My Reads

  • “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver

    I’m a devoted fan of Barbara Kingsolver, having read just about everything she’s ever written. Perhaps it’s because I identify with her as a biologist, writer, and historian. Unlike Kingsolver, though, I am not a novelist, mother, or farmer. She has talents I can only dream of. Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield served as a model…

  • “The Elements of Story” by Francis Flaherty

    This is the first of a series on my favorite books about writing. The Elements of Story: Field Notes on Nonfiction Writing tops my list. I’m currently re-reading it from cover to cover. Frank Flaherty was a story editor at the New York Times for years and is a writing professor at New York University.…

  • “Fears of a Setting Sun” by Dennis C. Rasmussen

    The subtitle of this small volume is “The Disillusionment of America’s Founders.” The creation of the United States of America has been hailed (at least in this country’s mythology) as the world’s greatest experiment in democracy. The idea that our country’s founding fathers became pessimistic about the future of the nation they created intrigued me.…

  • “Between Urban and Wild” by Andrea M. Jones

    I will say first: I love this book! The subtitle is “Reflections from Colorado,” which is my home state. Jones grew up in what is now my home town, Durango, so the sense of place in these essays resonates strongly with me. In “Love Letter to a Sewage Lagoon” I quickly discerned the lagoon to…

  • “That Old Ace in the Hole” by Annie Proulx

    Best known for her multi-award-winning novel, The Shipping News, Proulx digs deep into her quirky psyche to draw a fresh cast of characters tenaciously resolved to live and die in the Texas panhandle. The protagonist is an aimless college graduate from Denver, Bob Dollar, who takes a job for Global Pork Rind to scout out…

  • “The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek” by Kim Richardson

    Both of my book clubs selected this read for 2022, and with good reason. This is one of the best books I read all last year. Richardson is a consummate researcher who has delved into two aspects of Kentucky history (her home state) that are little known: the pack horse librarians, and the blue people.…

  • “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell

    Blink is journalist Gladwell’s second book, published in 2005, the runaway bestselling follow-up to his equally successful debut, The Tipping Point. In addition to his books, Gladwell has a popular podcast, “Revisionist History” that points out where “common knowledge” about past events turns out to be wildly incorrect. In Blink, Gladwell introduces his thin-slicing concept:…

  • “The Ride of Her Life” by Elizabeth Letts

    Set in 1950s America, this true tale of a (possibly) dying woman taking a cross-country journey on horseback in the dawning age of interstate highways has inspiring moments. The most uplifting aspect is the kindness that strangers bestow on Annie Wilkins as she leaves behind a poverty-stricken life in rural Maine to seek the sunny…

  • “This Is How It Always Is” by Laurie Frankel

    This is a story about a family. Rosie is an emergency room doctor who supports her (unpublished) novelist husband, Penn, and a family of four boys. They decide to try for a girl, so Rosie turns the bed, places a talisman under it, and adopts the proper coital position. The result is Claude, a precocious…

  • “The Last of the Mohicans” by James Fenimore Cooper

    This classic work first appeared in 1826 and in the 20th century was rendered in film nearly a dozen times. This is the second of five books in Cooper’s Leather Stocking series (leather stockings being boots), featuring the frontiersman known as Hawkeye. (The character once refers to himself as “Nathaniel,” but nowhere in the book…