Dear reader, we come to the end of my reading journey for 2025. It has truly been a wild and crazy ride through some amazing novels with only a few misses.

Let’s see what I closed the year out with shall we?

Read 11/26/25 - 11/30/25

Murder on the Orient Express was my first Agatha Christie novel and I am excited to read more! I love the premise of getting stuck in the snow on a train after a murder and I love the character of Hercule Poirot.

It took me too long to read Christie, but I’m glad I did. 9/10.

Read 11/4/25 - 12/5/25

The New York Trilogy is comprised of three pseudo-detective novels set in Philadelphia.

Just kidding, it’s New York!

Each novella that forms the trilogy, City of Glass, Ghosts, and The Locked Room feel like a fever dream.

Here’s how I’d explain it:

I always have dreams around the fall season that I’ve been called back up to play one more game for my high school.

One game of eligibility. Has it been almost 20 years since I played? Yep. But I still feel I’ve got it and so does Coach Eddie Courtney.

All of Farragut High School is buzzing. Tex Fry is back and donning the number 7 again?! How could we forget when he dropped that game winning interception against William Blount in ‘07?

So, I kick the current number 7 out of my locker and am ready to suit up for the game. The team is ready to go, everyone’s suited up. But I don’t have my helmet. Where is my helmet? Where are my pads also? They are gone! I go looking for them and keep getting into conversations with old friends who have come to see the game. I keep getting frustrated that I’m wasting time but I cannot help but talk to these people. So much time ticks off and I don’t seem to have the urgency I should.

I see the team heading down to the field but I don’t even have the right jersey on. No helmet. No pads. The ball is kicked off and the whole first half goes by, and I’m still looking for my gear. The coach and team have completely forgotten about me and I just can’t get down there.

Then I wake up all jittery and stressed until I realize that if I tried to play a real life football game in the Year of Our Lord 2025, I’d snap my achilles in record time.

That’s what these stories feel like. 7/10. A great read!

Read 11/30/25 - 12/6/25

Haruki Murakami is an author I’ve been intrigued with for some time. I’m always looking to broaden my horizons and read authors who’s native language is not English.

Maybe I should’ve started with a different book of his.

I read that this is the book that put Murakami on the map in Japan. He even had to leave the country for a while to where people couldn’t recognize him because he was so popular.

And so I must ask this question: What the hell was going on in Japan in 1987?

My goodness this book is bad.

The premise is that two young students in Tokyo, Toru and Naoko meet up and form a bond after their friend commits suicide the year before. We learn about past traumas and wonder whether one of them will ever overcome her heavy losses.

The premise is good, but this novel is filled with so much worthless, copious amounts of sex it is staggering. Like it’s Fourth Wing levels of bad. Listen, I’m no prude, but it gets unrealistic and silly after a while. It all has no meaning.

Add in the fact that there’s not much of a plot and the main character Toru is a bad dude. He’s a serious womanizer, but the book makes him out to be an honorable guy.

No, he’s a bad dude! 1/10.

Read 12/7/25 - 12/10/25

I have gotten to dive into Franz Kafka’s work and have enjoyed it! I really like The Metamorphosis. The Trial is just as good.

Remember what I said about The New York Trilogy? The dream logic appeals to this book as well but shades more into nightmare territory. A man is arrested and put on trial and does not know what he is accused of. It’s terrifying in it’s confusing, shadowy frustrations. 6/10.

Read 12/7/25 - 12/11/25

I enjoyed taking some time to consider the true meaning of Christmas with the late Tim Keller.

I appreciated and enjoyed Keller and always found him to be a great pastor and author. Hidden Christmas was good like all of the rest of his work. This work points us to what Christmas is all about: The miraculous birth of Jesus. 8/10.

Read 12/10/25 - 12/14/25

I went from Tim Keller to Stephen King. It was a seamless transition!

Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining is one of my favorite horror movies, so I had a lot of expectations going into King’s novel. I knew it would be pretty different from the movie and it was, but I find that I enjoy both adaptations nearly equally.

In the movie, the character of Jack Torrance pretty much appears to have lost his mind right from the beginning. He clearly hates his family, and it’s not surprising when he snaps (with help from the haunted hotel). In the novel, Jack is a more sympathetic character. He has anger issues and is a recovering alcoholic, but he’s actually trying his best and really does love his wife and son.

That, to me, is the biggest difference. Still, the novel was very creepy and extremely well written. This was actually, believe it or not, my first King novel. I’ll read more! 8/10.

Read 12/14/25 - 12/15/25

Once again, I let Mr. Dickens get me in the Christmas spirit! I listened to A Christmas Carol this year and it was read my Lucius Malfoy himself: Jason Isaacs. He did a great job. No bah humbugs from me. 8/10.

Read 12/12/25 - 12/21/25

Anton Chekhov is one that I’ve also long wanted to read, so I thought a good place to start would be some short stories. This particular collection of five stories was good! I love some good Russian literature. The best story in my opinion, was the first called “The Black Monk”. 6/10.

Read 12/17/25 - 12/26/25

The last book I finished in 2025 was one of the best: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This was the Potter book I had re-read the least since going through the first time. In fact, I think I even skipped this one on re-reads.

It was almost like reading this gem for the first time. It truly was a joy. Essentially, Goblet of Fire is a mystery story wrapped around The Triwizard Tournament. Rowling really ramps things up here to set the stage for the last three books. Goblet is where everything turns.

The movie version was pretty ingrained in my head, and I had forgotten how much they left out. Like, the movie left out massive plot lines and big developments and characters. Looking back on it, the book was not done justice with the film adaptation.

It might have been the most forgotten Potter book for me, but I had a blast returning to it. What a book to end on! 10/10.

Superlatives

Fiction Book of the Year (books I hadn’t read)

1. Home by Marilynne Robinson

2. I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay

3. The Pugilist at Rest by Thom Jones

4. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

5. Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

Non-Fiction Book of the Year

1. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace

2. King: A Life by Jonathan Eig

3. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

4. Walter Benjamin at The Dairy Queen by Larry McMurtry

5. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Worst Book of the Year

1. Burn by Peter Heller

2. Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

3. Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar

4. Fire Exit by Morgan Talty

5. Heir Of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

So that’s it! That was my year in books. I want to hear from YOU dear reader. What did you think of my reviews? Did you agree with many? Disagree with many more? Did you learn about some books you might want to read? Hit me up — I love talking books.

All in all, I think it’s been a good year.

Subscribe now

I didn’t quit reading after I hit 60 books. Nay — I kept on.

Here are books 61 through 75!

Read 9/16/25 - 10/8/25

I read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson last year and enjoyed it greatly. I’m a sucker for books on small town rural life. The idea of a narrative written down from an elderly father, Reverend Ames, to his young son for him to read one day really resonated with me.

Home, the sequel to Gilead takes place concurrently to the original, though it is told from the point of view of the other family we learn about: The Boughtons. Specifically it is Glory Boughton who we follow.

The novel is fantastic. I loved it. I don’t want to say much because I think you should go into this series fresh. 10/10.

Read 10/4/25 - 10/8/25

I consumed some weird books from authors I’ve long wanted to read during the back quarter of the year. Murphy was one of the weirdest. Samuel Beckett is one of those authors that is revered in my literary circles, but you know that when you pick up one of his works, it’s going to be difficult.

Such is the case with Murphy! The novel follows a down on his luck man named Murphy, who has some serious issues. He gets tangled up with a weird group of people and many hijinks ensue.

I find that I can’t even really adequately give you much more about Murphy. I will say that it is very funny. In a weird way. I don’t know, most people won’t like this one. I found it……pretty good? I think? 6/10.

Read 10/8/25 - 10/12/25

I continued Robinson’s Gilead series with Lila. When you’re on a roll, you can’t stop.

This novel stretches back before Gilead as we follow the life of Reverend Ames’ younger wife, Lila. I did find myself wondering how she wound up with old Ames. Well, in this book, you’ll find out!

I didn’t like it nearly as much as the first two novels, but still found it enjoyable. 7/10.

Read 10/9/25 - 10/12/25

I cherish every line from every one of Wendell Berry’s Port William Stories. The town and characters stay with you and become like family.

Now with the release of Marce Catlett in 2025 by the 91 year old Berry, I return to Port William.

It feels like going home again.

To those unacquainted with Berry’s Port William series, this would certainly not be the book to start with. For that I’d suggest reading them in order of publication or Jayber Crow. The Port William novels surround the small town and its inhabitants, mostly farmers.

Marce Catlett is a short novel about the title character’s 1906 sale of his tobacco crop as related by his grandson, Andy Catlett (a literary stand in for Berry himself). Marce’s story only takes up the first 20 or so pages and the rest feels like a reminiscence on a time long gone from Catlett and thus Berry himself.

Berry’s writing of Kentucky agrarian life makes you long for a time long forgotten in today’s age of machinery and industrialization. You mourn along with him as he relates the tales of neighbors helping neighbors as they go through the different farming seasons. It’s a way of life that was disappearing even as Berry started the series. Perhaps it was long gone by then — I know Wendell Berry would think so.

If you’re not a literary member of the Port William township, you probably will be bored with the later chapters detailing tobacco farming. But if you’ve been on this ride with Berry, you’ll soak it all up. You really know most of the story anyways if you’ve read the earlier novels and short stories. It almost reads like some of Berry’s non fiction essays.

It felt like Marce Catlett read like a swan song for Andy Catlett and Port William. An ending thesis for what Berry has been writing for all these years since Nathan Coulter. If this is the last we hear from that dear old town, I’ll be sad, but will cherish the stories and themes it uncovered for me. 8/10.

Read 10/12/25 - 10/15/25

To give you a blurb on the last Gilead novel, Jack, would be to essentially spoil the first novel. So I won’t.

Jack fleshes out fully the story we first read in Gilead. The series as a whole is fantastic. Marilynne Robinson is a masterful writer. 7/10.

Read 10/16/25

We’re back with authentic small town life! This time in Eastern Colorado.

Kent Haruf’s Our Souls At Night follows two elderly people who’s spouses passed years before. They both live lonely lives, until one day Addie Moore walks up to the door of Louis Waters and asks if he will spend nights with her to just talk and keep her company.

The premise sounds weird, but it’s a bittersweet read. What happens when you are in your later years and the spouse you loved so dearly has passed? Your best friend gone. Life still moves on, but the memories and experiences stick with you.

So, two old souls unite in friendship to keep each other company at night. We learn about their lives, their mistakes and tragedies, as well as their best experiences.

You pull for these two the more you read, and you find yourself glad that Addie walked up to Louis’ door. 8/10.

Read 10/21/25 - 10/26/25

I have always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell ever since I listened to an appearance he made on The Bill Simmons Show. His psychological, historical/pop culture deep dives are fascinating.

Revenge of The Tipping Point is a sequel to his first big hit, The Tipping Point. In Revenge, Gladwell takes a look at the overstories that form in places or around ideas. For example, what makes Miami such an epicenter of medicare fraud? Why specifically Miami?

One seemingly little thing can make a big difference — it all piles up and then you hit a certain threshold. A Tipping Point. As always, Gladwell is great. 7/10.

Read 10/19/25 - 10/29/25

Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s newest novel was just okay for me. Dream Count follows a Nigerian travel writer named Chia living in America during the COVID lockdowns. She looks back on her past loves and losses. The novel is segmented into four different stories following characters we meet in Chia’s life.

The story that I was most interested in was that of Kadiatou, a housekeeper who undergoes a terrible assault from a famous man and the fallout that happens as her trial gets thrust into the international limelight. Ngozi wrote an afterward detailing the real life incident that inspired Kadiatou’s story. The story of sexual assault and the terrible fallout it creates is powerful.

Honestly, if the whole story was just about her, the book might have been more impactful. As it is, Dream Count feels disjointed and a bit too long for the content provided in it’s pages. 4/10.

Read 10/29/25 - 11/1/25

The inspiration for Frances Ford Coppola’s Vietnam epic Apocalypse Now! Heart of Darkness reads as an ominous and dark (see what I did there?) voyage into the heart of the jungle. Conrad has a lot to say about colonialism and racism here through much of the context of the story and how characters interact, which is unique since it was written in the 1910’s.

The story of an old sailor telling of a doomed trip down the Congo River to find the enigmatic Kurtz is a slow descent into madness. Conrad sets the scene and then sends you down the river. 7/10.

Read 11/3/25 - 11/6/25

All The Light We Cannot See is one of those Pulitzer winners that I always planned to get around to reading. In 2025, I finally knocked it off the list!

I liked it! I always am interested in WWII set dramas.

Marie-Laure is a blind girl from Paris who flees with her father to Saint-Malo, an old coastal city, to live with her great uncle during the Nazi invasion of France. While we learn her story we also follow a german orphan named Werner Pfenning who, while being brought up in the indoctrination of the horrific Nazi regime, knows that something is wrong with what they are doing.

It all comes to a head when the allies begin to bomb Saint-Malo. Great characters I could root for. Great setting. Great story. 8/10.

Read 11/8/25 - 11/12/25

After reading this book, I’ve decided that Gus isn’t getting a smart phone until he’s 35.

All jokes aside, it is appalling what smart phones and social media have done to childhood.

I find myself in a weird generation. I experienced a childhood mostly before the internet took over our lives, but I also was on the vanguard of the social media generation. Facebook got popular when I was in high school, and the first iPhone came out my junior year. I cannot really say that social media or smart phones have made my life better.

The Anxious Generation examines why it appears that Gen Z seems more anxious and has poorer mental health than previous generations. Spoiler alert, it’s social media. I mean there are other factors that Haidt lines out as well. All very important factors. But it all goes back to smart phones and kids living their lives online.

The book honestly made me really sad for how our world is today. Have we gone too far with smart phones and technology? Haidt gives some actionable steps to make things better. But will we? I hope for better for my son’s generation, but it starts with us as parents. I’m hoping to be a change, but I’ll catch myself looking at my phone around my seven month old and its crazy……he notices. Like, if I’m glued to my phone arguing with my Tennessee Football group chat (shoutout to the South Endzone) on how to fix the Tennessee Volunteers defense. He sees that. It’s sobering honestly. How can we help him? How can we let him just be a kid? How can we help ourselves? This book is giving us some steps. Let’s stop just sitting around on phones shall we?

If you have young kids or hope to someday, this is an important read. 8/10.

Read 11/12/25 - 11/15/25

Hot take: Prisoner of Azkaban is the pinnacle of the Harry Potter series.

I mean, it’s the prime year of Harry’s time at Hogwarts. They know the school well, but are still kids. The threat isn’t coming directly from Vol [sorry] He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but from an escaped alleged murderer.

You’ve got plenty of classes (how does Hermione go to so many?) and quidditch and all the stuff we love about the Wizarding World. Harry finally has a competent Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher as well, which relieved me greatly when I read this for the first time as an eight year old.

Speaking of being a child, Prisoner of Azkaban takes me straight back to late nights reading just one more chapter before going to sleep in my red, metal bunk bed cozied up in my childhood room adorned with Tennessee football posters and Christmas lights.

Re-reading this kind of feels like communicating with a younger version of myself. It’s a little like turning back time. It takes a special book to pull this off.

10/10. An absolute masterpiece. Ten points to Gryffindor!

Read 11/15/18 - 11/18/15

I crossed off a lot of bucket list books in 2025. It really was a year of putting in that reading work!

Brave New World gives a scary realistic view of a future world state where everyone is grown in labs and lives in an autocratic world government locked in a social caste system. Everyone is hooked on a drug called Soma that make them blissfully content and boring.

Brave New World shows a humanity stripped of well….humanity. Getting married and having kids or just generally being a good person is seen as obscene. Religion, art, individuality, and so much more are all dead. It’s all about pleasure and that’s it.

Could you see our world turning into Aldous Huxley’s vision? I could. Brave New World is a classic that scares me more than a Stephen King novel. 7/10.

Read 11/2/25 - 11/21/25

I’d always thought that Wuthering Heights was a star crossed English romantic drama.

It is that. Kind of.

There’s a star crossed romance, but it’s between two mean people. This is really more of a story of misery and the ghosts of the past and legacy.

Heathcliff, the protagonist, is a bitter, angry, despicable man. His relationship with Catherine Earnshaw is doomed from the start. But honestly, you never really find yourself pulling for them.

The Yorkshire Moors must be VERY dreary because almost everyone in this book is depressed and mean. 6/10.

Read 11/21/25 - 11/26/25

On The Road wore me out. The kind of life that Sal Paradise, our protagonist who is probably really the author Kack Kerouac, lives is exhausting and sad.

He makes lots of friends all over the country but it never really seems like he has real friends.

This is absolutely the case with Dean Moriarty, who I guess you’d say is Sal’s best friend in the book. I disliked Dean immensely. He had mental issues, yes. However, he is a selfish prick and just seems like the most manic, erratic, and awful person to be involved with.

I don’t really know how you can read On The Road and long for a life lived on couches and cars like the one Paradise and Moriarty lead.

That said….it’s a not a bad novel at all! I enjoyed it even though it made me sweat with great anxiety. 6/10.

We’re almost there, folks! Tune in tomorrow for the last stretch of books as well as my 2025 book superlatives.

Subscribe now

We’re back baby! Without further ado, let’s get to them books, shall we?

Read 8/6/25 - 8/9/25

This is one of those situations where I totally judged a book by it’s cover.

I thought it looked really cool — and I was right! The Horse by Willy Vlautin was superb!

A haggard old musician named Al lives alone in the shack in the mountains of Nevada and looks back on his life. I loved it — his story was sad and poignant. What brought him to the point of being a hermit? You’ll have to find out! 8/10.

Read 6/30/25 - 8/11/25

Ah yes, the great Don Quixote.

If I was going to be a lit head worth my salt, I knew I’d have to consume this one. Most writers I enjoy revere the tale of Don Quixote De La Mancha.

It lives up to the hype. There’s a reason this is the great novel.

It is really funny. Like, actually funny today, not just in the 1600’s. Our title character is completely delusional — he believes he is a knight errant who adventures out into the world to uphold the honor of his muse Dulcinea Del Toboso. Dulcinea is far from the mythical princess Quixote describes her as, she is actually just an ole country gal who he’s never spoken to and barely ever seen.

You see, Don Quixote (real name Alonso Quijano) has read too many romantic novels of knights and princesses and has completely detached himself from reality. He thinks windmills are giants and roadside inns are castles. He’s hilariously daft.

He recruits a squire, the best character in a novel this side of Gus McCrae, named Sancho Panza. Sancho is a lovable simpleton who questions Quixote and knows he’s probably bonkers, but follows him on the off chance that Quixote is legit and can make him the governor of an island.

Panza is the heart of this tale and feels like a character straight out of Arrested Development. 9/10. With another read I’ll probably bump it to 10. The more I think about this book and reminisce on reading it, the more I love it.

Read 8/13/25 - 8/15/25

I liked Willy Vlautin enough to read more from him!

The Night Always Comes follows a woman in her early thirties at the end of her rope named Lynette. She has a special needs brother she adores and lives in a house with her mother in Portland.

When her mother plans not to buy their house even though they are being offered a good deal on it, Lynette embarks on an odyssey to get enough money to keep their home.

I was exhausted in a good way reading this one. It felt dark and grimy and like foggy. Like the book is surrounded in a misty Portland fog. 7/10.

Read 8/9/25 - 8/17/25

Larry McMurtry is one of my favorite authors — no doubt about it.

Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen is a window inside his mind. I love when I can just read the thought and opinions of authors I admire. With this sort of biography from McMurtry, we get family history, Texas, the decline of the cowboy, what he thinks about having written “the Great Western Novel” while trying to dispel the myth of the West, and so much more.

I’d say joining Larry McMurtry while he reads an old German literary critic’s work at a Dairy Queen is as close to perfection as it gets. 9/10.

Read 8/16/25 - 8/21/25

This was a wild one. I felt like I was recovering from the stomach bug reading Between Two Fires.

Set during the time of the Black Death in France, A knight and a young girl must make their way to Avignon because an angel told the girl she must go there.

You see, Lucifer has declared war on Earth, and not just with the plague, but with hideous monsters and demons. I don’t often do horror, but I felt like this novel was effective in his unsettling medieval spookiness. It continues to build and build to an absolutely wild conclusion. It reminded me a lot of the game Resident Evil 4. 5/10.

Read 8/6/25 - 8/23/25

Man, I love me some Kurt Vonnegut.

Welcome to The Monkey House is a nice collection of some of Vonnegut’s short stories. A lot have the biting, wacky, satirical wit that I’ve come to expect from the author, but there was one story that stood out the me for how non-Vonnegut-y it was.

It’s called “All The King’s Horses” and it plays out like a Cold War spy novel. It’s serious and exciting and absolutely reminds me of Professor McGonagall’s test guarding the Sorcerer’s Stone in Harry Potter. 8/10.

Read 8/22/25 - 8/26/25

This is a sad novel. Written by the tragically troubled author and poet, Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar is one of those tough books, that stick with you. From reading about Plath, The Bell Jar feels at least semi-autobiographical. It follows protagonist Esther Greenwood as she descends into a full breakdown.

Depression is tough, and Plath’s life was consumed by the illness. It was sad reading this novel knowing her fate. She wrote beautifully, though. 6/10.

Read 8/26/25 - 8/28/25

My buddy Mike recommended this one to Bear Den Book Club, so I re-read it with the boys!

I feel about like I always have about Gatsby. It’s very good, but I still don’t love it. I understand it more now. I can see where Jay Gatsby is coming from — selfish and conceited as he is. Still good, but not my favorite classic! 6/10.

Read 8/29/25 - 9/9/25

I think Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner was a more difficult read for me than Infinite Jest. I constantly found myself completely lost reading about the tale of the Sutpen family in old Mississippi.

And you know what? I kind of loved it. It was rich, it was confusing, it was mysterious. It felt like an ancient text. But that’s William Faulkner, and he just had it, you know what I mean? 7/10.

Read 8/29/25 - 9/12/25

One day, after I came home from school in 1998, my mom said she had a new book for me. She’d heard about it on the news and thought I’d like it. She sat me and my little sister down in the living room and read us the first chapter.

After she finished I said “I’ll take it from here!” And devoured it over the next few days. I was eight years old.

That book was Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone and it ignited my love of reading.

Over the next decade, I’d get to know Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry so much better. I’d go to class with Harry, Ron, and Hermione and come to love all of them. I grew up with them.

I’d celebrate their victories and lament their failures. By the turn of the last page of The Deathly Hallows late one night in 2007, being the same age as Harry, I felt that a part of my life had closed. It was a wonderful journey.

Recently, I decided to return to the series in a new stage of life: Fatherhood. I found I had even more of an emotional connection to the story, if that could be possible.

SPOILER FOR THE FIRST CHAPTER: When Hagrid scoops up baby Harry from his destroyed house and family and howls tears as he, Dumbledore and McGonagall drop him off on his aunt and uncle’s doorstep, all defenseless and helpless, I was filled with emotion. Even more than before.

The story of James and Lilly Potter hits me different now. Love is the point of this story. I knew that, but I think I know it more now. The sacrifice the Potters made for their son…. I get it more than I did before. My wife and I would do anything for our little boy, just like James and Lilly for Harry.

But it’s not just his parents. Harry’s got Hagrid and The Weasleys and Ron and Hermoine and all the wonderful people that come into his life. Because he gains new family.

Harry Potter is a masterfully written series from one of the best writers I’ve ever read and it is perfect from the first entry. It not only holds up, reading it for I believe the 4th or 5th time, it just keeps getting better. I know this series will have staying power for as long as we tell stories. I cannot wait to read “The Boy Who Lived” to my little Gus when he’s old enough. Maybe Harry Potter will do for him what it did for me.

Brilliant. 10/10.

Read 8/29/25 - 9/16/25

Coraline by Neil Gaiman reads like a nightmare. It all feels so……off. And that’s a good thing.

Everything is so surreal as Coraline steps through a door into seemingly another world. A world in which her “other mother” inhabits. Her button eyes and general creepy vibe carries this children’s horror book to some dark places.

8/10.

Read 8/17/25 - 9/18/25

I’d heard a lot about Theo Of Golden and after finding it at McKay, knew it was time to give it a read!

A mysterious old man shows up in a Georgia town and starts buying sketches of people in the town coffee shop and bestowing the images to them.

It’s heartwarming. It’s sweet. Theo is a a great image of the Gospel in action.

This book falls into what I call the “Ted Lasso” ideal. The dream that one community would merge together in love and friendship, usually from the kindness and intentionality of one person (The Ted Lasso character). The show Shrinking also does this. That show manages to make Harrison Ford as cuddly as a teddy bear. Sometimes I think books like this and shows like this feel….cheesy.

When I’m reading these kinds of books, or watching these kinds of shows, I find myself saying, “The world isn’t like this. This doesn’t seem believable!” And I want to write it off as idealistic. I go back to reading dark Cormac McCarthy novels and brood in my austere study. Now that’s real life, baby!

But why can’t the world be like that? Isn’t that what a true Gospel transformed community does? Isn’t that what Jesus did? Who’s to say if we followed his call and loved our neighbor as ourselves, and loved our enemies, that we couldn’t have that “taste of Heaven on Earth?”

Reading this book made me want to be more like Jesus, the one whose example Theo follows. Maybe, this book could be more like real life. Things look bleak these days in terms of neighborliness and civility. There seems to be hatred on all sides. I think maybe we could read this book, or better yet, read Jesus’ words and actually follow them.

I was temped to give this a lower score at first because it didn’t feel “like real life”. But I think it’s not so much a “realistic” book as it is a mirror to look into and see what we could be if we just cared for one another and took the time to be good neighbors, looking past our differences.

10/10.

Read 9/17/25 - 9/23/25

Blood Meridian stands on my shelf as a shadowy and ominous book. I picture, like, a dark aura surrounding the spine.

It’s often been called Cormac McCarthy’s magnum opus and has even been called “The Great American Novel”. I read this book in 2015 when I was getting back into reading novels. I was shocked by the violence and bleakness that the pages provided. I don’t even really think I fully understood it.

I decided this year to try Blood Meridian again. I think I get it’s bleak story better now, but am no less repelled by its violence. Yet, McCarthy writes with beauty. Even the subtitle: Or The Evening Redness in the West is beautifully written. I can picture that scene — I’ve seen it myself bedding down in campgrounds in the American West watching that red line dot the desert hills.

I read that Larry McMurtry wanted to dispel the myth of the American West and write a story, being Lonesome Dove, that shattered the mythos of cowboys and law men, John Wayne, etc. I don’t think he succeeded and neither did he. What ended up happening was he wrote THE great Western Novel. He made us long for that mythos even more! Sure, there were rough and tumble outlaws and violence, but who wouldn’t want to eat one of Gus McCrae’s biscuits on a cool Texas morning headed to Montana with the Hat Creek Boys?

The true novel that destroys the mythos of the West is Blood Meridian. McCarthy succeeds where McMurtry “fails”. This is a West that nobody wants to live in. It is a West filled with scalpings and murder. Nobody is safe and nobody is good. This West is the domain of Judge Holden, the most vile villain in literature. A man seven feet tall and ghostly white with no hair on his body. The Judge is this story’s villain and he is terrifying. He is the embodiment of evil and violence. This character will haunt your dreams.

So after all that should you read Blood Meridian? Did I like it?

I think it’s complicated.

I love McCarthy’s writing, and he has something to say of the nature of mankind and what it’s capable of. I don’t think you are meant to fall into the pit of despair this novel digs.

That said, I think it’s worth your time if you’re going to read the great American novels. Nobody paints a scene like McCarthy. He was truly a writer with few peers. Though it will leave you sitting quietly when you finish it.

“His feet are light and nimble. He never sleeps. He says that he will never die. He dances in light and in shadow and he is a great favorite. He never sleeps, the judge. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die.”
-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

9/10.

Read 9/19/25 - 10/4/25

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets carries Harry’s story forward and brings forth more lore and character development.

Harry is back! As are Ron and Hermione. We get to know Hogwarts even better in the second entry. Hogwarts experiences a series of petrifying attacks as the mythical “Chamber of Secrets” is opened.

While Chamber of Secrets doesn’t hit the highs of the first entry in the series or some of the subsequent sequels. It’s still fantastic. We get to know Hogwarts better and meet new characters and even learn a great deal about the past.

Returning to Hogwarts just feels like going home. 9/10.

Read 9/23/25 - 10/5/25

Another Bear Den Book Club selection.

This one came from our good friend Jesse who has nominated it for over a year. Finally, so Jesse would suggest a NEW book, we read The Will Of The Many.

What did I think?

A solid 5/10 for me. I am admittedly a little weary of fantasy/sci-fi-ish novels, so I don’t think I’m exactly the right person for this book. I thought it was fine, but not amazing.

That said, I did find it interesting. The basic premise is there’s a Roman-like empire that has taken over a continent and they have this magic system that allows people to cede their will to someone higher than them and it allows them to basically wield “The Force”.

I think I have that right.

It’s all a pyramid and the people at the top wield the most will and the people at the bottom are prisoners that get their will sapped. Yep. It’s a pyramid scheme.

I’m not sure I fully understood how the “will” worked, but it was interesting enough. I was intrigued enough to want to find out more and that’s a good sign. At the end of the book I thought to myself that I’d consider reading the sequel. So Jesse, you recommended a book I think we will all enjoy! I believe the book club gave it high marks. I wouldn’t know because Gus got me sick and I missed it.

Some gripes though:

-The main character, Viz, is a Mary Sue. That means he’s good at everything he tries with minimal struggle. I like having some flaws with our main characters.

-the characters weren’t fleshed out as well as I’d like for a 600 page novel. I feel like I never really knew any of them very well. Contrast that with how well we get to know Harry, Ron and Hermione in The Sorcerer’s Stone in only a few hundred pages. AND there was world building too.

-I don’t understand if this is supposed to be futuristic or ancient empire. It feels a bit of both? I was confused with what style the author was going for.

-I didn’t love the author’s prose. It felt very YA. In fact, I’d say this is definitely a YA book.

All in all though, I think there’s some potential with this series. I think it will grow. Good suggestion, Jesse!

We had some serious heavy hitters in this entry! There were quite a few books that I had a lot to say about. Let’s see if we can keep this going tomorrow, shall we?

Subscribe now

A big thing happened after I finished Lonesome Dove in May of 2025.

My wife and I welcomed our first son, August, into the world on May 25th! He goes by Gus and is the best, sweetest little boy. So, with the arrivals of Baby Gus and the Nintendo Switch 2, my reading took a dip from May through July.

I still read though! Here’s proof.

Read 5/16/25 - 5/20/25

Martyr! By Kaveh Akbar was one of the literary darlings of 2024. I heard it brought up in award conversations right behind James by Percival Everett.

The story follows an Iranian orphan named Cyrus living in Ft Wayne, Indiana who is also in recovery from substance abuse. His dad died when he was in college and his mom died when her plane was shot down by the US in 1988 (this incident really happened).

The setup was interesting, and I wanted to like Martyr! But it is not very good.

This is as pretentious a book as it gets.

People soliloquize in everyday conversation and use all this flowery “deep” language. Every character, except Cyrus’ best friend, Z, is entirely selfish. I think the author wants you to love Cyrus and his Mom (when you get her POV chapters) but they are both so selfish and unlikeable. Self absorption and self importance are the two key words I walked away with as it relates to the main characters.

The “twist” towards the end was telegraphed. And made me dislike a character I think we’re supposed to see as “wise” and “free”.

Also so many shifts in POV. It didn’t flow well at all.

Ali (Cyrus’ father), Z, and Cyrus’ sponsor Gabe are the only characters I liked. They all deserve better.

It’s a 1 from me. Maybe modern, highly praised books just don’t land with me? 1/10. Bad!

Read 5/27/25 - 6/1/25

If in the novel Orbital, you’re looking for a space plot similar to the movies Gravity or Interstellar, you will be disappointed with this beautiful novel by Samantha Harvey.

There is no plot. It’s really just the experience of the astronauts living in the International Space Station before it is dismantled. Set in a near future, war and climate change ravage the Earth while far above it, the astronauts work together and muse the beauty and tragedy of the Earth they orbit.

I thought it was a great, short read. 8/10.

Read 4/17/25 - 6/7/25

What more can I say about The Throne of Glass series? Sam and I have yet to release the episodes for Queen of Shadows on A Couple Guys Reading. Gus kind of had me tied up for a while. When we do though, you will hear our thoughts.

The book is what it is. I still find this genre tiresome and boring. 3/10.

Read 5/20/25 - 6/8/25

What do you do when there is nobody to act but you? A girl will be taken by a kidnapper and the only person around, the only person who can do anything about it is you?

This is the situation put before a boy named Patch, and his decision in this moment changes his life and the lives of those around him forever.

There is a lot to unpack in this book. It’s part mystery/true crime, and part examination of survivor’s guilt and single minded determination. I think friendship and love is at the heart of this book. It was well written — many of my Goodreads friends finished this one and gave it high marks as well.

Oh, and while I was reading this book, Gus was born! 7/10.

Read 6/8/25 - 6/11/25

A fantastic whodunnit that goes inside the head of Christopher John Francis Boone, a young autistic boy who come across his neighbor’s dead dog and decides to get to the bottom of things.

I loved working through the crime with Christopher and following every thread he pulls on. My wife has long said I should read TCIOTDITN (flows well doesn’t it), I finally listened to her and I’m glad I did. 7/10.

Read 6/12/25 - 6/13/25

Roald Dahl is a legend. I have collected a number of his children’s novels and cannot wait for Gus to read them someday. Before that time however, I wanted to read them so I can know what he’s reading when he gets there.

I expect him to start reading around 1. Seems fair.

Anyways, I listened to James and The Giant Peach while doing yard work. The tale of James and his magical insect buddies as the travel via giant peach is a gem. Holds up! 7/10.

Read 10/22/23 - 6/15/25

I read Thomas Merton’s biography off and on for two years. Other books just kept getting in the way and I’d put it down. In June of ‘25 though, I finally finished it with baby Gus napping on my chest.

I admire Merton. He lived quite a life. His time at Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani just up the road in Kentucky is famous. He walked the walk and followed God until the day he died.

It was a treat, a long treat, to follow his life’s story as told by him. Whether you are Catholic or not (I am not) you should read this account of a life well lived if Jesus is the one you follow. 8/10.

Read 6/9/25 - 6/20/25

For a while, Gus would wake up screaming in the middle of the night and Morgan or I would have to let him sleep on us for him to really sleep deeply. It was tiring but sweet. Since we’d have to stay awake in the dark, silence of night, I needed something to read.

So I rented the e-book of Wizard of Oz on Libby and brought the brightness waaaaaay down. I hadn’t read Oz but have seen the movie and spin offs and reimaginings like Wicked many times. Even on Broadway last August!

The OG is great! You know the story. Dorothy, Tin Man, Toto, The Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and Wicked Witch are all there as you know them. There’s a reason the story has stuck with us for so long. It’s wonderful! 7/10.

Read 6/21/25

Back to Dahl! I listened to this one on the way out and back from my buddy Der’s bachelor party in late June! We all hung out at Douglas Lake and it was a swell time!

As for the book. It’s fantastic! The Wes Anderson movie adaptation is also one of my favorite films. The original book, though, is quirky, cozy and fun. Love it. 9/10.

Read 6/13/25 - 6/27/25

I had read Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates a few years ago and found him to be a great writer with much to say. I had been meaning to read his fiction for some time, and finally read his 2019 novel The Water Dancer.

I thought it was brilliantly and beautifully written. I actually think it should have been a finalist for the Pulitzer that year (though I don’t think it should have beaten Colson Whitehead’s Nickel Boys.

The Water Dancer follows Hiram Walker, an enslaved man in Virginia whose mother was sold away when he was a young boy, and whose father is his master. For mysterious reasons, he finds himself being swept up in memories and literally transported when he’s around bodies of water. He cannot remember his mother, and his father is the one who holds him in bondage.

The cruel realities of slavery are seen here in all their horror. How can one hold anybody, much less your own son in bondage? As Hiram grows older, he starts to find that the friends and allies he makes among those who are working to free those who are “tasked” are his true family.

Like Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, The Water Dancer explores the sacrifices and bravery it took to work against and subvert the horrific practice of slavery. I actually thought this book was better than The Underground Railroad. It sticks a little closer to reality, though there’s some magical realism worked in. By the end I was totally wrapped in to the saga of Hiram Walker.

This is a great novel. 8/10.

Read 6/16/25 - 6/30/25

I purchased this book on the last day Bear Den Books was open in March of 2023. I knew William Gay was a Southern fiction writer I wanted to get into, so I bought the book and put it on my shelf. There it sat until June 2025.

As I neared the end of my parental leave, I consumed this collection of gritty short stories. They were increrdible.

I think you know a short story is truly great when you are kind of angry it ends where it ends. Like in Gay’s stories you have this whole set up of an extremely interesting situation usually involving some grimy backwoods Tennessee folk and it all crashes together and escalates and then……ends!

It leaves you wanting more and that’s a good thing. I want to read more from the late William Gay. 9/10.

Read 7/1/25 - 7/12/25

Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund was a very popular Christian book in circulation while I was running the store. I thought it had great substance!

The main thrust of this work by Ortlund is taking us to Matthew 11 to remind us that Jesus is “gentle and lowly in heart”. I was reminded of God’s grace and the depths of his love for us while going through this one. 8/10.

Read 6/28/25 - 8/1/25

Johnathan Eig’s Pulitzer winning biography on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was illuminating and inspiring. Dr. King was not perfect, nobody is, but his fight for civil rights was one of the great turning points for the soul of our nation. Most important was his conviction of non-violence. What could have been a better illustration of the Gospel in action?

God used Dr. King and gave him talents and conviction to lead the struggle for civil rights in America. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech is in my opinion, the greatest American speech ever given. It was fascinating getting the curtain pulled back to find out more about the life and struggles of this fascinating man. 9/10.

Read 8/1/25 - 8/5/25

Following a number of Native Americans in the Oakland area, There There was very well written from Tommy Orange. There are lots of weaving and intertwined narratives that converge on a “Big Oakland Pow-wow” in an unforgettable conclusion. I plan to read more from Orange. 6/10.

Read 7/12/25 - 8/9/25

I have heard great things about Peace Like a River from Leif Enger.

I didn’t love it.

An 11 year old boy named Reuben adores his older brother Davy. One day Davy straight up murders two people who break into their house and then goes on the lam. Reuben, his sister and father set out across the Badlands in the middle of winter to find him.

Oh, and Reuben’s dad can perform miracles? He’s a man of great faith. I don’t know how exactly I felt about this one. I’m not sure what point exactly Enger was trying to get across. It didn’t connect with me like it has for others. 4/10.

Well that’s 45 books down, folks! I didn’t quit there.

Tune in tomorrow for 46 through 60.

Subscribe now

Welcome back to my review of every book I read in 2025!

Let’s get to it.

Read 2/25/25 - 2/27/25

My favorite historical figure hails from good old East Tennessee: David Crockett. He was a backwoods frontiersman turned politician turned Texan revolutionary and I just liked the way he rolled. He was his own man.

His autobiography was written while he was in the midst of his time in congress and after and it’s a fascinating window into the mind of Crockett. Much of it is his life story and upbringing, while another part is the account of his travels up the east coast while he was a national phenomenon. At one point, I’m pretty certain that he gives a name that would stick to a famous Manhattan neighborhood while visiting the Big Apple.

I admire my fellow Tennessean Davy Crockett. He stood up for what he believed in. He was NOT a fan of President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Tennessean, at a time when he had massive political power. When Jackson worked to expel the Native Americans from their lands in the South, Crockett vehemently stood up for them.

I wish we had more Davy Crocketts in American political life today. Or really any at all. He was the man. The folks on the Hill these days would make him sadder’n all hell I think. 8/10.

Read from 2/27/25 - 3/5/25

Speaking of Andrew Jackson, Jon Meacham’s biography on our 7th President was a very interesting read.

There is much to admire in Jackson. He was truly the early American Experiment put into action. He came from the frontier, and as a child was a prisoner of war in the American Revolution. He was a nobody, yet he rose to become one of the most influential Presidents in this county’s history. They called it the “Age of Jackson”. The man was tough as nails. He had a bullet permanently lodged in him from one of his many duels. Speaking of duels, he almost dueled John Sevier in Knoxville!

There was also a lot not to like about Jackson, and I believe his shortcomings obscure his bright spots. He was undoubtedly racist (as was everyone else in that time). He led the charge to forcibly remove Native Americans from their land, and he was an angry, vindictive man. In short, he was very flawed, as we all are. But his flaws were LOUD and incredibly consequential and disastrous for many people.

American Lion is worth a read — I believe in diving into history to understand the people and events that shaped the nation we live in today. It’s not always nice and it’s not always pretty, but it it’s important to know.

When I think about who was on the right side of history, David Crockett or Andrew Jackson, I feel that I must go with my boy Davy. I don’t think Walt Disney was clamoring to make a show about Old Hickory.

It’s Crockett, not Jackson who has lived in our hearts and even imaginations through the ages. Old Hickory just gets the $20 bill.

6/10.

Read 2/22/25 - 3/5/25

We read this stone cold classic for March’s edition of the Bear Den Book Club. Michael Crichton was a master of overly-sciency-sci-fi. The guy had to have been awesome at parties, just throwing equations and graphs and charts out there for everyone.

Jurassic Park needs to introduction. We all know and love the movie — the book is just as good if not better. I had to miss this edition of book club due to attending a wedding, but the consensus was positive. I heard we had dino nuggets and that Dennis, an esteemed member of the club, dearly despised the character of Lex. The little girl who gets caught up in the goings on in the park.

She was pretty annoying. Still, this one is always a thrill and so re-readable. 8/10.

Read 3/6/25 - 3/13/25

My buddy Will told me at work one day that he’d been reading David Foster Wallace’s work and was loving it. He specifically brought up a series of essays, mainly one on how Wallace goes on a cruise a writes about his experience. It was called A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.

From what Will told me, I was sold.

I immediately procured a copy of the book and devoured it. I enjoyed all the essays, but really loved the titular story. The biting wit and humor that Wallace employs while taking in his experience as an intellectual, kind of nerdy, writer as he boards a luxury Caribbean cruise with a gaggle of shuffling, sunscreened tourists for a week is incredible stuff.

David Foster Wallace was a very interesting and tortured man. His writing is the best of the 1990’s. Read this work especially. Read it today. 9/10.

Read 1/29/25 - 3/18/25

My buddy Sam and I continued our podcast A Couple Guys Reading in 2025. We jumped back into the story of Celaena or Aelin or whatever the unstoppable queen or princess or assassin is called.

Spoiler for our podcast and this entry in the Throne of Glass series. It’s so boring. This genre of fiction is just not great and I have a hard time with it. They all feel the same and they are all written seemingly by middle schoolers.

Joke’s on me though, because Sarah J. Maas is a professional writer who makes lots of money selling books and I am not.

But hey, that’s what makes our 'podcast fun! These books weren’t made for us but we read them anyways!

Check it out:

3/10.

Read 3/18/25 - 3/20/25

Heading into the year, there were two Cormac McCarthy novels I had yet to read, Child of God and The Orchard Keeper. So I decided to go ahead an knock them out!

Child of God follows released convict Lester Ballard as he haunts the hollows and riverbanks of East Tennessee. He just slinks around the Knoxville area interacting with lowlifes and bottomdwellers.

Ballard is not the kind of guy you’d want to run into on a dark, south Knoxville evening — I’ll say that for sure. The end of this novel is one of the wildest scenes that McCarthy ever wrote, and that’s saying a lot. 6/10.

Read 3/21/25 - 3/27/25

The final McCarthy book I hadn’t read was his first: The Orchard Keeper. You can see the shades of what his writing will become, though this story of a small East Tennessee town called Red Branch is as dark and dreary as his future writing would prove to be.

Filled with hermits and bootleggers, The Orchard Keeper can be very hard to follow. There were many times when I felt completely lost when reading this, but then it all clicked. It all kind of moved on like a drunken night walk until a final thrilling conclusion.

McCarthy’s beautiful, harsh writing sticks with you. Whether it’s in a hollow in Tennessee or a Western vista. I’ll miss having him around and I’ll miss having new, unexplored novels of his to read. 6/10.

Read 3/30/25 - 4/1/25

For the second year in a row, I read Train Dreams by Denis Johnson. Sam and I read it as a palate cleanser for A Couple Guys Reading. Additionally, The Bear Den Book Club read this one for November. What a year for this modern classic!

On my re-read of Train Dreams, I feel that I understood it’s themes and deeper meaning more than I did the first time though. This novella is about loss and loneliness and memory. I understand the dreams, or at least I understand them better.

What would losing your family do to you? How often would you dream of them? I would think quite often. Those I have lost come back to me in dreams. It is the same with the character of Granier.

I think it’s safe to say this is still one of the loveliest books I’ve read. I liked it even more than last year. 10/10.

Read 3/27/25 - 4/4/25

During my bookstore days, I had a customer that listed off some great, modern Southern fiction writers. At the top of his list was Larry Brown.

“You ain’t read Larry Brown? Larry Brown? Oh you gotta read Larry. Check him out and let me know what you think. Oh yeah, Larry Brown is goooooooood, buddy!”

He didn’t buy anything, so I forgot about Larry Brown…..until this year!

Customer, I am happy to say that I’ve read Larry Brown. Maybe, his other books will hit me more profoundly, but I just felt like this book was a mean quagmire.

Mean is the main word I’d use for this book. Just plain mean. The main character, Glen Davis, has just been released from prison and returns to his Mississippi hometown to pretty much be the worst guy ever. That’s kind of the gist. Good but not great! 5/10.

Read from 4/4/25 - 4/7/25

A lovely little book about a lonely old woman who returns to her childhood village prepared to die, but finds unexpected family and a reason to live in a little mouse named Sipsworth.

Reminded me a ton of A Man Called Ove by Frederik Bachman.

A very short read and definitely one of those “feel good” stories. 7/10.

Read 4/7/25 - 4/12/25

I got on a big David Foster Wallace kick after reading A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. I greatly enjoy his essays and humor. The most memorable essays had to be Big Red Son, where Wallace attended and reported on the AVN awards. The Oscars for….adult entertainment.

It was truly wild. His deadpan observations during the ridiculous and horrible awards show are incredible. Everything here is good. Especially if you are a “lit head” like me as he writes about Updike and Kafka. 9/10.

Read 3/19/25 - 4/30/25

A sports themed Bear Den Book Club pick for March! Friday Night Lights is a classic. This read, I feel like I understood the passion that Odessa had in 1988 for their Panthers better because:

1. I have spent time in Midland and Odessa. I know the cities now. I know how they roll. They are crazy.

2. I lived in Texas and observed the mania that is Texas high school football for five years. Like, seriously, I lived in Prosper, TX where they built a new high school stadium that easily outclasses Vanderbilt’s in the SEC. Upper deck and all!

It was nice to jump back into the Permian season with Bissinger. This is a classic sports read and one that should absolutely be on your shelf. 7/10.

Read 4/30/25 - 5/3/25

Sam from A Couple Guys Reading told me I needed to re-read Charlotte’s Web. He said it was a nearly perfect novel.

After reading it, mostly one day where I was waiting for my oil to be changed and they forgot about my truck for over an hour, I’d say I agree with him!

The story of Wilbur the pig and the spider Charlotte’s effort to save him from being slaughtered is a heartwarming and perfect story. It teaches kids good things. Friendship, empathy, sacrifice, loss and legacy. It’s all there. It makes kids fell good and important emotions. I loved reading this, especially a few weeks before welcoming my son into the world. I want him to read this someday. 9/10.

Read 4/12/25 - 5/6/25

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is probably the most difficult book I’ve ever read.

It’s mammoth size is sprawling and encyclopedic and has hundreds of characters. There are hundreds of endnotes as well, some having footnotes themselves. I listened to this one (61 hours) so I was spared the flipping back and forth to the end notes as I consumed the novel.

I cannot really begin to give a set up for Infinite Jest. It was written in 1996 and takes place in a dystopian future where corporations pay to sponsor an entire year (The Year of the Whopper, The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, etc.) and a superstate merging of Canada, The US, and Mexico is run by an old crooner celebrity. A whole former area of the country is a toxic wasteland and terrorists from Quebec seek to break of from this “Organization of North American Nations”.

The main characters (or the closest thing to them) are Hal Incandenza, who is a student at a tennis academy his late father founded, and Don Gately, a former drug addict who is a resident in a halfway house in Boston.

I cannot even really go further.

This is a hard novel to understand and follow. You get through about 100 pages and wonder “what did I just read? Do I have any idea what is going on?” Then the novel clicks for you, but you still often find yourself disoriented and confused, right up until the end. There are many themes like addiction, entertainment, and worship, and one theme which is very haunting and sad considering the 2008 death of the late author.

What is also wild, is the many ways in which this dystopian world of O.N.A.N mirrors our own. He nailed quite a lot about our present society back in ‘96.

That said, David Foster Wallace was brilliant. This was the third work of his I read this year — I enjoyed them all. Consider me a DFW fan.

I appreciated this novel and am glad I got through it. But it was tough at times. 8/10.

Read 4/27/25 - 5/16/25

We read what I consider to be the best novel ever written for the Bear Den Book Club during the summer. We called it “The Summer Of Dove”. My buddy Adam even made t-shirts for us. Shoutout to Adam West who actually reads this blog!

If you know me, you know I love this book. I partially named my son after one of the characters. It’s perfect and you should read it today. This was my third time reading LD.

Check out my thoughts on LD from my blog a few months ago:

10/10.

Remember how we ended the first 15 books with the worst one of the year? We really turned things around on this entry. Much better!

Where will we go from here? You’ll have to find out tomorrow.

Subscribe now

2025 was quite the busy year for yours truly. To start, my wife and I welcomed our first son, Gus! So that was kind of a big deal. When you have a baby, you do tend to sacrifice some things in your life. There’s simply no time to do everything you want to do in the fleeting free time that your baby gives you in between naps.

One thing I’ve sacrificed is writing this blog regularly, but one thing I haven’t is reading books!

So here I am, to lay out for you my year in books for 2025. There are some returning favorites, some new classics, and even some of the worst books I’ve ever read.

In the words of the immoral Mario, “Here we go!”

Read from 12/19/24 - 1/5/25

I began 2025 with a selection from the Bear Den Book Club! We usually have a kind of theme when nominating books to read, and for this particular club, the theme was “books we read in school”.

In school I’m certain that I had no idea that C.S. Lewis wrote anything other than The Chronicles of Narnia, so I’m not sure how airtight the theme was, but our group brings people together who’s origins are from all over the country. Who’s to say that in Jackson, Mississippi this wasn’t on the school reading list?

But I digress. On to Till We Have Faces!

This was a retelling of the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche from the amazing C.S. Lewis and I enjoyed it! It took a minute for me to really understand what I was reading and what he was going for. When I stopped looking for Christian allusions and undertones, I took it for what it was: A Greek myth (with, I believe, some lovely Christian undertones. As a Christian, I like this!).

It was written beautifully, and if you’re wanting to devour more C.S. Lewis, I’d say give it a read. The book club’s consensus was middle of the road I think. I’d have to consult the record keeper on that one. Adam West or Nick Wendel can speak more on this. Ask them. 7/10.

Read from 12/29/24 - 1/7/25

I had some unfinished business to take care of to begin the new year. Namely, finally finishing the Rabbit Angstrom series. Yes, I followed this squeamishly selfish and despicable suburban scourge of a man from his mid twenties to his fifties, and as the title might suggest, to his grave.

Rabbit at Rest finds the titular devil and his wife Janice somehow still married, retired, and living part of the year in Florida. As retired people from the suburbs are wont to do. I’m always pulled between abhorrence and admiration of Updike’s writing when it comes to this series. It’s like, never a series I’d recommend to anyone, but I absolutely had to finish it and find out where everyone ended up. I mean it won the Pulitzer Prize! All in all, the journey was tough, but it was fine literature. 6/10.

Read from 1/7/25-1/9/25

Wait, I thought we were done with Rabbit Angstrom?! Well, we are, but John Updike had one last little story to tell regarding the Rabbit saga. Rabbit Remembered was a short story included in Updike’s Licks Of Love.

It doesn’t last too long, but it follows Rabbit’s widow Janice as she is confronted by a remnant of her late husband’s past around the year 2000. It was a nice little postscript to the series. Now we’re really done with Rabbit! 5/10.

Read from 1/9/25 - 1/11/25

In January, I figured that since I had a little boy on the way, I should read some classic children’s novels so when the time comes, I can recommend them or not. I figure Gus should be reading by about 9 months.

The Phantom Tollbooth was an interesting one. It felt very much like a strange episode of Schoolhouse Rock. It follows a boy named Milo as he adventures into the Lands Beyond after passing through a strange tollbooth he receives one day.

Essentially, everything and everyone he encounters in this land is a play on words. That’s pretty much it. It’s silly and a little educational. I’d say I’ll recommend it to Gus here in a few months when he’s reading. 5/10.

Read from 1/12/25 - 1/14/25

I’ve been wanting to read George Eliot’s work for years, and in 2025 I finally did! I greatly enjoyed Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe. It was a simple tale, but delved into a wide range of issues and emotions. We follow an old weaver, Silas Marner, and see how he has moved on from his difficult past and what he does when he finds something astonishing in the present.

I’d certainly give this classic bit of literature a try. 9/10.

Read from 1/5/25 - 1/17/25

John Hersey’s Pulitzer winning World War II novel (written and published during the war) was a fantastic read. An American major wants to do right by the small town of Adano that his army is occupying.

The departed fascists have melted down the 700 year old town bell and he is intent on finding a new one. Remember integrity and heroism? This novel will remind you of those novel concepts. 8/10.

Read from 1/18/25 - 1/25/25

The Pugilist At Rest is one of the finest book of short stories I’ve ever read. The title story is incredible but the one that sticks with me most is I Want To Live! which puts you inside the head of a woman dying of cancer.

Most of Jones’ stories involve some sort of combination of The Marines, boxing, Vietnam, and epilepsy. Each story feels fresh and really pulls you in.

Thom Jones’ first collection of short stories is nearly perfect. 10/10.

Read from 1/14/25 - 1/31/25

Middlemarch by George Eliot usually pops up on “Greatest English language novels of all-time lists”, so I knew I had to get to this one. Economics surprisingly play a huge part in this novel set in a provincial town called Middlemarch. We get to know many of the townspeople, but it’s two outsiders who throw the good Victorian England folk for a loop and upset things.

Eliot was a giant of literature, and this is always seen as her magnum opus, but personally, I liked Silas Marner better. 7/10.

Read from 1/31/25 - 2/2/25

I started a re-read of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy last year, and finished with Cities of The Plain in February. The first time I read Cities, I didn’t like it nearly as much as All The Pretty Horses or The Crossing. But, this 2025 re-read made me appreciate the final Border installment.

You’ve got the protagonists from All The Pretty Horses and The Crossing, John Grady Cole and Billy Parham working together on a ranch outside El Paso, Texas. John Grady still cannot help but have a doomed star crossed romance with a Mexican girl. This time it’s a young epileptic prostitute in Juarez.

He of course, gets himself in tons of trouble. Why can’t John Grady find a nice safe girl? Such is the melancholic inevitability of McCarthy’s final Border Trilogy installment. He just cannot see reason once his heart gets set on something or someone.

Like I said, I enjoyed this one far more than I did the first time I read it just out of college a decade ago. I feel less like John Grady and more like Billy when back then it was probably the other way around. I done seen more life and am a little wiser I reckon. 7/10.

Read from 2/2/25 - 2/4/25

Damn, I loved this book.

After the “Bad Man From Bodie” terrorizes a nameless Dakota Territory town and rides off, leaving charred ashes and few people, the unofficial town mayor named Blue must pick up the pieces and rebuild the dusty town. He rechristens it as Hard Times.

We follow Blue and other townspeople as they rise from the ashes left by the “Bad Man”. But there’s a lingering black cloud hanging over them…..will the “Bad Man From Bodie” return someday to finish them off? Who knows.

Welcome to Hard Times reminded me somewhat of the awesome Clint Eastwood movie, High Plains Drifter. It was gritty, funny, and surreal. It truly felt like a bad dream in the best way. 9/10.

Read 2/5/25 - 2/10/25

The classic castaway adventure story.

Written in the early 1700’s, every subsequent desert island story, from Gilligan’s Island to Castaway owe Robinson Crusoe a debt.

Surprisingly for being so old, the text reads more like a modern novel than something like Shakespeare.

I enjoyed reading this classic story of survival set in the Caribbean Islands. I’d say this is an easy one to start with if you’re looking to get into some of the English classics. 7/10.

Read 2/11/25 - 2/15/25

I Cheerfully Refuse is a beautifully written seafaring journey on Lake Superior set in a near future that’s not specified but doesn’t seem too distant.

In this America, illiteracy is a badge of honor and floating laboratories conduct ghastly experiments on the poor. Rainy and his bookseller wife, Lark, live in Minnesota on the banks of Lake Superior in the small town of Ice Bridge and are thrust into danger when a mysterious stranger brings Lark a book she’s been searching for.

I love a good adventure story. This read almost like a post apocalyptic Huck Finn set on a lake. Like I said earlier it’s definitely set in a bleak future, but there are many elements of this future that we can find in our own times. Author Leif Enger’s writing style is poetic and engaging — you come to know and love the narrator and feel every knot of his sailing journey.

I highly recommend this one. 8/10.

Read 2/16/25 - 2/17/25

The Pulitzer Prize winner from 1987, A Summons To Memphis wasn’t a bad read at all. In fact, it felt very realistic.

Phillip Carver a writer in New York City, is summoned back to his hometown of Memphis by his sisters to convince their widower father not to marry his new young girlfriend.

As this summons is responded to, Carver reflects back on his family and the events that took them away from Nashville and to Memphis. I felt, as I read this one, that seemingly mundane and insignificant decisions by parents can change their children’s lives forever. 6/10.

Read 2/17/25 - 2/20/25

Fire Exit was on a number of lists for “books of the year” consideration and I just didn’t see what was good about it.

A man named Charles Lamosway lives on the other side of the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation and reflects on his upbringing on the reservation and the events that shaped his life as well as that of a young woman named Elizabeth. It poses the question of “blood” and family legacy.

I didn’t like the prose in this one and I thought the story was bland and uninspired. It was very forgettable and it left my brain the minute I finished it. Not worth your time. 2/10.

Read 2/20/25 - 2/25/25

I think I’m just not a Peter Heller fan.

I picked this one up thinking I’d like it better than The Painter which I read last year and didn’t love. Instead, Heller’s newest novel Burn turned out to be the worst book I read in 2025.

The premise is interesting. Two best friends are moose hunting in the North Woods of Maine when a civil war breaks out as Maine secedes from the Union (Really, Maine?) and they have to survive the war that has broken out.

The execution of this story though, is horrible.

I think the book is set in current times? Heller never says, but the hunters have iPhones so I’m guessing that’s a yes. As I said earlier, these hunting buddies get embroiled in the middle of a civil war as Maine secedes from the Union. Why does Maine do this? Why is this war happening? We never find out. It’s only given a vague explanation.

What Heller is mostly interested in though, is telling you is about the friends’ past. Most of the book is dedicated to flashbacks. That would be interesting if the characters had anything intriguing about them, but sadly this is not the case.

For example, it will look like we’re really getting into the action and the characters, Jess and Story (I already forgot their names and had to look them up), are so close to finding out some crucial information about this conflict. They hike through woods to get to a hopefully friendly town when out of nowhere, we are whisked into a high school reminiscence about the two teenage boys hiking in the woods. It’s jarring and adds absolutely nothing to the narrative every time it happens.

And it happens a lot.

The main flashbacks, *SPOILER AHEAD*, involve Jess being sexually assaulted by Story’s mother when he was seventeen and it’s written as if it’s a sweet and good moment. Maybe he’s trying to explain why Jess is a bad guy who’s wife left him because he cheated on her?

Maybe that’s what he’s trying to say, but it does not come off that way. He writes the flashback as if it was the best, most important event in Jess’ life. She made him a man! Now he’s a total badass.

In closing, I think this book is just another version of some (not all) of these cutesy looking romance and “romantasy” books. There’s a paper thin story and premise, that’s all in service to a “seductive best friends’ mom” flashback. It’s all about sex, baby!

Except this time, the target demographic is dudes who like to hunt and hike and have an Ernest Hemingway book on their shelf.

This book bummed me out. 1/10.

Oh no! We ended part 1 on the worst book of the year! My dear readers, while Burn turned out to be a dud, I can tell you that it’s onwards and upwards from here. Check back in tomorrow for Part 2!

Subscribe now

In the early months of 2022, I found myself waking up every morning consistently earlier than I ever had before in my life. 3:51 AM to be exact. I’d hit snooze once or twice with bleary eyes, and then work my way out from under my dog, Howie, who served as my extra 100-pound blanket. Stumbling into the cool dark of my bedroom, I’d try to ignite as little light as possible, so as not to wake Morgan. I’d put on my clothes for the day: Work pants, a flannel shirt, and Carhartt jacket, and then kiss sleepy Morgan and Howie goodbye. I’d sleepwalk through making a PB&J sandwich, and gather various snacks into plastic baggies and step out into the January Texas pre-dawn dark.

4:02 AM and ready for the 45-minute drive to work.

We lived in North Austin, about 13 minutes north of downtown, but work was located in Dripping Springs, which was just southwest of town on the edge of the Texas Hillcountry. The perk of early driving is you’re only competing in traffic with nurses and returning graveyard shift employees, so I was always able to cruise down MOPAC (one of the two main, north-south highways in Austin) with no problems.

The faintest glimmer of a band of light would be peaking out in the east as I crossed Town Lake and the ever-growing skyline of downtown Austin. I’d soak in just being able to drive unencumbered as I counted how many floors had been added to the new tech company skyscraper being erected on the banks of the river while Merle Haggard sang “High On a Hilltop” through my car speakers.

Soon, however, I’d leave the orange glow of city lights as MOPAC flowed into 290 which took me west into darkness and live oak to the best part of my morning: Donn’s Texas BBQ. A little red steel barn of a building on the side of the road with my favorite bean and cheese breakfast taco in town. They were open early for folks like me, and I appreciated that. I’d lean against my Ford Escape, savoring each bite of my two tacos and not caring at all for the chill of what passed for a frigid Texas winter morning.

Back in the car, it would be time to continue my daily adventure. Leaving highways for winding backroads, I’d finally arrive as the first employee of the day at the warehouse deep off the beaten path on Fitzhugh road at 5 AM.

My job was to make booze: Ranch water, to be exact. Ranch water is a delightful Texas drink consisting of Tequila, sparkling water, and lime juice. During COVID, my company had canned this elixir, and central Texas went wild for it. So now we produced it in 6 massive tanks, and I was the man who filled them. I’d flip on all the lights and set the stage for the canning line that my coworkers would man two hours later. The two hours of lugging heavy hoses and pumps around, prepping machines, and testing tanks were peaceful to me, but I was missing something. I needed something to listen to, a tale that would take me on an adventure.

It was on one such morning, after finishing my early tasks, that I walked out the big sliding garage door and gazed at the gray-yellow-orange cloudy sunrise, when I got a notification on my phone. I looked down to see that Lonesome Dove was ready to borrow from the library app. The decision to accept this invitation would change my life forever.

When Augustus came out of the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake — not a very big one. It had probably just been crawling around looking for shade when it ran into the pigs. They were having a fine tug-of-war with it and it’s rattling days were over. The sow had it by the neck, and the shoat by the tail.

That’s how it started. Narrator Lee Horsley, describing pigs eating a snake and a man from Tennessee named Gus yelling “You pigs git”. The rest of that day, as I filled two more tanks with various alcoholic beverages with the roaring and clanging of the canning line reverberating across the live oak trees, I grew more and more drawn to a little fictional fart of a town called Lonesome Dove in South Texas.

I met the retired Texas Rangers, Captains Woodrow F. Call and Augustus McCrae. Woodrow was all work, no play, and Gus all play, no work. While Call and his hands worked all day digging wells and sweating, Gus sat on the porch and drank whiskey.

Call was all about honor and justice. He worked harder than any man, and his men respected him, but never grew quite close to him. Yet, he was a legend of the frontier. It was perfect that his rangering partner, Augustus McCrae was the total opposite. He was no less skilled than Call, but preferred to take life slow. He loved wit and talking. Not to mention visits to local….how do we say…. saloons with female nighttime bedroom workers. Gus was a rascal, but the most lovable and intrinsically kind rascal around. His favorite pastime was firing up his buddy Call. But for all their arguments, they were buddies. All in all, Gus and Call were legends living in exile and out of their time.

After years of making the West safe for settlers, Gus and Call were no longer needed. It was all settled up and “tame”. So they ran a livery stable called the Hat Creek Outfit in the most backwater town on the Texas-Mexico border.

Driving home that afternoon, I traded Merle Haggard for Larry McMurtry on my car speakers and picked up a ratty old mass market paperback of the book from a secondhand store. I was in.

That night, while reading in bed, I read multiple pages about a sign Gus had labored over and was very proud of. The sign was an old barn door in which Gus had inscribed each of the livery stable proprietor’s names and the fact that they sold and rented cattle and horses, but not pigs.

Then to make the sign classy, Gus inscribed a Latin motto: “Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit”. Call kept getting more and more annoyed at the lines Gus would add to the sign, and finally noticed the Latin motto, and the following exchange took place.

“What the hell did you do now? Call asked. “Wasn’t the part about the pigs bad enough for you? What’s the last part say?”

“It says a little Latin” Augustus said

Gus, of course, had no idea what it meant, but wasn’t about to admit it. I loved the exchange and laughed audibly. Just 92 pages in, I knew I was in the midst of the best reading experience I’d ever have.

For the next 800 pages, I came to know and love characters like Joshua Deets, Newt Dobbs, Pea-Eye Parker, Lorena Wood, Clara Allen, and July Johnson. I likewise reviled scoundrels like Blue Duck and the Suggs Brothers. I was on the edge of my seat when the Hat Creek Outfit crossed rivers and weathered storms. I was right there with them.

I loved Gus the most. I loved that he was an East Tennessean living in Texas like me. I loved his humor and wit, and that he truly cared about the people he interacted with. Every line he utters in the novel is incredible. Gus McCrae is easily the best fictional character ever written, in my opinion.

I’m not going to spoil much, but I’ll say that at one point in the novel, the outlaw Blue Duck kidnaps a member of their party, and Gus goes after them on his own across the staked plains in the Texas Panhandle. Up to this point, I found myself wondering if he actually was the famous ranger he said he was. Or if it was all true, I thought, the days were long gone, as he’s just an eccentric old codger now who drinks whiskey and plays cards.

But as he sets off without a thought, he displays incredible bravery and adeptness in the face of danger and peril. Throughout the whole side journey where Gus chases Blue Duck, he is an all-star. A superhero. I cannot describe it any other way. It became my favorite section of a book ever.

So over the next few weeks, I devoured Lonesome Dove while driving, working, walking the dog, doing the dishes, and lying in bed. When I finally finished, I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to follow Gus and Call forever. Since then, I’ve read it two more times. Most recently with my book club (shoutout Bear Den Book Club and the #SummerofDove).

I moved back to Tennessee shortly after reading the novel to start a bookstore with my compadre and told anyone who’d listen to read Lonesome Dove. I bet Bear Den Books was probably one of the highest-grossing peddlers of the novel since its original release. I have no numbers to back that up.

McMurtry’s novel struck a chord with me and embedded itself in my soul. There’s a point where Gus loads up a wagon and packs his sign and everything else and pulls out on the little town of Lonesome Dove, where he’d lived for over ten years, and out into the unknown adventure before him.

It reminded me of stepping out and leaving Knoxville to move to Texas with a loaded down U-Haul. It made me think of my Grandad tearfully telling me he loved me and would miss me and hoped I’d find a good life in Texas. I did find a good life, and I did find adventure. I found my best friend and love of my life: My wife Morgan. I found many adventures and hard circumstances, but it all turned out okay.

The book reminded me too, of being by my Grandad’s side a few years later as he lay dying. It brought to mind my promising him I’d look after my grandmother after he was gone, and that I loved him and knew he lived a good life. I think I’ve held to that promise since and hope he knows that where he is now.

“It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living. I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” - Augustus McCrae

Those moments and so many more come to me when I read Lonesome Dove. There are themes of friendship, love, vice, danger, pride, heartbreak, and regret. There’s so much to this novel to unpack, it’s hard to fit it all in one blog. Never before has there been a book that makes me feel so many things apart from The Bible. So much has this one novel affected me.

When Morgan and I were thinking of what to name our son, I looked at the first edition copy of Lonesome Dove sitting on our shelf in the living room and said, “We talked about the name August at one point and liked it. What about we name him that and call him “Gus”?”

So Gus it was. And I hope my Gus is like the famous ranger from McMurtry’s book.

Minus the parts about visiting sporting women.

These days, my drive to work looks a little different. I’ve traded downtown Austin and the Hillcountry for Knoxville’s I-40 West and Cedar Bluff.

While I’m driving, I’ll listen to books and playlists I’ve made on Spotify. One such playlist is called “Gus and Call” and includes the theme from the Lonesome Dove miniseries from the 1980s. I hear that theme, and it makes me wistful and even a little sad. That song takes me places.

It makes me wish I could read Lonesome Dove again for the first time, not knowing what’s going to happen on the cattle drive north. To get to meet Deets and Call and Pea and Clara, and Newt for the first time again.

I remember my time with the fictional but oh-so-real feeling Gus McCrae and how he wanted to live “free on the earth.” He lived life big and was his own man, faults and all.

I think of my Grandad and how much I miss him and wish he’d have gotten to meet my son. Though I know he’s watching over him and I both.

It brings to mind my wife and all the things we’ve been through since we said “I do”. The good and the bad. The happy and desperately sad. It makes me thankful I met her when I did in Central Texas, and how I wouldn’t want to go through life with anyone else.

It makes me think of my little Gus and how he’s changed my life for the better. He’s given me the title I’ve always wanted: Dad. I ponder whether he will someday like Lonesome Dove as much as I do. I hope he does, but it’s okay if he doesn’t.

The song takes me careening years in the past and far into the future, just in its 5 minutes and 17 seconds of runtime, while driving to work. I hope they play that song at my funeral someday, hopefully many years from now. I hope they talk about Jesus 99% of the service, but for that 1% on me, I hope they say I lived “free on the earth”.

I want a motto carved into my headstone. A good motto. How about, Uva Uvam Vivendo Varia Fit?

People will walk by, and if they notice it at all, I hope they ask, “what’s that last part say?”

It says a little Latin.

Thanks for reading! Here’s my Lonesome Dove playlist for you to enjoy.

Subscribe now

I’d like to present you, dear reader, with a realistic everyday scenario.

You are driving on the interstate during your morning commute in the far right lane. You’re intently listening to yet another audiobook (today it’s Britney Spears’ heart wrenching memoir: The Woman In Me) and moving at a moderate, law-abiding speed within dashed white lines toward your office to begin the work day.

You’ve got approximately ninety-nine emails to answer and there’s a three hour meeting scheduled that should realistically only take thirty minutes, but right now, at this very moment, all you care about is how terrible Justin Timberlake was to your girl Britney. You are engrossed in the drama. You see the road and adjust to certain slow downs and pot holes, but you aren’t really operating the vehicle. You’re on autopilot. Where you really are is Hollywood circa 2002 with Miss Spears.

Suddenly, a white 2003 Chevy Impala with a missing chunk from its rear bumper, and a sticker on the back window that cleverly morphs the interlocking spheres of the Toyota logo into Yoda from Star Wars (why the Toyota logo on a Chevy?), careens over two lanes at breakneck speed and forces its way right in front of your stickerless and appropriate speed going vehicle (a 2022 Ford Maverick with appropriate Ford decals), causing you and everyone behind you to slam the brakes. The operator of this speeding death trap not only doesn’t wave at you for “letting them in” but flicks out a bright orange and glowing cigarette onto the freeway and erupts in a tiny volcano eruption of sparks and ash.

This action has ripped you from your pop singer world and thrust you right back into the dreary overcast commute.

What do you do now? You lay on the horn.

And you should! This reckless person nearly caused a pile up on a major US interstate at the height of an already tense morning commute. You have every right to honk at them. They cannot just do this and get away without a single admonishment. You must let them know what they’ve done – what annoyance they’ve caused you. Your child was nearly made an orphan because of this stunt! Imagine if your autopilot driver hadn’t locked his eyes on the road.

No this guy, you see it is a guy with a mullet, needs this honk. So you lay on the horn and let it ride. He is going to pay. Your displeasure blasts through the thick morning air.

In response to this long lay on the horn, the Yoda-Toyota-Impala slams on the brakes and throws his hands up in anger. He was not aware of you before, but he sure is now. You keep the horn screaming, and he taps the brakes again. You barely avoid taking another chunk out of his bumper.

Now you’re really mad and so is he.

You’re both exiting the interstate and are on the exit ramp which leads to the arteries of town dispersing every car on the road to their various 9 to 5’s. As you both roll down the hill on the long exit ramp, an opportunity to get in the right lane to pass him present itself. You take this opening. Like Jimmy Johnson on the last lap at Bristol, you hit the accelerator and zip right up next to the Impala and match his speed. The mullet man is glaring at you savagely. You match his facial intensity and then unleash the ultimate attack: You roll down the window, extend out your left arm, clench your fist, and then raise your middle finger straight up into the air. The bird has been flipped.

The man’s eyes open wide in astonishment. Now he lays on his horn and he raises his finger in response. But his retaliation is too late. You have sped by him and barely skirted through the yellow light at the intersection, tires screeching. He is stuck at the red light in defeat. You see the white, beat up Chevy in the rear view as you continue on to work. The mullet man is nearly pulling his hair out in a fit of rage bathed in the red glow of the light. Victory. That miscreant was irresponsible and you put him in his place with just one finger. Good on you, justice warrior.

After arriving at your place of business, you get coffee and discuss The Woman In Me with all your work bros at the water cooler (they’ve been reading too). As you head back to your desk, your supervisor intercepts you.

“The new president wants to see you.” he says nervously.

The new president? He wants to see you? You must finally be getting a promotion! That has to be it. Why else would he want to see you?

Your supervisor, soon to be your underling, walks you down the hall to the new president’s office. You hope he will be cool – you’ve never met or even seen him. Your heart beats heavy as you take every step. You’ve earned this promotion. Your work on the Johnson project was immaculate. It’s about time you started to ride to the top.

The future subordinate leads you to a door and knocks.

“Come in” says a gravelly smoker’s voice on its other side.

You tentatively step into the office and behold a man with a mullet sitting behind a desk adorned with multiple items of Star Wars memorabilia. Yoda front and center.

It is, of course, the Impala man.

And you are now fired.

Has this ever happened to you?

It’s an all too common occurrence, and it could have been avoided by simply not flipping this man, a frugal President in a beat up Impala, the bird.

I do not know why the middle finger is so offensive, but it is. Nothing makes one more angry than seeing that particular finger directed at your person, especially if it’s on the road.

A quick and studious Google search uncovered that the middle finger as an insult has been around since the ancient Greeks. So it is literally hardwired into our DNA to hate the gesture.

The middle finger can get many people into hot water to be sure! Road rage is a real thing. Some people will not just take the insult but will attempt to cause you bodily harm or even death after a middle finger is presented to them. I wish this were a joke, but it sadly isn’t. According to the NHTSA, road rage has been responsible for about 300 deaths since 2013. You, dear reader, could find yourself murdered over a finger.

Is it worth it? I think not.

If you read the title of this blog, you know where I’m going. I have come up with a perfectly acceptable and effective alternative to the middle finger: the thumbs down.

Yes, the thumbs down.

Where the phallic symbol of the middle finger expresses a rude desire to belittle and enrage the aggressive driver in question, the thumbs down expresses a rather simple but serious disappointment. The driver sees this and knows exactly what they’ve done and what they deserve. They should be flipped off for their vehicular transgressions and they know it. Yet you, the thumbs downer, in your parental and stoic benevolence, have chosen to spare them this humiliation.

You, noble thumbs downer, have decided to have mercy on them. They are not, however, simply free to go away unrecognized and undisciplined.

Nay. They receive a thumbs down.

They are hit with the weight of this gesture and the loving discipline it applies. Instantly the transgressor is transported to the time when their father and mother sat them down after getting caught downing a handle of Skoal Vodka in their high school parking lot before class and told them they weren’t angry with them, but disappointed. This hurt so much worse than stark, raving anger. The underage drinker knew they should have done better, but didn’t. They made a bad choice, but will do better next time. A valuable lesson was learned and voices did not have to be raised.

Back on the road, as you hold the thumbs down in the bad driver’s direction, a sadness fills their eyes and they mouth “I’m sorry” and shrug sheepishly and they adjust their speed and let you roll on toward your destination.

They will surely drive better now.

Since I’ve put the thumbs down into practice, I’ve felt far safer on the roads. It’s simple and effective, without putting your life or job at risk. My wife no longer has to beg me to “stop following that old lady and honking with your middle finger presented at her because she cut you off”. Now, I simply give the transgressing old lady a thumbs down and she sees her error and drives off in shame. Our transportation induced marital arguments have been cut by 50 percent. Now that’s progress.

I’m using it right now at all the infuriated people who are flipping me off and honking at me as I write this blog on my phone while stopped in the middle of the road. They yell and cuss at me as they pass, faces purple. However, as I hit them with the aforementioned gesture, I can see the color drain from their face and the rage leave their eyes as they slink away to ponder their life’s choices. I know they are grateful for this correction. It does, unfortunately, make the writing of this article longer with all the gestures I’m forced to make and then return to writing. It kind of turns into a never ending cycle.

Therefore, I think I should go ahead and land the plane. I shall end this blog with an invitation.

Dear reader, would you try this with me? Would you put away that dirty middle finger and exchange it for a thumbs down?

I think you’ll be glad you did.

I read over 60 books in 2024 and we’re down to the final batch!

It’s been fun revisiting every single title — let’s see what I closed the year out with.

East of Eden is one of my all time favorite books. Sam and I re-read this one as a palette cleanser for A Couple Guys Reading.

Steinbeck truly created a masterpiece in this epic story set in the Salinas Valley of California.

East of Eden follows Adam Trask as he leaves the east coast to settle down and create his own Eden in California with his mysterious wife Cathy.

His neighbors, the Hamiltons, live on poor land but what they lack in land they make up for in energy and love with their big family.

The highlight of this massive book for me is always Samuel Hamilton, the patriarch of the Hamilton clan and John Steinbeck’s grandfather. I relate to the way he’s always trying to dream something up. If he thinks of something, he just has to try it.

The interactions between Samuel and Lee, a Chinese American who longs to start a bookstore, are some of my favorite passages in any book.

Cathy Ames, however, might be one of the most vile literary villains ever. She goes toe to toe with Dolores Umbridge in terms of heartlessness and evil.

If you’ve never read the book Steinbeck always though of as his greatest, now its the time to pick it up. 10/10.

What’s the most you ever lost on a coin toss?

If a large man with a bowl cut who looks like Javier Bardem ever asks you this question, maybe run the other way.

Anton Chigurh is a special kind of psycho. And probably one of McCarthy’s best characters. Every scene he is in feels dangerous.

You really fear for the safety of protagonist Llewelyn Moss after he finds a briefcase full of money in the West Texas desert after a drug deal gone wrong, because Chighur will stop at nothing to find him.

No Country For Old Men was our third book read in the Bear Den Book Club and it was a pleasure to consume as always. Tension runs all the way through from the first scene to the last. McCarthy crafted maybe the best dialogue of his library in this one. 10/10.

For whatever reason, read a lot of maritime books in 2024. I wasn’t planning on it, it just happened.

I’m not complaining though! This true story from David Grann was an interesting one about a voyage met with disaster I’d never heard of before.

The Wager, set out on a secret mission in the 1740’s to capture and plunder the galleon of all Spanish galleons. However, when crossing the perilous storm surging Southern Ocean, disaster strikes.

If you love a good shipwreck story, this one’s for you. 6/10.

Last August, Morgan and I visited Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. It was eerie to stand in the fort with the old Southern city far behind across the water and think that this was where the bloodiest war in American history began.

The Demon of Unrest covers the events that led up to the first shots being fired by the rebellious Confederacy on Fort Sumter. A slow wick suddenly sped up towards destruction that had been burning for years.

I thought Larson did a good job here, there were just a lot of details that bogged me down and left me a little bored at times. It is a great and highly specific dive into such a pivotal moment in history though! 5/10.

I’ll never forget September 11th, 2001. That was the day that changed everything in this country — it was truly the end of one era and the beginning of another. War. Terror. Anguish. Even unity. We all felt all the feelings after those terrible attacks.

At the age of eleven, I could not believe what I was seeing when two hijacked planes rammed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City. Then another plane into the Pentagon, and one crash landing in Pennsylvania.

I’ve never been glued to news coverage like I was on that day. It was horrible and shocking — watching all those people die. The things I witnessed from afar but through a screen in my living room in Tennessee, a child should never see. It was real. We were under attack.

I’ll also never remember when I learned of the man and organization behind the attacks: Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. We’d all learn much more about them in the coming days, weeks and years.

Yet they had been scheming this day for ages.

The Looming Tower covers all the events and personalities that led to that awful event at the turn of the millennium. Lawrence Wight does an excellent job of pulling on every thread that led to 9/11. Seemingly inconsequential events in perceived backwater countries, formed a cascading landslide that plunged the world into war.

This look into Al-Qaeda and the FBI’s prior investigation of them and Bin laden is a must read to understand the road to that dark day and even takes us into the towers on that bright September morning. 8/10.

I was pretty unimpressed with the co-winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Trust is told in 4 parts starting with Bonds a novel about a financier and his wife. Everyone in New York is talking about this novel that’s apparently about a real financial magnate.

The three other parts of Trust follow the man and wife and their lives that were apparently the inspiration behind Bonds. Each section reveals new interpretations of the events of the life of the Bevel family and pulls fact from fiction.

I found the novel within a novel uninteresting as well as the “true” events that made up the work. Nothing really stuck with me and every revelation in each of the four changing narratives fell flat.

There were some bright spots here and there but I’d say this was one of my least favorite Pulitzer winners read.

This collection of memorabilia and history is a must have for Tennessee Football history nerds like me.

It’s filled to the brim with awesome pictures and anecdotes about the Big Orange and is a cherished addition to the UT shelf of my library. This came out in the early 2000’s, so it’s not the most recent, but it’s thorough up to that point.

Do we really want to read about Tennessee Football history from 2005-2020 anyways? Can we just pretend like those seasons didn’t happen? 10/10.

We’re back in the icy cold Southern Ocean! The story of Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica is truly incredible.

We chose this is our fourth book club book and I legitimately felt cold reading it the entire time.

Imagine you are in a ship sailing merrily along en route to the South Pole when all of a sudden one day, you are surrounded by pack ice that threatens to rip your ship, your home, apart.

Well that was the predicament of the crew of the Endurance in 1915. This non-fiction classic is an amazing story. The crew of the Endurance absolutely lived up to it’s name. Note: if you have husky dogs or really don’t like reading about dogs in peril, do not read this book. My dog Howie did not approve of the survival actions of Ernest Shackleton. 7/10.

We’re back with Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom!

Ten years after he ruined many lives (read Rabbbit Redux), Harry has fallen into money as he runs the show at his late father-in-law’s Toyota dealership. Though behind all the suburban success he knows he only has it because of his wife Janice.

He now has to worry about his son Nelson, though, as he brings some revelations home from college at Kent State.

Rabbit is probably at his most tame in the Pulitzer winning Rabbit Is Rich. That’s not saying all the much, however, as he still only thinks of himself.

Like the other Rabbit books, Rabbit Is Rich is masterfully written and gives you a real feel for the 1970’s. I just wish the main character was someone you could cheer for now and then. 5/10.

Gringos was Charles Portis’ last novel and reads as a meandering, laid back swing through the Yucatan Peninsula.

Jimmy Burns and the other American ex-pats living in Mexico are sometime archaeologists sometime grave robbers and mostly just get by.

I thought the last half of the book where Jimmy and his crew must confront a cult in the jungle was my favorite bit. All in all, Gringos wasn’t amazing but was solid. 6/10.

I usually find something to like about most Pulitzer Prize Winners for fiction. Even if the book doesn’t connect with me, there’s something I can pull from it. Sometime for me to chew on, to challenge me or enjoy.

This was not the case with the 2024 Pulitzer winner: Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips.

I truly do not know what possessed them to choose this slog of a story as the Pulitzer winner. It’s as if they didn’t read the book at all.

The story follows a mute woman and her daughter as they enter life in an insane asylum just after the civil war in West Virginia. Her husband volunteered to fight for the Union during the war and was never seen again. Another man violently took control of her and her daughter’s lives, leading to her silence and eventual placement at the hospital.

That might sound intriguing, but I promise you it’s not. Honestly this book isn’t too far off from “Book Tok” books. I’d venture to say many of those books are better.

It’s poorly written and meanders aimlessly, shifting points of view constantly in the middle of a chapter. It’s also non linear so the story often jarringly shifts to the past then shoots back up to the present. It failed in every respect for me.

There’s also a graphic scene of sexual assault that I felt was unnecessary. I understand the pain it caused the character, but it just came out of nowhere and the book doesn’t keep that dark tone throughout.

The characters and plot were half baked. The only reason I kept reading was the fact it won the Pulitzer. I’m sure this is the case for most who finish it.

I feel The prize should have gone to the fantastic North Woods by Daniel Mason. Do yourself a favor and read that one. Skip Night Watch. 1/10.

My grandfather always loved Charles Dickens. At Christmastime, he’d set up a little village of locations from Dickens’ novels. So the 19th century world created by the famous British author has always felt like home for me.

A Tale of Two Cities is a bit of a departure from many of Dickens’ books in that along with smoggy old London, we also get a great deal of plot occurring in Paris.

The book opens with the famous line “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” and never lets up until the shocking final scenes. Dickens takes us deep inside the frightening French Revolution from the eyes of a few well written characters.

I think it’s important we keep reading these English language classics. They are certainly exhilarating stories that are well worth our time. Side note: Morgan and I saw Charles Dickens’ writing desk on display at the New York Public Library. Neat! 7/10.

Masters of Atlantis is usually brought up by many comedians when they name the “funniest books ever”. So I was excited to nominate this book for the Bear Den Book Club. We chose it and all prepared to laugh.

I think the joke might be reading this book…it’s a strange one.

As I was reading this, I thought to myself, “Oh no. They’ll never vote for a book I nominate ever again.”

A hapless American named Lamar Jimmerson gets conned in World War I Europe and then forms a world spanning cult called the Gnomon Society.

What is the cult? What charms does Jimmerson have? You’ll just have to get in on the joke.

There were some very funny scenes I’ll admit. An interrogation by Texas congressmen of a ranking a cult member stands out as one particular highlight.

I think that Wes Anderson or The Cohen Brothers would work wonders with an adaptation of Masters of Atlantis. Their brand of humor is certainly in here and I think they would really pull it out. All in all, I actually did like the book, but many in the club did not. 5/10.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is an amazing book. From cover to cover, Ken Kesey has created a masterpiece.

The film adaptation starring Jack Nicholson is also incredible.

Set in an insane asylum you see the confident and brash McMurphy start to pull the patients of his ward out of their shells and give them some spark, much to the dismay of the malevolent smiling faced dictator Nurse Ratched.

I think the most brilliant part of how Kesey wrote this is that you see everything though the eyes and narration of the mute (or is he?) half-Indian Chief Bromden. I saw the movie first, so this choice really surprised me. I loved it. A fantastic book and must read. 9/10.

The 2000 Pulitzer winner is a series of short stories focusing mostly on the lives and stories of Indians living in America.

The first story, A Temporary Matter, is the best of the nine. It deals with a married couple who are living as strangers in their house in the year since a terrible tragedy. A four night power outage brings them together and forces them to cross the distance that has come between them.

I thought every story was very strong. 6/10.

I thought the Pulitzer winning tale of Wan Lung a poor farmer in China who marries a woman named O-Lan written by Pearl S. Buck in 1931 was beautifully done.

It reads like a story from the Old Testament of the Bible. Just the way it is written — it’s very matter of fact. It’s kind of hard to explain, but that was what struck me most about how Buck put this novel together.

You really pull for Wan Lung and O-Lan and want to see them succeed every time they are dealt with a trial. Wan Lung makes many decisions that annoyed me — he comes off as self serving and vain but he’s definitely no Harry Angstrom. 8/10.

One day a mysterious man in black arrives on the Starrett’s Wyoming farm asking for water. The family takes to him and hires him on as a worker. He labors hard and fits right in with the family, but others in the town do not like him or his presence — specifically a group of ranchers who want to take over the Starrett land. They find Shane a tough man to intimidate, however.

What follows is a classic, action packed Western seen through the eyes of young Bob, the Starrett boy who has taken to the enigmatic, but honorable Shane. You know me, I love a good western! 6/10.

The last book I read in 2024, right before the new year, was The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. Surprise surprise it was a Pulitzer winner! I really made a dent on my list in ‘24.

The Shipping News deal with an Upstate New York man named Quoyle, who loses his parents and wife in quick succession as well as his job and must find something to do and somewhere to go with his two young daughters.

One day his aunt appears and convinces him to go with her to their family’s ancestral land of Newfoundland, Canada. There he seems to get his life back, meshing with the small town, sea loving folk and making a name for himself writing the shipping news.

I liked the coastal, wintery vibes that Proulx crafted here, but certainly wasn’t blown away. I appreciated it though and found myself pulling for Quoyle to turn things around after all the tragedy that befalls him early in the book. 5/10.

So that was what I read in 2024! 63 books!

All in all it was a good year for reading.

Just like last year, here were what I thought were the ten best books I read this year:

1. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson

2. North Woods by Daniel Mason

3. One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey

4. East of Eden by John Steinbeck

5. The Godfather by Mario Puzo'

6. The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

7. All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

8. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

9. The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen

10. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

If you made it this far, thanks for going on this journey with me! Here’s to reading some good books in 2025.

Subscribe now

And we’re back!

I read 63 books in 2024. I will say it has been a lot easier to get through this list than it was last year. I’m not sure if I can ever do 100+ again. It might have been too much. Maybe there is a limit…

Anyways, here’s 15 more books that I read in 2024.

The Crossing is the second in Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy that was begun with the splendid All The Pretty Horses.

This tale doesn’t follow up on John Grady Cole but rather introduces a new troubled youth: Billy Parham.

In the late 1930’s, Billy finds a lone Mexican wolf in the New Mexico borderland he calls his home and ventures to take it back across the border to Mexico.

The Crossing is one of those books where you can feel the weariness of the journey. By the last page you feel like you have gone through every bit as much as Billy has. I cannot recommend The Crossing enough. 9/10.

James by Percival Everett was one of the literary darlings of 2024. I think it might even end up as a Pulitzer finalist. So when I was able to snag this one from the library, I jumped on it.

This is a re-telling of the events of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but told from the point of view of the escaped slave, Jim.

I really like the idea of hearing about the events of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective. We really don’t get into his head at all during the original classic. Jim is one of literature’s greatest heroes and it is about time we get the story from his point of view.

The first half of this book I really enjoyed, but the second half kind of lost me. I think it might be that I’m too used to Twain’s story, but Everett makes some story changes that kind of feel like he’s “jumping the shark”. Some revelations and story beats felt too contrived for me.

I know it's essentially a reimagining of the Huck Finn story, but by the end I decided that I was at a solid 5 for James. The idea is great and I enjoyed hearing from James (Jim), but the execution of the story was lacking for me. 5/10.

Angle of Repose is one of those classic novels that I'd had on my list for some time but could never get around to reading. I finally crossed it off my Pulitzer list in ‘24.

Lyman Ward is a retired professor of history who is confined to a wheelchair due to a debilitating bone disease. He’s estranged from his wife, and lives in semi-seclusion in his long-time family home of Grass Valley, California.

While he’s in his family’s home, he’s working on the autobiography of his grandmother, an artist from New York who left the “civilized” word behind when she married Lyman’s mine engineer grandfather, following him around as he goes from mine to mine.

There are time’s where Angle of Repose really shines and really drags. I think I come out of it not really loving any character at all. I like Wallace Stegner, but I don’t think Angle of Repose is my favorite work of his. 6/10.

This is another heralded book I was excited to read. I have heard James McBride is great — Deacon King King usually gets a lot of love. As I read The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, though, I had a hard time keeping interested.

I can’t really remember much from this one. I wasn’t bad and it wasn’t great. 5/10.

This masterpiece by Willa Cather transports you right into the sunbaked New Mexico desert hemmed in by scraggly mountains and deep arroyos.

In 1851, Father Jean Marie Latour travels to the sparse New Mexico desert to minister and spread the Gospel to the people who live in this place on the fringes of the continent.

This is as peaceful and picturesque a novel as you’ll ever find. Willa Cather is wonderful. 8/10.

I’ve been wanting to get into Hunter S. Thompson. He was quite the character. His brand of “gonzo journalism”, where he inserted himself into the reporting and stories he told, is always fun to read. He seemed to have no fear or shame.

I read his first notable work: Hell’s Angels. ‘Ole Hunter just befriended a bunch of scary, wild biker gang members in the 1960’s. This gave him unparalleled access to the notorious gang and how they operated.

It also put him in to some pretty insane situations. If you want to read Hunter S. Thompson, I think it’s best just to jump in and accept the bizarreness of it all.

That said, Hell’s Angels does get a little wearisome. 5/10.

The second book we read for the Bear Den Book Club was The Godfather. I have always loved the movie and consider it one of my favorites.

The rare perfect movie.

I’ll say the book is just as good as the classic Coppola film.

I knew the story of the Corleones and their New York crime organization (I mean ummm…. their totally legitimate olive oil business) well, so it was great to read the novel and get a deeper understanding of the characters and their inner thoughts. Fair warning, there are some scenes in the book that are pretty…..inappropriate. Particularly involving Sonny Corleone.

But that doesn’t take away from this powerhouse of a good time. The consensus was favorable across the board from the book club. We met at my house and had everyone bring an Italian dish.

We had all the food laid out on the table in my kitchen: gabagool, cannolis, pizza pie, mozzarella sticks, and even Totinos pizza rolls.

My friend Dennis arrived late with his homemade lasagna and tripped over the step leading into the kitchen (it is tricky) and fell face first onto the floor, the lasagna slinging violently away from his grasp.

We heard the commotion and ran to his aid, afraid he was now “sleeping with the fishes”. He was okay, just a cut on the leg, and miraculously the lasagna was unharmed.

The Totinos pizza rolls however were dispersed and smooshed around the entire kitchen from the force of his fall. They did not make it.

Still, this did not dampen our spirits or our enthusiasm for The Godfather. 8/10.

Rabbit Redux is an absolutely wild book.

Set in 1969, ten years after Rabbit, Run, you’d think Harry Angstrom would be a little more mature and less selfish being in his mid 30’s.

Nope. He is maybe at his worst in this book.

The book starts with his wife leaving him for another man and saddling him with his 12 year old son, Nelson. Then it seems he descends into a cascading rampage of bad and selfish decisions.

Rabbit Redux is my least favorite Rabbit book, but damnit if Updike doesn’t make you hang on his every word. He might be one of the greatest writers I’ve encountered. Even when you are absolutely appalled with what is going on.

I’ll also say this is the last book I’d ever let a kid read. 3/10.

Another selection from A Couple Guys Reading.

We’re really jumping into the world of Sarah J. Maas!

I thought the second Throne of Glass book (we skipped the prequel. Sue me.) was the best of the romantacy books we’ve read. Is it what I would normally go for? Nah.

Is it good for what it is? Sure! 6/10.

I love a good non-fiction book that will make me laugh as well as teach me something.

In the case of Unruly by David Mitchell, I was guffawing while I learned of the history of the English monarchy.

He made all the different houses and eras up to Queen Elizabeth I so accessible and enjoyable. If you’ve ever wanted to know more of the history of England, this is one you absolutely should check out. 8/10.

Thornton Wilder is probably more well known for his plays, but he did win the Pulitzer for fiction for The Bridge of San Luis Rey.

I checked this one out on my Pulitzer quest. I thought it was pretty middle of the road but not bad.

in 1714, an old rope bridge in Peru snaps, flinging all the people crossing in to their doom. A monk witnesses the whole ordeal and then endeavors to learn more about each of their lives and to prove that it was divinely decided that they should perish in this way. 5/10.

After reading the Godfather, I watched the classic film for the 420th time with my wife Morgan. She’d never seen it but I said “If you really want to understand me, you’ll watch this film.” So she did. She said she liked it!

Was she just being nice? Maybe. She liked The Sopranos better which I respect.

Anyways after all this I read the book about the making of the movie Leave The Gun, Take the Cannoli by Mark Seal.

I really immersed myself in The Godfather in 2024. I even went to New York!

This books is extremely interesting if you love the movie. It goes into great detail about all the struggles the went into the whole process. Coppola really had to go through Hell to bring us the greatest movie ever.

Great work Francis. 7/10.

This collection of short stories from Denis Johnson portrays down and out people living at the end of their rope — usually dealing with substance abuse and loneliness.

The most striking story was the first: Car Crash While Hitchhiking. The title describes it pretty well, but it is quite the ride. Denis Johnson really puts you in these people’s shoes. 7/10.

In August on ‘24, Morgan and I took a trip to New York City. In the weeks leading up I consumed this mammoth historical fiction novel by Edward Rutherfurd.

New York begins with a Dutch pioneer bringing his Native American daughter to New Amsterdam and then mostly follows his descendants living on the island of Manhattan all the way up until 2009.

It was quite interesting to follow the story of this family from the 1600’s onward and to see the change in the “Big Apple” along with them. It was fun for me to read about a lot of these places and then to experience them in person when we were in Manhattan.

There’s something cool about reading a novel and hearing about Trinity Church and then walking along it’s pews and in it’s graveyard a few days later. I love New York. I liked this book. 6/10.

I was discussing my time in Budapest with my pastor Shawn Slate at Redeemer Church in Knoxville one day when he told me about this wonderful little play — the main character hailed from Budapest.

Juliet is a solo 90 minute monologue by the title character as she pleads with God while in a labor camp in Romania with her seven children.

You can feel her pain and her sorrow as she longs to see her husband again and endures the horror of the camp. It is haunting and powerful.

The ending of this play will truly stick with you. 9/10.

So that’s 15 more! We’re at 45, folks! So close.

Swing back by for the last bunch of books. That’s right, I’m finishing this thing in my next entry.

Happy reading!

Subscribe now

In 2024, I read 63 books and I’m reviewing them all!

If you missed Part 1 you should check it out before. But you don’t have to…… Really you don’t. It won’t hurt my feelings that much.

Let’s see what else I read in ‘24!

2024 was the year I found out about Denis Johnson. I was reading up on some different blogs trying to find new authors I might have missed, when I came across an article discussing the late author and his library of novels.

The consensus was that Johnson never stuck to a certain genre but usually wrote about down and out broken people. I decided to give him a try because I love that stuff!

The first Johnson book I consumed was Nobody Move a short novel dealing with the lowlifes and criminals of Bakersfield, California. It was fine for a quick read, but I’d find much better Denis Johnson books soon. 5/10.

What happens when we leave a place we’ve inhabited for years or even a lifetime? What happens to the place? North Woods asks this question.

I loved this book.

I won’t give too many details because it’s best just jumping in, but essentially it starts with puritan settlers running away from their colony in the 1600s (?) and building a cabin. From there we follow the life of this cabin and the woods that surround it. From a British soldier turned Johnny Appleseed type in the revolutionary days, to a marauding catamount (cougar), to the present day, these woods have many stories to tell.

It definitely made me think about place and the memories places hold. It made me think of my own home which was built in 1950 (very young compared to North Woods’ cabin) Who lived here before? What were their lives like? Were they here for a lifetime? And what will it be like when I’m no longer inhabiting it?

It made me think of my grandparents now empty house. So many memories there. Someone will move into its wood paneled hallways and never know that’s where I learned to walk or that it’s where my grandfather died.

North Woods makes you consider the memories a place can hold. 8/10.

I was recently reading an article on the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012 and how one wasn’t awarded that year. The book that would or perhaps should have won in the opinion of many people was one of the finalists, Train Dreams a novella by Denis Johnson.

I decided to pick up this little book and see what it was all about.

I loved it. It might have been the best book I read in 2024.

This is the work that made me a fan of Denis Johnson, who passed away in 2017. Remember him from a few books ago?

“Train Dreams” follows the life of a railroad worker in Idaho named Grainier in the early 20th century. That’s all I’ll really say. The novella is 116 pages and to be honest I’m sad it didn’t win the Pulitzer. It’s as lovely a story as one of my favorite stories, Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea.

If you’re looking for a perfectly written novella, check out Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams. A masterpiece. 10/10.

I really did get into Denis Johnson in 2024. He was this year’s Wendell Berry (a reference you’ll get if you did your homework and read my ‘23 list.).

Tree of Smoke won Johnson the 2007 National Book Award for his sweeping depiction of the stress and danger of working in psychological operations during the War in Vietnam. You follow the protagonist Skip Sands as he attempts to decipher who to trust, and what he must do for his country.

There is so much going on in Tree of Smoke, you can have a hard time following the action. A lot of the time you’re left wondering what it’s all for — where is the novel heading? Maybe nowhere. Maybe that’s the point,

All of that is easily swept aside though for Johnson’s superb dialogue between characters. Every conversation is fantastic. 6/10.

I saw the cover and illustrations of this book and for some reason it reminded me of the ride It’s a Small World from Fantasyland in the Magic Kingdom of Walt Disney World.

I suppose it was the clocks on the cover — the beginning area as you wait to board the boats for Small World has a bunch of clocks happily swaying and ticking away on the wall.

This connection was enough for me to purchase The 13 Clocks and give it a read. It is a children’s fairy tale written by James Thurber, the famous writer and illustrator.

The 13 Clocks deal with an an evil duke who imagines he has killed time and who holds his beautiful niece hostage. Only a prince in disguise can save the day!

My favorite part is the mysterious Golux. What or who is the Golux? You’ll have to read The 13 Clocks! 7/10.

In 2024 I knew it was time for me to re-read one of my all-time favorite novels, Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses.

The tale of John Grady Cole, a sad young rancher living in West Texas, who’s grandfather has just died and who cannot rely on his absent parents, is in my opinion, McCarthy’s best work.

From the early action in Texas, to the crossing of the border into Mexico with his best friend Lacy Rawlins, this novel is sublime and nearly perfect.

If you’ve been nervous about trying to start a McCarthy book (they can be tough and grim), this would be a perfect one to start with. 10/10.

Sometimes I feel like I’m always in a hurry. Do you ever feel that way?

Do you ever feel like Bilbo Baggins when he says he “feel[s] thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”?

I certainly do at times — and I’m glad I was able to get into this book. It really did help me slow down and take in my life with God. There’s always a lot to get done, and all that doing can take you out of the things that really matter in life.

For me that’s my relationship with Christ.

If you feel like you need to just take a break and slow down, John Mark Comer’s The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry might be for you. It was good for me! 7/10.

I really wanted to watch Killers of The Flower Moon by my favorite director Martin Scorsese, but first I wanted to read the book.

I’m glad I did. David Grann never disappoints.

The story of what happened to the Osage tribe is appalling. The events that occurred in the early 20th century in Oklahoma that populate this work of non-fiction seem unbelievable. How could this all happen to these people?

I think this is a story that never got much attention in our modern times until this book and then movie came out. Grann is at his best here. 8/10.

The third and final book of the Silo trilogy, Dust concludes the story set up by Wool and continued and expounded upon in Shift.

I thought Howey landed the plane here and put together a very good sci fi trilogy. 7/10.

Ignacious J. Reilly is an idiot. He’s such an idiot. He’s a thirty something man-child who leeches off his mother in New Orleans and blames everybody for everything.

That’s what makes this Pulitzer Prize winning novel from John Kennedy Toole so funny. Toole’s life wasn’t so funny, however. He died tragically before this novel was ever published or celebrated.

I think A Confederacy of Dunces can be polarizing for many. I know lots of people find Ignacious unredeemable and annoying. I think this is true, but I fall on the side of people who enjoyed this little, crazy trip to the French Quarter.

All the wacky, expounding, and intertwining situations in Dunces actually reminds me of a long episode of my favorite comedy show, Arrested Development. I think Ignacious J. Reilly and his beleaguered mother would have fit in well with the dysfunctional Bluth family. 7/10.

The Hermit Kingdom of North Korea would be a brutally tough place to grow up and live your life in. Ruled by the unyielding iron grip of the communist party led by the “dear leader”, millions live in poverty and fear. The comical dictator cannot be questioned.

Adam Johnson’s 2013 Pulitzer Prize winner takes place almost exclusively in this brutal nation and follows an Orphan Master’s Son Pak Jun Do as he navigates staying alive in his home of North Korea. He must make countless sacrifices and overcome great struggles as he comes to care for one particular person.

Some parts of this novel seemed a little over the top, but I thought it was well written. It’s always interesting to get a peak behind the curtain of life for the average person in North Korea. Even if it’s fiction. 6/10.

After we reviewed Fourth Wing for A Couple Guys Reading, Sam and I decided to tackle a different romantacy series: Throne of Glass. We’d heard it was a little less……spicy.

We desperately needed a spice break after Violet and Xaden’s time at Basgiath.

I can tell you we liked Throne of Glass better than Fourth Wing! But to get all mine and Sam’s thoughts you’ll have to give our podcast a listen! A 3/10 is a big improvement for us in this particular genre of literature.

I really wanted to like The Overstory by Richard Powers. I know he lives near the Smokies over here in East Tennessee. I always love supporting local authors — especially Pulitzer winning ones!

But alas, I really didn’t connect with this tree-centric tale. I found it a bit preachy and melodramatic. I don’t disagree that we shouldn’t be cutting down all the trees and ruining the earth, but the way the plight of our planet was presented in Overstory just bored me more than anything.

There were so many different characters in this sprawling novel and none of them really connected with me. 4/10.

My friends and I started a book club in 2024! The Bear Den Book Club. I had the honor of my recommendation winning the vote that would be our first read: The Ox-Box Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

I read the novel pretty fast. It’s a slow burn of a Western that takes place over the course of one evening. Essentially, a small Nevada frontier town has to decide if they will take justice into their own hands after it appears there has been a murder.

We were all set to meet at my friend Clark’s house to discuss this book when, wouldn’t you know it, the Tennessee Volunteers baseball team made the College World Series Finals against Texas A&M.

So the first book club was spent sitting around a projector screen in Clark’s backyard as we cheered on the Tony Vitello and the Vols.

We did not discuss the book at all.

The Volunteers did sadly lose the game that night but we did end up winning the next two games to take home a national championship! Go Vols! 7/10.

Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom is a selfish prick who destroys the lives of everyone around him. He’s a 26 year old former basketball star who absolutely peaked in high school.

The novel begins with him abandoning his pregnant wife and two year old son. That’s Rabbit. Does he get better? Guess you’ll have to read Rabbit, Run.

You are, of course, not supposed to like Rabbit. And boy does John Updike do a good job of making him a likable (on the surface) but also very terrible guy. He only really cares for himself and his journey and doesn’t give a damn for anyone else really. Especially those closest to him.

This was my first Updike book and I have to say he’s a fantastic writer. He won two Pulitzers for later sequels in this series and I’ll cover those later.

For all the wild stuff in this first of the four Rabbit books, it had me wanting to turn the page and read more. 6/10.

Another 15 down!

We’re almost halfway. Tune back in for the next crop of books.

Subscribe now

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again…..

This past year I had a little less time to read books, but durnit if I still didn’t read a good amount. Over 60 books!

I knew that no longer running Bear Den Books would mean my number would drop a little lower this year, but I’m happy to report that I still love to read! The bookstore will always live on in the books Nick and I read and suggest — we even started a Bear Den Book Club.

It’s very exclusive but you can always ask to join. We can review your resume.

I also started a podcast with my buddy Sam reviewing romantasy books called A Couple Guys Reading. What did we read? Read on and you’ll find out!

Without further ado, lets see what I read in 2024.

We start with the Pulitzer Prize winning history book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin!

I’ve always admired our 16th President Abraham Lincoln, and reading this account of his time on office made me appreciate him even more. He was not afraid to assemble his cabinet with his political rivals because they were the right people for the job. He knew that the country (which had just been plunged into civil war following his election) would need strong leadership and a strong cabinet.

Doris Kearns Goodwin does a great job taking us through his Presidency and how he handled all the personalities he assembled while leading during the most tumultuous time in American history. A great non-fiction read for American history buffs! 7/10.

I mentioned earlier that I started a podcast with my friend Sam (who has a Substack much better than mine). The first book we read and reviewed on the ‘cast was the literary phenomenon of 2023, Fourth Wing.

Sam was in Bear Den Books one day when he asked about the book, which was so popular we couldn’t keep it stocked for even a day. He asked if I’d like to read it and review it on our very own podcast and I said “absolutely I would.”

On that day A Couple Guys Reading was born.

You should definitely listen to our podcast, but I must give you a tiny spoiler. In my opinion, the book was not good. But our reaction to it, I think, is worth a listen. Especially if you read Fourth Wing.

We welcome all views of the world of Navarre and if you loved it that’s great! For me though it was a 1/10.

I have a lot of friends who love the Apple Tv+ series Silo.

“It’s a dystopian future where humankind has to live in underground silos because the earth is pretty much uninhabitable” they say.

“Sign me right up I love all that stuff!” I say back.

But then I remember we don’t have Apple Tv+ and do we really want to sign up for another streaming service? No, not at this time.

Luckily for me though the show was based on a book series! So I picked up the confusingly titled Wool and loved it! It’s just what everyone says. Humankind has ruined the planet and must now live in underground silos overseen by a shadowy organization. I really enjoyed the premise and all the twists and turns Howey took us though in this one. 8/10.

Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell was the longest book I read this year. Mostly famous in the American lexicon for the 1939 movie, the book came first in 1936 and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

I have a goal to read every Pulitzer Prize winner (you’ll find I read a good number of them this year) so of course this would be on the list. I feel this movie and book is beloved for an older generation. My grandparents had a whole plate set from the movie in their house on full display.

First off, the book was well written and certainly sweeping and epic. However, I can certainly see the thread of the “Lost Cause” running through this novel. The idea that the Confederacy was a noble doomed cause. That all the white slave holding land owners were living in a more simple and more noble way of life. This “lost cause” was certainly prevalent in the time the novel was written.

Mitchell does, however, put extremely flawed characters at the center of this drama. Scarlett O’ Hara is very selfish and unlikeable and Rhett Butler is a scoundrel who never really makes you come over to the side of thinking he’s a good guy.

As a classic love story, I find that I just do not like either of the star crossed protagonists — they are not likable or good.

I think that might have been the author’s point. This was no perfect society but far from it. It was a society built on the backs of enslaved people. But the way she writes black characters is very jarring to read today. She treats them like young children. I’d venture to call it racist and misguided. That was also America in the 1930s.

The novel sweeps over many years starting before the Civil War going right through Reconstruction. It certainly is epic and worth a read, if for nothing else for the historical value. All in all, I gave it a 5/10.

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson was one of the finest novels I read in 2024. It reads as a letter from an ailing elderly minister to his young son, who he knows he will never know as an adult.

Set in Iowa in 1956, the reverend John Ames lays his whole life and the history of his family open for his son and also covers some important events occurring in his life as he writes the letter. The picture you can imagine of his grown son one day reading this letter and entering the head of his long deceased father is quite arresting. This is a Pulitzer winner you should absolutely read. 10/10.

I’ve heard great things about Peter Heller from many different people. The Dog Stars is his most popular novel but I thought I’d check out The Painter first.

I wanted to like it, but it just didn’t quite do it for me.

The protagonist, Jim Stegner, a super-ultra manly fly fisher and painter living a new life in Colorado deals with the demons of his past as he gets into trouble when he confronts a rancher mistreating his horse.

I think the most damning quality for a book for me is when I’m doing these reviews and remember the plot of the story. That was the case for The Painter. I can’t even really tell you what happened. I had to read a synopsis! 4/10.

Shift, the second of three Silo books, was my favorite of the three. It serves as a prequel to Wool and fleshes out the world built by Howey a great deal!

There were certain sections I didn’t quite care for, but the events leading up to and just after the world went to pot and drove humanity underground was fantastic. 9/10.

The Devil in the White City was one of my go-to history books for people visiting Bear Den Books, but I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t even read it. Well, that changed in 2024.

I am fascinated by the idea of the World’s Fair. Probably because Knoxville hosted one in 1982 and I wish I could’ve attended it (sadly I was eight years from being born). I love the spectacle of different countries and cultures all meshing together for a period of time and putting their best foot forward for the world to see. That’s why I love EPCOT at Walt Disney World so much. It’s like a permanent World’s Fair (with added Disney magic).

The 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago would have been a sight to see. They essentially constructed a whole gleaming temporary utopian city! As I was reading Larson’s book I had a hard time picturing it so I did some Googling. The White City was truly incredible, just look at some of the images available online. The organizers had an immense challenge bringing it to life — all of this is covered in The Devil in the White City.

In the midst of this wonderment there was also a prowling evil as you’ll find if you read the book. A sinister serial killer was running rampant in conjunction with the breathtaking fair. I highly recommend this one. Officially now. 7/10.

It took me forever to get through Crime and Punishment by the Russian master Fyodor Dostoyevski. I started reading it in September of ‘23 and didn’t get through the tale of murder and guilt until the end of March of ‘24. I just had so many other books I needed to get through, so I’d read five chapters and then wouldn’t pick it up for weeks. Such is the life of a bookish person.

I’m happy to report, though, that Dostoyevski lives up to the hype. You feel the guilt and anxiety of the destitute student Raskolnikov as he deals with the repercussions of a terrible crime while he navigates the seedy streets of 19th century St. Petersburg.

This might be a hard one to follow for some as it is translated from Russian and each character has multiple names. If you are okay with that, however, you are in for a treat. Dostoyevski is one of the greatest writers of all time. 8/10.

During the life of Bear Den Books, Shoe Dog by Phil Knight was always one of Nick’s favorite recommendations. He always said it “read like a novel.”

I just couldn’t find any interest in reading about the start of a shoe company. As we were closing the store, though, I decided to give Shoe Dog a shot.

I loved it. Nick was right.

Even if you don’t care about running. Even if you don’t care about shoes. Even if you don’t like NIKE, I promise you will love this autobiography.

Knight went on a true journey to start one of the world’s most recognizable companies and his story is incredible. Read it. Just Do It. 9/10.

My sister, Calie, read this book and recommended it to my wife Morgan.

“Fair warning, it’s really sad but very sweet” she told her.

So Morgan borrowed it and read it. One night I awoke at 1AM to Morgan weeping having just finished the story of Birdie, a baby and Harlow, a dog.

“It was so good and also so sad.” she said confirming what she’d heard as I lay half awake and confused. She expressed that I should read it as well. So I did.

I’m a dog guy. My Great Pyrenees, Howie, is my best pal. So naturally I found the story of a young couple struggling to have kids and then having one, only to then deal with the terminal illness of her dog Harlow, beautiful and poignantly sad but also hopeful and sweet. If you have dealt with the heartache of the loss of a pregnancy or the illness of a beloved pet, I think this book will resonate with you. 8/10.

If you know me you know I love my Western novels. Zane Grey was one of the most prolific western novelists of his time, and his most famous work is most certainly Riders of the Purple Sage.

Is this as good as a book like Lonesome Dove? No. But then no novel compares to Dove.

As it stands, this tale set in the red cliffs and purple sage of Utah is as classic as they come. 6/10.

The Netanyahus by Joshua Cohen was the surprise winner of the Pulitzer Prize back in 2022. It did not receive much fanfare, nor do I think it gets discussed much nowadays at all.

Set in upstate New York in 1959-60, I quite enjoyed the story of the Jewish Historian Ruben Blum who is tasked to lead a committee to review the potential hire of one Benzion Netanyahu, an Israeli scholar.

I found The Netanyahus to be really funny. Especially when the Israeli scholar shows up at Blum’s house with his family in tow. 7/10.

I’d always heard such good things about Rules of Civility. When I read it, however, it fell flat for me.

I just couldn’t get interested about the story of young Katey Kontent and Tinker Grey as they navigated life in depression era New York.

I really just found myself “getting through” this one. 3/10.

This Pulitzer Prize winning book reads like you’re in a dream. You never quite know what is real — and you never quite know what to think of what is going on.

This is not a bad thing as Beloved is a beautiful and unflinching novel.

The tale follows Sethe, an escaped slave who now lives in Ohio, but has never really escaped the tortures of her past — both distant and recent.

Her house is haunted by the ghost of her nameless deceased baby who’s tombstone only reads: Beloved.

So you start with a haunted house and things only unravel from there. This is one of those books that makes you feel something. Even if you don’t really know what that “something” is.

Morrison’s command of the English language is in full display here. Her Pulitzer Prize was fully deserved. 7/10.

So those were the first 15 books I read in 2024! You didn’t think I’d list all 64 did you?

That’s not how I roll.

Tune in next time to see what the next 15 were.

Happy New Year and happy reading!

Subscribe now

We’re continuing my Tennessee Football nerd series! I know you’re excited.

Last week, we covered Tennessee’s most recent football national championship — today we’ll be covering it’s first. 1938.

This may be news to you, but I wasn’t around for this one. No personal anecdotes sorry. In fact, my grandparents were exactly two years old in ‘38! I know a lot of fans today are bored when this age of football gets brought up.

“It’s so long ago! It doesn’t matter!” they say.

Well to that I say that someday in the future, people will look back on our present time and say the same thing. The further into the future we get, the less most people care about the history that got them to where they are.

I bet if the people of the 2100’s look back at the way we live in this time, they will find us lacking.

“You had to TEXT people?! We blink our thoughts to each other now. I wouldn’t have made it in the 2020’s. So primitive!” future person says.

Back on track, Tex. The 1938 Vols.

Now, there can be debates on who won the college football national championship in any given year until exactly 1998 with the birth of the BCS.

Before then, the champion was voted by different polls. Sometimes the votes for champion were unanimous. Like in 1951 when everybody agreed that Tennessee was the undisputed national champion.

1938 was not one of those years.

TCU was also undefeated that year led by Heisman quarterback Davey O’Brien. The AP poll crowned them the champions, while six other polls crowned Robert Neyland’s Vols the top team in the land.

If this had been the BCS years, the Horned Frogs and Vols would’ve duked it out for the crown. Instead though, TCU played Carnegie Tech (who?) in the Sugar Bowl and Tennessee played Oklahoma (I’ve heard of them) in the Orange Bowl.

Every school officially claims titles like this though and so do I. If you have a problem with it, take it up with the folks governing crowning champions all the way up to the late 90’s.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the 1938 schedule shall we?

What stands out here is that the Vols gave up 16 points all year! That’s pretty impressive. The very next year though, Neyland would outdo himself.

The 1939 Vols went unscored upon the entire season.

That might give you an idea of why Tennessee now plays in “Neyland Stadium” (preserved by Pilot).

The usual suspects are on this list. Back in these days Sewanee was in the SEC and while they had a great team in the late 1800s and early 1900s, they had become Vanderbilt before Vanderbilt was Vanderbilt by the time the late 30’s rolled around.

I hope that makes sense to you like it does to me.

The Vols only regular season road game outside was to Birmingham to take on Frank Thomas and the Alabama Crimson Tide where Tennessee handed the Tide it’s only loss of the season.

I mean just looking down this schedule, all you see is domination.

Looking at the roster, it’s easy to see why.

This Vols team was loaded.

George “Bad News” Cafego, Bob Suffridge, and Bowden Wyatt (a future Vols head coach) were all voted All -Americans this season. But the roster also had future AA’s Abe Shires, Ed Molinski and Bob Foxx.

“Bad News” emerged as the clear star of the team. He truly was bad news for opposing teams, rushing all over them as the starting tailback. Which pretty much meant he did everything that a quarterback, fullback, and running back do nowadays. He even punted! Cafego would end up a finalist for the Heisman and rightfully so.

It’s hard do adequately describe how good a coach Robert Neyland was. He was truly dominant and on the cutting edge of the sport. His players fought hard for him and truly gave their all. He wasn’t easy to play for, but he cared for his boys and built them up for success.

I asked an old player of his who played on the 1951 team how it was playing for the general. He laughed and said:

“Let’s put it this way. If Neyland came walking in here right now I’d be a little nervous!” and he motioned straightening up and adjusting his tie.

The ‘38 team will live forever in the annals of history as one of the finest college football teams ever.

We might play the game a little differently nowadays, but what that team accomplished, nobody can ever take away.

I was recently sitting in Neyland Stadium just looking around at the massive cathedral of sport. Neyland himself designed a great number of the additions that added to the stadium (then only known as Shields-Watkins Field) both during his lifetime and after his death in 1962.

There were great teams before 1938 and many more after, but that squad was certainly a cornerstone of the foundation that makes Tennessee Football one of the premier blue blood programs of the sport.

It’s certainly a huge reason why there are so many rabid reds like me who know the General’s Maxims by heart and recite them before arriving at campus 8 hours before kickoff against even a small time team like Kent State.

Go Vols. Feels like ‘38!

Subscribe now

Well, folks, it’s August. You know what that means? The Tennessee Volunteers are playing football this month! There are four weeks until Josh Heupel’s Vols kick off the season against UT Chattanooga in Neyland Stadium on August 31st.

You can look at this in one of two ways:

-Yes it’s only four weeks!

Or.

-This will be the longest four weeks of my life.

I usually choose the latter. So, if you’re like me, you need some content besides practice reports saying Nico looks like a Heisman candidate and crossing your fingers for a limited number of injuries.

I’m here to help! Over the next four weeks, I’ll be looking back on some particularly memorable seasons for the Big Orange. We’re starting this series off a bang! Everyone’s favorite season: 1998.

Yes, I’m picking the greatest Tennessee football season ever. These days just saying the number 98 will elicit emotional responses from the Tennessee faithful. Every key player on the team is a living legend in Knoxville. Al Wilson, Tee Martin, Travis “Cheese” Henry, and Peerless Price are just a few of the names from that team that come to mind.

That’s what happens when you win a national championship. You gain sports immortality.

It’s feelin’ like 98 (literally), so let’s take a look at the 1998 Tennessee Volunteers Football season from game to game.

Our journey begins in Upstate New York.

It’s funny to think on looking back, but the ‘98 Vols had much lower expectations than they had the year before. Heisman runner up Peyton Manning had just graduated as well as other stars like Leonard Little and Marcus Nash. Coach Phillip Fulmer’s squad was still a preseason top 10 team (#9), but the number one school to start the year was Ohio State.

Here’s something crazy to consider if you’ve been a Vol fan for the past twenty years: Being ranked number 9 was a big disappointment and potentially showed it would be a rebuilding year.

Hard cut to the Butch Jones years when the UT athletic department made a commemorative DVD for beating South Carolina.

There were some definite stars, though, that got a lot of national love to starts the season like running back Jamal Lewis and linebacker Al Wilson. Stepping up at quarterback for the ‘98 campaign would be Mobile, Alabama native Tee Martin and the first game was on the road against a tough Syracuse squad. Syracuse had a number of future NFL players such as Donovan McNabb and Keith Bullock.

In fact, the 98 season almost got off to a loss. The Vols were down 33-31 late in the fourth when Tee Martin threw an incomplete pass to Cedric Wilson. Luckily, The Orangeman defender was called for pass interference and the drive continued.

In the end, it would be senior kicker Jeff Hall kicking a game winning field goal that was actually pretty close to missing!

Where was I? At a watch party at the house of my Dad’s co-worker. They had a pool with a slide, so for most of the game I, a boy of eight, was of course taking advantage of this. My Dad came running out at one point and yelled “Taylor get in here! We’re driving for the win!” I slid down crashing into the pool and ran inside sopping wet.

I jumped around the room still dripping water as the kick went through the uprights.

1-0.

Florida was our daddy in the 90’s. Our 1995, 96, and 97 teams led by Peyton Manning were all good enough to be national champions, but their title hopes would be dashed in September every year by Steve Spurrier and the hated Gators.

The last time Tennessee had vanquished Florida was in 1992 in an epic monsoon. So the stakes were high when the Vols and Gators squared off in Neyland Stadium in 1998.

My dad was there, but I was watching with my mom in our living room and had gotten special permission to stay up late. We all could feel it in the air — it would be a special night.

So we watched.

Most of the game was a defensive struggle and went into overtime. The first ever in Neyland Stadium. Tennessee had the ball first and settled for a field goal which the reliable Jeff Hall banged home.

Then Florida took the ball. I couldn’t breathe. I was on my knees pleading for us to stop them. Mom couldn’t watch. It all came down to this.

The Vol defense held the Gators after some scary throws to the endzone, and kicker Collins Cooper came out to attempt to tie the game. He lined up and kicked the ball….

It sailed wide left.

Vol Network announcer John Ward announced to Vol Nation all over the world:

“NO SIR-RE! NO SIR-RE”

The stands emptied and people came streaking onto Shields-Watkins field in utter joy. My mom was swinging me around the room with reckless abandon. I couldn’t believe it. The goal posts were quickly taken down by the mob and deposited in the Tennessee River. I’ll never forget seeing the aerial view of Neyland lit up at night with just a mob of people on the field. We wouldn’t witness a scene like that again until 2022.

It finally happened. We beat Florida. It was a night we never would forget. This squad started to feel like a true team of destiny.

2-0.

Next was a bit of a break when Houston came to town.

There’s nothing much to report from this game except that it was the first game I attended this season!

There’s nothing better than being a kid and taking in the pageantry of Tennessee football in Neyland Stadium. I was on my feet all game from when the Pride of The Southland Marching Band opened the T, to when we had to go meet my grandparents in the UC parking garage because we were up big in the fourth quarter and Grandad wanted to beat traffic.

We still got stuck in traffic.

3-0.

Next up was the team we’d beaten for the SEC Championship in ‘97: The Auburn Tigers.

This was a tough game full of defensive touchdowns and even had a gutsy goal line stand from the orange swarm.

While we earned a hard fought victory, we did lose arguably our most talented offensive player, running back Jamal Lewis, to a torn ACL.

I was happy for the win sitting in my aunt and uncle’s living room in Nashville, but sad that Lewis was hurt. He was my favorite player on the team. I’d watched in person the year before when he ran all over the Ole Miss defense as a freshman.

So we were still undefeated but the loss of Lewis loomed large over the rest of the season. Who would step up at running back?

4-0.

The answer at running back would be the Travises.

Travis Henry and Travis Stephens to be exact. Not forgetting of course senior fullback Shawn Bryson who would end up as an NFL running back.

So it turns out we were fine at the position. In fact, every running back on the squad would play in the NFL.

Game five was a nice road win over the undefeated Georgia Bulldogs. They had a ton of hype for this game, finally showing some spunk after being a middle of the road SEC team for the decade. Everyone kept hearing all week about how quarterback Quincy Carter and cornerback Champ Bailey were going to put Vols down.

Tee Martin and Al Wilson had other plans.

The Vols soundly shut the door on the Bulldogs 22-3 for a nice road win. I know he lost a few to Mark Richt later in his career, but it just felt like Phillip Fulmer owned Georgia.

5-0.

Growing up, I didn’t see the University of Alabama as much of a threat to Tennessee.

In fact, as of 1998, I couldn’t even remember a game we had lost to them. This of course, would change in later years.

In 1998, at least for the fans, this was just another game the Volunteers should handle easily. Though, it was a rivalry game and Bama had been pretty spicy the past couple of years, the Vol took care of business quite comfortably.

The highlight of the game was a kickoff return for a touchdown by receiver Peerless Price. Announcer John Ward called the play perfectly and sounded a bit disappointed when he saw the flag. However, when the ref announced it was on Alabama, he of course lost his mind.

My aunt’s family are all Bama fans from Birmingham, so every year they’d all come stay at my grandparents house for the game. There would be a lot of crimson and orange around the house — but more orange of course. We’d all be cordial and pleasant and have a great split-team tailgate in the UC parking garage. They gave me a good view of Tide fans that wouldn’t really be blemished until 2009 when I had to walk past a row of jeering Bama frat bros after Terrence Cody blocked Daniel Lincoln’s potential game winning kick.

They’d get revenge on us in about ten years, but in 1998 on the Third Saturday in October, the Vols were….

6-0.

This will always be the “Tee Martin Game” and for good reason. Martin set an NCAA record for most consecutive completions in a game going 23 for 23. His final stat lone was an impressive 23/24 for 315 yards and 4 touchdowns.

My grandparents were at the game, but I watched it at home on Jefferson Pilot Sports with the volume turned down and the Vol Network turned up. It was standard practice across the state to eschew the TV commentators (in this case it was JP Sports announcer Bob Kesling) for John Ward and Bill Anderson. They were just too good.

At one point, Martin threw ANOTHER completion for ANOTHER touchdown and Ward did a robot voice “COMPLETE. FOR. A. TOUCHDOWN.” Amazing stuff.

I miss John Ward every day.

Rest in peace, king.

7-0

Hey, I was at this one! Dad really held back on bringing me to games this year. Homecoming against UAB, Dad? Seriously?

It’s fine I’ve gotten over it.

There’s nothing much to report about this easy non-conference bout except we won and I was there!

After this week, the Vols would finally reach #1 in the rankings.

We wouldn’t give that spot up.

8-0.

This was the big one.

Arkansas was the game that I feel sealed the 98’ Vols as a team of destiny. Every championship team needs some fluky stuff to happen to win it all.

We saw that this year with the baseball team. The Burke checked swing, the Ensley miracle slide. You can be a dominant team for sure…..but you need some weird things to happen to win a championship.

On November 14th 1998, #1 Tennessee needed a miracle.

It felt like all was lost.

Down 22-24 with 1:55 left on the clock, Tee Martin threw an incomplete pass intended for Peerless Price to turn the ball back over to the Razorbacks.

Arkansas took over on downs and all they had to do was run the clock out and Tennessee’s dream season would come to an end. The Hogs had no intention of passing — they were going to shove it down our throats.

But they didn’t count on defensive tackle Billy Ratliff.

On 2nd and 12 Ratliff manhandled All-American lineman Brandon Burlsworth and pushed him into Arkansas quarterback Clint Stoerner, stepping on his foot. Stoerner stumbled back and neatly laid the ball on the ground to try and stop his fall.

Ratliff was all over it.

He pounced on the ball. It was a miracle.

What did we do after that? We gave the ball to Travis Henry four straight times and he just absolutely abused the Razorback defense finally soaring into the endzone to a deafening Neyland roar with little time left on the clock. He would not be denied.

I was watching at my grandparents house. When we scored the last touchdown I bolted out the door and went sprinting down the street screaming. Normally the Fox Den neighbors would’ve called the HOA to complain, but not this night.

This night we’d all witnessed a miracle.

9-0.

This one gets two videos.

The last game I personally attended this season was Kentucky.

I got to see the Vols take it to the Wildcats yet again and extend our dominance over them.

Future #1 NFL draft pick Tim Couch could work any magic to pull off a massive upset.

Not much to say here except the Vols won big!

10-0.

Poor Vanderbilt.

This was a road game but it didn’t look like it.

Vandy’s stadium was absolutely decked out in orange for the last regular season game and the Vol faithful weren’t disappointed.

It was one big beatdown of a party. It was so fun to watch.

Our baseball fans did the same thing this year when we turned Dudley Field orange in a series win on the road.

Nashville is Big Orange Country.

11-0.

For the second year in a row, the Volunteers were SEC Champions!

Standing in the way was a tough Mississippi State squad. We actually found ourselves down for a bit, but then surged ahead to win by ten.

I watched this game in my basement on a little tiny tv with my football teammate and friend, Zack Allen. He’d later go on to play for UT!

I would go on to not do that!

After the game, we watched the world premier of a new cartoon show on Nickelodeon: Spongebob Squarepants. Historic.

What was more historic? The Vols would be playing for the first BCS National Championship! That same day, Kansas State and UCLA (the number 2 and 3 teams) both lost opening the door for Florida State from the ACC.

The showdown was set.

12-0.

This was it.

After all these years, it was time to play for a championship. Tennessee vs. Florida State. The Fiesta Bowl in Tempe, Arizona.

All week we kept hearing about FSU wide receiver Peter Warrick and how amazing he was. That might be true, but you need a solid quarterback to get the ball to your star, and The Seminole quarterback, Chris Weinke, was hurt. So was his back up. So the task fell to Marcus Outzen (RIP) who did not play well. Which is understandable considering the defense he faced.

While the Seminoles kept it a pretty tight game, Tennessee always kept them at arms length. Legendary plays abounded. Particularly a pick six from Dwayne Goodrich and a 70+ yard touchdown bomb from Martin to Price.

My mom got to go to this game along with most of my family. My dad, however, couldn’t go because of work (boo!) and stayed back with me and my sister. Meanwhile, my mom was living her best life taking in a national championship in the desert.

My dad, my uncle, my sister and I all watched with great intensity in our living room and listened to John Ward make the final call of his career.

Finally the seconds ticked off and we heard Ward exclaim:

“THE NATIONAL CHAMPION IS CLAD IN BIG ORANGE!”

We did it. The Vols won it all. Fireworks went off outside. Went off all over town. Knoxville was a smoldering party for days and weeks.

I mean we still live in this moment.

It meant a lot to the state, the university and the city of Knoxville. It meant a lot to Volunteers scattered all over the world. 1998 was a year we will never forget am I’m hopeful I’ll get to see us hit those heights again.

Who knows? Maybe we will someday be saying “Feels like ‘24”?

Back on January 4th, 1999 however, all we could think at that moment was….

13-0.

Subscribe now

I wake up most mornings just before my 5:30 AM alarm. Sometimes it’s two minutes, sometimes it’s five. In these moments before the harsh electronic screeching commences from my alarm clock perched on a shelf in my bathroom, I debate with myself about whether I’m going to get up and start my day, or sleep in for another hour. Many mornings I decide the extra sleep is worth it, but on days that I actually get out of bed and get moving, I’m always glad I did.

That extra hour doesn’t ever seem to do much for me anyways.

On these early mornings, I’ll stumble out of bed and stop the alarm before it wakes up Morgan and put in my contacts. Then I walk over to the bed and convince my 87 pound Great Pyrenees dog, Howie, to get up with me. I’m not doing early mornings alone — if I’m going to get up early he should too!

Yes, Howie sleeps in the bed with us. When we rescued him as a pup during the COVID-19 pandemic, we said he wouldn’t be allowed. This was a strict rule that we were absolutely sticking to.

That lasted about five days.

So there Howie is in our bed, stretched all the way across the expanse of our mattress next to Morgan looking like a sleeping Victorian child. I shake him awake.

“Buddy, it’s time to get up.”

He opens one disapproving eye, and does a dramatic roll and doubles down his coziness burrowing further into the covers while closing his eyes as tightly as possible to prove to me he’s asleep.

After exactly six minutes of pestering him, Howie finally rolls out of bed and does a big, long stretch (downward dog for all you yogies out there) and shakes off his lingering sleep.

“Well come on then let’s get going,” he seems to say as he sleepwalks to our front door. I put his leash on and then we step out into the world.

At 5:45 in the morning, the sun is just hinting it’s thin reddish rise on the eastern horizon. So it’s pretty much night outside, but we don’t mind. We will gladly take the darkness over the 90 degree heat and humidity awaiting us with the sun. We have a few dedicated routes we like to take and this morning it’s a simple stroll around the block.

Howie is sniffing every conceivable plant and smell while adding his own and I’m usually listening to an audio book. Today it is Unruly by David Mitchell, a delightful history of the English monarchy. There’s nothing like learning about the Battle of Hastings while your polar bear of a dog drops a massive deuce on your neighbor’s front lawn (don’t worry, I pick it up. Also don’t worry, I don’t pick it up with my bare hands).

After about 20 to 30 minutes of strolling, we arrive back home.

We re-enter my house where Howie waits patiently for me to take off his leash. Then he then leads me back into our bedroom where he greets a still half asleep Morgan. Usually a lick on the face.

She needs this routine to happen. I’m convinced if Howie doesn’t greet my wife in her groggy confusion at 6 in the morning, her day won’t quite be right. She agrees.

From there, it’s coffee and breakfast and on to the library! Howie and I both love our library. We lobbied hard for one when we bought this house. Being a former bookstore owner I own a LOT of books. So naturally, I must have them all take up an entire wall. Morgan, Howie and I all love this room.

Across from this wall of literacy in the corner is a comfy reading chair that our neighbors Theo and Nancy gave us. It’s from IKEA so you KNOW it’s nice. It pays to have great neighbors. I sit down in the chair while Howie jaunts over and leaps into the day bed that occupies the other corner of the room. He does a few turns and the plops down letting out a big contented sigh. I put on some music, usually classical because it’s calming, and take out my notebook.

We call this boys morning.

Boys morning usually goes like this. I read my Bible and write in my journal spending time with the Lord, and then read whatever physical book I’m currently on. Today it was a number of Psalms and then Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli by Mark Seal, a book about the making of The Godfather.

These two absolutely go hand in hand I know.

This is my favorite time of the day. Time seems to stop as I immerse myself in the peace of the morning. Reading, writing, and praying. If I oversleep and miss this time, I’m a little off. If Tennessee has lost a sports game the previous day I am also a little off — but it’s July currently so we don’t have to worry about that quite yet.

As I read and Howie naps, the sun starts to slowly overtake the room streaking in through the windows. Once, it’s completely bright I know it’s time to get moving. Howie though, usually stays exactly where he his.

“Have a good day, Dad!” is what I imagine him saying even though he looks as though he’s in the midst of a thousand year sleep.

I leave the sleeping beauty in the library to reunite with the one in my bedroom. There, I kiss Morgan goodbye and hop in my truck to head to work.

That’s boys morning!

But today, dear reader, was different.

I’ve finally decided to add a new item to Boys Morning: writing.

It’s been a while since I’ve written something for Winging It, but I’m back baby! I feel like it’s time. I know you’ve all been clamoring for more from me and I’m here to deliver. I’ve got an awesome new job for an awesome company and I finally feel like I know what I’m doing there (I think). So for me, that means I can use some of my precious brain energy to write a bit!

Whenever you read something in this blog (if you read it at all) just know that I’m writing at my desk in my library early in the morning and Howie is curled up across from me snoring away. We will let you in on boys morning.

Subscribe now

I’m an unreasonably passionate supporter of Tennessee Volunteer football.

But that fandom had to start somewhere, right?

My dad has long been a huge UT fan. When I was born, he hung a painting in my nursery of a baby in nothing but a diaper wearing a Tennessee helmet holding a football next to a Smokey dog. He took me to games as a small child and explained to me at the age of three that being an Alabama or Florida fan was morally wrong and reprehensible. So, I’d say Dad definitely had a part to play.

I was raised to be a Tennessee Volunteer fan.

Yet I became something more. I became the kind of fan that gets chills when I hear calls from the late, great Vol Network announcer John Ward. I’m the kind of fan who will listen to the Pride of the Southland Pregame routine on my morning walk if I’m feeling kind of blue and need a pick me up. I’m the kind of fan who can tell you exactly where I was when we lost to LSU in 2011 because we had 13 men on the field and how I handled that loss (not well). I can even tell you where all the incoming recruits are from and how they project in coach Josh Heupel’s offense.

I’m invested.

But when did it start? I think I know.

The day I became a superfan was March 5th, 1997.

That spring, we had a class project at Farragut Primary School titled, Will Peyton Go Pro? We built a big chart out of cardboard and construction paper, each of us drawing Manning as a New York Jet (the NFL team with the first pick) or a Vol and casting a ballot.

Would he go pro, or would be stay at Tennessee for one more year? Everyone in my state was extremely invested in his decision.

Manning, of course, was our star quarterback and had been since his taking over the job during his freshman year in 1994. He’d given us so many great moments already and seemed to genuinely love Tennessee, but many thought being the first pick in the upcoming NFL Draft was too good to turn down.

I was one such pundit. I voted pro. My friend Matt chastised me saying I was being a “negavol”.

“I’m just being a realist.” I explained. I did not know at the moment how many times that exact exchange with that exact friend would take place in the coming years.

On the day of his decision, March 5th, my teacher rolled out the class tv and switched on the local news. Math would have to wait.

Peyton took the podium to a round of applause. Behind him was an orange flag emblazoned with VOLS placed underneath our mascot and hero, Davy Crockett. Manning looked confident. He looked as if he’d made up his mind. You could hear coughs in the audience of media members as they settled in and the clicks of countless cameras. Manning faced the room and put his notes down. The room fell quiet.

This is what he said:

The assembled media erupted in cheers. It was like we’d just scored a game winning touchdown. Almost everyone at the press conference gave him a standing ovation.

My class erupted as well. We were just a bunch of six-year-olds running around and screaming “Peyton’s staying! He’s staying!” Crayons and erasers flying all over the classroom, my teacher, Mrs. Zain tried to corral us in vain.

"I TOLD YOU!” Matt yelled at me pointing his finger.

“I’m so glad I was wrong!” I bellowed back while precariously dancing on top of my desk. “I don’t like the Jets, anyway!” I had no idea who the Jets were.

That one speech from Peyton Manning lit a fire in me. He could have left. He could have wished us all well and went and gotten his millions in the NFL. He’d maybe come back from time to time to games in Neyland Stadium and wave at the crowd to a nice applause.

But he chose to stay in Knoxville. Wearing that orange jersey and trotting out onto Shields-Watkins Field at the University of Tennessee to play for my state and hometown meant something to him.

He became our guy. If you meet a person named Peyton from Tennessee, chances are he or she was born anywhere from 1994 to 1997. Manning is revered here in a way he never would have been if he hadn’t stayed. Let’s put it this way, if he all of a sudden ran for mayor, he’d win 200 percent of the vote no matter his party. I even invited him to my wedding many years later. He sent back a polite “Can’t make it” and signed it. Do I cherish that particular RSVP?

It might be framed.

His endorsement of my home and the University of Tennessee that day reached all the way to my core. I knew then, I’d never cheer for any other team. Hell, I could never in good conscience graduate from any other university! The color crimson was abhorrent to me. It was big orange for life, baby!

A few months later, I purchased the yearly magazine that gives all the info on the upcoming football campaign, Football Time in Tennessee, and absolutely poured over every detail. I went into the ‘97 season fully loaded on information about our Vols.

Watching the second game of the year against UCLA with my family at home probably went something like this:

I said, “We’re looking good this year! It was tough to lose Huntsville, Alabama native Joey Kent to graduation, but I’m certain we can replace his production at receiver with Marcus Nash (Tulsa, OK) and Peerless Price (Dayton, OH). Coach Fulmer just needs to let Peyton do his thing and we’re good.”

My Dad slowly turned to me. “Do you………care about this?”

I looked right into his eyes, “If we don’t beat Florida this year, I won’t eat for three days.”

It was then we became friends.

So that brings me to the present day. I’m a grown man, tearing up watching a video of 20 something Peyton Manning announce he’s staying in school. Here it is if you’d like to watch it. Maybe you’ll catch the big orange bug too.

There’s been a lot of joy and heartbreak in regard to Vol football since 1997. I can remember almost every play and team since then. My research skills have improved too. Now I can tell you about teams from long before my birth. The 1939 Neyland led team was an unstoppable force and one of the greatest sports teams ever! I can’t help it. I’m a nut. I can still be a “negavol” from time to time, and Matt continues to call me out on it.

I’d love to tell you about it all in these Vol Diaries.

Subscribe now

Share

On Sunday, January 14th, 2024 at 5:30 PM I found myself sitting in my truck in the Target parking lot in North Knoxville along with at least 40 other vehicles waiting for a pick up order.

After 40 minutes, the poor exhausted employee rushing from car to car finally delivered my items: 5 gallons of bottled water and enough canned food to feed a small army.

“Stocking up for the snow?” He said with no cheer at all.

“Yes.” I gravely responded. “And you would too if you knew what I’ve been through."

I’m sure he could see swimming in my eyes, the memory of February 2021 in Texas. The Snowstorm that shut down an entire state.

My drive to work on Thursday, February 12th 2021 felt ominous.

Gray, gloomy clouds dotted the horizon as I zipped past ranches in the Texas hillcountry. The live oak trees lining the roads had begun to ice over, frozen in their stillness. Prickly pear cactus had already wilted into sad spiny mush and businesses were closing their doors as if the zombie apocalypse were imminent.

Texas was battening down the hatches and here I was heading in to work to make some good old booze.

When I arrived at the distillery, my coworkers and I quickly realized we wouldn’t be able to can ranch water. It was too cold. The machines simply wouldn’t function in the 12 degree weather.

I couldn’t blame them, I didn’t want to work in the cold either.

So we winterized the facility as best we could and I got ready to drive all the way back home.

Then I got a call from Morgan.

“Hey! So.. everything is okay now, but Howie ran away.”

Howie is our Great Pyrenees dog and best friend. He’s absolutely spoiled and knows it. We give him everything! So why he’d want to run away from constant pampering and three square meals a day to freeze was beyond me.

From Morgan I learned that while she was bringing in our big cactus to protect it from the incoming weather, there had been loud, booming thunder and Howie bolted out the front door in terror.

Morgan didn’t have time to bundle up or put on socks or shoes before plunging into the cold after him. She sprinted out the door chasing Howie barefoot down the street yelling frantically.

She tailed him all over our neighborhood, desperately trying to corral him before he got to Burnet Road, a major artery of Austin. At one point, she stood in the middle of traffic to make sure he wouldn’t get hit as he kept dodging in and out of yards.

That’s one dedicated mother.

Finally, just one block before getting to Burnet Road, Howie came prancing up to get some pets from a lady walking out the door of a daycare.

“HOLD ONTO THAT DOG!” screamed the shoeless woman mainacally faliling and sprinting straight for her. To the lady’s credit, she held onto Howie and Morgan was able to get him home.

That was only the beginning.

Austin froze for the next two days.

As the world grew more and more gray, we bundled up. We were all nice and warm in our heated house. This wasn’t going to be all that bad after all I thought! I'd probably even have a few days off of work.

Then, on the afternoon of the 14th, Valentines Day, the dreary sky opened up and the snow came forth. We sat cozy in our living room as big globs of snowflakes fell onto the frozen ground, immediately sticking.

“We’re gonna get us a proper snow!” I happily exclaimed. It was refreshing to actually get some snow in Texas. I went to bed that night dreaming of building snowmen and having snowball fights with Morgan and Howie.

In the middle of the night we lost power.

I knew this becuase our fan stopped. I’m from the South so naturally I can’t sleep without a fan no matter the temperature.

Morgan had heard the city of Austin was doing rolling blackouts to conserve power. “They should be back on soon I think.” she said.

And she was right! After a few minutes, the lights came back to life and the fan continued it’s comforting occilation. But this quick surge of pwer lasted only a moment and we were plunged back into darkness.

The temperature was barely above zero and we now had no heat.

After a morning spent frollicking in the 6 inches of snow, we assesed our situation.

We learned that cities all over Texas were without power. Not just Austin. Houston, Dallas, Amarillo, everywhere. It didn’t look like we’d get the heat back on anytime soon.

I gathered every camping material we had. 20 degree sleeping bags, a camp stove, lanterns, the whole shebang. I was prepared for this moment. I KNEW that all that time spent at REI preparing for camping in a snowpocalypse had finally paid off. I just didn’t expect the camping to be indoors.

At sunset, we became like Will Smith in the movie I Am Legend, making sure we were prepared for the coming cold and darkness. Our house thermostat showed 35 degrees inside. It was much colder outside, hovering around 10 degrees.

We charged our phones in my car, then went inside and threw every blanket we had on the bed as well as our sleeping bags and big floofy dog.

Howie, by the way, was loving this whole situation. He adores the cold and wasn’t sorry at all about leading Morgan on a merry chase a few days prior.

That was how we passed our days. All we thought about was survival. Wake up. Freeze. Get ready for the dark doom of night. Freeze some more.

I ventured out to try and find an open business selling food. I felt like I was in a post apocalyptic movie setting out on a risky trip that would likely end in death. When I arrived at the main road, I found our normally bustling area of town to be a wasteland. Just snow and bitter cold.

We ran out of food pretty quick, but we did have some MRE meals my grandad had given me in case of emergencies. All we had to do was heat up some water on the camp stove, pour it into the packet, and viola! A meal. Was it a good meal? Not really. Beggars can’t be choosers.

When we told Grandad we used his doomsday food, he was ecstatic. He didn’t even ask if we were doing okay.

Morgan Googled how to make a chimenea out of a clay flower pot and a candle and rocks. It worked great and gave a little warmth! She still boasts about that.

Besides making meals and DIYing though, all we could really do was burrow in the bed. We were extremely cold.

It’s certainly not ideal when you can see your own breath inside in your bedroom.

Here’s a silver lining thought!

We got a chance to be good neighbors. And for others to be good neighbors to us.

A couple days into the freeze, everyone in our culdesac had their pipes burst. For some reason, ours were unscathed. We found ourselves as the only house with running water.

So we filled up our bathtub and told everybody to come get what they needed. Jimmy from across the street brought three gallon jugs and got what he needed. He in turn re-lit the pilot light to our hot water heater because we were worried we’d blow up the house

Ryan and Katie next door used our shower while we trudged to our across-the-street neighbors Misia and Lee who were out of town. They said we could take what food we needed if we’d check on and feed their cat.

The cat was thriving.

Our little street became a self sustaining community. Everybody was helping everybody. It was nice.

Across the state people were freezing with no power and elected officials were abandoning ship for the beaches of Cancun.

Texas is on it’s own power grid you see. And that grid failed.

So we, as the Lone Star State were in it together. For an entire week, the whole state suffered and froze as one.

Sadly, a lot of people lost their lives. This was no winter wonderland. The snowstorm truly brought Texas to it’s knees.

After a week of dark cold. I got up one morning and went to put my contacts in.

I flipped on the light switch and didn’t think anything of it.

“TEX!” Morgan called from the bedroom. I came running in to see her pointing at an ocilating fan slowly moving left and right. I ran back to the bathroom — the lights had been on the whole time I was fiddling with my contacts and I didn’t realize it.

The power was back. We were saved!

I’d never appreciated electricity and HVAC syaytems more than I did then. Our nightmare was over.

The power stayed on this time.

“And THAT’S why I’m getting all this water and canned food!” I proudly said to the Target employee who was waiting patiently for me to show him my pick up code.

“Cool.” he said then walked away to hoist more milk and bread into the next waiting car.

The East Tennessee sky turned a deep gray and the snow started to fall. This time though, we were ready.

Share

We’ve made it! The last set of books in my 100-book challenge for 2023. If you missed the earlier lists, here they are:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

So, without further ado…the final list.

I’d been hearing about Fredrik Bachman for some time. He’s a Swedish author who’s written some pretty popular books such as the Beartown series. I saw A Man Called Ove was recently adapted into an American film (A Man Called Otto), so I decided to listen to this one.

It was read by J.K. Simmons, and he did a fantastic job as you’d expect.

I thought the story was good! It definitely ticked off all the “grumpy old man with a heart of gold finds family late in life” tropes, but you know what, sometimes that’s just what you need. 7/10.

I discovered The World’s Largest Man recently and loved the author’s humor and heart.

I knew How To Stay Married would be brutal. It was. As a child of divorce, it was tough to read (sorry) listen to. But I couldn’t stop. I felt the pain the author, his wife, their kids, and friends must have undergone. I shook my head, I cringed, I laughed. I groaned when bad things kept happening, I fist pumped the air when good things happened. I’m trying not to spoil.

Like Key, I too am a Christian and I too like to cuss a little bit. It was refreshing to hear about his faith. Like I said, I was a little afraid to dive into this book because I feel I’ve lived some of this story when I was but a middle school boy.

But I’m glad I did. Can’t recommend it highly enough. 9/10.

The Old Man in the Sea is a perfect novel. It’s not long, but every line Hemingway wrote is absolutely superb. This was an all-time great author just straight flexing. The older I get; the more poignant Old Man gets for me. I hope to return to this one time and time again.

By the time the man rows his skiff back to the Cuban shore after a long battle with a marlin, you’re changed. I hadn’t read it in a couple of years, and I think it ratcheted all the way up near the top of my list.

The rare perfect book. 10/10.

I picked this book up by the author of Roots: Alex Haley. Haley spent the last years of his life in Knoxville, so I certainly count him as an esteemed local author.

In A Different Kind of Christmas, a Princeton student from North Carolina in the 1800s ends up joining the abolitionists, specifically as an agent for the underground railroad. The short book follows his dangerous assignment: working to help slaves escape from his own hometown.

I thought it was very well written and would’ve been interested to hear what happens after the final line. That’s when you know a short book has really hooked you. 8/10.

The Hiding Place is such a powerful story. The tale of Corrie Ten Boom and her family’s efforts to save as many Jews as they could during the Nazi occupation of Holland is a must read. She was incredibly brave and stood up for what was right. She never lost her faith while in prison and multiple concentration camps.

I don’t know if they make people like the Ten Boom family anymore, but I hope they do. They were some real ones. 10/10.

Here it is! The longest book I read this year!

The third Stormlight Archives book came in at a whopping 1,243 pages. It took me quite a while to get through this one but I did it.

This of course continues on the story of the first two books, but becomes even more sprawling. I did kind of get lost a time or two, but Sanderson kept bringing me back. After finishing this one, I decided I’d take a little break before tackling the next in the series. 8/10.

My go-to Christmas read. We all know the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge. Every time I jump into this story, though, it’s always a good time.

My favorite film adaptation of this has got to be the one with George C. Scott I think from the 1980’s. It absolutely terrified me, but I loved it. You’d think it was the ghost of Christmas past, but nay. It’s the little ghastly starving children with the ghost of Christmas present that show up right before Christmas grim reaper arrives. 8/10.

C.S. Lewis is a legend, and this is definitely his most famous work. The tale of Lucy, Edmund, Peter, and Susan as they travel to the Land of Narnia though a wardrobe is a joy to read time and time again.

The allegory of this story and series as a whole is pretty clear. Aslan is definitely a stand in for Jesus. I find the Christian allegory wonderful and powerful and even the fantasy story on its own holds up for me. My favorite in the series though would have to be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Wardrobe still gets a 10/10.

Charles Portis’ first novel: Norwood is an amazing road trip book. I liked this one far better than The Dog Of The South.

Essentially a man named Norwood, a car mechanic who lives in a little nowhere town in North Texas, agrees to haul two cars up to New York for Grady Fring the Kredit King.

Things of course don’t go to plan and Norwood has adventures with colorful characters from NYC all the way down to North Carolina. My favorite character is probably Joann, the chicken with a college education.

You just have to read this. 9/10.

Here it is! The last book I read in 2023. Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety.

This was the first Stegner book I’ve read, and I find his writing style to be like an old, grizzled grandpa sitting down to tell you a story.

Crossing to safety follows Larry Morgan and his wife Sally as they reconnect with a couple who have been their best friends since they met while working at the University of Wisconsin in the 1930’s. The book is mostly set in Wisconsin and a lake house in Vermont.

There are a lot of jumps back and forth in time and even perspective, but the story is interesting.

It certainly reminded me of going up to Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire as a kid. Did I maybe look into convincing my wife to drive up to Vermont this summer and find a rugged lake house? Maybe. 7/10.

Well, folks, that’s it! 100 books. Thanks for going on this journey with me. Just for kicks, I’ve listed my top ten from ‘23 down below. Will I match this number in 2024? Only time will tell. I think it’s going to be a good year.

Mt Top 10 for 2023:

1. Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

2. The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

3. A Place on Earth by Wendell Berry

4. True Grit by Charles Portis

5. Pappyland by Wright Thompson

6. A Burning in My Bones by Winn Collier

7. American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin

8. Travels With Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck

9. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

10. Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry

Share

We’re back and better than ever, baby!

I read 100 books in 2023 — today we’ll be going through numbers 76-90. If you missed the earlier lists check the links below:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

We start today with the best novel of all time…

This is my favorite book of all time. And in my opinion, it’s the greatest novel ever written. A perfect novel. Larry McMurtry was firing on all cylinders when he wrote this.

Two old Texas Rangers, Captain W.F. Call and Captain Gus McCrae get the itch to take a cow herd up to Montana from their self-imposed exile of a Texas border town, Lonesome Dove, after their old compañero Jake Spoon drops in one day.

That’s all you need to know. You should read this book.

It’s full of amazing characters and thrilling adventure. This story feels like real life. Things won’t be tied up in a nice bow like you want it to be. You’ll become heavily invested in the lives of Captains Call and McCrae as well as Lorena Wood, Josh Deets, Jake Spoon, Pea Eye Parker, July Johnson, Roscoe Brown, Young Newt Dobbs, Dish Bogget, and Clara Allen. Every character in this novel has flaws. Just like real life.

Gus McCrae is my favorite literary character of all time. A scalliwag with a heart of gold if ever there was one. Gus hails from the Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee and journeyed away from home as a young man to end up a Texas Ranger. Every line from Gus is absolute gold.

If you listen to the audio book, (this most recent read, I both listened to the audio book and read.) you will absolutely love the way the reader does Gus’ lines. It’s like a yell talk and it’s perfect. Gus has a lot of issues but dern it I love the ole scoundrel.

The length of this book might seem intimidating, but it’s worth it. So many scenes from the book stick with me deeply.

Head down to the Rio Grande and begin your journey with Lonesome Dove as soon as you can.

“It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living, I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.”
-Augustus McCrae

100/10. A masterpiece deserves 100.

After my re-read of Lonesome Dove, I was hankering for more McMurtry. Rather than continue the stories of Gus and Call (Streets of Laredo, Dead Man’s Walk, and Comanche Moon) I checked out the Thalia series with Horseman, Pass By.

Thalia, Texas is to Larry McMurtry as Port William is to Wendell Berry. A fictional town meant to represent the author’s hometown (although Thalia is a real place, it’s thought to be based on McMurtry’s home of Archer City).

This is the first of the Thalia trilogy from McMurtry. An interesting quick read set in the 1950’s on a ranch in North Texas, if only to see how much McMurtry’s writing grew in the decades that followed.

There are some disturbing scenes involving the protagonist’s step uncle Hud, but I thought this was a fine quick read.

The audio book narrator was really bad though LOL. He sounded like a Harvard professor. It was like he was reading a transcript of country people talking and it was actually quite funny, but definitely takes you out of the book. 6/10.

I decided I wasn’t sad enough, so I picked up Notes On Grief from Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche. It was a quick, poignant read. The author deals with the loss of her father during COVID and her memory of him and how to move through the grief she faced.

I thought it was a personal but very good read from a very accomplished author. 7/10.

The Grapes of Wrath is one of those books I read ages ago and wanted to include in my 100 books. If you haven’t read the back breaking story of the Joad family, you should rectify that.

You pull for the family as they pack up all their belongings striking out for California after the bank takes over their Oklahoma farm during the Great Depression.

For every inch of ground they make, it seems something comes and knocks them ten feet back. From deaths, to desertions, to being labeled less than through the moniker “Okies”, the Joad family deserves to have a nice California home at the end of their long road.

Will they find paradise? You’ll have to read it to find out.

It’s a classic for a reason. 9/10.

It’s safe to say I’m sold on the Stormlight Archives.

The second book in the series wasn’t as good as the first in my opinion, but I still enjoyed it. It certainly moves the narrative forward in a big way.

Characters like Kaladin, Shellan, and Dalinar are a joy to follow. 7/10.

Every October I like to return to Neil Gaiman’s absolute vibe of a novel: The Graveyard Book.

It’s a reimagining of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, but instead of a jungle, it’s in a graveyard. The caretakers of Bod (the stand in for Mowgli) are ghosts rather than wolves, the Bagheera character is a vampire, and instead of a menacing tiger as the villain, you have the terrifying Every Man Jack.

I love this book. You don’t have to read it during spooky season, but it definitely is better to read it when the leaves have changed and there’s a chill in the air. Maybe read it in a graveyard…

Whatever you do, just read this book. 9/10.

When I moved back to Knoxville, I had the pleasure of meeting New Jersey ex pat Brian Canever. Before we even opened up Bear Den Books, Brian came around and had the idea of doing a “Stories and Songs” night. Almost two years later, we’ve done three such events at the store and I’m proud to call Brian my friend.

From working with him, I quickly found Brian to be a terrific storyteller. I feel as though I’ve known him for my entire life just from listening to and reading his stories, which you can find Here.

This past fall, Brian published his first book and it’s fantastic! We were extremely excited to carry Big Head on the Block at Bear Den Books. From Argentina winning the world cup, to getting the stomach bug, Brian is a fantastic storyteller who brings you right into his world. I nearly went out and bought a Messi jersey after finishing it.

I’m giving Big Head on the Block a 9/10 because I don’t want his head to get TOO big.

The last of the Port William books for this list is probably the most popular.

The story of town barber Jayber Crow is, in my opinion, one of the finest tales you’ll ever read.

This was the book that started me on the Wendell Berry train. My friend Dave told me I needed to read Jayber, so I did. I’m so glad I did. Thanks, Dave! 10/10.

As fall continued to roll on, I started to drift toward some classic literature I’d read years before. One of those titles was Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer.

When comparing Tom Sawyer to Huck Finn I definitely have to put Huck on top. It’s definitely a better story, but I do find Tom Sawyer to be a fun childhood adventure story.

Tom getting a bunch of kids to do his chores is an inspiration to slackers everywhere though. 8/10.

On Halloween night I read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow before bed simply for the vibes.

They were immaculate.

The Disney animated movie of the story of Ichabod Crane always gave me nightmares. Even to this day if I’m camping in the woods, I’ll still feel the hair on the back of my neck stand out if I’m walking though the dark and quiet wilderness. 7/10.

Here’s the big Knoxville novel! Good ole Suttree. If you live in Knoxville, you probably have seen many places named after this novel from Cormac McCarthy. From Suttree’s Tavern to Suttree’s Landing. There’s even a statue of a man rowing a boat on Gay Street that many people, myself included, believe is Cornelius Suttree.

Well, how’s the book then?

It lives up to the hype. Especially if you enjoy McCarthy’s grim brand of writing.

The book follows Cornelius Suttree as he tramps around Knoxville in the 1950’s. The characters he interacts with feel very authentic, especially if you’ve spent some time walking around the Scruffy City.

Gene Harrogate is a great character as well who has some very funny scenes. If you’re a Knoxville native I feel like you actually have to read this book. It’s a law. 9/10.

*Spoilers for an old book many people have read, but if you haven’t, please skip this!*

About 90 percent of the Adventures of Huck Finn is masterful. From the beginning until they get to the Phelp’s Farm.

Huck decides to save the escaped slave Jim who has been recaptured by the villains the Duke and King. Huck has to wrestle with the fact that saving Jim would not be an evil act. If helping make Jim a free man damn him to hell then that’s where he will go. He knows that getting Jim to freedom isn’t evil, but the right thing to do. Jim has a family and hopes and fears. Jim is a good man. Huck decides to go save him.

Then Tom Sawyer shows up and it just becomes a boyish Tom Sawyer farce. Everything gets neatly tied up at the end. Jim was already free the whole time etc etc. Huck gets adopted again.

I wonder why Twain felt the need to throw Tom in there. Wendell Berry talks a little about this in his book “The Need To Be Whole” and much better than I could talk about it.

The book is still a classic though. Of course there’s a ton of outdated and offensive language. One word in particular.

The Adventures Huck Finn will always be a classic though. 9/10.

I really liked Small Things Like These but didn’t like Claire Keegan’s latest release, So Late In The Day.

I thought all three stories were dark and hopeless. I can do dark all day, but I have to have some kind of light.

There was no light to be found in any of the short stories Keegan compiled here in my opinion. This book just left me feeling numb and sad. 4/10.

David Sedaris is hilarious, and this book is a must own for one story: Santa Land Diaries. In 1994, Sedaris worked as a Christmas elf in Macy’s in New York and his diaries from this time are amazing. I was guffawing loudly.

The rest of the stories are great too. I had a great time with Holidays on Ice — it really got me into the Christmas spirit and made me laugh. 9/10.

We end the list today with McCarthy’s Pulitzer winning The Road. Much like the earlier mentioned So Late in The Day, this book is incredibly dark. What’s different though, is that there is hope.

A man travels across post-apocalyptic America (including Knoxville) with his young son in search of the sea. The man will do anything to protect his boy. They come across many perilous situations that will absolutely get your heart thumping.

There is a dread dreariness that pervades in this post-apocalyptic world. Most people that the pair come across are only looking out for themselves. There’s no warmth in this burned-out world.

Yet there’s a father and son that are carrying the fire.

I thought this was McCarthy’s most hopeful novel and it is worthy of all the accolades it’s received. 10/10.

We’re so close! Ten books away! The next list will list the last ten books as well as my ten favorite books I read in 2023.

Share

After a week off, we’re back!

I read 100 books this year and am reviewing them all. If you missed the early lists, here they are:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Let’s not waste any time and get right back into it!

After reading more about Eugene Peterson, I learned that he loved Mary Oliver’s poetry. Well, since I trust Peterson’s recommendation, I decided to try out Dog Songs.

It’s fantastic.

If you’re a dog lover, you’ll adore it. Even if you aren’t, her poetry is so good. Read Mary Oliver. 10/10.

Two tens in a row! Say it aint so!

It is.

I had a friend say this was the funniest book he’d ever read. That’s high praise, so you know I had to check it out.

It’s very funny but has a ton of heart as well. Most of the memoir has to do with the relationship between the author, a professor at Savannah College of Art and Design, and his father, a good ole boy from Mississippi. Thier differences are hilarious, but there is also warmth and a whole lot of love in their relationship.

I laughed a ton reading this. 10/10.

I started down the Sanderson road with Mistborn and it led me to The Stormlight Archives. I’d heard this was the big series from Sanderson.

The first book, The Way of Kings, is massive. I was intimidated, but I got it done.

Verdict: I really enjoy this world. The magic is cool, the characters are great, and Sanderson takes his time building things up. I like fantasy series that take their time building the world and its characters. If you like Lord of the Rings or A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) you’ll really enjoy The Stormlight Archive.

If you’ve spent time in the Fort Sanders neighborhood in Knoxville, you’ll probably recognize the name James Agee. He was a Knoxville native and prolific journalist, novelist and playwright among other things.

A Death in the Family is his finest work. He posthumously won the Pulitzer for this novel. This semi-autobiographical novel takes place mostly in Knoxville in 1915, specifically Fort Sanders.

It’s poignant and sad. It’s a great “Knoxville novel”. 8/10.

I picked up this Berry title at East City Bookshop in Washington DC as I was roaming around town. I’d been looking for this one for a long time and was “that guy” at the bookstore asking for a specific niche author.

I started reading it in the Library of Congress which was the COOLEST. I felt like I was reading some ancient tome in a grand cathedral of a library, but it was just a book by my favorite author talking about a history of race and prejudice in America.

The book is very good, and I thought Berry made a number of great points. He’s still the man! 9/10.

I listened to this one and the reader was an old man who kind of droned on, but his voice sounded like the old narrator on the ride Spaceship Earth at Epcot, so I enjoyed listening solely because of that.

This was definitely the most academic book I consumed this year, and I did catch my attention drifting pretty often. 5/10.

Well, what do you know, another masterpiece from Wendell Berry!

Hannah Coulter is a triumph of a book. Berry follows Port William resident Hannah Coulter as she looks back on her life. It’s one of his best by far. 10/10.

Remember July 2023? Barbenheimer was HUGE. I’m happy to report that I went to go see both movies and found them both to be great! It was fun to have a movie event like this again. Though, with the lineup of movies coming in 2024, I think it might be some time before we hit Barbenheimer heights again.

After seeing Oppenheimer, I felt I needed to read American Prometheus to take a deeper dive into the life of the man who literally changed the world. I found it to be an extremely well-done biography. If you enjoyed the movie, you’ll certainly appreciate the book. 8/10.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf always seems to appear on “best novels ever” lists. So, you know I had to check it off the list. It 'was a quick read and I have to say that it did not live up to the hype for me.

It’s a finely written book, but it just didn’t land. It follows a woman named Mrs. Dalloway and other folks in London as she prepares for a party. 5/10.

This book was always in the study of my grandparents’ beach house in Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. On the island, we were pretty close to Savannah (where the book takes place) and this was always a book that was brought up locally.

I finally read it this year while lounging on the beach near Charleston, SC and I cannot believe my Mimi read this! I mean it’s fantastic, but she had to be appalled at the antics and language of some of the (real life) Savannah characters that enter the life of author John Berendt. My Mimi is just a sweet, proper old lady from Hayneville, Louisiana!

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is truly stranger than fiction. Berendt brings the beautiful old town of Savannah, Georgia to life. It’s probably one of the greatest non-fiction novels I’ve ever read. 9/10.

My wife and I went to Charleston, South Carolina in August for a couple days. We decided to have one perfect day for Morgan and one perfect day for me (because you can make perfect day happen, right?). Morgan’s perfect day was spending the entire day at the beach at Isle of Palms. We lounged, we swam, we had margaritas. It was lovely.

My perfect day was walking around Charleston and seeing historic stuff — including taking the ferry to Ft. Sumter. Neither day was better than the other and I’m happy to report that it was a truly sublime trip.

Anyways, on our historical walk, I kept hearing about pirates being based in Chuck Town, so I made us listen to the Republic of Pirates on the drive back to Tennessee. It was great! I spoke in a pirate voice for seven hours — Morgan loved it. I love history! ARGGHHHH! 7/10.

Every morning, I like to start my day by writing in my journal and spending some time in the Holy Scriptures. Sometimes I like to throw a devotional in as well to spice things up a bit (shout out to the Blue Book by Jim Branch!). Well, for about six months, I decided to also read a few sabbath poems by Wendell Berry when having my morning time. It was amazing and I was sad when I finished the last line.

Wendell Berry (surely you’ve heard of him by now) would write “sabbath” poems as he spent time on his farm and in the woods from 1979 to the present day. This book is a compilation of those poems arranged by year. They are peaceful, heartfelt, longing, all the stuff. I’ve never been much of a poetry guy but reading these made me at least a little bit of one. 10/10.

The cover for this one sold me. It looks like those old national park posters.

The book itself was pretty okay. A painter takes a job working on a mural in Wyoming and stays with a wealthy family. The wife runs off and the painter is hired to track her down. Cool set up, but the story didn’t grab me. 4/10.

My guy Eugene!

This is a wonderful deep dive into the life of the prophet Jeremiah and how his story relates to us and Jesus. I loved it. Eugene Peterson is one of those guys I wish I would’ve known or gotten to meet when he was alive. 10/10.

I ragged pretty hard on Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger in Part 1 of this too long series. I found it plodding with no pay off.

I’m happy to report that I liked the follow up: Stella Maris much better. It follows Johnny Western’s sister Alecia as she talks with a doctor in a psychiatric facility in Wisconsin. It actually rewards us for reading her story in the first book. When she talks about her visions, you know exactly what she’s talking about.

McCarthy’s final book gets a 6/10 from me. Rest in peace Cormac.

We’re so close! I’ll be back again with the next list!

Share