Why has the “F” word become so indispensable to—dare I make the pun—daily intercourse? As…
Book #6 in 2018: “City of Endless Night” by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
No genetically engineered monsters, no exotic locations, no time-travel: #17 of the Pendergast series, The City of Endless Night by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child (Grand Central Publishing, 2018), is a good, old-fashioned thriller. Truth be told, Doug Preston is...
Book #5 in 2018: A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived by Adam Rutherford
My sister used to drive me crazy—well she still does in many ways—for her interactions with her daughters. One of the worst things was her flat assertion about her younger daughter’s problems with math. “She can’t do math,” Sister said. “She get’s it from me.” Then a...
Book #2 in 2018: Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann
I had read David Grann’s article in The New Yorker, “The Marked Woman,” last March so the outlines of this appalling story were familiar to me. The completed book, however, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI (Doubleday, 2017),...
Book #1 in 2018: “It’s All Relative” by A.J. Jacobs
I decided a few days ago that I would record every book I finished reading in 2018 and say something about each. As it turns out, this book, It’s All Relative: Adventures Up and Down the World’s Family Tree by A.J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster, 2017), a Christmas gift...