Brick

Book report: A Dog’s Jour­ney: Another Novel for Humans by W. Bruce Cameron, 2012 Bruce Cameron’s nov­els make me scream. I read nov­els, not as many as I would like, maybe one and a half a month. Lit­er­ary nov­els — the pop­u­lar ones far more than ones from small pub­lish­ers, I’m afraid — and the …

Com­plet­ing the book list of 2011 shouldn’t be tax­ing. Its first entry after all took in the first three quar­ters. So where are we? Or to quote inde­pen­dent Ross Perot’s 1992 run­ning mate James Stock­dale (it IS a pres­i­den­tial year, after all), in a tele­vised debate’s open­ing state­ment: “Who am I? Why am I here?” …

Here it is Sep­tem­ber, and not only that but mid-September, and I have not posted my peri­odic list of books absorbed. This will be the sec­ond year I have attempted a com­plete list of books. Some I read, some I hear, as CD sets in the car while com­mut­ing. Jan­u­ary 2011 Memento Mori, by Mur­ial Spark. …

Book Report Bad Dad by Dave Lieber 175 pages, cloth, Yan­kee Cow­boy Pub­lish­ing, 2011 What an unusual lit­tle book. Fort Worth Star-Telegram metro colum­nist Dave Lieber includes news­pa­per columns here, but it’s not a col­lec­tion. (Dave’s is a watch­dog, or con­sumer activist, col­umn empha­siz­ing solv­ing sub­ur­ban has­sles.) By the title, it might sound like long-form jour­nal­ism …

A final book list will close the 2010 year of Brick. After years of not start­ing then false starts, I resolved last Jan­u­ary to keep a list of books on the home com­puter. It’s a van­ity project — well, both the list and Brick are — but it’s been instruc­tive: What do I like to …

The Brick book list with sketchy reviews, con­tin­ued. Book List through Octo­ber 2010 Sep­tem­ber 2010 Solar by Ian McE­wan. Book on CD. The novel by the pol­ished McE­wan got mixed reviews but I liked it. It’s a suc­cess­ful comic novel whose hero is bril­liant but a buf­foon, who wages a cyn­i­cal war against global warm­ing. The audio­book …

Four months ago, I entered here in Brick for the record a list of books I read or started to read, or heard or started to hear, for the entire year 2010, to date. You can stop here, this is just for me. There will be mini-reviews, though, for ref­er­ence later. I am not cre­at­ing hyper­links. …

Book Report: A Dog’s Pur­pose by W. Bruce Cameron. The novel A Dog’s Pur­pose is the best book writ­ten by a dog I have ever read. No, that’s not quite true. The book actu­ally is writ­ten by the spirit of a dog. It’s the best book I’ve ever read by an ethe­real being, out­side of …

This is a list, a record, an account­ing. Dull in some lights, if not pre­ten­tious, con­de­scend­ing and child­ish: Look at what I’ve been read­ing, Mommy! But in recent years, I’ve heard of more peo­ple keep­ing lists of books they’ve read. I’ve enjoyed look­ing at them. Nick Hornby’s is a fea­ture in The Believer mag­a­zine. Of course, …

“Think, men, think.” — Prof. Harold Hill, The Music Man New Year’s Res­o­lu­tion No. 1 for 2010 is mod­est: Keep a book list. Then in a year there’ll be a bet­ter best books Brick. One could say that if the books I read were mem­o­rable then I’d remem­ber ‘em. It’s not as if I read that …