Did not love this book. I know, it won the Pulitzer but I’ve seen plenty of things I didn’t think deserving of the prize especially when it comes to photography. But, I included this book here because I know so …
Read: Missionaries
I found Phil Klay a few years ago when he landed with a boom from his book “Redeployment.” This time around he returns with another boom while delivering “Missionaries,” a tale about the connected world of killing. Klay is an …
Read: Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing
Okay, at the moment there two things that feel slightly beyond my capability. Drawing and guitar. Now, I COULD do both of these things but life feels so booked that the idea of adding in the challenge of either of …
Read: Red Pill
My second Hari Kunzru book and my second blast of slowly rotting enjoyment. A writer slowly losing himself while on a fellowship in Germany where he accomplishes next to nothing. What’s real and what’s not begin to merge as history …
Read: The Glass Kingdom
I’ve only been to the airport in Bangkok. Was never there long enough to get in any real trouble. But oh do I have friends who have. Lawrence Osborn’s “The Glass Kingdom” takes place in Thailand but almost the entire …
Read: The Elephanta Suite
Enjoyed this one. Paul Theroux has written so many books covering so many topics it’s a bit difficult to really place him in any one category. If I had to might be travel but then again that isn’t the perfect …
Read: Down the Long Hills
Don’t judge me. I know what you literally snobs are thinking. “I would NEVER read something like this.” “How ghastly.” Ya, okay, whatever. Good guys, bad guys, Native Americas, gold, rivers, great land, corrupt people, coffee over a campfire, and …
Read: Cup of Gold
I’ve got a thing for Steinbeck. Time, place, subject matter. But I tend to like the fringe books from Steinbeck. The Sea of Cortez journals and something like this, like Cup of Gold. Written when he was twenty-seven. And who …
Read: One River
I simply cannot express to you how much I love this book. If you have ANY interest in botany, Latin America, the Amazon and all the tributaries then please, please, please buy two copies of this book. The first, for …
Read: Wolf Boys
Sometimes I get accused of reading too many books like this. People ask me what I am reading, I tell them, and they make some comments about not wanting to read this kind of book because they find them too …
Read: The River
The thing about a Peter Heller book is that from the first paragraph you FEEL like you are IN the book. And then you get a gut check knowing that the ideal world you want to exist in probably doesn’t. …
Read: Nemesis, One Man and the Battle for Rio
In 1987, when I was eighteen years old, I stepped off a Merchant Marine ship into the overwhelmingly visceral streets of Rio de Janeiro. For a kid from rural America, the scene was like the cocaine flame in my bloodstream. …