Jul 14, 2026

"The Last Castle" is a detailed but perfectly readable account of the story of the Biltmore House and Estate in North Carolina - the largest private house ever built in the United States. George W. Vanderbilt, a bookish man given to wandering, spent much of his vast fortune buying land and building a fantastic house on a mountaintop. How he worked with such luminaries as Frederick Law Olsted and Richard Morris Hunt to shape the 175,000-square-foot house on an acreage three times larger than Washington D.C. is fascinating.

Equally fascinating is the story of his wife Edith, who dedicated much of her life to helping the people of the area raise their qualities of life, and also to encourage the regional arts and crafts into widely valued woodwork and textiles. 

The story of the estate is deeply woven into the remarkable history of its time... from the Gilded Age through World War I, the Jazz Age, the Depression, World War II; through fire and devastating flood... Biltmore House with its estate, along with Biltmore Village, persevered through good times and hard times.

All told, this fascinating story touches significantly on everything from the Titanic to women's suffrage to the Lost Generation.

I wish I'd read this before we visited Asheville and the Biltmore in 2023. I'd have appreciated the whole trip more. As it is, we were just glad to have been able to see the whole area before the vicious damage done by Hurricane Helene in 2024.

Jul 10, 2026

For the record - despite the image, I didn't read the Large Print edition. Just getting that out there.

Turns out Stacey Abrams can plot and write a gripping story. It helps if you're at least vaguely familiar with the law, the Supreme Court, genetic science and computer skullduggery, but with close enough attention, you won't miss much.

A few plot holes. And in a sign of how quickly the world is changing around us, despite the fact that this book is less than five years old some of the technology depicted just wouldn't work anymore.  

The developments of the past five years do make the "bad guys" of DHS in this book even more alarming. And it hurts to say this, but I don't think I could trust the FBI to do the right thing any more.

It's nice to be reminded that things worked so recently, though.

Jul 08, 2026

I've read it now. It's dramatic and sad. That is all. Nobody died. In the rain, or otherwise. Except some fish.

Jul 08, 2026

Welp, I'm hooked. I told myself I wasn't going to start another unfinished series. (Yes, I'm still waiting for George R.R. Martin to wrap up THAT story.) 

But this is the most complex, most truly alien, alien invasion story I've ever read, and I'm hungry for more!

Jul 05, 2026

John Grisham is a heck of a good storyteller. If you're a fan of legal machinations with some actual human stories behind them, he's hard to beat. This tale of two families - and two boys - who grow up as neighbors and teammates but end up on different sides of the law holds your attention easily.

Confession: I really like Grisham's books but I can't read too many of them too close together. And I still think "A Time to Kill" is his best one.

Jun 30, 2026

An easy read; interesting enough. Not as good as "Station Eleven," but not shabby. Thought-provoking passage near the end about 'living in the end times.'

(Note: Not sure why the info up there says I only read 31%. I read the whole thing. All pages.)

Jun 29, 2026

Books that open doors and windows into worlds that aren't your own are the reason for reading.

One thing that struck me so hard in reading this book about lives of an extended family/neighborhood of Native Americans was how many similarities it shares with the lives of poor rural Southerners. The details differ, obviously, but the overall sense of frustration with society, distrust of the government, making do with whatever you can obtain, and the ever-present temptation of alcohol and drugs, are heartbreakingly familiar.

Class is the great divide in the U.S., and the only people who don't want to admit it are the ones clinging to the top of the sub-billionaire class. The true billionaires don't care.

Jun 22, 2026

I've circled this book for easily 50 years, finding recommendations, adding it to "to read" lists, and just never getting around to it. I had no idea what I was missing.

Yes, it's written in the Victorian era, so it's long on description and moves slowly compared to more modern novels. But the story itself is fantastic and rewards the patience required to read it.

It's a story that couldn't happen today, since much of the plot involves mistaken identity and threats to women that (thank goodness and fingers crossed) are no longer present. But in "The Woman in White," those threats are very real; living in a society in which a woman could be put in an asylum by any man in her life (father, husband, brother...) for just about any reason whatsoever. 

The plot unfolds from multiple viewpoints in this epistolary telling, and includes some of the earliest fictional depictions of detective work (albeit unofficial). It also features a remarkable female character, Marian Halcombe, whose intelligence and drive manages to keep the plot moving. Not to be dismissed is the fact that parts of the story are just plain funny.

"The Woman in White" was considered to be a 'sensation novel' at the time of its publication. In my opinion, it's still pretty sensational today.

Don't wait 50 years before reading it. 

Jun 19, 2026

Louise Penny strikes again. It took a few chapters to get fully into this one, but then it ramped up quickly into a real nail-biter. These terrorism possibilities ring too awfully possible.

Jun 15, 2026

Wow. That's all. Just wow. 

Jun 12, 2026

Who was the young man who chose to kill himself at a bookstore? 

Jun 08, 2026

Such a slow read, but I often find Ishiguro's work that way: It's almost like I have to force myself to keep reading but also can't stop. Stevens, the dreadfully repressed butler so fixated on dignity and living up to his father's example, breaks my heart in the way he so adamantly resists love. And when he finally faces reality and gives in, it's too late.

But maybe he'll learn to banter.

Both funny and devastating, as Ishiguro often is.

May 14, 2026

Hard to believe I'd never read this before now. Good mystery. An excellent read, although in that ultra-descriptive Victorian style that makes it a slow  read.