Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya after Nairobi, and it’s on the coast. There’s city stuff to do, and beach stuff to do. In all of the guidebooks that I had read, they recommended staying at a beach hotel and NOT in the city proper, as there are potential safety issues for tourists. Diani Beach was the recommended…
An oral history of Jethro Tull, put together by Ian Anderson, with commentary from the dozens of band members who have come and gone over the years. The book is in coffee table format, with big, excellent photos throughout. It’s a chronological account, with lots of artifacts from the early days. Jethro Tull was my favorite band in high school. …
This book attempts to cover the entirety of LGBT history from before 1492 to the present day. The first two thirds of the book didn’t feel very much like a history book. It tried to cover about 500 years of LGBT history in 300 pages, which was a formidable task, and most of the time it just came off as…
Although I didn’t like seeing neurology cases as a veterinarian, I seem to have a penchant for reading books about human neurology. This one started out slow, but got better and better as it went along. Filled with clear descriptions of how the neurological system works (kinda basic for me, but probably very lucid for laypeople), the book follows up…
I’ve been accumulating books for years, waiting for retirement to finally hunker down and start reading them. In 2018, I made a good dent in them, reading 39 books. In 2019, I made the big breakthrough, I went nuts. With a book going simultaneously at the gym, on the subway, in parks, and by the side of the bed, and…
A short book written by a talented music writer and major Bowie fan. It’s not just a biography, but a major tribute to one of the most creative musicians/artists of the past century. The author goes through every phase of Bowie’s career, describing with encyclopedic knowledge everything you might want to know about the music, and Bowie’s motivation behind it. …
An autobiographical novel that recounts the days when a generation of young people dared to dream of a better world, and sought that world by throwing their stuff in a backpack and traveling the world, with the journey being more important than the destination. In this book, the author recounts the story of how he met the beautiful Karla in…
A very dense, but enlightening book that discusses the difficulties gay men have faced, and still face, trying to live their lives productively and authentically in the face of intense trauma and discrimination. He focuses on the stigmatization that gay men experience early in life, and the shame, self-doubt, and isolation that results from being seen as different from the…
This is the seventh book of Eggers’s that I’ve read over the years. Like most of his recent books, it takes place in some unnamed, mysterious war-torn country. Two men, using the pseudonyms Four and Nine, are assigned to build a highway using new, very high-tech paving machines. The highway will connect the needy villages with the country’s capital. Four…
This is really a book about pop culture, and the author has made a pretty good career as a writer on the topic. Addressing pop culture through these music rivalries was very entertaining. As a fan of classic rock and alternative music, I really enjoyed the chapters on Oasis vs. Blur, Nirvana vs. Pearl Jam, Eric Clapton vs. Jimmy Hendrix,…
The author is better known as a novelist, but she’s written this non-fiction exploration of the divide between Western and Eastern culture. She basically divides West from East by how the self is seen. Western people are characterized by individualism and self-esteem, compared to Eastern people, who are flexible and interdependent. In the West we value uniqueness, while in the…
A long, detailed autobiography by a performer I’ve always liked, even though I haven’t kept up with his career. Elvis’s father was a very accomplished musician, and I enjoyed hearing about Elvis’s musical upbringing, and his early years at Stiff Records and on the punk scene. Elvis has very broad musical tastes, and he describes encounters and collaborations with George…
This delightful little book is a collection of stories, both fiction and memoir, all of which have Amsterdam as one of the characters. The stories are all penned by Dutch writers. In some stories, the presence and feel of the city is barely noted, while in others, the city is the main character. The stories are grouped by the parts…
This was a strange book. It’s an improbably love story between a woman in her late 30’s and her former high school teacher, in his 60’s. What starts as an acquaintance develops into a friendship, and ultimately, a love affair. The fluffy, dreamy writing is very reminiscent of another female Japanese author, Banana Yoshimoto, who’s a big big favorite of…
I really had no idea who Scott Galloway was when I got this book, but it looked good when I perused it in the bookstore, so I purchased a used copy. The first part was cool enough, as Galloway, a NYU professor and (as I subsequently found out) unbelievably wealthy entrepreneur, doled out some well thought out nuggets of life…