Tag Archives: Friday Reads

If summertime travel is in your future, you could enjoy some small talk with an outgoing stranger while on your way to your destination—and what would be the harm in that? Well, Patricia Highsmith is happy to remind you, behind that charming face, there could be more than just a hot mess who seems to want to “share” the armrest. They might also want to “share” some murder.

Highsmith’s novels have been made into many enjoyable, uncomfortable movies and shows—the character of Tom Ripley alone has attracted several adaptations. Strangers on a Train was her first published novel, and was made into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock a year later, and remains a wonderful cautionary tale about how a little bit of weakness can be exploited to completely ruin someone’s life. Both Hitchcock and Highsmith were equal-opportunity haters, and their loathing extended to their own identities. This most famous movie adaptation of the novel does change some things—it takes advantage of the architecture of Washington, DC, for one thing, to provide stark contrasts. In the book, our “hero,” Guy, is an architect, not a tennis player; on film, his athleticism is an obvious attraction for the stranger on the train. On the page, Guy knows he can build a life he knows he should want, but the structure cannot hold on shaky ground.

Somehow, the novel is even less generous towards the female characters, if you can believe it; but Highsmith had a low opinion of everyone, after all–especially those she knew she was not supposed to like as much as did. Cold war paranoia combines with the darkness before one of the dawns of society’s acceptance of diversities, and shows how living in the shadows can be dangerous and damaging to our perspectives of what we are willing to accept in others, and in ourselves. A quick read, and a story you might be familiar with from the movie, Strangers on a Train will remind you how much you can lose as a person, and as a member of society. Thank goodness humanity got all this sorted out since then, right?

Highsmith, Patricia. Strangers on a Train. Penguin, 1950.

The best review for any book is when it makes you laugh out loud. This one delivers. Like David’s other audio books, The Land and Its People is a collection of recorded readings in front of live audiences.

One of the essays in this book published earlier in the New Yorker revealed that David and his longtime boyfriend Hugh Hamrick were secretly married in 2016. He didn’t even share this news with his family and revealed it was at his banker’s recommendation for financial reasons. Another essay features Hugh preparing for hip replacement surgery. With the upcoming Christmas holiday and David’s lack of culinary skills, how would Hugh be able to prepare his usual feast of two entrees and various side dishes to accommodate everyone’s dietary requirements?  Could Hugh cook from a wheelchair if he couldn’t recover fast enough?

As a Sedaris fan I have added listening to David’s Santaland Diaries, broadcast every Christmas on NPR, to my holiday traditions. I’ve also been fortunate enough to see David read his essays in person a couple of times and the crowd is an inimitable community. The last time I saw him, my seat mate said I looked familiar. After a few unsuccessful guesses at our connection, she said, “just give me your phone” so we could become Facebook friends, and then it all became clear.

What I love most about David are his conversations with people, real or imagined. He sometimes mirrors my own thoughts and I can’t decide if that’s a good thing or not. David and Hugh’s rants and reactions to missed flights or a friend whose house rules don’t allow cell phone use on the first floor are hilarious. Our shared humanity is easier to laugh at when it happens to someone else. If you’d like to sample something by Sedaris, click here for several free essays and short stories. The world might need another Sedarian.  

The Land and Its People: Essays by David Sedaris, 2026, Little, Brown & Company

Commonly listed among suggested readings for America250, David McCullough’s 1776 is a history of the American Revolution focused on the pivotal year identified in the book’s title – the year of the Declaration of Independence, when the outcome of the struggle depended largely on military success. While the book is a military history, it is also a study of leadership, perseverance, devotion, and commitment to the cause of independence.

McCullough’s research draws upon both American and British archival sources. Letters, journals, and other contemporary records tell the human story through the experiences and observations of participants on both sides of the conflict. On the American side were farmers, teachers, laborers, and others, young and old alike, drawn into the struggle for independence.

1776 recounts the many hardships and missteps that preceded the Revolution’s eventual success. In late 1775, Britain prepared to crush the rebellion by sending additional troops, including well-trained and experienced Hessian mercenaries. At the same time, George Washington assumed command of the Continental Army, inheriting a force that was ill-equipped and largely unprepared.

Central to the book’s narrative is the leadership of George Washington. Much of what is commonly remembered about Washington involves his heroism and military accomplishments. McCullough does not portray him as flawless. Washington began his command with limited military experience, occasional uncertainty, and some notable mistakes. McCullough emphasizes his dignity, intelligence, perseverance, and ability to inspire confidence in others.

American soldiers faced significant disadvantages compared with the well-supported and formidable British military. The hardships were severe with hunger, disease, expiring enlistments, and frequent desertions. Critical supplies were lacking, clothing and food were often inadequate, training was inconsistent, and pay was unreliable. Morale was a persistent challenge.

Despite these overwhelming obstacles, and despite major defeats in New York and New Jersey, Washington’s army endured. Through determination, adaptability, and several important successes, the revolutionary forces continued the fight that would ultimately lead to British defeat. As McCullough observes, the Revolution survived because Washington refused to surrender.

Although Washington is the dominant figure, McCullough also profiles others who performed significant roles in the fight for independence, as well as key leaders among the British forces. Notable are Henry Knox and Nathanael Greene, whose intelligence, determination, and leadership McCullough’s recognizes. Their contributions, along with those of many other participants, reinforce one of the book’s central themes: that the Revolution’s success depended not only on great leaders but also on the perseverance and sacrifice of many individuals committed to the cause of independence.

Other notable David McCullough American history books for America250 reading and bookdiscussions include John Adams, The American Spirit, and The Pioneers.

McCullough, David. 1776. Simon & Schuster. 2005.

Visitors to the Louvre often have very polarizing impressions. Some immediately fall in love, and treasure the experience. Others feel rushed. Overwhelmed by the crowds and expansive collection, visitors may leave disappointed. In Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum, Elaine Sciolino explores the Louvre’s more than 200-year history, and dives into the stories of the art, the caretakers, and the complex issues surrounding this massive museum collection. As an experienced journalist, Sciolino knows how to find and tell compelling stories, uncovering intriguing and personal stories from the people who have unrivaled behind-the-scenes access, including curators, gardeners, window washers, and firefighters. Sciolino also delves into topics the Louvre and many museums face, including ethical questions surrounding ownership, acquisition, and representation. A delightful and thought-provoking read for museum lovers, even stanch Louvre detractors will likely find interest in learning more about its history and the complex issues facing the Louvre today.

Sciolino takes readers behind-the-scenes to reveal the inner workings of this massive institution, and the people that run it. Did you know that the Louvre has a particle accelerator used to identify the composition and provenance of artwork? Have you ever thought about how they clean the glass in the Louvre Pyramid? Spoiler: it involves a Swiss robot named Gecko. These are interesting stories on their own, but the interviews with museum workers are particularly moving. Window cleaners or members of the fire brigade may not have started their careers with a love of art, but they thoughtfully describe the personal connections they have made through their work.

“Even if you don’t really know the sculptures and paintings, you are carried away by the architecture itself. Like you are alone in the world, traveling through these huge rooms. It’s really this feeling of being really small in an absolutely immense world.”

The most meaningful moments many museum workers describe take place in quiet contemplation. Due to the museum’s popularity, the average person visiting the Louvre fights crowds instead of finding contemplative spaces. Sciolino explores the challenges visitors face when viewing the Mona Lisa. One curator put it this way: “She is made for contemplation. For dialogue. To appreciate her, you must be alone with her. To look at her face to face as I look at you. . . We can’t see her because she is hung way too high and way too far away. . . Sad to say, but for reasons of security and climate control, we have to keep her that way. There is also her coloring, she is bathed in muted tones and unrestored, and must co-exist with the bright-colored, restored finishing paintings that hang nearby. . . Finally, there is the long wait. It takes a long time to approach her. . . and then you see her, very small and in the distance, and you never really see her well, and so she may seem trivial.”

So how can museums like the Louvre create any meaningful experiences for visitors if they are the victim of their own success? Due to politics and the resistance to change, the Mona Lisa experience is unlikely to change anytime soon, but Sciolino explores a little-known way that visitors can see original artwork from storage up close and personal. She also looks at how the Louvre’s branch museum in Lens is doing things differently to engage its local audience in a former coal mining region. Outreach and creating community spaces are major parts of their mission.  But then there is also the Louvre Abu Dhabi, a museum created through a thirty-year licensing agreement and partnership between France and the UAE. Sciolino explores the museum’s successes and controversies, and examines accessibility issues for the UAE’s large population of immigrant workers.

The book also explores many ethical challenges the museum faces including representation, ownership controversies, and acquisition issues. The Louvre, for example, possesses fragments of the Parthenon and looted sites from other countries. Other chapters explore gender, race, and religion. Sciolino discusses where representation is lacking, and ponders that if excellence in our world today means that you engage your audience, “Who is the Louvre for? How have ethnic groups like people of color been excluded and what steps are being taken to include them? How can the museum be a place of empathy? Of emotional connections?”

These are just a few of the topics explored in this expansive look at the Louvre. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it as an audiobook, but Adventures in the Louve is also available as an eBook in Nebraska Overdrive.

Elaine Sciolino has had a long career as a journalist, and is a contributing writer for The New York Times. She joined the Times in 1984, where she has held positions including chief diplomatic correspondent, United Nations’ bureau chief, CIA correspondent, and Paris bureau chief.  She is also the author of The Seine: The River That Made Paris and The Only Street in Paris: Life on the Rue des Martyrs.

Adventures at the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum,by Elaine Sciolino, 2026, W.W. Norton & Company.

Earlier this month, Dermot Kennedy (a new-to-me artist whose music I’ve been enjoying) released an album called The Weight of the Woods. I’ve had the titular song and its reprise on repeat quite a few times since then.  

If I should fall down / under stars I can’t call out / get me back to my homeground / let me add to the weight of the woods // Tether my bones tight / in view of that coastline / and bury this soul of mine / give it back to the weight of the woods.  

An ever-increasing amount of years ago, like all good English Literature students, I was assigned to read Walden; or, a Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau as part of my American Literature studies. Something in those pages caught to the quick of me. And it wasn’t just the cabin he built for 28 (19^th century) dollars. Home ownership! Imagine! (Though he did not own the land).  

Anyways, “The Weight of the Woods” reminded me of Walden, as did the advent of spring, as did the itch of having no dirt under my fingernails. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” indeed.  

I would imagine (or would like to believe, or even hope) that nearly every educated person  recognizes the name Walden and understands, at least in broad strokes, the themes associated with it: nature, simplicity, contemplation, and living deliberately. Most ought to recognize the iconic, oft-quoted line, oft-plastered-on-outdoor-outlet-store-walls, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived”  (Chapter 2: Where I Lived, and What I Lived For).  

Walden is, however, to my reading, more than a rote lesson. In fact, I think Thoreau himself would be remiss if his work was used as blueprint or gospel;  

I suspect that it is not purely an interest in diversity of life and observation that guides Thoreau to this conclusion, but rather a self-preserved reflex of we surely cannot all live in the woods and crowd that space — he remarks in Chapter 6, Visitors, that “These are the folks that worry the man / That lives in the house that I built. I did not fear the hen-harriers, for I kept no chickens; but I feared the men-harriers rather.” The use of the word “worry” in this instance refers to its meaning of “irritate.” This vexation is primarily caused by the “self-styled reformers, the greatest bores of all” and not the “honest pilgrims, who came out to the woods for freedom’s sake.”  

But the cut of what Thoreau cautions against is living a life uncontemplated, of following in another’s path just because the way already-tread is always easier than the uncharted path. Life is about simplicity, not ease; though Walden argues that simplicity eases the toils required to live. Don’t go off to live in the woods because you can’t think of anything else you’d rather do – go off to live in the woods because you think that there is nothing else that you can do, no other way that you can live. It’s true that Thoreau’s Walden experience only lasted a little over two years. It’s true that he was not the first or only to live in those Walden woods. But he did it, didn’t he?  

During my first reading of Walden — more than a decade ago now — my favorite chapter was Chapter 9: The Ponds. I was struck by Thoreau’s description of the pond. How could one not fall in love with such a place? It seems perfection; it seems ideal; it seems heavenly – ah, but Thoreau chides, “Talk of heaven! ye disgrace earth.”  

During this reading, it was Chapter 7: The Bean-Field that was dearest to me. There is something worthwhile and necessary in the soil, something worthwhile and necessary in the work of one’s hands, something necessary and worthwhile in birdsong and the woodchuck and the weeds. And how true it still rings today that, “ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely.” 

Anyways, let me add to the weight of the woods and the beanfield – let me add some measure of my soul back to the work that I do, deliberately, turning the good earth in my hands wherever I can. 

Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown is a pretty amazing book, and it is narratively different than anything I’ve read before. Frequently described as satire or metafiction, much of it is formatted to resemble a screenplay, with scene headings, character cues, and dialogue blocks. Additional narration, which expands beyond what would typically be included in a screenplay, is presented from the rarely-used second person point of view (think “you” pronouns).

Interior Chinatown’s main character, Willis Wu, is a young Chinese-American man who lives in Chinatown. He works as an extra (Background Oriental Male) in various movies and TV shows filmed on location, and he occasionally gets small speaking parts (Generic Asian Man). His aspiration, however, is to work his way up to the top slot in the hierarch: Kung Fu Guy.

Because of how this book is written, it’s often hard to tell whether actions are taking place on set or in real life. Willis and his neighbors, who are also cast in bit parts, share whispered commentary in the midst of scripted dialogue. And more significantly, dialogue between Willis and the stars of Black and White—the TV cop show they are currently filming—sometimes devolves into overt sniping about roles, stereotypes, and complicity with the system.

Text, subtext, and action blur. But the confusion serves a purpose. It opens up space for readers to interrogate the ways cultural tropes affect individuals—limiting how others see them as well as how they see themselves. It reminds us that everything is real life—even cliched cop shows.

This chaos is especially evident in the penultimate chapter: “Act VI: The Case of the Missing Asian.” Written as a courtroom scene, Willis is the defendant accused of “an internalized sense of inferiority.” According to testimony provided by Miles Turner, the Black detective from Black and White, “[Willis] thinks he can’t participate in this race dialogue, because Asians haven’t been persecuted as much as Black people.”

The trial is a wild ride. It provides Willis’s lawyer, Older Brother, whose recent absence from Chinatown is treated as a suspicious plot point in the latest Black and White episode but in reality is a function of his leaving to attend law school, an opportunity to share real case law pertaining to the historical treatment of minorities in the United States. It leads to Willis finally understanding that Kung Fu Guy is just another form of Generic Asian Man. And ironically, despite the main character’s epiphany, it ends in a giant Kung Fu battle—Wu and Older Brother vs. waves of cops—culminating in the freeing death of Kung Fu Guy

While Interior Chinatown’s plot is often bitingly funny, it never treats its subject matter lightly. That’s the brilliance of Yu’s work. It doesn’t offers easy answers, but it provides a crystal clear depiction of the dilemma confronting all of us: how to break free of the limiting roles and racial characterizations we’re steeped in.

Interior Chinatown was awarded the National Book Award in Fiction in 2020. It’s also been turned into a 10-episode miniseries available to stream on Hulu.

Yu, Charles. Interior Chinatown: A Novel. New York: Vintage Books, 2020.

Like so many others, I was laid low by the tragic news of Rob and Michelle Reiner’s deaths. I responded by watching movies Rob directed, including This is Spinal Tap (1984) and its recently released sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues (2025). For the uninitiated, both films focus on Spinal Tap,  a fictional heavy metal English band consisting of Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel) on lead, rhythm guitar, and vocals; Michael McKean (David St. Hubbins) on vocals, rhythm, lead, and acoustic guitar; and Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls) on bass guitar and vocals. Their repertoire consists of songs they wrote together from their early classic, Gimme Some Money to the wildly popular Big Bottom. Continuing to blur the lines between fiction and reality, the trio of actor-musicians actually toured as Spinal Tap, playing at venues like Wembley Stadium, Glastonbury, and Carnegie Hall.

After watching both movies, I listened to, the audio book edition of A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap, narrated by Rob, Christopher, Michael, and Harry. The first part of the book explains how the quartet came up with ideas for the film by gathering ridiculous situations observed from real heavy metal bands. It also covered how difficult it was for the movie studio to understand the concept of the first ever mockumentary and the craft of “schnadle” or “schnäedling,” a term Christopher Guest invented to describe the specific brand of improvised acting performed by the cast.  The second part of the book is a conversation with the characters from Spinal Tap schnäedling the origin story of the band.

Most impressive is the fact that Christopher, Michael, and Harry are bonafide musicians and song writers. It’s the question they are most often asked, leading Michael to wonder why the general public cannot understand or appreciate that comics can also be accomplished musicians. Their musical talents were also showcased in the film, A Mighty Wind (2003) featuring more of their originally written folk songs displaying their instrumental versatility. This is Spinal Tap has entered our popular culture in many ways, most notably in our vocabulary. The well-known phrase “these go to 11” was even included in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018 to signify something turned up to maximum volume or capacity beyond the maximum standard. This Is Spinal Tap was added to the Library of Congress Film Registry in 2002. To be nominated for the LC Film Registry, films must be at least 10 years old, and have “cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance.” The hardest part of the book to listen to was the four men speculating how the movie Spinal Tap would figure into their obituaries. For Rob, it was in the first line. 

If it weren’t for Spinal Tap, we wouldn’t have shows like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Arrested Development.  Ricky Gervais created The Office after he fell in love with Spinal Tap. Then he sold something created in America back to America. If laughter is good like a medicine, introduce yourself to Spinal Tap or any of the mockumentary movies created by Reiner or Christopher Guest and discover the comic tonic of schnadling.

A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap by Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, with David Kamp. Gallery Books. 2025