JJ's Blog

MONSTER OF A LAND by Lauren Hough

2026-10-15T16:40:09.834-07:00

MONSTER OF A LAND: on the road in search of modern america

Imagine buying an old van and hitting the road with just your dog, leaving everything behind that ties you to a particular place — your house, your job, your friends & family.

Who hasn’t at least daydreamed of giving into wanderlust like this?

Well, Hough did it. She bought the van, loaded her dog, and hit the road. And then she wrote about it.

And the thing is, Hough isn’t just some generic person indulging in some clichéd fantasy. She’s all-too-real, with a decidedly idiosyncratic history & viewpoint, and her trip across America occurs at a certain time & place, bound by a host of impinging circumstances and the weight of histories both recent & ancient — which, of course, would be true of any of us. And every one of Hough’s chapters is aware of all this.

What’s so winning about Hough’s narrative is its blend of forthrightness & humanity. (It’s no surprise to discover that she’s a fan of Vonnegut!) She encounters all manner of people in her travels, and she’s been through enough struggle to be jaded. But she manages to avoid falling into outright cynicism, which I find admirable.

Plus, there’s the dog. I’m a dog person. And, clearly, so is Hough. Not only does she have one as her traveling companion, she is constantly encountering other ones. Moreover, she is haunted by the dogs of her past. Talk about a signal of virtue! (And I mean that unironically.)

Again, what I liked about this book is that Hough is sharply observant of the bullshit around her, all while being refreshingly honest about her own. She can swing from being archly opinionated to being heroically generous, all in the same paragraph.

I’m grateful to Hough for allowing us to take this journey with her. I urge you to take it as well!

Get Monster Of A Land by Lauren Hough here: https://a.co/d/0bg74yjF

MY READINGS FROM SEPTEMBER 2026

2026-10-03T18:19:33.464-07:00

…started with a poet I found via social media, Jericho Brown. His Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Tradition, is a wonderful mix of formality and colloquialism, with a voice that insists on the beauty amidst the awful at every level of Brown’s life, made most manifest in his amazing poem, “Duplex.”

September was a month of important books, at least for me. It included Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas, America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo, and The Body Papers by Grace Talusan. The books by Vargas and Talusan are memoirs that contextualize our present predicaments through personal histories, while Castillo’s novel is one of the best I’ve read in years, epic in scope with vivid characters situated in actual history. It’s also a kind of response & update to a classic Filipino-American novel called America Is In The Heart by Carlos Bulosan.

Vargas’s book is particularly topical at this time when immigration is such a hot-button issue in America. Vargas himself is a living embodiment of the paradoxes involved, and the way he confronts his personal predicament is nothing short of heroic. You can find out more about Vargas’s work at https://defineamerican.com/

Diamond’s novel is also one of the best I’ve read in years, though totally different than Castillo’s. A propulsive narrative filled with trenchant observations & heart-wrenching dialog, Close Relationships With Strangers is close to perfect, a dark pocket-universe of a novel that hits a masterful endnote.

Stefan Fatsis’s Unabridged really tickled my lexicographical funny-bone. As online dictionaries supplant printed ones, Unabridged records a largely unheralded discipline and its fraught history. Plus, I’ve always found wordplay fun. And it’s always instructive to revisit the word-related scandals of the past for a little perspective on the pearl-clutching of the present.

I revisited Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself at the prompting of a couple of poets I know, and I’m better for it. The last time I encountered this poem was as an undergraduate at UNLV, but the particular edition I picked up this time combines both its first-published and last-published versions, which I found illuminating. If only Whitman’s exhaustively inclusive spirit were more popular nowadays!

Erin Singer’s Dangerland! novel was super-entertaining. Picture a middle-aged rom-com set in the Summerlin suburb of Las Vegas (where I actually live), filled with a colorful cast of characters and incorporating some local issues for truly comic effect. It’s a winner.

And the passing of Wendell Berry caused me to go back through his essays and poems. A real visionary who literally lived what he wrote, Berry was an unabashed advocate of each citizen’s physical connection to the land on which they live in a truly communal relationship that emphasizes every individual’s place in the ecology. I wish more people would read and learn from Berry’s work.

Wilbert Cooper’s The Black Shield is one writer’s reckoning with the history of his family and his city. Cooper's family includes at least 3 generations of Cleveland police officers, and his narrative relates their careers and their involvement in an organization of African-American cops called The Black Shield, which grows & changes over the decades in response to the political life of Cleveland itself. The Black Shield is also a history of policing in this country, and Cooper is clear-eyed about the challenges & pitfalls that beset the profession of law-enforcement.

As always, all of these books are highly recommended by me, though your mileage may vary.

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY 9.19.2026

2026-09-19T15:50:47.241-07:00

I am better than no one.

Nor am I any worse.

This realization does not, however, obviate any practical situational considerations that may come into play, such as the need to defend myself if you come at me with a knife.

THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY by Garrett M. Graff

2026-09-17T18:04:52.985-07:00

THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY by Garrett M. Graff

After such solemn 25th-anniversary remembrances, I have to recommend Graff’s amazing oral history, which I read last year.

Compiling hundreds of voices into a minute-by-minute chronology of how September 11, 2001, unfolded, Graff has woven a cinematic narrative that I think is an important document, not only for those who weren’t around when it happened, but also for those of us who were, giving all of us the context we need for a fuller understanding.

Get THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY: an oral history of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff here: https://a.co/d/05k0lX2z

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS by Krista Diamond

2026-09-17T17:30:58.519-07:00

CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS

by Krista Diamond

This debut novel is, in my opinion, a home run.

It has it all: wonderful writing, a propulsive plot, the kind of verisimilitude I could really sink my teeth into, and characters I felt I knew, especially as a longtime resident of Sin City.

Now, describing its story makes Close Relationships With Strangers sound tawdry. After all, it's about a paparazzi photographer from Las Vegas trying to score in Los Angeles while fighting the urge to return to his hometown, and the book includes such trusty tropes as a Las Vegas girlfriend who does burlesque and various scenes of Hollywood hedonism.

But Diamond makes a lot of interesting choices as she tells her tale, such that even her cliches are given full-shrift, so much so that I found myself nodding in agreement during my second read-through.

Whatever a given section consists of, whether it’s trenchant social commentary or biting dialogue or phantasmagoric scenery, Diamond handles it with such mastery that I dreaded the book's ending.

But Diamond nailed that, too. It's an ending that stuck with me & drew me into re-reading the book immediately, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

I cannot recommend this novel enough. Go read it!

Get CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS by Krista Diamond here: https://a.co/d/0aqr0LlV

DEAR AMERICA: notes of an undocumented citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

2026-09-08T18:51:02.631-07:00

Dear America: notes of an undocumented citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas

This memoir by the incredibly accomplished journalist & filmmaker Jose Antonio Vargas was a real eye-opener for me.

While we share some superficial biographical similarities (a filipino heritage, an adolescence spent as a stranger in a strange land), Vargas’s story is far more dramatic. Yet Vargas’s voice is so earnest & forthright that one cannot help but feel for him.

Thus, the details of Vargas’s life are all his own, but his struggle is something we can (and should) identify with.

Vargas tells his story chronologically, beginning with his childhood in the Phillippines and detailing how his mother sent him to the United States to live with his grandparents when he was 12 years old.

It isn’t until a few years later that Vargas learns a shocking truth: he is undocumented! He was essentially smuggled into the U.S. without his knowledge by his mother & grandparents, and the way he finds this out is harrowing. It’s also Kafkaesque, the way he bumps up against some routine bureaucracy that knocks him into a kind of bizarro-world where everything looks the same but everything has changed.

Suddenly, Vargas’s coming-to-America saga becomes an existential horror, as our hero realizes that his quest for a better life has become a trap.

To make matters worse, he has no one to advise him. Vargas is surrounded by well-wishers whose ignorance of our immigration system only serves to confuse him. Everyone seems to think that his status problems are merely a matter of filling out the right paperwork and paying the proper fee. (Hint: that’s not how it actually works unless you’re rich!)

But then the problems that beset Vargas invoke a calling in him. Complaint gives rise to advocacy. What could be more American than that?

The rest of Vargas’s story is publicly accessible (just look him up!) but should be better known. In my opinion, Vargas is a hero, and this book is just one reason why.

Get Dear America: notes of an undocumented citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas here: https://a.co/d/07tZwwFq

PROJECT MAVEN by Katrina Manson

2026-09-02T17:59:22.951-07:00

Project Maven by Katrina Manson

Innovations in intelligence-gathering have always changed how we conduct wars, from spyglasses to surveillance satellites, and what we currently call artificial intelligence, along with the evolution of autonomous vehicles, is no exception.

Project Maven is an account of how the U.S. Department of Defense has been coping with these changes (or not), incorporating dozens of interviews and documents into a provocative and troubling narrative.

Focusing on the efforts of a Marine Corps intelligence officer who, in 2017, recognizes the importance of the emerging capabilities of AI, this book also details the bureaucratic complications created by accelerating technological innovation & its implications on various battlefields across the globe.

It's about what you’d expect when the “move fast & break stuff” mentality of the tech sector runs up against opaque & often petty machinations of Pentagon bureaucracy, enlisting the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir into a competitive melee that often had even the military branches themselves working at cross-purposes.

After all, when budget cycles run in years while combat adaptations occur daily (case study: Ukraine), how is a government supposed to keep up? This is how we get caught building multi-million-dollar missile interceptors that get outfoxed by over-the-counter drones. This is how an armored tank gets neutralized by a guy wielding a video-game controller.

As we automate more and more of our combat processes (from surveillance to target acquisition to kinetic response), moral quandaries crop up, all based on the question of whether we should allow a machine to decide when & how to kill a human. (Btw, we basically already are.)

It seems, barring some unforeseen development, that gone are the days of an armed squad of soldiers humping through terrain in order to make contact with the enemy, and this book is a wakeup call to everyone who hasn’t realized this. The real question is whether or not automated warfare (one side’s AI versus another side’s) will result in more warfare or less.

Indeed, there are indications that if AI technology keeps evolving in the direction we can foresee, the very definition of warfare itself may change. Instead of nation-states conducting military conflicts over contested territory, what if warfare becomes a constant state of global violence conducted everywhere by unclear assailants?

This book doesn’t posit any answers because it’s frankly too early to tell. What Project Maven does do, however, is vividly illuminate the complexities at hand.

Get Project Maven here: https://a.co/d/0fjtQbi1

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY 9.2.2026

2026-09-02T14:00:56.681-07:00

I would rather be sadly aware than happily deluded.

MY AUGUST 2026 READINGS

2026-08-31T16:40:02.294-07:00

My August 2026 Readings

Some of these are re-reads (which would make Nabokov happy),and all of these are recommended (though, of course, your mileage will vary) because I rarely say anything about books I didn't enjoy (because I rarely finish those).

Most of y'all are non-readers, anyway, and, believe me, I can tell.

THE HISTORY OF MONEY by David McWilliams

2026-08-25T09:42:07.911-07:00

THE HISTORY OF MONEY by David McWilliams

Economist David McWilliams argues in this book that the invention of money ranks up there with the discovery of fire. And his history, which traces money’s evolution from scratches on a stick to cryptocurrency, makes a strong argument. After all, nothing incites more cooperation and conflict than money, and it underpins all of our capabilities and efforts, no matter the ideology that is our conscious motivation, be it religious, political or tribal.

And most people’s understanding of money is limited, at best. (Hence their conflation of a money supply with a checking account.) And most people couldn’t tell you why being an international reserve currency is better than being a mere national coinage, let alone how the movement of capital across national borders affects international relations.

Luckily, this book explains all that (or at least defines the mechanisms involved), which is why it appeals to me, and I wish it were required reading for everyone who votes.

Get THE HISTORY OF MONEY: a story of humanity by David McWilliams here: https://a.co/d/0hjoz0Ld

ANGEL DOWN by Daniel Kraus

2026-08-20T17:56:17.566-07:00

ANGEL DOWN by Daniel Kraus

During the First World War, 5 American soldiers are tasked with crawling through the no-man’s land between trenches in France to rescue a wounded comrade. But what they find isn’t another soldier; it’s an angel, fallen from the skies.

Or is it?

What follows is what critics like to call a “tour-de-force” and it’s a real blockbuster, the kind of fantastical, phantasmagoric (with an emphasis on gore), cinematic, headlong story that, in my opinion, constitutes a consequential artistic achievement deserving of many laudits, including, believe it or not, the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

I’m a fan of when artists take big swings, and Daniel Kraus has hit a dinger with this book. It’s got everything: war, religion (including all the cardinal sins), love, existential angst, race, more than a little gallows humor, some satire — all told in a unique way.

Kraus has written Angel Down as a single, book-length sentence.

Sure, it’s a run-on sentence. But that lends the narrative a kind of breathless energy that made this reader thankful for chapter breaks. And Kraus also manages to shift the narrative viewpoint wildly from one character to another (often within a given scene), all without losing narrative focus. There are no slow stretches, no dull sequences in this book.

And the ending? Well, it’s a doozy.

I highly recommend it.

Get Angel Down by Daniel Kraus here: https://a.co/d/0jdOjZqS

READINGS FROM JULY 2026

2026-08-09T15:28:10.592-07:00

READINGS FROM JULY 2026

...included a lively re-telling of Homer's Odyssey by Stephen Fry, which I picked up to re-aquaint myself before seeing Christopher Nolan's blockbuster cinematic version (which I also enjoyed).

It also included Cathy Scott's in-depth biography of Ann Rule & Carly Anne York's defense of scientific research, no matter how esoteric, as a basis for innovation.

Two books that I consumed in audiobook format this month were Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders and Live From New York by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales. Saunders's novel is a multivocal, chaotically-structured work that is wonderfully performed by an all-star cast led by Nick Offerman. And Live From New York is a compiled oral history of Saturday Night Live from its inception through its 40th season. Both books were well-served by the audiobook format, in my opinion, which is something I can't say for most books that I try to listen to.

All of these books are recommended by me, though, of course, your mileage will vary.

Cleanup On Aisle Five by Ann Larson

2026-08-09T15:27:57.520-07:00

Cleanup On Aisle Five by Ann Larson

As someone who has worked my whole life in customer service, spent a big chunk of it in retail, operates a food-service business, and nowadays spends part of just about every workday in various grocery stores, I will attest that every word of this book rings true — from the insane customers to the put-upon staff to the overmatched managers whose harebrained reactions to every contingency wreak of spendthrift inhumanity.

The book’s premise is this: author Ann Larson spends a year working in a grocery store in Utah, during which she advances from cashier to supervisor, getting to know both her crew and her customers, all while exploring the phenomena that is the American grocery store.

It opens with an incident so familiar and so gross that I had to laugh ruefully, having had to personally deal with public defecation so many times that it barely fazes me anymore.

But beyond the headshaking antics and messy anecdotes, there is real heartbreak here, in crewmates forced to work in excruciating circumstances and in customers forced to humiliate themselves, all because they aren’t rich — all because we have built a society that over-rewards capital while stripping dignity from labor.

Cleanup On Aisle Five is an important document, shedding light on what life is like in what, for many communities in the U.S., functions as a kind of public square, a meeting-place where people come together and interact under the guise of common need under corporate watch. This book is both a fascinating record and a sharp indictment of how we live now.

Get Cleanup On Aisle Five by Ann Larson here: https://a.co/d/08GyzSPq

THE SALMON CANNON AND THE LEVITATING FROG by Carly Anne York

2026-08-08T15:17:27.155-07:00

THE SALMON CANNON AND THE LEVITATING FROG

by Carly Anne York

Discovery & innovation cannot, by definition, be pre-ordained -- which is why basic research & exploration are so important. (I would argue, in fact, that American investment in basic research is one of the primary reasons we have been *the* international superpower ever since World War 2.)

After all, who knew that research into Gila Monster venom would lead to the development of GLP-1 drugs? Who knew that observations of lab-rat mothers would lead to hands-on therapies for premature babies in NICUs? You just can't predict these things.

And this book, detailing all kinds of unlikely & unforeseen innovations born from the kind of research that gets dunder-headed conservatives screaming about "wasted" tax dollars, is a full-throated defense of science for science's sake.

Carly Anne York is herself a scientist, so she's able to interpret & break down the esoteric into understandable chunks, and she's also a gifted storyteller, making this book a fascinating and fun read.

Get The Salmon Cannon And The Levitating Frog by Carly Anne York here: https://a.co/d/0aavcK8R

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

2026-08-02T19:52:16.741-07:00

Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders

My readings for July, 2026, began with a large-cast audiobook of Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders, a novel which won the Booker Prize in 2017.

Being a big fan of Saunders, I had read the novel when it first came out, and I found it a difficult read. Its structure is complex — even purposefully chaotic — and it consists of dozens of narrative voices that often interrupt each other. It’s a book I respected (even admired) but did not really enjoy.

But then I heard that Nick Offerman and his wife Megan Mulally are friends of Saunders and that they put together an all-star cast to record an audio version of the novel, a cast that includes David Sedaris, Don Cheadle, and even members of Saunders’s family.

So I gave Lincoln In The Bardo another listen. And I was enchanted.

Now, I have a love/hate relationship with audiobooks. For most books, the recorded audio version bothers me, mainly because it conflicts with the voice that I imagine as I read the actual book. And I don’t want to belabor the point here, but I believe the act of reading is an active act of imagination that listening to an audio recording undercuts. There’s something to be said for imaginatively constructing a narration as you read. It’s like you’re acting a part to yourself as you read — something that mere listening doesn’t really evoke. And that evocation of your imagination enlarges it in ways that being a mere passive audience member does not.

But then there are books like Lincoln In The Bardo, whose subject and structure lend themselves well to the audiobook format. And Saunders has always been an author who is more interested in portrayal than explanation, no matter how outlandish a premise he’s working with. And one of the ways to contend with the structure of this book is to see it as a script.

Also, the premise of this book is as outlandish as it gets. Saunders takes a real historical event (the death of Lincoln’s young son while the President was in office) and spins a fantastical tale (involving spirits inhabiting a graveyard) that encompasses all the major themes: love, death, politics, gender, race, and the meaning of life itself.

And, being something written by George Saunders, Lincoln In The Bardo is also funny. Sure, much of its humor is arch and arcane. But I found myself chuckling constantly.

Lincoln in the Bardo is a book that rewards re-reading, especially if you pick up the audiobook.

Get Lincoln In The Bardo by George Saunders here: https://a.co/d/0bw3Ea5x

FIRST LADY OF MURDER by Cathy Scott

2026-07-18T20:41:25.672-07:00

FIRST LADY OF MURDER by Cathy Scott

This biography of Ann Rule by former Las Vegas local Cathy Scott is a clear-eyed look at a writer who helped define a whole genre of infotainment. Rule’s books were almost all bestsellers, and many were made into (mainly television) dramatizations that were widely viewed, making her both famous and rich.

But it turns out that Ann Rule’s personal life was just as compelling as her subjects (though she never murdered anyone, as far as we know). Rule’s first ambition was to become a police officer (and Scott brilliantly contextualizes this impulse) but circumstances (familiar to any woman dealing with the complications of motherhood & marriage) conspired against her. How she then became a full-time writer is, frankly, a testament to Rule’s sheer tenacity & resourcefulness.

But, like any of us, Rule had her missteps & imperfections, many of which she went to great pains to hide, though her admissions about her notoriously wrong first impressions of Ted Bundy ultimately shaded her entire life. Later in her career, as she became an established name, Rule could be ruthless, even a bit amoral, in the pursuit of her subjects, which stands in contrast to the warmth & generosity she would show so many people in her personal life.

And Scott, unlike Rule, is an actual journalist, and this distinction plays an important role both in Rule’s biography and in the genesis of this book. Scott is forthright about what she has found in researching Rule’s life & career, and Scott is also comprehensive in contextualizing those findings.

The result is a fascinating document that I very much enjoyed. I can see this being made into the same kind of drama (like “Small Sacrifices”) that kept Rule in the spotlight while she lived.

Get FIRST LADY OF MURDER: https://a.co/d/02WRP4FE

READINGS FROM MAY 2026

2026-06-03T18:38:58.827-07:00

READINGS FROM MAY

These are the recommended books from my month of May.

All are worth reading. All of them are books I enjoyed.

But good luck getting your hands on Captain Cool! The book is a collectible that has, to my knowledge, never been reprinted beyond its first run. (I got a copy as a gift.) But it’s a story that seems too wild to be true. Yet there’s documentation!

As always, your mileage will vary.

ADDICTION BY DESIGN: machine gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll

2026-05-28T20:20:48.806-07:00

Addiction By Design: machine gambling in Las Vegas by Natasha Dow Schüll

Originally published in 2012, this book began as an ethnography of slot machine players in my hometown. But what Schüll found was much more profound and troubling than a mere anthropological study, a process she relates in her preface to the 2025 reissue of Addiction By Design.

Would it surprise anyone to realize that casinos are designed to entrap us? It's not just that they want to lull us with comfort & luxury; it's that they are actively engaged in short-circuiting our judgment by basically hypnotizing us into a zombie-like state of mind.

And the psychological state that Schüll describes as the “Machine Zone” and the behaviors that this state elicits have ramifications well beyond slot machines. In fact, they explain much about how social media (indeed, all media) works, as well.

In other words, the lessons learned by casino and slot machine designers have informed social media and game designers on how to elicit “infinite scroll” behavior much the same way compulsive gamblers can be induced to enter the “Machine Zone” that Schüll describes.

This book goes deep into the details, from first-person accounts from compulsive gamblers to explications of how floor placement affects casino traffic, and, personally, I gained some strong insights about Sin City, one of them being why there is a shrinking footprint of table games on the Strip. (It all comes down to money, for sure, but the processes behind that shrinkage say a lot about our worst impulses.)

Now as I walk through a casino, furtively glancing up from my smartphone so I don’t trip over a bank of slots, I’ll have a better understanding of what I’m navigating. And maybe, just maybe, my opened eyes will better defend me against falling into the “Machine Zone” myself.

Get Addiction By Design here: https://a.co/d/0hm7I048

TASTES LIKE WAR: a memoir by Grace M. Cho

2026-05-27T15:57:21.417-07:00

TASTES LIKE WAR: a memoir by Grace M. Cho

A finalist for the 2021 National Book Award, this memoir recounts Cho’s upbringing as a mixed-race American child of the Korean conflict. Her narrative ranges from her earliest memories to her adulthood, circling back as events in her present recall, refine & ultimately reshape her past, using food & locations as touchstones.

As Cho figures out who she is, where she came from, and who she wants to be, she also grapples with the diverging fortunes of her parents, each of whom has their own complex histories.

Though Cho relates the story of her problematic American father with some sympathy, the real focus of her story is Cho’s mother, whose journey from Korea to America is fraught with violence, displacement & shame, not to mention serious mental illness, raising compelling questions of cause and effect.

What Cho recounts is deeply human, informed by the sweep of world events as well as the chaos of emotional conflict, and it is also incredibly humane, giving voice (however incomplete, however inchoate) to Cho’s forebears. It’s clear that this author is a compassionate, thoughtful and insightful witness, using the grist of her personal history to mill a remarkably rich story.

And Cho is the best kind of truth-seeking guide, for whom even the smallest discovered detail can yield a rumination on the largest questions. (For instance, what does it say about our culture that the word “whore” is almost always a pejorative while the word “soldier” almost never is?)

I found surprising, even troubling, parallels between Cho’s family life and my own, which speaks to the role that U.S. military action in Southeast Asia has played in so many lives. I guess the give-and-take between nations makes victims of us all, such that, whatever your particular heritage, none of us is immune to history.

And yet we persist. And some of us, like Cho, fashion sublime testaments as a result.

Get TASTES LIKE WAR here: https://a.co/d/0d4TAaAY

JUST READ: America, América by Greg Grandin

2026-05-13T17:50:15.921-07:00

JUST READ: America, América by Greg Grandin

“Who is an American? And what is America?” asks this book in its preface.

Pulitzer Prize winner Greg Grandin has written a history of the United States of America that focuses on how what we now call Latin America has been a pivotal influence on the formation of our place in the world order.

Going back over 500 years, Grandin makes a strong argument that many of the ideals that we assume as intrinsic to our idea of what it means to be an “American” were born from our relationship with the land & cultures south of us.

Also from the preface: “But America, América is more than a history of the Western Hemisphere. It’s a history of the modern world, an inquiry into how centuries of American bloodshed and diplomacy didn’t just shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also gave rise to global governance — the liberal international order that today, many believe, is in terminal crisis.”

Grandin has crafted a compelling narrative that contextualizes our current moment. It’s actually scary to me how many parallels he draws between now and what has happened (often many times over) over the past few centuries.

History rhymes, in a mulitlingual chorus that even the ignorant (willful or not) cannot afford to ignore.

Get America, América here: https://a.co/d/0eIcxh83

JUST READ: Separation of Church & Hate by John Fugelsang

2026-04-29T13:13:09.483-07:00

JUST READ: Separation of Church & Hate by John Fugelsang

Like Fugelsang, I was raised Christian, but the religion I grew up with bears little resemblance to what is practiced by many I know, so this book comes as a breath of fresh air.

Its rebuttal of difference & division and of grievance as an animating spirit is more in accord with what I was taught, which is that compassion and community matter more than conflict.

It helps that Fugelsang is also a working comedian, so his book is full of chuckles, despite its seriousness.

Get Separation of Church and Hate here: https://a.co/d/01ctVVuc

MIXED PLATE by Jo Koy

2026-04-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

Mixed Plate: chronicles of an All-American Combo by Jo Koy

This one hit home, because Koy's early biography has close parallels to my own. Not that I have any talent for comedy, but both Koy & I share a similar racial & cultural heritage, right down to having an Air Force father who married our Filipina mother and brought her to the States via Clark AFB. (But where Koy was raised by his mother after the divorce of his parents, I was raised by my father.)

Koy's rags-to-riches memoir is so authentic that I had to take my time with it. Again, the similarities struck me: the chaotic home life, the contentious social life, the myriad confusions of being "mixed," the endless struggle. And the differences were equally evocative. Where Koy hustled & risked everything in the pursuit of his dream, I buckled down and played it safe, keeping jobs I should have left. It was like reading a "what-if" version of my own diary.

But, as befits the story of a comedian coming into his own, there are laughs on every page. And Koy is clear-eyed about his own failures and shortcomings. In such clarity lies wisdom. This is one book where the audio version, read by Koy himself, adds dimension to the text.

But the print version has recipes! And the recipes that start some sections of the book managed to inspire both nostalgia and irritation, because no two families do anything exactly the same. (My Mom put raisins in her lumpia -- I know, it's crazy!)

In the end, Koy's story is so honest, so raw & self-aware, that I found it to be a profoundly uplifting read, making me more of a fan that I already was.

Get Mixed Plate here: https://a.co/d/06RmvTyw

Vigil: a novel by George Saunders

2026-04-20T17:38:00.000-07:00

Vigil: a novel by George Saunders

How it starts: A spirit of some sort visits an oil tycoon on his deathbed. What happens next is that Saunders is a particularly brilliant writer who is able to imaginatively embody a conceit, no matter how fantastical. This time, he imagines a kind of ushering angel tasked with shepherding someone completely unlike herself, eliciting all sorts of questions and sympathies (and not a few irritations) along the way, all done through dialogue that veers wildly from the hilarious to the heartbreaking, often sentence by sentence. It’s a wild ride, well-worth taking, covering way more ground than its mere 192 pages would suggest. Get Vigil: a novel here: https://a.co/d/09S6tnyD

BUCKEYE by Patrick Ryan

2026-04-17T20:22:00.000-07:00

BUCKEYE by Patrick Ryan

Set in a small town in Ohio during the middle half of the 20th century, this novel tells the story of 3 generations of 2 families linked by secrets.

Describing its plot any further would make this book sound melodramatic, as if it were nothing more than a soap opera, but Ryan’s real achievement is in the emotional authenticity of his characters, even the minor ones. The entire cast rings true, and not just in a hackneyed way. The entire cast rings true, and not just in a hackneyed way. These are not caricatures. They are fully-fleshed characters living out their lives.

I found myself not just suspending disbelief. I actually started to care about these people, even when they weren’t at their best. And, again referencing (however obliquely) Ryan's plot, they all get their due.

I got to the last page of this book with deep sense of satisfaction, grateful for the journey.

Get Buckeye by Patrick Ryan here: https://a.co/d/00QKeSqE

JUST READ: THE ARROGANT APE by Christine Webb

2026-04-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

The Arrogant Ape by Christine Webb

This book by a Harvard primatologist is a sustained and persuasive argument for a more ecological view of the universe and our place in it. I highly recommend it.

Get The Arrogant Ape here: https://a.co/d/01g0LIxc