read of the week

Alaska always seemed like that mysterious frontier that everyone was curious about. Nowadays, though, it is easier to reach and explore. "Sweet Home Alaska," by Carole Estby Dagg, takes us back to a time when the state was still an enigma and brave pioneers were looking for a new world filled with fortune and hope.… Read More

Paul Kalanithi was on the cusp of a promising career as a neurosurgeon when, at age 36, he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. In his memoir, “When Breath Becomes Air,” he writes, “severe illness wasn’t life-altering, it was life-shattering. It felt less like an epiphany—a piercing burst of light, illuminating What Really Matters—and… Read More

Say what you want about me, but I like learning about dead people. I loved Mary Roach's book “Stiff” and the HBO television series “Six Feet Under” is my favorite show of all time. I’m fascinated by what happens to us when we die, as morbid as a topic as that might be. That being… Read More

According to, well, herself, Willowdean Dickson is about the last person predicted to compete in a pageant show, and it isn’t because she’s a (self-proclaimed) “fat girl.” It’s because pageants are an old fashioned diatribe of materialistic desires, full of shallow competitors. Unfortunately, Willow’s former beauty queen mother happens to be a judge of the… Read More

Do you ever think about where you would live if you didn’t live here? Would you ever consider moving to a foreign country? (I usually play this game every winter when the cold and snow get to be too much.)   I often read about these studies rating the happiest countries in the world or the… Read More

Now is the perfect time to get hooked on S.E. Grove’s The Mapmakers Trilogy, a fantasy series, starting with “The Glass Sentence.” If you’re anything like me and enjoy binge reading entire series, now is the perfect time to get started as the final book will be released this July. While “The Glass Sentence” is… Read More

Since I was a kid I’ve always loved watching the game of football.  Like millions of Americans, I watched the Super Bowl this past Sunday. But I watched it with a different perspective, all because I had read “League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions, and the Battle for Truth” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru.… Read More

Confession:  if there’s a nonfiction book about a manmade disaster, especially a shipwreck, I am going to read it. The fact that this one was written by Erik Larson, who also wrote the amazing “Devil in the White City”, was just a bonus. “Dead Wake” follows the final crossing of the Lusitania, a civilian ship… Read More

At the opening of Sarah Prineas’ “Ash & Bramble,” Pin wakes up in a fortress, dirty, cold, and with no memory of her past. She’s immediately thrust into hard labor as a seamstress and days pass in a blur as she and other women sew stitch after stitch after stitch. But there’s a spark in… Read More

With the dreariness of winter setting in, it can be easy to fall into a reading rut. To reach for the remote control before you reach for a book. To do pretty much anything that requires little to no brain power. Greer Macallister’s debut, “The Magician’s Lie”, is the book that will snap you out… Read More