Friday Fun – What Are You Reading?


March 3rd, 2017 By Catherine Hanna

Earlier this week we observed World Book Day, a celebration of reading, and the birthday of Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Suess. In honor of these events, I thought I would ask my co-workers what they are reading now.

David is reading The Trespasser, by Tana French (spooky!) and How Shakespeare Put Politics on the Stage: Power and Succession in the History Plays, by Peter Lake. (No wonder he’s been dropping so many Shakespeare references into our conversations!)

Todd is reading Inverting the Pyramid: the History of Football Tactics, by Jonathan Wilson. (Psst. By football, he means soccer.)

Eric said that he is reading four books, so I told him to put them down and get back to work. Here they are:

  1. A Constellation Of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra. (I’ve read this. It is bleak, but a great introduction to the Chechen War.)
  2.  Land of Lincoln, by Andrew Ferguson.
  3. Essentialism-The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, by Greg McKeown.
  4. Reviewing and enjoying the anachronistic pleasures of the 1950’s Spanish for Beginners, by Charles Duff.

Laura  is reading Girl on a Train, by Paula Hawkins. (Laura is a little late to the party here. No Spoilers!)

Sarah is reading The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone, by Olivia Laing. (Should I take this as a hint that I pop into her office too often?)

Jeff  is looking forward to Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders. (Having enjoyed Saunders’s  surreal short stories, I am also looking forward to this one.)

Sheila recommends The Know It All, by A.J. Jacobs as a fun, light read (I second this. I also enjoyed, The Year of Living Biblically, by the same author) and the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. (Dragons!)

Robert just finished Universal Harvester, by John Darnielle.  I’ll let him describe it:

“About a mid-west kid working in a video store back in the pre-DVD/streaming days who notices that someone has been recording odd/disturbing scenes onto various videotapes.  Fun does not ensue.  Darnielle is also the front man for the Mountain Goats, who should be lauded for, if nothing else, the song The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton.”

Melanie is our long-distance runner and she likes to listen to detective books and thrillers while she runs. She recommends the Divergent series by Veronica Roth.

Sumi, the trainer who kicks our butts twice a week in boot camp, is reading The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat, by Stephan J. Guyenet and Ego is the Enemy, by Ryan Holiday. (I can think some lawyers who should read that second one.)

And me? I recently listened to The Empire of the Summer Moon, by S.C. Gwynne on Audible. What a fascinating Texas story! I am also reading The Sport of Kings by C.E. Morgan. On its face, it is about horse racing in Kentucky, but there is so much more to it. The New York Times reviewer called it “a mud-flecked epic, replete with fertile symbolism, that hurtles through generations of Kentucky history.”

Happy Reading!!