Does listening to audiobooks count as reading? Here it does. Let’s discuss your favorite reads — or listens.
All in Hardcover
It’s hard to judge “Carl” as a standalone, because it barely wants to be one. This is a long opening act. Still, I’m impressed by Dinniman’s imaginative reach and curious how many of the seemingly throwaway details will later reveal themselves as deliberate groundwork. As the first entry in an eight-book (and counting) series, it’s clearly doing foundational labor but that doesn’t always make it enjoyable.
Ashley Elston includes all the hallmarks of a genre potboiler: a protagonist with a murky past and razor-sharp instincts, a shadowy organization running black-market jobs, a love interest who might not be what he seems and a series of twists that stack so high they nearly collapse under their own weight. However, she pulls it off – not because she avoids clichés, but because she leans into them with just enough self-awareness to make it work.
Like “The Alchemist,” another polarizing philosophical fable, it may resonate deeply with readers seeking affirmation about life, death and purpose. I just wish it had trusted us to think more and feel harder, rather than spelling everything out.
While “Run” may not yet match the polish of “March,” it lays a promising foundation for future installments. For now, it earns a place on my shelf as a testament to Lewis’s legacy and a reminder that the fight for equality – though officially decades past – continues to reverberate today.
While not as well-known in the mainstream as the Pride flag, the pink triangle – the Nazi concentration camp symbol for prisoners convicted under Paragraph 175, the German law that criminalized homosexual activity among men – is an enduring and important marker of queer history that morphed from an emblem of shame into a symbol of activism.
Expectation: Honestly, I had no idea what to expect having somehow missed all productions and required readings of this classic play for more than 40 years.
Reality: It’s easy to interpret Wilder’s words as cursory but that’s a lazy examination of the masterful story he told here.
Reading this collection was a damn delight and a nostalgic serotonin boost that transported me back to high school when I devoured my first classic King novels in mass market paperbacks. As my mini-reviews show, this was a mostly solid top-to-bottom collection that got better as the stories progressed. It showcased King at the top of his game - observant, reflective, emotional and downright scary.
Packed with laugh out loud funny observations and hypothetical questions no one thought to ask about some of cinema’s most beloved (and obscure) movies from the past 40 years, “Movies” is the perfect coffee table book for the Millennial movie lover in your life.
Arranged by theme or poses (i.e. military, beach, picnic, kissing, etc.), Nini and Treadwell show us that for as much as times have changed, very little has in the ways we show affection – subtle touches, warm embraces, lazy days snuggled together or candid captures of two people at their most vulnerable and pure.
Expectation: An “Animal House”-esque exploration of modern fraternity/college life.
Reality: A deft exploration of the dichotomies that exist within one of America’s oldest higher education social clubs.
Dave Cullen is a talented writer who used meticulous research and years of building a strong rapport with victims and investigators to bring us what has been called the "ultimate" description of what happened on April 20, 1999.
Expectation: A quirky workplace comedy.
Reality: A funny, thought-provoking satire that nailed corporate/creative agency absurdities. It also had an understated M/M love story.
Amanda Gorman’s poetry collection shows that we are in for a renaissance of self-reflection and collective processing as artists begin to unpack the past two years.
“Best” is the kind of book that exists for a very specific type of person. You know, the person that has decades worth of inconsequential pop culture details stored away for no other reason than to be a ringer in bar trivia.
Like most pop science, or psychology in this case, the thesis – uncovering why some things become insanely popular while other, sometimes better things, don’t – is an interesting question, but not one that can sustain a 300-page book without becoming repetitive.
Expectation: A scattershot collection of stories from King’s uneven period of the mid-aughts.
Reality: A completely passable and often entertaining collection that bring forward some classic, and previously unpublished stories, and set the groundwork for some of his later works.
Expectation: A warm hug for the soul.
Reality: A few reminders for how to live a fulfilled life, but there’s a lack of cohesiveness that detracts from the messages.
