The Passion of Christopher Pierznik

I’ve always been a voracious reader and after numerous questions about what I’m reading or what I thought of certain books, I decided to begin a monthly rundown of what I consumed. It’s not a book club, but just my thoughts and reviews (on a scale of 1 to 5 Wu-Tangs) of what I read that month, broken down into fiction and non-fiction. I also include an article I found interesting as well as a throwback book selection that i read in the past but still wanted to highlight.

Here is the complete list of 2014:

Fiction

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013) - If I were to only read the synopsis of The Goldfinch and then discover that it’s 784 pages, I would never imagine that I would get to page 25. However, for some reason, the book just moves along steadily, slowly building the tension and climax and never lagging except for a bit of a lull the last eighty pages or so. While not really a mystery, certain events happen early in the book that are explained and make much more sense several hundred pages later. The book works on two levels, dealing with heavy themes such as love, loss, life, death, fate, honesty, betrayal, happiness, and life’s purpose, while also serving as a coming-of-age story involving a kid that has too much freedom and too little direction. The Goldfinch was great, well-deserving of all the top ten and best of lists for which it was chosen, and so layered that I’m sure it will be even stronger the second time I dive into it.

4.5

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (2012) - I had been hearing about Gone Girl from the moment it hit bookshelves but, for whatever reason, I was late on it. When people saw me carrying it around, they couldn’t help but stop to ask me what I thought before saying, “Just wait, it gets better.” They were right. The rare book that gets better as it goes on (after page 175, I was addicted and hated to put it down), it is stylistically excellent - first-person narrative shifts back and forth with each chapter - but also includes great character development, rapid pacing, and left me constantly wondering (a) what happened and (b) what would happen next. Every single one of my theories of where the story was going or how things would turn out were staggeringly wrong.

5

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs (2013) - The beginning of Ghostman is the best start to any book I’ve read in at least five years (yes, even better than Gone Girl). I was riveted from page one. At some point, though, it became just another crime/mystery/hitman/drug deal/bad guys story. I really enjoyed the attention to detail, particularly in terms of the weaponry and how the underground really operates, but I found myself wanting it to be over and the ending left me feeling meh.

3

The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (2013) - After wrapping up the Harry Potter saga, J.K. Rowling wrote a “grown up” novel, The Casual Vacancy, that was unfairly scrutinized due to the fame of the author. Rowling’s response to this was to write a crime novel using a male nom de plume, Robert Galbraith. The result is a terrific crime mystery whodunnit that revolves around a private detective investigating the death of a famous supermodel. A dense, complex story that reveals more layers than an onion, Rowling does a splendid job of weaving the various (and seemingly unrelated) storylines and characters together as the book reaches its conclusion. This book is too good to write under a pseudonym.

4.5

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (1993) - The Alchemist is one of those books that was on my list for years and I just never got around to reading it. Now that I have, I don’t see what all the fuss was about. A story of a young shepherd that journeys to Egypt to find a treasure, it is an allegory that serves almost as a motivational manifesto. Filled with fortune cookie wisdom and Instagram-ready quotes (“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure”), it is so transparently self-help and inoffensively vanilla that it’s no wonder it’s been translated so many times. You could get the same feeling if you had read motivational quotes for 200 pages.

1.5

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (2012) - One of the three best novels I’ve read in quite some time. The story of a 16 year-old girl living with cancer and the boy she meets, it is far better than any synopsis. Go read it!

4.5

The Martian by Andy Weir (2014) – Originally self-published in 2012, The Martian was re-released through a major publisher this year and it’s my favorite book thus far of 2014. The story of a NASA astronaut stranded on Mars, it’s been called a cross between Apollo 13 and Cast Away, but it’s smarter, geekier, and funnier than those two great films. A page-turner, it takes the reader from despair to hope to laughing to thinking and back again on almost every page. This is a remarkable work for a first-time author.

5

Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk (1999) – The author of Fight Club, Palahniuk is a commercial author that never sold out. His brain just works differently than most of us and his books reflect that. I’ve had Survivor on my “To Read” list for some time and was eager to finally dig into it. Written fifteen years ago, it feels like another era with the hijacking of a plane in a pre-9/11 world and no mention of the Internet or cell phones. I loved the first half of the book, but felt it slow down in the second half, when the commentary on extreme faith and fame became a bit didactic. Still an entertaining read that is both easy and enlightening.

3.5

The Rover by Drew Magary (2014) – As far as certain things can be measured, Drew Magary is the most-read writer on the Internet.  Known for a combination snarky sports insights and honest, soul-baring accounts, first on Kissing Suzy Kolber and more recently Deadspin, Magary has made his name in the non-fiction world. His foray into novels, 2011’s The Postmortal, imagined a world in which the cure for aging was discovered and was a fantastic read that I thought was really underrated. His new Kindle single, The Rover, is his second time wading into the fiction pool. A very short story, it contains allusions to death, love, family, aging, human nature, the quest for power, even climate change. It was a decent read, kept me engaged throughout and had me unsure right up until the end. That being said, I’m not sure I would read it again, even though doing so would take less than an hour. Once is enough.

3

 

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts (2003) – Since I’ve yet to crack open Infinite Jest or The Power Broker, Shantaram has the designation of being the longest book I’ve ever finished. And man is it long. 944 pages to be exact. A sprawling epic that slowly unravels, it follows an escaped Australian prisoner as he creates a new life in India. It varies from crimes to love to war to philosophical discussions. It rambles at points, gets caught in its own quicksand of detail a few times and relies too heavily on fortune cookie wisdom and similes, but I couldn’t bring myself to quit. I put it down several times and kept checking to see how much further I had to go, but I stuck with it. It’s complex and powerful and even inspirational, with surprising plot twists and turns, but I can’t say I’d recommend it if only for the time it takes, but it was quite decent. It just could have been quite shorter.

3.5

Paper Towns by John Green (2008) – I’m a John Green fan. I was moved by The Fault in Our Stars and I love his videos, specifically the work he does with Mental Floss. With that said, Paper Towns is awful. If it had been written after TFIOS, it would be seen as a cheap imitation, a quick attempt to capitalize on success, but Paper Towns was written four years earlier. In fairness, I’m also not the target audience. I’m sure the book’s themes, which deal with the vapidity of high school and the struggle that every teenager feels to fit in while also standing out, speak to many young people, but to me it fails to reach the next level of believability, particularly in regards to the dialogue, which was clearly written by a man in his 30s trying to sound like teenagers. There were some funny parts and I certainly related to the main character being in love with a girl he grew up with who only sees him as a friend, but the book’s climax is so ridiculous and over the top that I could no longer take it seriously. Also, no spoilers, but no high school senior dumps two beers out of the window just so he can pee in them.

.5

The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (2013) – I love to read (and write), but I don’t follow literary circles, so I had no idea that Jhumpa Lahiri was a superstar in the world of writing until her second novel, The Lowland, was released and smart people treated it the way dumb people treat a new Transformers movie. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. My reaction? Meh. A quasi-non-linear story of two brothers born in India around the end of World War II and their divergent paths – one a fiery revolutionary, the other a quiet educator – in life…and its effects on those around them. I loved how all of the characters are fully formed and three-dimensional (there isn’t one perfectly good person and one menacing evil person) and they make mistakes and have regrets like real people. Every character is a bit unlikeable and that makes the book at once realistic and depressing, but the situations in which they find themselves are both unrealistic and boring. There are also plot developments that are unbelievable but necessary for Lahiri to get to her ultimate point, which is…well, I couldn’t figure it out.

2.5

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia by Robert Greenberger (2008) – I was never big into comics, but I had always been drawn to Batman. Unlike boring old Superman, Batman is (almost) realistic – he’s conflicted, brooding, and has a reason to try to save his city and its people. Everyone knows about the Joker and Riddler and Two-Face, but in his three-quarters-of-a-century of protecting Gotham, Batman has encountered multitudes of villains (and aides). The Essential Batman Encyclopedia condenses everything in those 75 years into one book – alphabetized, cross-referenced, and complete with illustrations of virtually anyone (and anything) that passed through Gotham during the Caped Crusader’s tenure. It’s dense, but since it’s an encyclopedia, it’s perfect for flipping around. Each time I open it, I learn something new and the story of Bruce Wayne and his alter ego become even better.

5

The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith (2014) – Merely a year after her wonderful crime mystery, The Cuckoo’s Calling, J.K. Rowling returns with the same nom de plume and the same private investigator, Cormoran Strike. From the start, it is everything you want a sequel (or a continuation) to be – much like the Harry Potter books, it picks up right where the last one left off and you feel as if it’s the second half of the first book, not an entirely new entry. However, it feels a bit flatter than the first novel, although the story itself is even more complex, an unraveling mystery that also allows Rowling to comment on the London literary establishment that shunned her in the early Harry Potter days. For me, there were a few too many characters introduced and parts of it feel like a setup for Robin, Strike’s assistant/protégé, to ultimately have a book(s) of her own. It’s still a strong, engaging read, and Rowling/Galbraith just gets better at her craft.

4

Joyland by Stephen King (2013) – I don’t know how, but Stephen King is underrated. The guy cranks out two to three books per year and while they may not all be The Stand, they’re all enjoyable and the result of a master of fiction still light years ahead of the majority of his peers. I wouldn’t consider myself a fan of hard-boiled crime novels, but I had to give Joyland a try. Billed as a haunted house at a carnival, it is, like all of King’s works, much more layered, with commentary about young love, loss, life and death as the major themes and the (possible) ghost story just a bonus. At less than 300 paperback pages it’s a quick, easy read – perfect for summer – and while the climactic scene comes together a little too neatly (what some would call a deus ex machina), I still couldn’t put it down and as it ended, it left me with a wide range of emotions, which is more than I can say for many books.

3.5

Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (2014) - I don’t know how Stephen King does it. After forty years and nearly 70 books, he still churns out about two per year. Not all are great, but they keep coming. While it’s highly unlikely he’ll ever reach the heights of The Stand or the compelling honesty of On Writing, he’s still putting out better stuff than most writers around and Mr. Mercedes, his first hard-boiled detective story, is one of his better works in recent years and was probably inspired by J.K. Rowling’s Cormoran Strike novels. Centering on a never-apprehended killer taunting the retired detective that he eluded, it has a great prologue and contains several meta references to other King works. Some of the dialogue is a bit dated and the ending is predictable, but it was still one of the better works of fiction I’ve encountered recently.

4

The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993) - Although it was released over twenty years ago, I only became aware of The Giver recently because of the recent release of the film on which its based. Obviously directed towards a junior high school crowd, it’s a book that can be read in one sitting, probably one meal. An inverted dystopian novel, it wraps a ton of social and political commentary into a story that starts slow and then ends a bit too briefly. My review? Ehh.

2

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion (2010) - Are you interested in a book that is a mixture of Twilight and The Walking Dead with a touch of I Am Legend thrown in? If you are, you shouldn’t be. When I mentioned Warm Bodies to my wife, she asked me, “Why would you read that?” It’s a great question. I don’t know how I came across this book or why I thought I could enjoy it, but I hate myself for it. This is, without question, the worst book with which I have ever come in contact. It’s worse than Twilight and that’s saying something. I know I’m not the target demographic for this piece of trash, but even as a toddler I would have hated this book. If I could award negative Wu-Tangs, I would give them all to this book. As Jay Sherman so eloquently says, “It stinks!”

0

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini (2003) - The first years of the new millennium was a weird time. Many people were scared of Y2K (my father worked in computer programming so he knew we would be fine), then Bush won a controversial election, then 9/11 happened, then we went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Amid the backdrop of all that, The Kite Runner was published in 2003 and immediately became part of the national discourse, primarily because it took place in Afghanistan and runs for several decades from the fall of the government to the eventual rise of the Taliban. When I would take a walk on my lunch break and browse through Borders or Barnes & Noble (remember those?), I always saw it on the best sellers shelf, but never picked it up. Now that I have, I see that my first instincts were correct. This is not a very good book. It’s not written poorly, but it’s not written well, either. Hosseini pounds the reader over the head with symbolism, particularly in the main character’s dreams, which are frequent and vivid, but also full of exposition. Speaking of the main character - and the book is written from the first-person perspective - this dude is not likeable. In fact, he’s genuinely unlikeable. He’s a whiny, petty, self-involved child of privilege that has zero self-awareness. As a reader, I hated this character and never bought into his motivations or point of view. To put it bluntly, this book sucks, and 1.5 is being generous.

1.5

City of Thieves by David Benioff (2008) - Novels of historical fiction are tricky. The writer needs to create an interesting world within an historically accurate realm and craft a story that keeps the reader engaged while also staying true to at least some of the facts. City of Thieves does all of that - and more - wonderfully. A story of a 17 year-old sent on a quest through German-occupied Russia during World War II, it is a much more engaging read than one would think from the synopsis. More importantly, it gets better with each chapter, never doing what the reader expects but also not creating plot out of thin air. This was one of the better books I’ve experienced recently.

4

Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk (2009) - I find Chuck Palahniuk brilliant and subversive, so I was eager to devour Pygmy. Unfortunately, I gave up quickly. Written as a series of dispatches by a 13 year-old sleeper agent, I couldn’t get beyond the cadence and broken English in which the book is written. I understand the reason for it and I applaud the effort and the originality, but it kept taking me out of the story because I had to keep starting and stopping. And by the looks of it, I’m not the only one. I couldn’t get past page 50.

N/A

Killing Floor by Lee Child (1997) - I had never heard of Jack Reacher until I saw previews for that Tom Cruise film last year. I had no idea he was a character in a book, let alone nearly twenty books. I stumbled across this and, since it is Reacher’s first appearance (“Jack Reacher #1” in Goodreads parlance), I gave it a shot. I’m very happy I did. A smart, taut, unraveling thriller that is clever and technical but still easy to follow, it includes a few too many coincidences but is still a page turner. While reading Killing Floor I felt like I was reading a mixture of Chrichton, Clancey, and Balducci. I’m looking forward to more Reacher and Child in the coming months.

4

Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk (2002) - I really want to love Chuck Palahniuk’s work. It’s so unique and complex. But, after four tries (only two of which I could finish), I’ve accepted the fact that his books are just not for me. They’re always technically impressive and startling original, but that doesn’t mean I’ll love them. Lullaby begins with a weird premise - an ancient lullaby kills anyone that hears it - and bounces all over the country in a weird fake family road trip. I like open-ended and vague endings, but this felt like an open-ended and vague story from start to finish. Palahniuk has a legion of fans and although I understand why, I’m not one of them.

2.5

Gray Mountain by John Grisham (2014) - I’m a major fan of John Grisham, so much so that I’ve written about his books time and time again, even going so far as to compile a ranking of his works. When you write a book per year, you’re going to have peaks and valleys and various stylistic changes. From 2008 – 2011, Grisham fell victim to preaching instead of storytelling. What about now? Tell me if you’ve heard this one before: a Grisham main character leaves a giant firm where he/she was doing monotonous work but being paid a very good salary and soon comes into contact with lawyers in a small town that work with real (poor) clients with real problems and learns valuable lessons about both him/herself and the legal profession. Sound familiar? It happened in The Street Lawyer, The Appeal, and The Litigators, as well as a little bit in The Chamber and elsewhere. Well, here we are again. The main character loses her job on Wall Street and heads to the mountains of Virginia to work at a legal aid clinic where she learns – gasp! – that coal companies are not only raping the land, but also not following the law and poor people in the area are too uninformed or scared to do anything about it! Can you believe it?! Look, I agree with Grisham’s politics – well, not regarding child abuse – but I don’t need to be preached to. I know he wants to use his platform for good and to bring positive change to the world, but he can do it in a much more subtle way. This reads more like nonfiction at times and I don’t want that from a novel, I already have hundreds of nonfiction books to read. Gray Mountain isn’t an awful book, but it’s nowhere near good. It’s formulaic and weirdly lazy (short on description and context in certain areas for no discernible reason) with a protagonist that is laughably naïve (she says “I can’t believe this!” and “This can’t be legal” or some variation of those over and over and is constantly trying to leave the room when something seemingly unethical is being discussed) and just generally unlikable that makes dumb decisions. Plus, the dialogue is stiff and unrealistic – no woman working and living in New York in her mid-20’s speaks the way this character does, which is like a 50 year-old man from Mississippi. Moreover, the book doesn’t really end so much as it just stops with several plot lines forever suspended in purgatory. I was quite happy when it was over.

1.5

Die Trying by Lee Child (1998) - Last month, I finally encountered Jack Reacher and I was hooked. So, naturally I moved on to the second Reacher book. While Killing Floor was a terrific work, full of nuance and surprises without being gimmicky, it did have a few too many coincidences and the love story was telegraphed from a mile away. Well, Die Trying takes both of these and multiplies them by ten. There are some fantastic parts of this book, but there are many where I just kept saying “Come on!” to myself over and over. In a recent Grantland piece, Kevin Lincoln likens Reacher to a superhero and, believe it or not, it actually not only makes sense, it makes these books more enjoyable. I don’t know about the following works, but the things Reacher accomplishes in this book are certainly beyond the capabilities of most humans, but I could go with that to a point. One thing I can’t go with is when (quasi-spoilers!) he buries a smelly body with his bare hands and then the woman with him immediately wants him so they have sex in the woods right next to the fresh grave. Really? Despite this, my biggest problem with Die Trying is Child’s writing style. I’m not sure if it was as prevalent in Killing Floor or perhaps I just missed it, but the way Child writes dialogue is incredibly irritating. Instead of getting a rhythm going between two characters where it’s just dialogue back and forth, he insists that every line be followed by ‘he said,’ or ‘she said,’ which really breaks up the conversations and kept taking me out of the story. Also, people say ‘Ok’ and ‘Right’ over and over again. It just doesn’t feel like you’re listening to real people. I have Tripwire – Reacher’s third appearance – waiting for me, so I’m not quitting on him, but I was less than impressed this time around.

2.5

Room by Emma Donoghue (2010) - I had heard and read great things about Room, but the idea of a novel told in the first person by a five year-old made me hesitant. And it did take me a little bit of time to get accustomed to the writing because it is a very accurate portrayal of how someone that age speaks, with the ability to say big words that he’s heard on TV, but unable to use indefinite articles or understand idioms because he takes everything literally. The book is an unraveling narrative, but the basic plot is that Jack has only ever lived in this tiny shed he and his mother call “Room” and he believes that this is all there is to the world, that everything else and what he sees on TV is make believe or outer space. The story did not take the direction I thought it would and while the second half drags a bit around the book’s three-quarter mark, it is still a terrific read that hits on so many subjects from parenthood to childhood innocence to the nature of lying for the benefit of another to expectations and even the culture of media and the idea that an ending is not always an ending. It’s terrific and thought-provoking on several levels.

4

Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut (1973) -I won’t say that Vonnegut’s always been lost on me because I understand his impact, his importance, and even his appeal, but I guess his works never hooked me like they did others. I read Slaughterhouse-Five about ten years ago and while I could appreciate it, that didn’t mean that I actually enjoyed it. It just wasn’t for me. However, given his standing within the American literary establishment, I figured I’d give his work another shot, especially not that I’m (supposedly) more mature and have expanded my reading pile. Well, I finished Breakfast of Champions and I can now say for certain that….Vonnegut isn’t for me. His writing is obviously great and his black satire is not only biting and insightful, but also very clever, turning ideas back on themselves and looping something from page one into page 290. It’s impressive. However, I still didn’t really enjoy reading this book, despite all its cleverness and social commentary. The story just sits there, with nothing to do. Then it ends. I’ll leave Vonnegut for those that adore him.

2.5

Non-Fiction

I Am American (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert (2007) - I like Stephen Colbert quite a bit. He’s a brilliant satirist and his ability to never break character, regardless of what’s happening, is pretty astounding. That said, his first book bored the hell out of me. At first, I found the concept funny, but it quickly wore thin and I grew tired of the schtick pretty quickly. It was a struggle to finish.

1

David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell (2013) - I buy into the whole Malcolm Gladwell thing. While his books may not offer startling insights, they always were entertaining and forced me to reevaluate how I looked at things around me. Until now. David and Goliath is an awful book. Although it uses the same tropes as earlier his earlier books (a narrative thread running throughout real-life examples from the past and the present all over the world), the subject matter is pretty useless. Moreover, when he’s not being mindbogglingly obvious, Gladwell includes examples that have no relation to the (supposed) theme of the book or to each other. This is more of a compilation of essays than What the Dog Saw, his compilation of essays. At least Dog was readable. It’s been years since I’ve hated a book this much.

0

The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop by Dan Charnas (2010) – Without a doubt, the greatest hip-hop book I’ve ever read. Charnas, a former writer for The Source and a presence for many of the most important moments in hip-hop, documents the rise of hip-hop from the first party to the multibillion dollar industry it has become, complete with behind-the-scenes stories that are revelations and bring much more context to major incidents in the genre. Spanning almost four decades and the entire country, The Big Payback details how something that was often dismissed as a “fad” influenced the world in music, speech, and clothing and those that won – and lost – in the process. Fantastic read.

5

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg (2012) – The premise of this book, that we can control and change our habits and therefore do what we want to do, is interesting. The examples used are relatable. In short, The Power of Habit is illuminating. It’s also repetitive (which is ironic) and drags, especially the final few chapters. There is really good information – 40% of what we do is habit and not a conscious decision – and it makes the reader question his/her own habits, but it becomes monotonous and didactic. I think Duhigg knew as much, because towards the end he keeps trying to advance an almost ridiculous theory that is obviously wrong and then changes course and explains why it’s wrong in the final few pages. It’s a cheap literary device and it doesn’t work.

2.5

Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Lazy, Fat Slob Who Did Good by Kevin Smith (2012) – Like many others, I was a Kevin Smith fanatic by the mid-to-late ‘90s. The guy put out one genre-bending movie (Clerks.), two extremely good films (Chasing Amy and Dogma), and one overproduced cult classic that, in hindsight, was a few years ahead of its time in several respects (Mallrats). He also gave several actors their first breaks. Then, something happened. I don’t know if success got to his head, the money got to his pockets, or he just ran out of ideas, but he was never the same again. He made Jersey Girl, a film only I and about nine other people liked, Cop Out, which no one, including star Bruce Willis liked, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Clerks 2, two films that caused me to walk out of the theater before they were over. In the years since Dogma, he’s had fights with his mentor Harvey Weinstein, his movie star crush Willis, and was kicked off a plane. He’s written extensively on his blog and has reinvented himself as an excellent podcaster/lecturer/talk show guest. His An Evening with Kevin Smith DVDs are better than most of his films and I’ve listened to his appearance on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast nearly a dozen times. So, I’ll take a book of Kevin Smith just riffing over nearly anything else from him and, for the most part, he doesn’t disappoint. If you’ve seen those Q&A’s or have been reading him, some of the stories in the book will be repeated, but they’re so interesting and he tells them with such flair that you don’t mind reading them again. For me, the best parts were when he took his time, diving into stories that have only been touched on in the media – the premier of Clerks. at Sundance, trying to direct Willis, getting kicked off the plane, etc. Though it’s billed as a book of “life advice,” it’s more of what he’s learned based on a collection of his experiences. Tough Sh*t won’t change your life, but it will probably inspire you to keep trying to achieve your dreams and make your own way in the world.

3.5

Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop by Adam Bradley (2009) – I love the idea of this book. I love the idea of treating hip-hop like poetry. I love the idea of diving into lyrics and breaking them down further than has ever been done before (and is butchered and bastardiized by Rap Genius). I love that Bradley explains the intricate literary techniques used and delves into rhyming patterns and rhythms. This book disproves the notion (which should never have existed at all) that hip-hop is nothing more than misogynistic talking over thumping sounds. Book of Rhymes does all of those things. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do them extremely well. There were parts of this book that dragged along, taking five pages to explain something that became obvious in a single paragraph. Also, I was puzzled by his choices of lyrics. Several times, I could think of better – and more well-known examples – to support his contention. If he was trying to introduce new artists to the reader, then he succeeded because there were several people referenced in the book that I had never heard of…and I know a thing or two about this. So, it’s a good book, not a great one, but it’s a perfect toilet book. You can pick it up, flip to a random page, and be both entertained and enlightened for a few pages until your business is done. That’s more than I can say for most books.

3

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas by Chuck Klosterman (2006)

I’m a big Klosterman fan, but I must confess that I struggle to care about KISS or RATT as much as he does. This book, a collection of profiles and essays from his work at various magazines – The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Spin, and many more – is a mixed bag. The topics of the book are all over the place, but Klosterman’s writing is so effortless and engaging that it usually doesn’t matter. Notice I said “usually.” I struggled to read about yet another tribute band and there were a few themes repeated, but these are minor speed bumps. Whether he’s writing about Bono, Steve Nash or McDonald’s, Klosterman manages to make you think without it being too dense. This isn’t Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs or Eating the Dinosaur, but I’ll take a collection of Klosterman essays over one of his novels in a heartbeat.

3.5

IF I Did It: Confessions of the Killer by OJ Simpson (2007) – Confession: I only read one chapter of this book. There’s only one chapter that really matters and that’s the one I read. Originally billed as a “hypothetical” explanation of how Simpson would have killed his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her (boy)friend, Ron Goldman, both the publishing of If I Did It and the accompanying television special were canceled. Then, the book’s rights were awarded to the Goldman family as a result of the civil suit judgment against Simpson, and it was rebranded with the word “If” in very small print and added the subtitle “Confessions of the Killer.” Still, the important chapter – the one that depicts the night of the murders – is intact. It’s ridiculous on so many levels, the two most important being (a) OJ makes up a friend named “Charlie” as an unwilling accomplice and (b) he explains the entire night in extreme detail, except for the killings themselves, which is blamed on a blackout. It’s a weird, poorly written narrative and it’s clear there’s nothing hypothetical about it. It only goes so far to satisfy the morbid curiosity and it solidifies what we all already knew.

1

A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn (2009 update) – History is written by the winners and, for centuries, the history of our country had a distinct slant that treated the explorers and founders as deities. Howard Zinn flips this narrative on its head by examining the events from Columbus’s arrival to Obama’s election from the perspective of the people. The result is stunning and jarring. There were even a few times I had to put it down because the story was so powerful – and shameful – that I needed a break. This is a book that everyone should read.

5

God is Not Great – Christopher Hitchens (2007) – This is a bit of a cheat since this was my second time reading it, but it’s so good that I thought it deserved to be included in this list. While the title may be offensive, the majority of Hitchens’s book is about how organized religion and the claims of the faithful – and not God Him/Her/Itself – have caused more problems than they have solved. Just as A People’s History of the United States may be a difficult read for any proud American, God is Not Great may be a tough pill for a believer to swallow, but there is so much intelligence and objective insight that only a closed-minded zealot would fail to find any benefit. Mixing historical events with personal anecdotes, Hitchens manages to both humanize and reinforce his thesis. A must read for anyone that wishes to open their mind and enhance their outlook.

5

Think Like a Freak by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner (2014) – I was enthralled by both Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics. I had never seen problems and issues approached and dissected in such a way and those books changed my outlook. In the third iteration, the authors actually set out to alter the way the reader thinks but, ironically, it doesn’t happen to the extent that it did the first two times. A mix of self-help, critical thinking, and Gladwellian writing, it has some high points, such as how thinking like a child would benefit most adults and how King Solomon and David Lee Roth were alike – but there are other areas where the material is overwrought and the point is buried or uninteresting. A perfect book for a long flight or a lazy day at the beach, it will make you think, but it may not change the way you think.

4

Last Words by George Carlin (2009) – If George Carlin isn’t the greatest comedian of all time, he undoubtedly top five. Your favorite comic regularly cites him as an influence and a pioneer. Last Words is his written goodbye to the world. Published a year after his death, Carlin tells the story of his entire life, illuminating how events in his life changed his material. Billed as a “sortabiography,” it is really more a retrospection of his art. But, unlike most of his comedy specials, it drags at times and could have been tightened up in certain areas. Still, it’s a fun, quick read and gets better as it goes on.

3

Bo Knows Bo by Bo Jackson and Dick Schaap (1990) – I vividly remember reading this on a family vacation to Busch Gardens when I was 10. However, I was prompted to return to it after repeated viewings of the ESPN 30 for 30 film, You Don’t Know Bo. One part biographical, one part celebratory, and one part motivational, Bo Knows Bo is an in-depth look at an enigmatic athlete at the height of his fame and peak of his careers. Dick Schapp was a legendary journalist and he keeps the book light and engaging, even while touching on difficult subjects, making it a quick and easy (though not amazing) read. The hip injury that he sustained that ended his football career and greatly curtailed his baseball career occurred a little over a year after the publication of the book, so it’s fascinating to read the thoughts and feelings of a man that seemed indestructible and was destined to star in two sports for years in the future.

3

Flash Boys by Michael Lewis (2014) – Michael Lewis is my favorite non-fiction writer in the world. His writing is so effortless that he can make any subject – the credit and housing bubble of the mid-2000s (The Big Short), baseball sabermetrics (Moneyball), even a black football player’s adoption by a white family (The Blind Side) – fascinating. Until now. Flash Boys is Lewis’s third consecutive book on financial markets and although he is a wiz at it (he attended the prestigious London School of Economics before working for Solomon Brothers), it may be time to switch gears. Focusing on high-frequency trading and the lengths and costs that traders will go to get faster speed in milliseconds in order to find arbitrage in the system sounds interesting, but quickly gets bogged down in minutiae and complex details. The whole premise is that the little guy no longer has a chance in the stock market. Big shock. Moreover, he may not even be right about it. There’s a lot of handwringing and we’re supposed to be shocked by all of this, but after everything we’ve learned in the past decade, are we really shocked by anything on Wall Street? Maybe Lewis is the most naive of all of us.

1.5

The Meaning of Life edited by Ryan D’Agostino (2009) – The magazine industry may be dying, but Esquire is one of the best men’s magazines in history and their “What I’ve Learned” feature is a big reason why. Each month, an individual is profiled in a one-page spread that is basically a list of bullet points of advice and life lessons from politicians, athletes, inventors, entertainers, writers, etc. At the start of each year, they make this the feature of the magazine and round up a collection of these individuals. It’s by far my favorite issue of any magazine each year. In 2009, Esquire gave us what we wanted and took 64 of the best of them, bound them up, and created a slick book. It’s terrific. Not every line is a jewel and not all advice is applicable, but it’s interesting to read where these people came from and what made them who they are. I cannot recommend it enough.

5

Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison by Piper Kerman (2010) – With my schedule and everything else, I don’t get much time to watch TV these days, so I have never seen an episode of Orange Is the New Black (or, sadly, Breaking Bad). That turned out to be a good thing when I discovered that it was a book before it was a Netflix hit and, like most books that are adapted, there are discrepancies. A quick, interesting read, Kerman manages to take the reader on the journey with her, pulling back the curtain on how female inmates behave and are treated while also supplying enough internal monologue to show how the experience changed her and her worldview. Although it’s short and snappy, there are redundant parts and places where the story lags, but these are the exception and the crisp opening and ironic final chapter more than make up for it.

3.5

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of Seal Team 10 by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson (2007) - In our current divisive political culture, there is seemingly no room for grey areas or complex thought. One is either red or blue, conservative or liberal, American or ‘Murican, Fox News or MSNBC. Increasingly, an argument has been made that only one side of this divide supports the troops. Well, like anything, this is far too simplistic. However, during his account of what happened on a mountain in Afghanistan in 2005, Marcus Luttrell falls into this trap, blaming a bad decision that he himself made on the “goddamn liberal Americans.” I know several people in the armed forces that would consider themselves liberal (and several that would never serve that are proudly conservative). More importantly, my father served in the Vietnam War and is an officer at his local American Legion, but would fall into the category of one of those goddamn liberal Americans. Luttrell, a proud Texan and staunch supporter of George W. Bush, peppers his work with the catchphrases and talking points we’ve all heard and it becomes exhausting (a feeling I would have if he were a liberal and kept rehashing his stance). As far as the story itself, it is an account of heroism and bravery and though there has been some disagreement of Luttrell’s story, the basic facts remain: he and his SEAL team went into a war zone and he was the only one to survive. Anything beyond that - the number of enemy fighters, specific timeline of events - is secondary. Surprisingly, the best part of the story is when he recalls the locals that took him in, sheltered him, and protected him for days before he was rescued. It was a surprising twist. I will be the first to tell you that I would not want to go into combat anywhere, especially not in the barren mountains of the middle east and Mr. Luttrell will always have my respect and my gratitude for going to fight, even if I disagreed with the men and the policies that sent him there.

3

I Will Teach You to Be Rich by Ramit Sethi (2009) - Personal finance is one of the hottest topics around and there are almost countless books on the subject (as well as books on the books). People like Suze Orman, about whom I had a Twitter argument recently, have built entire industries on the subject. As a finance professional, I’ve read several of these books and I can say that there are a few refreshing things about I Will Teach You to Be Rich. First, there’s no shaming of someone that either doesn’t make a ton of money or has gotten themselves into a financial hole. We’ve (almost) all been there - myself included - when you live for the moment and focus on enjoying things that you probably can’t afford and the next thing you know, you’re in debt. This book gives the reader a quick, easy plan to not only pay down debt, but also increase personal capital without judging or preaching. For anyone that is looking to get better involved with their finances, this is a great starter book and the first one I would recommend. However, it’s not perfect. The book title is hyperbolic (in an effort to increase sales), but I Will Give You the Steps to Become Financially Independent would have been more accurate and I think putting a photo of himself on the cover is pure hubris. Sethi also makes sweeping generalizations about Indian families and parents as if those of us from other cultures and ethnicities don’t know how to be frugal. Moreover, I found some of the advice to be elementary and basic, but it’s aimed at people in their early-to-mid 20’s, so I’m a decade beyond the book’s demographic and I was given much of this advice early in my life - even though I didn’t always use it. I was proud of myself for doing nearly everything Sethi suggests, if not always maximizing it, and the book speaks from - and to - the perspective of a single person with a halfway decent job and no kids. Depending on your age and financial acumen, there may be some parts that don’t apply to you (and the final chapter gets a bit too Dear Abby-esque for my tastes), but overall it’s a great blueprint for how to set yourself up for the long term.

4                              

Open by Andre Agassi (2009) - As an ’80s baby, I was too young to really remember the Evert-Navratilova or Bjorg-McEnroe duels, but I do remember the Sampras-Agassi rivalry. And the Nike commercials. I remember reading about Agaassi’s memoir when it first came out and the mentions of the more salacious revelations (Jimmy Connors is a dick, Agassi did crystal meth and wore a hairpiece, Sampras doesn’t tip), so I wasn’t all that interested in his story. I was wrong. From the start, this book grabs the reader more like a novel than an autobiography and even when you know what will happen - he gets over the hump and wins majors, his marriage to Brooke Shields crumbles - it’s still a page-turner, probably thanks in no smart part to uncredited co-writer J.R. Moehringer (author of The Tender Bar). Most sports biographies either don’t name names or focus on the wrong things, but this hit all the right notes. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

4.5

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1997) - One of my new reading missions is to check out works of non-fiction that inspire and amaze and deal with things I couldn’t even imagine. Into Thin Air, the story of a climber who was climbing Everest when a horrific storm killed eight hikers, fits all of those criteria and more. I have no desire to climb on the roof of my garage, let alone a mountain, so I can’t even imagine going up Everest. The first-person account is intriguing, but it falls short of being gripping. I had no problem putting it down, even during the climbers’ nadir in conditions that included a windchill of 100 degrees below zero. For me, a combination of dull writing with personal asides and backstories randomly sprinkled into the middle of the action really slowed it down for me. Also, the author’s account is a bit too neat (and he’s been criticized for it). Ultimately, the book fails to live up to its potential.

2

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand (2010) - There’s no other way to say this: Unbroken is terrific. The story of an Olympic runner that became a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces, crashed into the Pacific, spent 47 days on a raft drifting two thousand miles only to be caught by the Japanese and spent more than another two years in a POW camp, battling starvation, sadistic guards, and despair. In another writer’s hands this book easily could have gotten boring or tedious, but Hillenbrand never lets that happen. This is one of the best works of non-fiction I’ve read in a long time.

5

Black Mass by Dick Lehr & Gerard O’Neill (2012) - If anyone that saw The Departed found the idea of an Irish mob boss being an FBI informant to be ridiculous and unrealistic, guess what: it’s based in reality. For almost thirty years, Whitey Bulger controlled south Boston and easily evaded arrests and indictments thanks to his role as an FBI informant, albeit a useless one. Black Mass contains a great story about the mafia, FBI corruption, the Irish mob, and Southie, but it’s not very engrossing. It’s written by two newspaper reporters and it reads like a really long front page article, proving its case with far too much minutiae and the inclusion of way too many characters. It was a struggle to read and I’ll be honest – I skipped large chunks of the book because I just couldn’t handle it anymore. I understand the idea that the writer needs to backup ideas with facts, but it felt like a lot of filler was included to make this long enough to be a book. Hopefully the film adaptation is much better.

2

Furious Cool by David Henry & Joe Henry (2013) - Richard Pryor is widely regarded as the greatest stand-up comedian of all time, but by the time I was aware of comedy he had already transitioned into making films and guys like Eddie Murphy were ruling stand-up, so I hadn’t known about the evolution of his act from a Bill Cosby ripoff to something weird to finally being transcendent. Rather than an archetypal cradle-to-grave biography, Furious Cool instead uses Pryor to examine the changing cultural landscapes of his life and then how those landscapes informed his career. It’s not a great biography and it meanders with no real structure, but I learned a great deal about not only Pryor, but also details of America in the ‘60s and '70s through the prism of Pryor’s experiences.

3

Wild by Cheryl Strayed (2012) - I’m not a member of Oprah’s book club, so I often become aware of books that were included long after her fans do. Such was the case with Wild, which I had not heard of until I saw a film poster of Reese Witherspoon wearing a backpack and I saw “Based on the inspiration bestseller” at the bottom. So I sought it out. The reviews were very strong and very positive, for the most part, and I could not disagree more. Written as a first-person memoir, it is the story of Strayed’s hike along the Pacific Crest Trail from the bottom of California to the top of Oregon, but it begins with the death of Strayed’s mother, the catalyst that changes her perspective on life. The narrator/author is whiny, naïve, self-absorbed, and incredibly hypocritical, doing whatever she chooses to make herself happy without regard for anyone else, never once taking a moment to think that someone else may have a better idea or opinion, and acting as if the world owes her something because her mother died, an event she uses to excuse her worst impulses and behaviors. Her rationale and thought process is on the same level as my two year-old. I could only get to chapter three. This book was awful.

N/A

Trust Me, I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday (2012) - I’m a big Ryan Holiday fan. His monthly book recommendation email was the impetus for The Pierznik Monthly (I shamelessly ripped him off). I’ve watched every YouTube video he’s on, I really enjoy the writing he does on his website, and I’m really impressed by his crazy schedule and the way he willed himself to be a master of many trades, simultaneously working for Tucker Max, Robert Greene, and Dov Charney. I only really became aware of him in the past year or so, I was late to his first book, Trust Me, I’m Lying. The subtitle is Confessions of a Media Manipulator and the title is not hyperbole as it is his exposé on media and how to game the system. Holiday divides the book into two parts: the first is an explanation of current media, showing how and why blogs matter and the second is his takedown of them and how their power and ubiquity can cause incredible problems and consequences, most either unintended or ignored, and why the need for clicks and page views makes the news not only sensationalized but often flat out wrong. I’m not a marketer and I don’t get paid per click – if two or two million people read this it won’t affect my salary – so I didn’t think this book would interest or make sense to me. I was very wrong. Holiday writes in a very effective way, making the material not only easily digestible, but also engaging and entertaining, then using quotes from both a century ago and a week ago to make his points and drive home his thesis. At the end, I could never look at sites like Gawker, The Huffington Post or Business Insider the same ever again.

4

Mud, Sweat and Tears by Bear Grylls (2012) - I’m not what you would consider outdoorsy. I grew up near a farm, on four acres of land and helped my father cut trees, split wood, and pull stumps, as well as cut grass and weed whack, but I never understood the appeal of working in an office all week just to work outside all weekend. So I fled to the city for 15 years. Perhaps shockingly, Bear Grylls feels differently. Unlike so many autobiographies, this has the easy language of someone having a conversation, discussing their upbringing and roots before the fame. While it drags for a bit as he details the arduous training to become a member of British SAS (Special Air Service), it is inspirational in that it details Grylls’s recovery from three broken vertebrae to climb Mt. Everest and how each step along the way eventually led to the Man vs. Wild star the world knows today. It doesn’t provide a ton of great insight and is filled with clichés and platitudes, but it’s still an enjoyable read.

3

Articles

“The Broken-Down Grace of Bill Murray” by Nathan Rabin (2014) - An exhaustive look at Murray’s career, this made me appreciate the man even more than before. Taking the reader from the early years of National Lampoon and SNL all the way up until his latest reinvention as the king of the cameo, both in film and in real life. It’s a long piece, so you may want to break it up over several bathroom visits, but it’s so worth it. By the end, you’ll be trying to decide which Murray film to rewatch first.

“Crossing Christie” by Ryan Lizza (2014) – A fantastic #longread on why Chris Christie’s bullying style – the same style that brought him national attention – has left a trail of enemies with bitter feelings that have waited in the grass for him until just the right moment. Personally, I am appalled and angry at his war on teachers and I always like seeing a bully get bullied, because they rarely can take it. However, even if you are a Christie fan, you should probably read it because it shows what he will be battling over the next two years if he does decide to make a run at the White House. He’s proven in the past that he can overcome and win, so I wouldn’t count him out just yet.

“How YouTube and Internet Journalism Destroyed Tom Cruise, Our Last Real Movie Star ” by Amy Nicholson (2014) – Tom Cruise was a movie god for two decades. And then TMZ and Oprah’s couch entered his life and twenty years of coolness went out the window. A film critic once told me that Cruise’s greatness is proven by how many people won or were nominated for Oscars playing opposite him (Newman, Hoffman, Gooding), but in the current environment he is viewed as a Scientology joke. This piece explains how we got here and it’s quite the ride.

“The Power of Two” by Joshua Wolf Shenk (2014) – We’ve been conditioned to be awed by the idea of the lone, tortured genius, but what about the collaborative power of pairs? Shenk’s piece sheds light on how pairs of incredibly talented people become even stronger when they team up through a mixture of competition, cooperation and collaboration. It changed my view on many of the people we consider geniuses.

“Lance in Purgatory: The After-Life” by John H. Richardson (2014, Esquire) – If the Lance Armstrong story were fictional, it would be dismissed as unbelievable. He’s a walking literary character. After beating cancer, winning the hearts and inspiring millions of people, and then an unprecedented fall from grace after being exposed as “the greatest cheater of all time,” he is still trying to inspire and still fighting cancer…and trying to accept defeat. It’s a fascinating portrait of the man.

“The Music Industry is Literally Brainwashing You to Like Bad Pop Songs - Here’s How” by Tom Barnes (2014, Music.Mic) - Hit songs are not organic. Payola has been around for decades and now it’s just called something different (like ”On the Verge”). Have you ever heard someone say, “You know, I didn’t like this song when I first heard it, but now…”? Well, here, finally, a story about how radio stations make that happen. In short, they create a form of “musical Stockholm syndrome” in which the songs that you hate become so ingrained that they change your opinion of them. It’s a fascinating read.

“The Pow! Bang! Bam! Plan to Save Marvel, Starring B-List Heroes” by Devin Leondard (2014, BusinessWeek) - No Superman. No Batman. No Wonder Woman. They sold the film rights to Spider-Man and X-Men. How, exactly, is Marvel dominating the superhero film industry? By sticking to the source material and taking the subject matter seriously, but also infusing it with joy. This is a great piece on not only Marvel films, but also business, comics, and making the most of an opportunity.

She Tweeted Against the Mexican Cartels. They Tweeted Her Murder. by Jason McGahan (2014, The Daily Beast) - I’ve had some dangerous encounters and scary situations, but when compared to what people that live in cartel-controlled border towns deal with on a daily basis, I’m sheltered. The story of a crusading social media journalist that was not intimidated by the drug lords that controlled the territory in which she called home, this story of her capture and execution, which was then posted to her Twitter account (including photos) is both eye-opening and horrifying.

The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare by Matt Taibbi (2014, Rolling Stone) - Perhaps the biggest source of outrage concerning the 2008 financial collapse is that no one responsible for the mess has been indicted, let alone sent to jail. In 2013, JPMorgan Chase settled with the U.S. government for $9 Billion to avoid a lawsuit and keep the truth buried. This is the story of the whistle blower, the woman that worked at Chase, saw the fraud unfold, tried to warn people, and was dismissed. Then, when she tried to testify, was repeatedly stonewalled and blocked at every turn. It’s at once interesting, infuriating, and shocking, perfectly encapsulated by this quote about CEO Jamie Dimon: “The board awarded a 74 percent raise to the man who oversaw the biggest regulatory penalty ever, upping his compensation package to about $20 million.”

Why It’s Okay to Miss the Old iPod by David Sims (2014, The Atlantic) - If I were to list my most prized physical possessions, my new home would probably be at the top of the list, but my iPod Classic would not be far behind. While the rest of the world decided that everything had to be on their phones - I guess taking an enormous music library and putting it on a device the size of a deck playing cards wasn’t enough - I stuck to my antiquated belief that my music/audiobooks/comedy albums should be separate from my phone/email/texts/Twitter. I thought I was the only one, but in this essay from The Altantic’s website, David Sims finds that he and others are suddenly nostalgic for the original iPod, especially since it is no longer being made. Progress is important and technology is amazing, but not all technological progress is necessary, let alone important or amazing.

Throwback Choices

The Stand by Stephen King (1974) - Stephen King wanted to write a sprawling, multi-character epic. He did that and then some. The Lord of the Rings for modern America, The Stand is daunting in its size, scope, and subject matter. A superflu has wiped out 99.4% of the world’s population and the survivors are left to wander, regroup and eventually wrestle for the future. The complete & uncut edition (released in 1990) is 1,152 pages long and it is the best way to read this book. Editing is usually good. In this case, it takes away some of the important details that give an even greater picture of the story. King has written over 60 books and while this year is the 30th anniversary of the debut of The Stand, it would have been hard for anyone to top this.

The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time by Verne Harnish and the Editors of Fortune (2012) – My main complaint about business school (aside from the Gordon Gekko wannabes) was that nearly every class was steeped in theory, rather than practicality. However, sometimes theory is good and there are times when business cases explain ideas and concepts better than any practical application, and this book is an example of that. Deconstructing and analyzing eighteen of the most important business decisions in (recent) history, it looks at what led to the decision and what impacts the decision had. Some topics are more interesting than others – I’ll never tire of reading about Steve Jobs, Jack Welch and Bill Gates – but they all offer something unique. For anyone interested in business or even just looking to become a better leader, it’s a quick read that can change one’s perspective.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman (2003) – Before he was the ethicist for The New York Times Magazine and a contributor to Grantland and considered a pop culture expert, Chuck Klosterman was a newspaper film critic and reporter that wrote a book of 18 essays on low culture in his spare time. Intertwining real life with elements of pop culture like Saved By the Bell, Star Wars, and The Real World, Klosterman may not have invented the style of writing that now dominates the Internet, but he perfected it early on. I still revisit this a few times a year.

Decoded by Jay-Z (2010) – At one point in the early ‘00s, Jay-Z was scheduled to release an autobiography titled The Black Book. During its creation, however, the private MC had second thoughts and pulled the plug on the project. Nearly a decade later, it reemerged into an even better book. Decoded is much more than just an autobiography or a collection of beautiful photos or a collection of the lyrics to some of his greatest songs or his feelings on the culture of both hip-hop and America. It’s all of that, and more, rolled into one. It’s a gorgeous book that can serve as a coffee table book while also having plenty of meat to keep a voracious reader engaged. I plowed through it a matter of hours and I revisit it every six months or so, always finding something new or different within its pages.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961) – The funniest book I’ve ever read (including those by hilarious comedians), Catch-22 is in my personal top five. Ostensibly a commentary on the ridiculous rules and regulations of being a member of the armed forces, it is so much more. After more than fifty years, it is still better than virtually any book on the shelf.

Bossypants by Tina Fey (2011) - My unconditional (and thus far unrequited) love for Tina Fey is well documented. But it’s not without merit. She’s the greatest. She’s brilliant and hilarious, tough but self-deprecating and, oh yeah, she looks great too. Her book, Bossypants, is a “spiky blend of humor, introspection, critical thinking and Nora Ephron-isms for a new generation.” In short, it’s fantastic. (For this one, I actually recommend picking up the audio version because Ms. Fey-Pierznik reads it herself and while it’s fun to hear her inflection and tone, she also adds some ad-libs that aren’t on the page.)

Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest Outlaw by Mark Bowden (2001) - Pablo Escobar built the exquisite jail in which he was held. Then, he escaped. Bowden takes the reader on the journey to hunt down and kill - not capture - the biggest drug kingpin in the world. I read this in two days while spending the summer in Portland, Oregon back in 2002 and I just bought my own copy that I can’t wait to read again.

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King (2000) - Although I had been aware of him for as long as I can remember, I was late to the Stephen King reading party. I enjoyed everything of his that I read (Hearts in Atlantis, The Green Mile), but I don’t think I realized how great of a writer he was, possibly because popular writers are rarely considered to be technically excellent as well. But King is both and his part-memoir, part-writing textbook, part-advice column for writers is wonderful. As someone that considers himself a (quasi-) writer, it is my bible, but I think every single person could benefit from reading it.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006) - The Road is one of those rare books (like Room) that changes your entire perspective on things. There is no punctuation in it, so it takes a bit to get used to the nature of the writing, but the story of a father and son trying to survive in a grey, hopeless, post-apocalyptic world is riveting. Not too long and never unrealistic within the book’s framework, it shook me for so many reasons and when I re-read it after having a child, it really shook me. This book made me believe in the Cormac McCarthy hype.

Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (1951) - If you’re going to include one book that you’ve read previously, why not your favorite book of all time? Catcher in the Rye is a masterpiece and dwarfs other American novels for me, specifically The Great Gatsby. So many of us relate to Holden Caulfield, but the interesting thing is that, for some reason, I wasn’t required to read it in high school, so I came about it on my own. Maybe that’s why I love it so much. In a world full of “phonies,” Caulfield calls it like he sees it, even if everyone else hates him for it. And I love that. It’s been too long since I’ve taken the trip with him, so before I begin devouring more books in 2015, I’ll spend some time around the holidays with Salinger’s masterpiece.

If you have a book recommendation for me or want more info on something I’ve read, please contact me on Facebook or Twitter or check out my Goodreads page here.

---

Christopher Pierznik is the author of six books that can be purchased in Paperback, Kindle, and Nook and has written for a variety of websites. He works in finance and spends his evenings changing diapers and drinking craft beer. He once applied to be a cast member on The Real World, but was rejected. You can read more of his stuff on Medium here, like his Facebook page here and follow him on Twitter here.