Posts

, , , ,

401. The Tennis Partner

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Abraham Verghese

Genre:    Nonfiction, Memoir, Medicine

368 pages, published 1998

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The Tennis Partner is a memoir by Abraham Verghese, the author of the bestselling book Cutting for Stone.  Verghese writes about a time earlier in his medical career when he befriended David Smith, an Australian medical student recovering from drug addiction and former professional tennis player.   Verghese and Smith share a love for tennis and start playing on a regular basis.  Verghese writes with poignancy about this time period when he separated from his wife and David slid back into addiction.

Quotes 

It made one a perpetual student, a posture that I respected more than the posture of absolute mastery.

 

My Take

While The Tennis Partner is well written, it didn’t resonate with me nearly as much as  Cutting for Stone, a beautifully written book and author Abraham Verghese’s masterpiece.  However, The Tennis Partner still has a lot to recommend it.  In a similar vein as Beautiful Boy, which I highly recommend, it is a moving account of the helplessness of watching someone you care for continuously slip back into addiction.  Tough reading at times, but I still recommend it.

/by
, , , , ,

393. Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Mike Brady

Author:   David Goggins

Genre:   Nonfiction, Self Improvement, Psychology, Memoir

366 pages, published December 4, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

After surviving a nightmarish childhood, David Goggins entered his early twenties overweight, unmotivated and depressed.  Deciding that something had to change, Goggins set his sights on being accepted to the elite Navy Seal training program.  To do so, he would have to lose 106 pounds in three months and pass a rigorous written exam.  He did both and then went on to become a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller.  Not satisfied, he entered the world of ultra athletic endurance competitions.   He would go on to set records in numerous endurance events and was named by Outside magazine as “The Fittest (Real) Man in America.”

Quotes 

“Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.”

 

“It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it. Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim on what you are willing to earn!”

 

“No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”

 

“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”

 

“Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. “Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…”

 

“In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

 

“We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.”

 

“I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done”

 

“The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss.”

 

“The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”

 

“The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind. It’s the same reason why you have to do your best work when you are the least motivated. That’s why I loved PT in BUD/S and why I still love it today. Physical challenges strengthen my mind so I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and it will do the same for you.”

 

“From then on, I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, Get your fucking running shoes on. Sometimes I wussed out and had to deal with it at the Accountability Mirror. But facing that mirror, facing myself, motivated me to fight through uncomfortable experiences, and, as a result, I became tougher. And being tough and resilient helped me meet my goals.”

 

My Take

In Can’t Hurt Me, David Goggins shares his inspirational life story and argues that most of us are only using 40% of our capabilities.  One of the more interesting parts of the book is his discussion of the concept of “the Governor,” the part of our brain that tells us to stop when we are pushing our bodies hard or dealing with discomfort.  Goggins overcame his Governor and accomplished some truly amazing physical feats, setting world records for ultra endurance contests and pull-ups.  An inspiring story that will challenge you to up your game.

/by
, , ,

386. The Maze at Windermere

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Terra McKinnish

Author:   Gregory Blake Smith

Genre:   Fiction, Historical Fiction

580 pages, published July 11, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Like its title, The Maze at Windermere takes the reader on a maze like journey through multiple time periods in the same area of Newport, Rhode Island.  We follow the romantic entanglements of couples through the ages, starting in the present day and going back to the 1600’s.

Quotes 

“What interests me,” she took up finally, and there was now no touch of her characteristic satire, “is a life in which I am engaged in discovering what interests me. Not just now, as a young woman, but when I am a wife, and when I have children, and beyond. A life of imagination, and experience, and engagement, and commitment to something beyond myself.”

 

“But I feel myself marooned on the island of myself.”

 

“One must take care that one’s life does not begin to resemble the plot of a novel.”

 

“Ah, to be able to read both the surface and that which is below the surface!”

 

My Take

While it started out a bit slowly, around the halfway point I started to really enjoy The Maze at Windermere.  Smith is a talented writer and presents some compelling insights into the human condition and the motivations which drive us.  Interestingly, I found myself most captivated by the oldest story from the 1600’s and the most recent one from 2011.

/by
, , , , ,

381. Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:  Malcolm Gladwell

Genre:    Nonfiction, Psychology, Sociology, Science

400 pages, published September 10, 2019

Reading Format:  e-Book on Overdrive

Summary

In July 2015, a young black woman named Sandra Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic violation in rural Texas. Minutes later she was arrested and jailed. Three days later, she committed suicide in her cell. What went wrong? Talking to Strangers is all about what happens when we encounter people we don’t know, why it often goes awry, and what it says about us.

How do we make sense of the unfamiliar? Why are we so bad at judging someone, reading a face, or detecting a lie? Why do we so often fail to ‘get’ other people?

Quotes 

“To assume the best about another is the trait that has created modern society. Those occasions when our trusting nature gets violated are tragic. But the alternative – to abandon trust as a defense against predation and deception – is worse.”

 

“The thing we want to learn about a stranger is fragile. If we tread carelessly it will crumple under our feet… The right way to talk to strangers is with caution and humility.”

 

“Young women are getting a distorted message that their right to match men drink for drink is a feminist issue. The real feminist message should be that when you lose the ability to be responsible for yourself, you drastically increase the chances that you will attract the kinds of people who, shall we say, don’t have your best interest at heart. That’s not blaming the victim; that’s trying to prevent more victims.”

 

“The conviction that we know others better than they know us—and that we may have insights about them they lack (but not vice versa)—leads us to talk when we would do well to listen and to be less patient than we ought to be when others express the conviction that they are the ones who are being misunderstood or judged unfairly. The same convictions can make us reluctant to take advice from others who cannot know our private thoughts, feelings, interpretations of events, or motives, but all too willing to give advice to others based on our views of their past behavior, without adequate attention to their thoughts, feelings, interpretations, and motives. Indeed, the biases documented here may create a barrier to the type of exchanges of information, and especially to the type of careful and respectful listening, that can go a long way to attenuating the feelings of frustration and resentment that accompany interpersonal and intergroup conflict.”

 

“Today we are now thrown into contact all the time with people whose assumptions, perspectives, and backgrounds are different from our own. The modern world is not two brothers feuding for control of the Ottoman Empire. It is Cortés and Montezuma struggling to understand each other through multiple layers of translators. Talking to Strangers is about why we are so bad at that act of translation.”

 

My Take

Like all Malcolm Gladwell books, Talking to Strangers is a fascinating read.  I always learn something new and unexpected from him.  In this book, my main takeaway is that while trusting others and giving strangers the benefit of the doubt can occasionally lead to an unfortunate result, it is the price that we all have to pay to live in a society that works.

/by
, , , , ,

380. Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by: Mark Levin

Author:  Robert A. Lawson, Benjamin Powell

Genre:   Nonfiction, Economics, History, Politics

224 pages, published July 30, 2019

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

In Socialism Sucks, economists Robert Lawson and Benjamin Powell travel to many of the world’s Socialist countries (think Venezula, Cuba and North Korea rather than Sweden and Denmark which are capitalist countries with generous welfare states) to report on the impact of Socialist policies.  The results aren’t pretty.  Lawson and Powell give first hand, colorful reports on how Socialism has impoverished millions of people and decimated once vibrant economies.

Quotes 

“Groucho’s definition of politics is Marxism in a nutshell: “Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies.”

 

“It wasn’t until the so-called “Marginal Revolution” in the 1880s when three economists, working independently, all concluded that the value of a good is based on what people subjectively think a particular (or “marginal”) unit of that good is worth, which is exactly right. The amount of time or energy it takes to make something doesn’t really matter when it comes to determining its worth. This is tough to grasp, especially for the individuals or company that produced the good and want to sell it for a price that they think is “fair” compensation for their time and labor.”

 

“The low rate of infant mortality is a product of data manipulation. At seventy-two abortions per one hundred births, Cuba has one of the highest abortion rates in the world, and Cuban doctors routinely force women to abort high-risk pregnancies so that Cuba’s bureaucrats can brag about their health statistics. If you correct the data to account for these factors, Cuba’s health statistics look a lot less impressive.”

 

“As economists, we believe that the American government’s half-century-long embargo on Cuba is bad policy, and that without it, we could bring the Cubans more freedom. The embargo has done nothing to undermine Cuba’s abusive Communist regime. Indeed, the Castros have used the embargo—they call it a “blockade”—to blame the United States for Cuba’s poverty rather than admit that socialism doesn’t work. Trade not only promotes economic development, it can open a society to other ideas—in this case, capitalist ones.”

 

“In 1988, the Chinese constitution was amended to officially recognize private property and private business. Before then, the Communist state had been China’s only official employer, with small exceptions. By 1998, the state employed about 60 percent of the working population, and in 2010 it employed only about 19 percent.  China had transitioned from socialism to a form of crony capitalism.”

 

“All told, in less than thirty years, through the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and other atrocities, Mao’s Communist government killed more of its own people than any other government in history—possibly as many as eighty million.  The peasants who escaped death found themselves poorer than their ancestors. In 1978, two-thirds of Chinese peasants had incomes lower than they had in the 1950s, one-third had incomes lower than in the 1930s, and the average Chinese person was only consuming two-thirds as many calories as the average person in a developed country.”

 

My Take

As an avowed free marketeer, I read Socialism Sucks as a member of the choir.  I already knew about the failure that is socialism and how its implementation is always at the point of a gun.  This book, however, put some meat on the bones of my ideological beliefs.  This book demonstrates with statistics and examples the true destructive power of socialism.  American socialists (I’m looking at you, Bernie Sanders) have no idea what socialism really is.  This is a book they should read.

/by
, ,

376. The End of Work

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   John Tamny

Genre:  Nonfiction, Business

256 pages, published May 7, 2018

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

The End of Work, by free market economist John Tamny, is a very optimistic treatise on the future of work in the United States and around the world.  Tamny rejects the doomsday predictions that automization and globalization will take away your dream job.  Instead, he contends that the job market is only going to get better and better as a result of rapidly increasing prosperity which will free human beings to perform work that is fun, meaningful and personal.

Quotes 

“Capitalism cannot cause a financial crisis because capitalism is about markets constantly correcting errors. It is government intervention that can and often does cause crises,”

 

“An economy robbed of failure is also robbed of success, because failure provides knowledge about how to succeed. Failure is the healthy process whereby a poorly run entity is deprived of the ability to do more economic harm.”

 

“Failure is merely a harsh word for the experiences that animate the constant drive for self-improvement.”

“Taxes are the price we charge people to work, and that price affects where they work and whether they work at all.”

 

“The same is true for taxes. Politicians may raise the cost of work for their citizens, but if the cost is too high, those citizens won’t stick around to be fleeced, especially if they’re well to do. Like the car shoppers, they’ll go elsewhere.”

 

“Most people do not begin life on top. Politicians who raise income tax rates on top earners in the name of “fairness” are telling the strivers lower down that they will incur a penalty for succeeding.”

 

“Income inequality in a capitalist system is truly beautiful. It provides the incentive for creative people to gamble on new ideas, and it turns luxuries into common goods. Income inequality nurses sick companies back to health. It rewards hard work, talent, and achievement regardless of pedigree. And it’s a signal that some of the world’s worst problems will disappear in our lifetimes.”

 

My Take

The End of Work is a great book to read if you are a young person trying to figure out what you want to do with your life.  Indeed, after I finished reading it, I ordered a copy and sent it to my 21 year old son Nick who has recently graduated from college and, while working at a great job, is not passionate about his work.  Tamny’s advice is to go for your passion and you will be rewarded with an interesting and fulfilling career.

/by
, ,

375. Where the Crawdads Sing

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:   Pam Dupont

Author:   Delia Owens

Genre:  Fiction, Historical Fiction

384 pages, published August 14, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya Clark who was abandoned by her parents in the early 1960’s and left to fend for herself in the backwaters of Barkley Cove, a small town on the North Carolina coast.  Known to locals as the mysterious “Marsh Girl,” Kya teaches herself to read and channels her love of nature into a rare expertise for the tidewater flora and fauna.  When Chase Andrews is found dead in 1969, Kya is immediately suspected and put on trial.

Quotes 

“I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full.”

 

“She knew the years of isolation had altered her behavior until she was different from others, but it wasn’t her fault she’d been alone. Most of what she knew, she’d learned from the wild. Nature had nurtured, tutored, and protected her when no one else would.”

 

“She could read anything now, he said, and once you can read anything you can learn everything. It was up to her. “Nobody’s come close to filling their brains,” he said. “We’re all like giraffes not using their necks to reach the higher leaves.”

 

“His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman.”

 

“lot of times love doesn’t work out. Yet even when it fails, it connects you to others and, in the end, that is all you have, the connections.”

 

“How much do you trade to defeat loneliness?”

 

“Time ensures children never know their parents young.”

 

“Autumn leaves don’t fall, they fly. They take their time and wander on this their only chance to soar.”

 

My Take

I liked, but did not love, Where the Crawdads Sing.  I typically am a big fan of books where the main character overcomes a big hurdle by relying on themselves and others to learn what they are capable of.  This book has that in spades along with some well done courtroom scenes.  However, it was a bit too formulaic with an unearned, twist ending that keeps me from rating it higher.

/by
, ,

359. Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Gail Honeyman

Genre:  Fiction

327 pages, published May 9, 2017

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Eleanor Oliphant is a woman who is hard to pin down. She is socially awkward and usually say exactly what she’s thinking.  Her life is planned around work with weekends reserved for frozen pizza, vodka, and phone calls with her imprisoned mum.  All of this changes when she meets Raymond, the IT guy from her office.  When she and Raymond together save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living.

Quotes 

“If someone asks you how you are, you are meant to say FINE. You are not meant to say that you cried yourself to sleep last night because you hadn’t spoken to another person for two consecutive days. FINE is what you say.”

 

“in principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.”

 

“There are days when I feel so lightly connected to the earth that the threads that tether me to the planet are gossamer thin, spun sugar. A strong gust of wind could dislodge me completely, and I’d lift off and blow away, like one of those seeds in a dandelion clock. The threads tighten slightly from Monday to Friday.”

 

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you deal with things.”

 

“Although it’s good to try new things and to keep an open mind, it’s also extremely important to stay true to who you really are.”

 

“A philosophical question: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? And if a woman who’s wholly alone occasionally talks to a pot plant, is she certifiable? I think that it is perfectly normal to talk to oneself occasionally. It’s not as though I’m expecting a reply. I’m fully aware that Polly is a houseplant.”

 

“I find lateness exceptionally rude; it’s so disrespectful, implying unambiguously that you consider yourself and your own time to be so much more valuable than the other person’s.”

 

“Did men ever look in the mirror, I wondered, and find themselves wanting in deeply fundamental ways? When they opened a newspaper or watched a film, were they presented with nothing but exceptionally handsome young men, and did this make them feel intimidated, inferior, because they were not as young, not as handsome? Did they then read newspaper articles ridiculing those same handsome men if they gained weight or wore something unflattering?”

 

“She had tried to steer me towards vertiginous heels again – why are these people so incredibly keen on crippling their female customers? I began to wonder if cobblers and chiropractors had established some fiendish cartel.”

 

“Obscenity is the distinguishing hallmark of a sadly limited vocabulary.”

 

“No thank you,” I said. “I don’t want to accept a drink from you, because then I would be obliged to purchase one for you in return, and I’m afraid I’m simply not interested in spending two drinks’ worth of time with you.”

 

“These days, loneliness is the new cancer–-a shameful, embarrassing thing, brought upon yourself in some obscure way. A fearful, incurable thing, so horrifying that you dare not mention it; other people don’t want to hear the word spoken aloud for fear that they might too be afflicted, or that it might tempt fate into visiting a similar horror upon them.”

 

“I wasn’t good at pretending, that was the thing. After what had happened in that burning house, given what went on there, I could see no point in being anything other than truthful with the world. I had, literally, nothing left to lose. But, by careful observation from the sidelines, I’d worked out that social success is often built on pretending just a little. Popular people sometimes have to laugh at things they don’t find very funny, or do things they don’t particularly want to, with people whose company they don’t particularly enjoy. Not me. I had decided, years ago, that if the choice was between that or flying solo, then I’d fly solo. It was safer that way. Grief is the price we pay for love, so they say. The price is far too high.”

 

“There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face. I know they’re there. I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out.”

 

“I have been waiting for death all my life. I do not mean that I actively wish to die, just that I do not really want to be alive.”

 

“I’m not sure I’d like to be burned. I think I might like to be fed to zoo animals. It would be both environmentally friendly and a lovely treat for the larger carnivores. Could you request that?” 

My Take

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine reminded me a lot of The Rosie Project.  Both books are about unconventional characters struggling to make sense of a world that was not made for them.  I enjoyed this book, especially the humorous and poignant insights of the title character.  It all expectedly wraps up neatly at the end, but it is an enjoyable time getting there.

/by
, , , ,

355. Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Brittany Gibbons

Genre:  Non Fiction, Memoir, Humor

240 pages, published May 19, 2015

Reading Format:  Book

Summary

Fat Girl Walking is a memoir written by Brittany Gibbons, a size 18 blogger who writes about her life long struggle with weight and acceptance of her body.  She wore a bikini in Times Square and stripped down to her underwear and bra for a Ted Talk on body image to make a point about how real women look and how they need to learn to love their bodies.

Quotes 

“Instead, I realized that people are allowed to say whatever they want to me about my weight, but it’s entirely up to me how much power I let those words have over me. I’m not obligated or required to accept negative commentary about my looks. I’m not less confident or honest for ignoring that it’s there. I’m just confident enough to know it’s not true.”

 

“Side note: is anyone else grateful social media wasn’t a thing when they were a teenager? It’s like Draco Malfoy and all three Heathers smooshed into one invisible organism that thrives on Internet memes and passive aggression.”

 

“…the thing about dieting is that it’s really horrible and boring for a longer period of time than feeling pretty in small jeans feels. That’s just basic math.”

 

“Just remember this: college is the most expensive place to be confused in the whole entire world.”

 

“Don’t go to college. It’s the absolute worst and it will ruin your life and you’ll never have good enough credit to own things, ever. Learn a trade or invent Facebook. College is for dummies.”

 

“Well, unless I’m sitting atop you, what I weigh is really none of your business.”

 

“I banned the use of fat as a slur hurled toward myself and strangers. I’m not saying I don’t see fat; saying that is akin to the people who make grand statements about ‘not seeing color.’ Seeing color doesn’t mean you’re a racist. It means your eyes work, but that you are hopefully able to see color not for a discrepancy in normal, but as a beautiful component of diversity.”

 

“You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger.” 

My Take

Brittany Gibbons has a unique, humorous voice and I enjoyed her memoir.  A breezy, quick read that will give you some empathy for the overweight of the world.

/by
, , , ,

354. Lethal White

Rating:  ☆☆☆1/2

Recommended by:

Author:   Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)

Genre:  Fiction, Mystery, Crime

650 pages, published September 18, 2018

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

Lethal White is J.K. Rowling’s fourth book featuring Private Investigator Cormoran Strike and his partner Robin Ellacott.  It opens with Billy, a mentally troubled young man, telling Strike “I seen a kid killed…He strangled it, up by the horse.”  This statement sets Strike and Ellacot off on a hunt that turns into a murder investigation of a member of Parliament.

Quotes 

“Pretending you’re OK when you aren’t isn’t strength.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong,” Robin contradicted him. The champagne had fizzed on her tongue and seemed to give her courage even before it hit her brain. “Sometimes, acting as though you’re all right, makes you all right. Sometimes you’ve got to slap on a brave face and walk out into the world, and after a while it isn’t an act anymore, it’s who you are. If I’d waited to feel ready to leave my room after—you know,” she said, “I’d still be in there. I had to leave before I was ready.”

 

“I was in therapy for a bit. Now I do CBT exercises.” “Do you, though?” Strike asked mildly. “Because I bought vegetarian bacon a week ago, but it’s not making me any healthier, just sitting there in the fridge.”

 

“Life had taught him that a great and powerful love could be felt for the most apparently unworthy people, a circumstance that ought, after all, to give everybody consolation.”

 

“How often were you aware, while it happened, that you were living an hour that would change the course of your life forever?”

 

“Because men’s crimes are always ours in the final analysis, aren’t they, Mr. Strike? Ultimate responsibility always lies with the woman, who should have stopped it, who should have acted, who must have known. Your failings are really our failings, aren’t they? Because the proper role of the woman is carer, and there’s nothing lower in this whole world than a bad mother.”

 

“The feel of her was both new and familiar, as though he had held her a long time ago, as though he had missed it without knowing it for years.”

 

“As suddenly as they had reached for each other, they broke apart. Tears were rolling down Robin’s face. For one moment of madness, Strike yearned to say, “Come with me”, but there are words that can never be unsaid or forgotten, and those, he knew, were some of them.”

 

“I think marriage is nearly always an unfathomable entity, even to the people inside it. It took this… all of this mess… to make me realize I can’t go on. I don’t really know when I stopped loving him,”

 

“Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve loved anyone, since, like you loved me.”

“No, I haven’t,” he said, “and thank fuck for that.” 

My Take

The reason to read Lethal White isn’t the mystery at its core, which is fine but a bit convoluted at times.  The reason to read it is the superb portrait painted by J.K. Rowling of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacot, the two main, recurring characters in the Cormoran Strike series.  They are so richly drawn and so accessible that it makes reading the book worthwhile.

/by