MY OCTOBER 2026 READINGS

 MY OCTOBER 2026 READINGS

...were pretty diverse, with a nice mix of fiction, nonfiction, travelogue and manifesto.

Standouts include Challenger by Adam Higginbotham, Monster Of A Land by Lauren Hough, and Let The Poets Govern by Camonghne Felix.

Also, Lou Berney's novel, The Long And Faraway Gone, was incredibly affecting for what is essentially a crime novel that focuses on the tertiary victims of violence.

I loved the Planet Money book, mainly because I have a thing for plain-language primers of complex subjects, but also because economics is one of those subjects that everyone thinks they know, if you know what I mean.

Pollan's A World Appears tackles the slippery notion of consciousness from a variety of angles, coming up with more questions than answers, but it still feels like a comprehensive read.

All of these books are recommended by me, though, again, your mileage may vary.

THE AMERICAN WAY OF KILLING: the invention of an epidemic by Malcolm Gladwell

 

THE AMERICAN WAY OF KILLING:

the invention of an epidemic

by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell has made a career of promoting iconoclastic arguments, and this book targets a doozy: gun violence in the United States.

Here, Gladwell attacks all sides of the debate, from accusing Second-Amendment crusaders of intentionally misreading history (& language) to accusing “defund the Police” activists of myopically misrepresenting the cause of cop violence. 

And Gladwell scores some very palpable hits. His evidence that America is actually under-policed is compelling, and the logic behind his dismantling of the precedents behind the current legal standing of the Second Amendment is pretty damning, though frankly pedantic.

His other conclusions (that an assault-rifle ban would be useless and misguided; that medical advances & our collective silence regarding suicide are hiding the true casualty-rate of national gun violence; and that structural racism is a significant factor in determining both who actually dies from getting shot and who actually gets prosecuted for homicide) are, to my mind, even stronger and more provocative than the 2 big-ticket assertions that evoke most coverage of this book.

But the overarching argument — and underlying motivation for writing this book — that Gladwell makes is that our “intentional dishonesty” in our national discussion of gun violence is getting people needlessly killed. And he sure nails that one!

Get THE AMERICAN WAY OF KILLING by Malcolm Gladwell here: https://a.co/d/0f4CVMpC

Recommendation: SECOND RESPONDER by Tod Goldberg

I just finished Tod Goldberg’s new novella, Second Responder, published by Brash Books.

Curt has returned to his hometown of Palm Springs to attend the funeral of his father when he stumbles into a lucrative grift after joining his uncle’s business. But he’s not all that sure that the people around him can be trusted.

Goldberg is a master of all-too-realistic capers executed by colorful though questionable characters, and Second Responder is a quick, dangerous hit of jaded entertainment.

I thoroughly enjoyed the hour it took me to read it!

Get Second Responder by Tod Goldberg here: https://a.co/d/05YkYBjy

 

AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES' HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Knowledge of history is an essential component of any kind of wisdom. I think we can all agree on that.

After all, knowing how we got here is a vital part of knowing where the hell we are, let alone having any idea of where we’re headed.

And Dunbar-Ortiz deftly & comprehensively pierces the veil of American mythology to uncover the truth about how the “New World” of North America was “settled” by European colonists.

Hint: It wasn’t new, and it was already settled.

We may have a idealistic Constitution, full of high-minded language, but our nation was actually built with blood, spilled over land that was fully-occupied by another civilization.

Like The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones,

like Native Nations by Kathleen Duval,

like Asian American Histories of the United States by Catherine Ceniza Choy,

like We The People by Jill Lepore,

like Black AF History by Michael Harriot,

like America, América by Greg Grandin,

like The Rediscovery of America by Ned Blackhawk

(all of which I’ve read in the past year or so),

Dunbar-Ortiz’s book functions much like Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States in being a well-argued corrective to the kind of hagiography that powers the white-supremacist populism that has flared up in the last decade or so (though honestly, it’s been present at the heart of everything since the first European came ashore).

I just wish more people would read these correctives, especially this one by Dunbar-Ortiz!

Get AN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz here: https://a.co/d/0gvxhOrk

LET THE POETS GOVERN: a declaration of freedom by Camonghne Felix

LET THE POETS GOVERN:

a declaration of freedom

by Camonghne Felix

This is one poet’s manifesto & memoir, and it effing slaps!

 

I’ve read poets who have written about craft & form with encyclopedic aptitude. I’ve read activists who have written about their activities with evangelic fervor. I’ve read memoirists who have written about their lives with unblinking self-awareness.

But Felix, in this book, synthesizes all these impulses into a fully-embodied & wonderful document.

Felix draws from her own history, as well as from various other texts, to fashion a radical statement of identity and purpose that is frankly inspirational. We should all be so generously driven!

Drawing on her experiences as a delinquent, an artist, an activist, a teacher, and a political operative, Felix has fashioned a short book that is nothing short of a miracle: it is a beautiful testament of human being fully human, someone who recognizes that the fullest fulfillment of any individual is in concert with their community.

Did I mention that there’s some wonderful poetry here, too? Felix, for reasons that become apparent as one reads, especially explores a particular form called erasure poetry, to devastating effect.

I recommend this book for everyone!

Get Let The Poets Govern by Camonghne Felix here: https://a.co/d/02YWtRnt

MONSTER OF A LAND by Lauren Hough

MONSTER OF A LAND: on the road in search of modern america

by Lauren Hough

Imagine buying an old van and hitting the road with just your dog, leaving everything behind that ties you to a particular place — your house, your job, your friends & family.

Who hasn’t at least daydreamed of giving into wanderlust like this?

Well, Hough did it. She bought the van, loaded her dog, and hit the road. And then she wrote about it.

And the thing is, Hough isn’t just some generic person indulging in some clichéd fantasy. She’s all-too-real, with a decidedly idiosyncratic history & viewpoint, and her trip across America occurs at a certain time & place, bound by a host of impinging circumstances and the weight of histories both recent & ancient — which, of course, would be true of any of us. And every one of Hough’s chapters is aware of all this.

What’s so winning about Hough’s narrative is its blend of forthrightness & humanity. (It’s no surprise to discover that she’s a fan of Vonnegut!) She encounters all manner of people in her travels, and she’s been through enough struggle to be jaded. But she manages to avoid falling into outright cynicism, which I find admirable.

Plus, there’s the dog. I’m a dog person. And, clearly, so is Hough. Not only does she have one as her traveling companion, she is constantly encountering other ones. Moreover, she is haunted by the dogs of her past. Talk about a signal of virtue! (And I mean that unironically.)

Again, what I liked about this book is that Hough is sharply observant of the bullshit around her, all while being refreshingly honest about her own. She can swing from being archly opinionated to being heroically generous, all in the same paragraph.

I’m grateful to Hough for allowing us to take this journey with her. I urge you to take it as well!

Get Monster Of A Land by Lauren Hough here: https://a.co/d/0bg74yjF

MY READINGS FROM SEPTEMBER 2026

…started with a poet I found via social media, Jericho Brown. His Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Tradition, is a wonderful mix of formality and colloquialism, with a voice that insists on the beauty amidst the awful at every level of Brown’s life, made most manifest in his amazing poem, “Duplex.”

September was a month of important books, at least for me. It included Dear America by Jose Antonio Vargas, America Is Not The Heart by Elaine Castillo, and The Body Papers by Grace Talusan. The books by Vargas and Talusan are memoirs that contextualize our present predicaments through personal histories, while Castillo’s novel is one of the best I’ve read in years, epic in scope with vivid characters situated in actual history. It’s also a kind of response & update to a classic Filipino-American novel called America Is In The Heart by Carlos Bulosan.

Vargas’s book is particularly topical at this time when immigration is such a hot-button issue in America. Vargas himself is a living embodiment of the paradoxes involved, and the way he confronts his personal predicament is nothing short of heroic. You can find out more about Vargas’s work at https://defineamerican.com/

Diamond’s novel is also one of the best I’ve read in years, though totally different than Castillo’s. A propulsive narrative filled with trenchant observations & heart-wrenching dialog, Close Relationships With Strangers is close to perfect, a dark pocket-universe of a novel that hits a masterful endnote.

Stefan Fatsis’s Unabridged really tickled my lexicographical funny-bone. As online dictionaries supplant printed ones, Unabridged records a largely unheralded discipline and its fraught history. Plus, I’ve always found wordplay fun. And it’s always instructive to revisit the word-related scandals of the past for a little perspective on the pearl-clutching of the present.

I revisited Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself at the prompting of a couple of poets I know, and I’m better for it. The last time I encountered this poem was as an undergraduate at UNLV, but the particular edition I picked up this time combines both its first-published and last-published versions, which I found illuminating. If only Whitman’s exhaustively inclusive spirit were more popular nowadays!

Erin Singer’s Dangerland! novel was super-entertaining. Picture a middle-aged rom-com set in the Summerlin suburb of Las Vegas (where I actually live), filled with a colorful cast of characters and incorporating some local issues for truly comic effect. It’s a winner.

And the passing of Wendell Berry caused me to go back through his essays and poems. A real visionary who literally lived what he wrote, Berry was an unabashed advocate of each citizen’s physical connection to the land on which they live in a truly communal relationship that emphasizes every individual’s place in the ecology. I wish more people would read and learn from Berry’s work.

Wilbert Cooper’s The Black Shield is one writer’s reckoning with the history of his family and his city. Cooper's family includes at least 3 generations of Cleveland police officers, and his narrative relates their careers and their involvement in an organization of African-American cops called The Black Shield, which grows & changes over the decades in response to the political life of Cleveland itself. The Black Shield is also a history of policing in this country, and Cooper is clear-eyed about the challenges & pitfalls that beset the profession of law-enforcement.

As always, all of these books are highly recommended by me, though your mileage may vary.