The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Franzen's enduring work focuses on the promises and shortcomings that keep people, and particularly people within their families, preternaturally unhappy. The Lamberts are one unique case that, however, can stand in for the rest of an alienated, yet well-off society. This is a strong treatment of Franzen's recurring theme of despair in a world of immediate comfort but existential uncertainty.

The Quiet American - Graham Greene

Love, loss, adventure, and cynicism in French Indo-China (Vietnam). Foreign misadventures of naive Americans feel strikingly contemporary. Greene's prose hums and arrests.

Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

The original adventure story of a man wrestling with his faith and isolation. Still relevant and vibrant.

Born to Run - Christopher McDougall

Reread, re-post:
Starting with the basic question, "why does my foot hurt?" Christopher McDougall travels around the world and puts his own body on the line to discover the secret of the running people: that humans may be biologically born to run. Though such a claim may ring dubious to many of us - there are many well-respected thinkers and knowledgeable people who will claim that the human body is an imperfect machine never designed to take the stress and strain of running - McDougall marshals evidence that he argues is hidden in plain sight.

Taking a broad sweep of running nutrition, competitive history, technique and maybe even a few secrets along the way, Born to Run has already cast a broad shadow over the running community and continues to find its footing deeper in the popular consciousness. Reading a bit like a modern Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the work starts off with simple premises and comfortable realms of thought (issues like training techniques, human physiology and athletic shoe construction) and slowly develops a deeper thesis: that running has made us into the people we are, that modern man (and woman) has what it takes, is outfitted like no other species on this Earth, to run and that it was this unique ability that allowed us to compete and survive for millions of years. Finally, McDougall talks about the important effects of running for each person. Beyond health and fitness, he looks to the proof he sees in some of the greatest runners he has encountered and finds that, almost without fail, the best long-distance runners are those who participate out of the sheer joy of running, the extent to which it fulfills their humanity and binds them together.

Like many other works relying upon an intuitive connection with the reader, Born to Run succeeds or fails to the extent that we are able to identify with its premises. This is my second time reading the book and I feel as though I have found even more to mull over the second time. If nothing else I find it a work that energizes me to get out there and be one of the running people; that it continues to change the way I think about running and my own well-being is, I believe, testament enough as to whether McDougall's work is successful.

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

Two men in their forties set out to hike the Appalachian Trail.

The Lost Continent - Bill Bryson

A grumpy thirty-something across an America that differs from the country he grew up in.

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy

Brutal.