We have plans for a visit to New York City this summer, and although I have been before (23 years ago!) I thought it would be worth checking out a guide to the historical sites.

Usually when we travel to a new country, we have a strategy to seek out impressive architecture or cultural hotspots along the route of our trip. Even though the Big Apple is in my home country, I’m still treating it like a foreign destination.

Last time I was there was with Brian Haven – we parked his car in New Jersey and took the train into the city, and we chose (somehow) quite a few famous places to check out. Now, reading this book makes me feel like we did a pretty good job picking our spots.

But this will be Kuniko’s first time, so the book was a valuable resource to figure out the places that we’ll get the most out of. The book is comprehensive with a focus on the historical relevance of these places. With the addition of little factoids it made for an interesting read.

Sometimes I felt like the organization of the sites into categories wasn’t intuitive, but that can be helped by just using the search function. Now that I have a big list of things to see, the next step is to sit down and figure out how we can see our top priorities over the two day visit.

With a writing style very similar to Robert B. Parker, this is the closest I can get to enjoying new Spenser stories. There are a lot of similarities because a mystery that works has a specific formula. Crais does more experimentation with the formula but the basics are all here. And I guess that is all I need.

One of the key points I like is the pacing – moving fast and drawing you in. The tension of knowing both the bad guy’s perspective as well as the good guy’s works well here, especially since we learn there is something different about this bad guy.

Unfortunately there were some big tells in the beginning which led me to know the twist early on. That took away some of the fun, but I get it – it must be tough to keep this formula fresh as a writer.

My solution, more Joe Pike. This side character (and occasionally in books as a main character) is intriguing and scary and admirable all at once. He appears in this book occasionally but as usual I was hoping for more.

Next I am reading A History Lover’s Guide to New York City by Alison Fortier.

This book reminded me a lot of some of the Korean TV shows or movies that I’ve seen – and maybe it was written to end up as a visual drama.

I’m not sure I “got” the story here. It seems to be addressing several issues – a woman’s right to control her own body, outdated patriarchal family structures, the preoccupation with how other people perceive you. Some of this is cultural, some psychological, but none of it is really clear. I felt like the character viewpoints switching as they did were distracting rather than revelatory, and it felt like the whole book was sort of built about one particular scene that was in the author’s mind.

The good news was that the story was fairly compact, and it didn’t take long to read the book. It is rare for me to read books about Korean people or culture, so I was glad to get a glimpse at some of the differences between their culture and Japan and the United States.

Overall I thought the writing itself was well done, but the story didn’t quite come off. I will be unsurprised if this ends up as a drama in the next year or two. I’m not sure I’ll watch it, though.

Next I am reading The Big Empty by Robert Crais, one of my favorite private investigator series that reminds me of Spenser.

I enjoyed this travel book – a day by day account of a naturalist’s journey accompanying an expedition to a remote part of Tibet to observe the wildlife there, including a rare opportunity to see wild snow leopards.

This took place back in the 1970s in a completely different time. There are a lot of detailed descriptions of Buddhism (and the various cultures practicing it), a focus on meditation, and a great deal of explanation of Eastern religious thought. In other words, this is not only a physical journey but a metaphysical one, and if you are OK with that you’ll enjoy the book more.

I especially liked the descriptions of the lonely and beautiful places that were (at that time) isolated and less traveled by westerners. Watching out for snow leopards created a tension that built throughout the book, and the resolution of this tension was both unique and ingenious – so I don’t want to spoil anything here.

Sometimes I had trouble with the author’s attitudes – he was kind of a jerk to the locals occasionally. Even though he had recently been through a lot with the death of his wife it felt like his short temper flared up at the oddest times. After spending a long time at the remote location in the spiritual heart of the area contemplating Buddhism and mindfulness, it took less than a week for him to start complaining about his travel companions. From the amount of energy and research he has put into his Buddhist studies and practice I felt like he got remarkably little in return.

Next I am reading The Vegetarian by Han Kang.

This author puts out a book just once every ten years or so, I was excited going into reading this as I thoroughly enjoyed her other books. I wasn’t disappointed with this one – there is a lot to like here.

As usual the writing is excellent – detailed, unhurried, and poetic without feeling too artsy. There is a story here that takes a while to come to life. The way the author brings to life the place and the era (1970s Alexandria, Louisiana) – it takes time to set this up and thankfully it isn’t rushed. The vibes while reading about this brought to mind Steven Spielberg’s style – especially his movies about coming of age. We spend a lot of time with one particular character, a twelve-year old girl, and seeing the world through her sharp but innocent eyes reveals a lot about that time and place.

The location gives the chance to explore (kind of in the background) race relations of the time, and examine how a dynasty crumbles.

My favorite section was Harriet and Hely’s expedition to capture a poisonous snake – I couldn’t believe how scary and real that part felt. It is rare for a book to give me the willies like that – but I read it twice just to see how well it was constructed to freak us out.

It was a fairly long book, and sometimes I was wondering if it was really taking me anywhere. The story presents a mystery in the first chapter and this mystery provides the impetus to many of the events in the book, but finally at the end of the book the resolution of the mystery is not really clear – a blink-and-you-miss-it offhand comment that may or may not provide the resolution we are hoping for.

But part of the message I got from this book is that the world isn’t black and white and sometimes we don’t get the things we want. The author used a clever device with the story of the Antarctic explorer Captain Scott, and how “victory and collapse were sometimes the same thing.”

My only real criticism was that some characters felt extraneous (for example, Allison) and were used more as a way to provide points of view during key moments. Maybe I was missing something with their inclusion.

While I am still reading the book on the making of the James Bond movies, I’ve changed the pace of that reading to go along with watching each movie, so it’ll take quite a long time to finish that book. But for my next active read it is The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen.

A very interesting book that is about more than just systems analysis. As an introduction to the subject it has a little bit of math, a little bit of engineering, and quite a bit of philosophy.

The book gives constructive advice on analyzing situations and pulling apart complex systems and getting at what makes them work. The advice is aimed at non-technical readers (like me!) so there was a lot I could take away from this book.

I can see that there must be a lot of interest in this topic in the field of economics – people analyzing why Company A is getting ahead while Company B might not be worth investing in. The economics part of the book was the least interesting to me, maybe it just went a little too deep and I’m more comfortable in the kiddie pool.

I also thought that considering the book was written way back in 2003 it contains a lot of insight that is applicable to the current political situation in the USA and around the world. That speaks to how fundamental the author’s ideas are. She writes with a lot of humility too – the systems analyst must be content with knowing that they can never know everything about a system, they can never compute every variable, they can always be surprised by unexpected events to throw the whole thing off kilter. But that isn’t a reason not to make the effort.

Next I am reading Some Kind of Hero by Ajay Chowdhury and Matthew Field.

I had read a New York Times long article that featured this story, and just by chance I found that the author had enough material to make it into a book. He tells the true and bizarre story of a hotel owner who installed viewing vents over certain rooms in his hotel and took notes on his guests over the years, without ever getting caught.

The author, like the reader, is shocked that something like this could happen, and most of the book is spent looking at the motivations of the hotel owner, and looking at the ways he justifies his behavior. There is also a lot of social commentary, especially of the transition from the 60s to the 70s in the USA, and what effect it had on the behavior of the guests.

Mostly the hotel owner was interested in the sex lives of others, so the book is full of the owner’s descriptions, quoted directly by the author of this book. It was interesting to see that the “notes” that the hotel owner took were considered by him as scientific documents – but in the end I felt this term was closer to a cover story and justification.

At the end of the book the now elderly hotel owner, having sold off his hotels and staying at home with his wife, complains of the surveillance state that he lives in – with big brother watching him all the time. The author of the book tries to point out the irony of this guy complaining about unwanted surveillance, but the point is wasted on the voyeur owner – who has justified everything in his own head.

This was a short book but from a sociological point of view fairly interesting. What a weird story!

Next I am reading Thinking in Systems by Donella H. Meadows.

I wanted to keep one Anthony Doerr book in reserve – I really enjoyed his books and his writing style, and it is good to have one more out there that you can break open if you are having a bad day/week/year. But talking with my mom about some of his other books she made me realize that I had in fact missed a book, so I read this (his first) to bring the remaining books back down to one.

Since this was his first novel I wasn’t sure what to expect – was his writing always good or did it start out rough? Quickly I found that yep, it was always good. Something about the prose streaked with poetry makes it easy to read but also fires images in your mind.

I liked the slow pace of this book – it was sometimes hard to reel myself in and keep myself from speeding through it. But taking time pays off and we can really get a sense of the places that the characters visit. Places like St. Vincent, Alaska, and Cleveland. Three places I’ve never been but I can almost taste the air and feel the vibes of each location.

The story of this book starts with a hook – dreams of the future – but one thing that bothered me was that this linchpin for the plot fades away towards the middle and near the end. I think in his later books he hides more skillfully the elements that hold everything together.

I recently read the nonfiction book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek that focused on nature – but About Grace also does a great job of writing about science and nature, in a completely different way. I’m glad I was lucky enough to read these two books close together.

Next I am reading The Voyeur’s Motel by Gay Talese.

This is the second book I’ve read by le Carre, and the first one featuring George Smiley, a character that he became famous for.

My first feeling while reading the book was that the name “Smiley” was always interfering with the way I read – the corner of my eye would catch the word “smile” and think that something amusing was happening. Do other people read like this? I wonder.

But the book was filled with interesting characters, even the thugs were engaging in intelligent discourse, and there were also some very dated technologies that unfortunately played a big part in the plot line. I was totally stumped when someone used their local telephone exchange to set a reminder wake up call – what the hell?

On the other hand, this book lets you into another era to see how things went. How member’s clubs were formed, and how information spread without the aid of the internet.

As with the other book that I read by this author, the writing is excellent. The story is more of a detective mystery than a spy story, but just the same I enjoyed the book. Down the road I may read more from the series.

Next I am reading About Grace by Anthony Doerr – my mom helped me realize that I hadn’t read this one yet.

I like books that feature someone in isolation, especially out there in nature enjoying an unhurried pace. This book sort of fits the bill, with a fair amount of poetry and philosophy on top of it.

Written back in the 70s, this book tells all about the area around Tinker Creek, somewhere in the Ozarks. The author’s observations and experiences are included along with her musings on nature, religion, and philosophy. I didn’t really find myself interested in the religious aspect of the writing but there isn’t all that much to get through.

I was more interested in the idea of taking your own time to observe what is happening in nature all around you. How important to have the ability to notice what is all around you and have the curiosity to figure out what it might mean. To not be tempted by technology and instead rely on nature for your intellectual stimulation – what a concept. The nice thing about a book written predominantly about nature is that not much has changed in the 50 years or so since the book was written.

This bold young author really took some chances. While some parts became a little confusing for me, for the most part she takes the topics and thinks them through, occasionally beyond where you would expect it to go.

I can see why this book has been recommended as an important non-fiction work – I’m glad I could finally read it.

Next I am reading Call for the Dead by John le Carre.

There are a lot of books on developing your personal finances, and it has been a while since I read one. I thought it might be interesting to read one written recently to see what advice has changed lately, and see if there is anything that I’ve been missing.

I liked the author’s writing style – approachable, patiently explaining the basics but not dumbing it down too much. He takes the time to address some of the reasons that someone would want to accumulate wealth – it is not just to get more strippers and blow. The author provides some other perspectives, and other ways of thinking about money besides “I should get as much of it as I can”.

To be the author of a book on accumulating wealth I think you should definitely be wealthy. I can see that he is stepping carefully when justifying the need for (over-)accumulating wealth. Certainly he understands his target audience but it is with a much more measured tone than perhaps Gordon Gecko would have taken.

Especially the anecdote on how he justified the purchase and use of a private jet – essentially trading money for more time with his kids. From an accounting point of view it made sense but it seemed to me that there may be some other considerations that he (unconsciously?) danced around.

I’d recommend this book for Americans getting started with investing, that have a lot of time as a resource, rather than old farts like me who are on the other side of the time equation. But even for me there were plenty of interesting insights and things to think about. Overall, it was worth reading.

Next I am reading Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard.

This book was given to me by my mom for Christmas. Written in London dry prose, the author talks about his experiences working at a rare book shop. I enjoyed this book mostly because I wasn’t sure if it was fiction or non, and at these levels of sarcasm and humor I’m still not sure.

A long time ago I met a friend at a concert, who brought along a friend I didn’t know, and after talking and drinking I told a terrible joke, and this new person laughed almost to the point of tears. I wasn’t sure at the moment whether the laugh was authentic or not, without any background info. But I felt sort of the same way reading this book, and to be honest I enjoyed it a lot more than the episode with my friend’s friend.

At first I thought that this might be a story, but it turns out to be full of (what the author clearly will admit to being) “ramblings”. The self-deprecation is turned to nearly maximum level, but we watch this book seller go from apprentice to veteran, and see very weird situations happening daily.

There were so many witty turns and comments that I felt like I wanted to highlight almost every page. Maybe I just need to read more English writers.

It was a fun book to read, maybe even more fun for booksellers as I’m sure they’ll be getting the jokes much more clearly than I would.

Next I am reading The Algebra of Wealth by Scott Galloway. Time to see how far behind I am with my financial future!

When I started reading this book I didn’t know the backstory of the author and what steps she had gone through to reach where she is now. Of course all this is explained later, but only now do I realize why people might be seeking out this book, and why the author is dispensing her wisdom.

First, the good points – this book shows the re-invention of the author, from heterosexual, religious, traditional wife and mother to three kids to homosexual, religious (?), non-traditional wife and mother to three kids. I guess the difficult point was that she had written several books about her previous lifestyle(s) and was prescribing that behavior – now her lifestyle was completely different and she was coming to terms with it in this book.

The author encourages a lot of self-reflection and independent thought. She emphasizes how little of this happened to her, and blames society (American, I guess) for expecting/forcing women to fit into traditional roles. It took courage for her to see her way out of it, and I think she is trying to lend some of that courage to readers who might need it.

There was a lot of drama in this book – so many passages felt like scripts that people could cut and paste into their own life. I didn’t like the self-helpy vibes that this book gave off – and how she paints with very broad strokes about the people and society that surrounds her.

But she does bring a lot of bravery into her writing and as they say, if the book helps just one person then mission accomplished.

Next I am reading Once Upon a Tome by Oliver Darkshire.

I enjoyed this book – it has been a while since I’ve read this sort of genre: fantasy/historical fiction. The author does a really good job of creating the setting, and building out the world that we are about to explore. It also includes a long distance train, which seems to me to be the perfect vehicle for intrigue.

While I enjoyed the parts featuring the Wastelands, I’m sure some people may find it challenging to read without getting the gross-out shivers. If icky/slimy/moldy/fungal stuff creeps you out then this book is definitely not for you.

This book sets up a mystery, but its goal is not to answer every question, and that makes the book better. There are other issues – the dangers of capitalism and exploitation, corruption, and maybe even some allusions to the benefits of immigration.

One character that would seem to be critical to the story is oddly shunted aside – the Captain. She has an important role at the end, but that means ignoring what could be an interesting character for most of the story. And I did think that the way the story ended was just a bit too pat.

But overall it was an interesting and unique book, crossing categories as well as continents.

Next I am reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle.