Coming Attractions

Blame it on writer’s block or maybe a lack inspiration but for the last few months I’ve been unable to blog. Heck, even my reading has dropped off. But here I am, struggling with WordPress’s new editing platform and trying to bang out a new post. In hopes of getting things rolling once again I’ll begin with a brief overview of the books I’ve read of late. Hopefully, in the near future I’ll be sharing my thoughts on these six books on my blog. 

• Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker- After reading a glowing review of this book on one of my favorite book blogs What’s Nonfiction I knew sooner or later I’d read it. Kolker’s vivid and detailed look at a family ravaged by schizophrenia did not disappoint me. 
• The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn by Lucette Lagnado – Lucette Lagnado’s  The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family’s Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World was one of the best memoirs I read back in 2011. After hearing the author interviewed on the Vox Tablet podcast and learning she’d written a follow-up book I immediately secured a Kindle edition through Overdrive. 
• The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy by Masha Gessen- I kept seeing this one at the library but never borrowed it. But after reading Gessen’s outstanding The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia I needed to read more of her stuff. 
• Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen – In keeping with my above-mentioned point, how then could I not resist reading Gessen’s most recent book when I spied a copy at the library?
• Genius & Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947 by Norman Lebrecht – I’ve said it before, I’m a sucker for Jewish history. 
• Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever by Rick Wilson- Two years ago I caught Rick Wilson promoting his book on C-SPAN and was completely captivated. A few months ago I discovered his podcast The New Abnormal and can’t get enough of it. Just like his podcast, Wilson’s book is sick and wrong. But completely accurate.