Sunday, February 22, 2026

Fun for the Whole Family

 Fiction by Jennifer E. Smith


The four Endicott siblings grew up together more or less normally, until Gemma, the oldest, was 12. At that point their mother Frankie disappeared from their lives to pursue Art, leaving them with a dad who worked all the time and only reappearing for summer visits. For the next seven summers, Frankie would take them on a whirlwind road trip, darting randomly around the country with the vague goal of eventually visiting all fifty states.

As adults the siblings remained close until a big fight blew a hole in their relationship. Then Jude, the youngest of the kids, makes a big effort to get everyone back together in North Dakota of all places. Secrets will soon come out...

This was a really well-written bunch of characters. I really liked this book.

Friday, February 20, 2026

The Survivor

 Fiction by Gregg Hurwitz


At the beginning of this book, Nate Overbay has climbed to the eleventh floor of a bank building and is preparing to jump off a ledge when he sees a robbery in progress through the window. Will he give up on his suicide plan and try to intervene? So begins an exciting thriller with lots of surprises...

I also read by this author: Tell No Lies

Thursday, February 19, 2026

The Color of Light

 Fiction by Karen White


I had some trouble getting interested in this story; I'm not sure why.

Wednesday, February 18, 2026

The Wondering Years

 Nonfiction by Knox McCoy


This was a fun and funny memoir about the author's life and faith journey.

Tuesday, February 17, 2026

The Sideways Life of Denny Voss

 Amazon Prime Kindle Fiction by Holly Kennedy


At the beginning of this story, Denny Voss is arrested when he tries to take a sled full of firearms and ammunition over a snowy hill in his small town of Minnesota. Although Denny is a full-grown man, he is developmentally delayed and like a child in many ways; therefore he is unable to explain what he is doing to the police officers who swoop in to stop him from taking the weapons any farther. 

Indeed, even the reader is mystified about the sled full of guns. (The psychologist examining him in jail asks him what could have been a better choice to make, and Denny ventures, "Call the police station and tell them I was coming?" Um, no...)

Once Denny is in custody, things get worse. A man in town was recently murdered, and it was one of the guns Denny was transporting that killed him. 

This was a really good story with great characters, and a few surprises as well. I will definitely look for more by this author!

I also read (free!) from Amazon Prime Kindle: The Taken Ones

Sunday, February 15, 2026

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

 Fiction by Fannie Flagg


I had read this novel years ago, but I thought I'd try it on audio book. It was doubly good with the Southern lady narrator!


I also read by this author: The Whole Town's Talking

Wednesday, February 11, 2026

The Undoing Project

Subtitled: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds
Nonfiction by Daniel Lewis


The titular Friendship that Changed Our Minds was between two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the middle of the twentieth century. While these men were pretty interesting and their work very interesting, this book itself was not all that interesting.

Although the author gave a lot of information about both men (and a lot of extraneous information, including irrelevant things about his previous successful book Moneyball ), the book didn't read like a story about people. I don't like stories that aren't about people.

I think I would have done better just to read their psychology papers.