m not entirely sure what year this book was written, but seeing as I just found it…it’s going on my 2018 short list. … Read More

Read: Icefall

The world is a dangerous place. For John All the danger comes in falling into a crevasse, alone in the high mountains near Everest. And on top of Everest and in the sticky Central American jungle among other places, and … Read More

Read: The Time in Between

So I have mixed feelings about this book. I have no idea where I got this book or how it ended up in my house, but it was there, so I read it. This book received a lot of recognition … Read More

Read: Food of the Gods

This book blew me away. Nine pages of notes from this baby. So, Terence McKenna is well known in the literally world, especially the branch of this world that deals with drugs. I think there are different categories of McKenna … Read More

Read: American Wolf

Okay, Nate Blakeslee’s “American Wolf” made my blood boil. I’m guessing you are familiar with the wolf situation in the American West, but I know there are more than a few Euro types who read this site, so let me … Read More

Read: Inside the Company, CIA Diary

Okay, “Inside the Company, CIA Diary” is dense. Really dense. A detailed nearly day-by-day, play-by-play diary of Phil Agee’s time inside the CIA. The content is fascinating but you have to want to read this. Within a few short pages … Read More

Read: The Reluctant Fundamentalist

This is a beautiful book. So smoothly written it felt EFFORTLESS. The entire book is based on one conversation, in one cafe in Pakistan. In short, The Reluctant Fundamentalist is about the changing shape of humanity and the global, interconnected … Read More