Lift & Read Book Club. Issue 10

Long time no 'book club' update.

I've been lifting a lot and reading a lot.

Here's some of the books I've read during the last 2 months:

"Our Man in Havana" by Graham Greene

I loved this book. Short, witty, exciting, historically educational, and super fun style. I see myself reading much more Graham Greene in the future. Apparently he was quite the iconic British author during the mid-20th century.

"The Secret Agent" by Joseph Conrad

This was pretty good. It's funny reading 2 spy novels back to back. Conrad's novel was written about 30-40 years earlier than Greene's, so it's interesting how the spy genre changes from pre-WW1 to post WW2 (and throughout the Cold War era). This wasn't my favorite Conrad book, nor is it considered a favorite of his by most. But it was another funny satirical take on the spy/secret agent career and made me wonder why I never investigated getting into the field myself (joking, of course).

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess

This is another mid-century book and is a pretty dark, dystopian sort of novel. There are some interesting themes at work here. T'was another quick read.

"The Murder House" by James Patterson

I read this book while heading to and from my family's beach trip on the Carolina shore. It was a fitting time to read it and I spent long days in the air and in airports so I finished it within the week. Really well-written and fast paced. I like short chapters and Patterson uses extremely short, page turning chapters throughout this book.

"One False Move" by Harlan Coben

Everyone has heard of Harlan Coben by this time, and while I've watched many shows inspired by his books on the Netflix, I've actually never read any of his books. One of my first surprises was that he's from New Jersey (a state I hold dearly in my memory from trips to the Jersey Shore every summer as a kid. And no, I don't remember it being at all like that guido TV show portrayed). I assumed he was from the UK since all the TV shows take place in the UK and are acted out by British thespians.

Anyhow, "One False Move" was great. I'll always be a sucker for crime mysteries and detective stories.

"The Crawl Space" by Gaius Warner

This is a Substack author from Birmingham, Alabama whom I follow (and he follows me back). I like his style in the short stories he writes online so I figured I'd support him and see what his first (and currently only) novel is all about.

It's a very short book. Like 104 pages. It's quite good. Obviously it's not as good of a storyline as some of these other books I've recently read, written by world renowned authors of today and yesteryear who've written many novels and have mastered the craft of fiction writing. But Gaius has great prose. He writes very elegantly and describes scenes well, which was helpful considering his "Crawl Space" story is, what I would deem, a thriller.

I finished this book on my 2 flights – and several hours of airport sitting – to and from Seattle over 4th of July Weekend.

Currently I'm working on the last 75 pages of Knut Hamsun's "Sefelgoss Town." I'm a big fan of Knut's work. I've only read 2 of his books but I enjoy his style and the insight as he wrote the majority of his books in the very early 1900s. My only complaint with "Sefelgoss Town" is that the chapters are ridiculously long. Like, 20-30 pages long. All of them. But they actually go fairly quickly, even for a fairly slow reader like myself. Knut was a good writer.

I like the Scandinavian authors of the early 1900s for some reason. They all seemed to do a good job depicting seemingly normal, mundane day to day life in an entertaining, dramatic fashion. Sometimes the drama doesn't strike until right at the end, though, so you must stay engaged.

I also finally finished "The 5 Types of Wealth." I don't read as much non-fiction throughout the week, but I do try to dabble in a couple non-fictions every month (usually one of which is fitness or nutrition related). Because it's not a priority, I take much longer to finish non-fiction books. With that said, "The 5 Types of Wealth" is actually really really good. I found it very thought-provoking and it actually has impacted the way I view certain priorities in life. It really got me thinking about social health and being closer to family and great friends as one gets older, despite the fact that a specific, far away location might feel like the perfect fit for you. That one piece alone has stuck with me and is one of the reasons my wife and I have decided to bite the bullet and leave beautiful Boise, Idaho (a place we consider a utopia in many ways, but isolated from our family and friends) and move back to Huntsville, Alabama (a fine city in and of itself, the location for my wife's work, and home to many of our family and friends and much closer in proximity to the rest of our family and friends).

I've got several passages highlighted from "The 5 Types of Wealth" (mostly from the physical wealth chapters — shocker) and I plan to make separate posts with those and expand upon those passages with my own thoughts.

I think that's probably enough of an update of the "Lift & Read Book Club" for now. I'll let you know my next fiction and non-fiction reads coming up soon, in another update.