Donald Trump has lost our war with Iran. Plus: ‘The Seven Basic Plots,’ by Christopher Booker, ‘To Catch a Thief’ (1955), and ‘Pennies From Heaven’ (1981).
Another Week: Number 182
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books
Here is a list of content tagged “books” on MarkCz.com.
Another Week: Number 175
The same old items keep going around. Also: ‘The Complete Stories,’ by Flannery O’Connor, and ‘American Masters’: ‘Flannery.’
Another Week: Number 172
Donald Trump’s insane Easter tweet about his Iran war, ‘Don’t Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You,‘ by Lucinda Williams, and ‘The Big Country‘ (1958).
Another Week: Number 171
A nasty week of storms, March Madness acrimony, Trump and Hegseth’s Iran war mess, and “Careless People,’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams
Another Week: Number 170
Trump’s Iran war mess, ‘The Classical World’ by Robin Lane Fox, Spectrum Internet out, AT&T Fiber in, ‘No Kings’ day in Racine, and ‘Hail, Caesar!’
Another Week: Number 158
Happy New Year! Trump snatches Maduro and is now running Venezuela. Also: ‘King Leopold’s Ghost,’ by Adam Hochschild, and ‘Only You’ (1994).
Another Week: Number 157
“I Saw Three Ships”: Jesus had a Lady? Daniel Lawrence O’Keefe and Festivus. Sarah Vowell’s book on Lafayette, ‘The Brothers McMullen,’ ‘The Family McMullen.’
Another Week: Number 153
Rutger Bregman: the BBC Reith Lectures, Thanksgiving football, National Guard members shot, ‘Light in August,’ and ‘The American Revolution.’
Another Week: Number 144
Packers lose/Bears win, The Three Stooges run our country now, ‘American Experience: FDR,’ ‘A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599,’ Bob Odenkirk/Nobody
Another Week: Number 143
Another brutal Bears loss, Apple’s ‘Liquid Glass,’ Indiana Fever advance, ‘A Story is a Deal’ by Will Storr, ABC suspends Jimmy Kimmel.
Another Week: Number 141
Gutter cleaning, new school year, RFK Jr. mayhem, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez, and ‘A Raisin in the Sun’ (1961).
Another Week: Number 124
The anticipation factor of TV news, a new pope, walking with Larry, Suleika Jaouad on ‘The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,’ ‘Nonnas’ (2025)
Another Week: Number 123
Wildlife week in my yard, ‘Donnie Two Dolls,’ ‘The Story of Medieval England,’ author Daria Burke on ‘Fresh Air,’ and ‘Paper Moon’ (1973).
Another Week: Number 116
Winter and spring are duking it out, an 11-year-old guitarist, ‘Stay off the news,’ Wisconsin Supreme Court Debate, ‘How to Talk to Anyone,’ ‘ Jesus Christ Superstar.’
Another Week: Number 114
Literal and emotional housecleaning, World of Books: Sell Your Books, Rick Beato: Why music is getting worse, and ‘Hoosiers’ (1986)
Another Week: Number 113
A polar vortex cold snap, a house explosion in my neighborhood, and the law of attraction per ‘The Secret’ by Rhonda Byrne.
Another Week: Number 106
Happy New Year horseshit, reincarnated children, ‘All Fours’ by Miranda July, and Season 2 of ‘Bad Sisters.’
Another Week: Number 105
More rumbling noises — ‘The Hum’? Samantha Brown, Christmas unease, William Faulkner’s ‘Sanctuary,‘ Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Suspicion’ (1941), and ‘Double Jeopardy’ (1999).
Another Week: Number 102
Hair and nails over 50, Cyber Monday deals, ‘My Effin’ Life,’ by Geddy Lee, ‘Cape Fear’ (1962), ‘Jim Gaffigan: The Skinny’ (2024)
Another Week: Number 98
Buy AirPods, people. Plus: ‘Cool Hand Luke’ (1967), ‘So Rugged and Mountainous,’ by Will Bagley, Election 2024: America’s cancer is back, ‘The Year of Magical Thinking,’ by Joan Didion.
Another Week: Number 89
Crispy lawns, school and football return, ‘Impolitic with John Heilemann’: Nicholas Kristof, Jonny Lyons & the Pride at Paddock Lake, Chicago Bears on ‘Hard Knocks,’ ‘Faye’ (2024)
Another Week: Number 84
Crickets. Bears 21, Texans 17. The Killers at Lollapalooza. ‘Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants.‘ ‘As I Lay Dying,‘ by William Faulkner.
Another Week: Number 80
Fourth of July fireworks out of Apocalypse Now, Jewel on WTF, Presidential immunity and a sense of doom, the Tour de France and Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy.’
Another Week: Number 70
My backyard continues to occupy my mind. Plus: “How Fascism Works,’ by Jason Stanley, and ‘Deliver Me From Nowhere,’ by Warren Zanes.
Another Week: Number 65
A late March snowstorm triggers Christmas, Kate Middleton has cancer, ‘Winter’s Bone’ (2010), ‘Hitler,’ by Joachim Fest, ‘Detour’ (1945).
Another Week: Number 55
A ‘newer normal’ every day as Amy says she’s dying. ‘Lake of the Shining Arrow: A History of Brown’s Lake,’ by Carol DeMarco, ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ (2016)
Another Week: Number 39
Some uplifting cancer results, ‘Dark Winds‘: Season 1, ‘Daisy Jones & the Six,’ ‘Theater Camp’ (2023), Dua Lipa in Conversation With Patti Smith, Author of ‘Just Kids’
Another Week: Number 33
The end of summer; the Wisconsin State Fair jingle and “Warm Love”; ‘American Experience: American Oz’; Lahaina burns to the ground; ‘The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human,’ by Jonathan Gottschall; ‘Game Night’ (2018)
Another Week: Number 29
Inpatient week for Amy, Crumbling barn on Wilmot Road, ‘Traffic: Genius, Rivalry, and Delusion in the Billion-Dollar Race to Go Viral,’ by Ben Smith, ‘Poker Face,’ ‘Painting with John.’
Another Week: Number 25
Cancer treatment as Habitrail; ‘Of Human Hearts’ (1938): Abraham Lincoln berates James Stewart for not writing his mom; Tom Petty & Garry Shandling
Another Week: Number 24
Hospital rollercoaster leads to chemotherapy, Trump indicted in Mar-a-Lago-documents case, ‘Being Mary Tyler Moore’ (2023)
Another Week: Number 23
Bad Friday at the hospital, ‘SmartLess: On The Road,’ ‘Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love,’ ’WTF with Marc Maron’: Episode 1436 – Warren Zanes
Another Week: Number 13
Looney Tunes: ‘Porky’s Bear Facts,’ ‘Boston Strangler’ on Hulu, ‘Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,’ Jason Isbell in Garden & Gun and on HBO, ’The Sound and the Fury,’ by William Faulkner (Third Norton Critical Edition)
Another Week: Number 1
William Faulkner’s ‘The Sound and the Fury,’ movies ‘Moonage Daydream,’ ‘If These Walls Could Sing,’ and ‘The Banshees of Inisherin,’ plus Melissa Villaseñor, ‘This Way Up,’ ‘The Big Brunch,’ and Southwest Airlines flight cancellations.
‘Moby-Dick’ by Herman Melville
Nearing the end of my 60th year, I have finally read Moby-Dick, the 1851 novel by author Herman Melville about a voyage aboard the whaling ship Pequod to hunt the huge white sperm whale which previously took the leg of Captain Ahab, a monomaniacal, raging narcissist who foists this mission on his crew only after they put out to sea.
Video: Zoey’s bedtime story gibberish
The date of this video is November 13, 2010. We came across it the other day and decided to put it on YouTube. I hope you enjoy it. Our great niece Zoey and her older sister Nadine were staying with us for a couple of days. It was 9 p.m. and Nadine was done for the...
‘The Alchemist,’ by Paulo Coelho, and following your dream
Paulo Coelho's bestseller The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream is one of those books that has been sitting on our shelf for years. His book The Pilgrimage is up there too, along with The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz. I hadn't read any of them. I...
December update
It’s been a while since I have checked in. I always think that I don’t have much to report on. Now that my cancer treatments are finished, things naturally have calmed down. We had a pretty uneventful Halloween. The weather was wicked with high winds and the first flakes of snow. We took a ride down to Lake Michigan to see the high waves that people were tweeting about.
Historical Jesus: ‘A Marginal Jew’: Volumes III & IV
As someone who's made a regular hobby of studying the Bible for about 30 years and counting, I find it hard to express how enjoyable the John P. Meier book series A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus has been to read. Chapter by chapter, Meier peels away...
‘10% Happier’: Dan Harris’s book on mindfulness meditation
Right off the bat, I had two misconceptions about 10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works — A True Story. One was that a book written by a Good Morning America guy would necessarily...
Getting ready for radiation therapy
We were fortunate to have great weather for Easter. I loved being with both our families on that day. It’s always fun to watch the kids find the Easter eggs that the adults hide for them. This year at my mother-in-law’s house, Mark and our brother-in-law Kevin were in charge of hiding the eggs.
Jesus of Nazareth, the ‘Marginal Jew’ behind Jesus Christ
Who was Jesus of Nazareth, according to historical evidence? An ample crop of recent books on the "historical Jesus" has offered yet more answers to this perennial puzzle. Reza Aslan's Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth sounds very intriguing. Misquoting...
Holiday depression
I finished the book Empty Mansions that I had downloaded from the library to my Kindle. That was pretty fascinating, to read about the wealthy Clark family and how much the heiress Huguette gave away to her caregivers.
The Kindle Fire HD is so stinking cool!
I love to read and never thought that I would have a need for a Kindle or any other e-reader device. There's nothing like the feel and smell of a real book. I like to look at the bookshelves and know that I completed most of those displayed. A few years ago, just for...
‘The Emperor of All Maladies’: Cancer history bestseller
I haven't blogged in months. I've been mostly absent from Twitter and Facebook as well. Initially, I wanted to spend less time in these scattered and distracted modes of thought, and more time on focused and linear avenues like reading books. But then my wife Amy was...
Chemotherapy-friendly food from a cancer cookbook
I took yesterday to make some staples to have on hand for the upcoming weeks. Mark and I are trying to figure out what I should and shouldn’t be eating. We were supposed to meet with a dietitian on my first day of chemotherapy treatment but for some reason, her schedule was backed up and she couldn’t meet with us. The doctor did give me a short list of things to eat but I wanted maybe some options and recipes as well.
Web marketing, conversion book: ‘Convert!’ by Ben Hunt
As a web designer for the past 17 years, I have had varying success in helping small business owners understand web marketing and conversion techniques — how a website can work like a machine to attract people who are searching for your offerings, and then guide them...
‘The Power of Habit’: Break bad habits, form good ones
The Power of Habit in paperbackUpdate: A paperback edition of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg, was published on January 7, 2014. Although we may not be aware of it, we spend most of our lives doing routine things that...
‘Brain on Fire’: Autoimmune disease, not demon possession
Were the countless cases of "demonic possession" that have frightened people through history actually manifestations of a rare autoimmune disease with symptoms ranging from numbness, paranoia, and erratic behavior to hallucinations and catatonia? This was one of the...
‘Steve Jobs’ biography by Walter Isaacson
My sister recently gifted me with a copy of the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, published last year by Simon & Schuster. At 571 pages plus notes and index, it's a hefty volume, and Isaacson's plain and linear telling makes the book seem daunting at first...
‘To Kill a Mockingbird’: The book, the movie, the documentary
A little while back, one of the DVDs arriving in our mail from Netflix was Hey, Boo: Harper Lee and To Kill a Mockingbird, the 2010 documentary which also aired on PBS's American Masters this past April. It occurred to me that, before viewing the disc, I should...
Hawaii missionaries: Sarah Vowell’s ‘Unfamiliar Fishes’
Unfamiliar Fishes is the product a very fortunate convergence. Author Sarah Vowell has a delicious appreciation for the peculiar coincidences and ironies produced when cultures clash and combine into the slaw of American history — and Hawaii, our 50th state, is a...
Jonah Lehrer: ‘Imagine: How Creativity Works’
Update, July 30, 2012: On Sunday, July 29, Jonah Lehrer resigned from The New Yorker over reuse of his own material in his New Yorker blog posts, and after an article in Tablet magazine — "Jonah Lehrer’s Deceptions" — revealed that he had fabricated quotes from Bob...
Solitaire, patience, and creativity at work
Solitaire — the pastime of playing cards alone — is often regarded with disdain. Solitaire players are viewed as slackers wasting time when they should be doing something productive. Solitaire is even seen as a pathetic pursuit — a game for outcasts and loners of...
‘The Coming Jobs War,’ by Gallup CEO Jim Clifton
Watch any TV these days, and the title of Gallup CEO Jim Clifton's recent book hardly seems prophetic. Companies tout job creation on commercials, news reports obsess over workforce and unemployment statistics, and candidates push tax plans aimed at small business and...
Bob Dylan’s memoirs: ‘Chronicles: Volume One’
On my living room bookshelf, next to a few other books about the singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, was an autobiography from 2004 I had bought some time ago, but not yet read. Chronicles: Volume One is a hardback of moderate size, containing 293 rough, deckle edge pages...
Mark Twain tried surfing in Hawaii
Preparing to visit Hawaii for the first time a decade ago, I read Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii, a collection of the Sacramento Union writer's dispatches in 1866 from what were then known as the Sandwich Islands. Twain's letters are an enthralling portrait of...
Michael Lewis: ‘Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World’
Author Michael Lewis is on tour for his new book, Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World, published on Monday by Simon & Schuster. Above is the extended clip of his appearance last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Boomerang is sort of a followup to...
‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ (movie, 2009)
We have heard about "The Continuing Mysteries of Stieg Larsson" — his untimely death at age 50 before the publication of his Millennium Trilogy, and his fourth manuscript, so far unpublished and enveloped in controversy. We are aware that Stieg Larsson's Millennium...
Simpsons World: The Ultimate Episode Guide, Seasons 1-20
Simpsons creator Matt Groening was on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday this morning to talk about The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror" episodes, which — together with all of The Simpsons episodes from the first 20 years of the television...
J.K. Rowling: Harvard Commencement speech
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey recemtly, and during the hour, Oprah showed brief clips of the Harvard Commencement speech Ms. Rowling gave on June 5, 2008. Those excerpts were intriguing enough to make me want to hear the whole...
‘Death Makes a Holiday’ catalogs culture of Halloween
Because so much of my time is spent in the attention-shattering online world, I hope to restore a little balance, when possible, by getting engrossed in a good old-fashioned book. As a lover of history, mythology, traditions and...
Happy Bloomsday! James Joyce / ‘Ulysses’ podcast
A stately, plump good morning to Ulysses readers everywhere. Over the last day or two, several messages have arrived here informing me (and asking me to inform you) of a new podcast. It's hosted by the bestselling Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster Frank...
How to be rich: Napoleon Hill’s ‘Think and Grow Rich’
Back in February when Amy and I heard a BBC interview with billionaire David Murdock, there was something that leapt out at us. In relating how he became one of the richest men in the world — despite starting as a homeless, dyslexic, high school dropout and WWII...
How to start a business, for freelance graphic designers
With more people turning to freelance jobs — freelance writing jobs, freelance design jobs, freelance work of all kinds — in the aftermath of the economic crisis, it's helpful to have some solid advice on the topic of how to start a business. How do you write a...
David Murdock: Dole Food billionaire on wealth and health
Above is the island of Lanai in Hawaii, seen from Maui. Billionaire David H. Murdock owns 98 percent of it. He also owns Dole Food Company, real estate development company Castle & Cooke, and hundreds of thousands of acres of land in 94 countries around the world....
Website redesign, domain change
Testing, 1, 2, 3. Is this thing on? We've just gone through a domain change. And a website redesign. Between designing other people's websites to help them make more money, and working on this site to make it more effective, I feel like I've been living underground...
How to blog: ‘The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging’
Recently, I read and reviewed ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income. Now, here's another book about how to blog. If that work is an introductory handbook to blogging as a potential home-based business — analogous to the way someone might...
Deep thought: Happy birthday, Jack Handey!
Jack Handey is a real person, and just to prove it, he got himself born 60 years ago today. Even Wikipedia agrees that "Handey is a real person, not a pen name or a character," so happy birthday, Mr. Handey. Even though Jack Handey has authored books — such as Deep...
Kuhn Rikon Duromatic pressure cooker
Kuhn Rikon Duromatic pressure cooker Why a pressure cooker is like magic I f you ask, many people will tell you that you cannot find Indian food in Racine, Wisconsin. The one Indian restaurant we did have closed a while ago, and it was not spectacular to begin with....
Warren Zevon biography: ‘I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead’ by Crystal Zevon
I have been a Warren Zevon fan since "Lawyers, Guns and Money" and "Werewolves of London" first hit my radio in 1978, and I even had the honor of being mistaken for him at one of Jackson Browne's Summerfest appearances around that...
George W. Bush biography: ‘The Bush Tragedy’ by Jacob Weisberg
You can sense the relief welling up in George W. Bush these days like a long-awaited gusher. He may as well be a sixth-grader in class on a 70-degree afternoon in May with the windows open. You could see it as the president tap-danced, waiting for his hopeful...
History of Christmas in America: ‘The Battle for Christmas’
Now that Thanksgiving is in the rearview mirror, we can look forward to a full month of Christmas ads in the newspapers, Christmas commercials and specials on TV, Christmas music on the radio and in every retail store, and Christmas decorations throughout our...
‘Bouchon’: Thomas Keller’s French bistro cookbook
A few weeks ago, while buying a book I needed, I added this one, which had been sitting on my wish list for a year or so. Thomas Keller's Bouchon, published in 2004, is pretty hefty for a cookbook. It's about a foot square, weighs almost six pounds, and features...
Joseph Campbell: Hero’s Journey, Power of Myth
Follow your bliss. If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field...
The grace of Elizabeth Edwards
Back in October of 2004, my wife Amy was working at the Maidenform store in Pleasant Prairie's Prime Outlets shopping center. One morning — October 21st, to be exact — Amy phoned home to tell me that there was some unusual activity in...
Bart D. Ehrman: ‘Misquoting Jesus: Who changed the Bible and why’
I first saw Bart D. Ehrman last March 14 when he was interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Prior to that, he guested on Fresh Air with Terry Gross. The cover of Ehrman's book proclaims it a "New York Times Bestseller." There's even another book refuting his...
Reading Joseph Campbell
Kenosha, Wisconsin — Reading Joseph Campbell's The Masks of God: Creative Mythology at home on the sofa. $variable({"type":"content","value":{"name":"post_tags","settings":{"before":"Filed...