-
Do You Read the Book Before or After the Movie/TV Show?
Season 3 of “Reacher” is out and I’m loving it! But a friend and fellow writer considers it “downright awful.” What? Are we watching the same show? To be fair, my fellow writer has read all the Lee Child novels. I’ve read none of them. For me, Reacher is a TV show starring Alan Ritchson. It had me at the opening segment of the first episode when Reacher did the Sherlock Holmes thing and observed and made correct deductions. I blew through seasons one and two and am eagerly waiting each week as new episodes of season three roll out. So I’m coming at the show from a different point…
-
Unexpected Discoveries Are the Best
Have you ever been surprised by a piece of pop culture? It happened to me this week. My wife and I attended a concert on Monday. The names on the bill were Howard Jones, ABC, and Richard Blade. I knew Jones and had already seen him once, decades ago, but hadn’t listened to his music in a while. Driving to downtown Houston, we listened to HoJo’s greatest hits and I discovered I still knew most of the words to his song—and could still play a mean steering wheel keyboard. His set was fantastic, and I especially appreciated his changing up nearly every song, making the live experience something special rather…
-
A Literary Palate Cleanser: Do You Have One?
Yesterday on NPR’s All Songs Considered podcast, hosts Stephen Thompson and Nate Chinen discussed some new albums released. It’s a great podcast and one I look forward to listening to every week. At one point, the pair are discussing Marshall Allen’s new debut album—the guy is 100!—and Thompson talks about how approachable Allen’s new album is, comparing it to the music of Juan Garcia Esquivel, which he describes as having a ‘hi-fi, cocktail jazz” feel. Thompson then mentions that Esquivel is music he dips into when he needs a palate cleanser. That got me to thinking: do I have a palate cleanser for reading? The short answer is no, and…
-
Listen to Audiobooks at Any Speed You Want
A couple of weeks ago on NPR, I ran across an article entitled “Is there a right way – or wrong way – to listen to an audio book?” and I gave it a read. The article spotlights a TikTok video from Audible where various celebrities discuss their preferred speed of listening to content. What surprised me was the number of folks who think 1x (i.e., normal) speed is the only preferred method. One person even commented “I think people who go real fast are – I don’t want to say psychopath, but…” I have to admit it irritated me. I am an avid listener of audiobooks and podcasts. Of…
-
The JFK Conspiracy Few Know About is a Riveting Thriller
As a trained historian, I pride myself on having in-depth knowledge on certain topics of history and a general sense of a wide range of other topics. This book showcased an event I never knew about. When I saw the title of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s new book, The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy―and Why It Failed, I’ll admit it threw me. Was this a heretofore unknown account of that horrible day in 1963? Not at all. This is a retelling of another attempt on JFK’s life, this time in the weeks right after Election Day 1960. What? How did I miss this story in all…
-
What “Saturday Night Live” Can Teach Writers About Failure
Failure sucks, but failure isn’t all bad. After rehearsal on Thursday night, I came back home to find my wife watching a new four-part documentary on the history of Saturday Night Live. I missed the first episode and most of the second, but I ended up watching the last two. The third episode is an entire deep dive on the Cowbell sketch. That was fun. The fourth, however, was brand-new to me. Entitled, “Season 11: The Weird Year,” it details the new-to-me saga of that year. And there was a lot I didn’t know. Randy Quaid was a cast member?! Full disclosure: I didn’t start watching SNL regularly until my…
-
Give Yourself the Grace to (Re)Start Your New Year’s Resolutions
How are your New Year’s Resolutions coming along? Today is Quitter’s Day 2025. It’s the day when a shocking 80% or more people who made New Year’s resolutions have tapped out. These are the same folks who made decisions so fervently at midnight on 1 January. I’m one of those folks who always uses a new year (or month or week or day) to reset myself and my habits. Because that’s what resolutions really are, habits. Some of these habits have become embedded in my internal hard drive. I no longer need to keep track of my daily flossing because, years ago, I created the habit. Ditto for my daily…
-
My Favorite Books from 2024
The year 2024 turned out to be one of my best reading years in quite awhile. Granted, I kept pace via audiobooks, but since that is my go-to, I don’t even count it. The Stats Overall, I got through 34 books in 2024, and I was 45 minutes (2 chapters) from finishing a 35th on New Year’s Eve. My science fiction book club (now entering its sixteenth year!) can account for at least eight books most years. Yeah, I don’t finish a book I don’t like. Long ago I realized it is better to pull the ripcord on a bad book and read something I enjoy versus slogging through a…
-
Are you scared to put your side hustle on LinkedIn?
Do you have a side hustle? A passion project you do in addition to a day job? The kind of activity that, given a perfect set of circumstances you’d happily make your main vocation? Is it on LinkedIn? Why not? Now, I admit, up until recently, my side hustle was not on LinkedIn either. In fact, when my current boss at the day job interviewed me two years ago this month, he actually brought up my author business. It was the first time anything like that had happened. It surprised me, but it also should have served as all the incentive I needed to update my LinkedIn profile. Yet I…
-
A Compelling Book That Will Make You Assess Your Life: The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave
Know how, as soon as you finish watching The Sixth Sense, you watch the movie again, knowing the truth, and it all lines up? That’s how the prologue is in The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave. Hat tip to The University of Texas at Austin, Apple TV, and Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop for introducing me to the work of Laura Dave. How do those things connect? Well, my wife watched the adaptation of Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me on Apple TV and some of those episodes took place in Austin, Texas, and, specifically, the University of Texas football stadium. I stopped, watched those episodes, and then…