books
-
Mission Accomplished
Back in January, I set a 2025 reading goal on Goodreads of 30 books. Today, on May 29, I finished number 34 and started number 35. Guess I should have set a more ambitious goal. With the exception of my sampling of pulp fiction a while back, I haven’t written much in this space about Continue reading
-
Pulp
About a month ago, I started reading a novel by Charles Bukowski called Pulp. I selected it on a whim. I was in the mood for something short and I had seen enough about Bukowski’s persona as the “poet laureate of Los Angeles low-life” that I was intrigued. Pulp is a quirky little book. It’s Continue reading
-
52 Pickup
Today, I finished reading Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express. When I logged the title into my Goodreads account, I noticed that it was the 52nd book I’ve completed this calendar year. That seemed noteworthy as it puts me well ahead of a pace of one book per week — a volume of reading Continue reading
-
Classics Every Day: Mid-Year Update
Back in January, I took it upon myself to start reading some classic fiction, poetry, philosophy, or history every day for an undetermined period of time. I called the project “Classics Every Day.” Now, in this first week of June, I’m happy to report that Classics Every Day is still an ongoing project. I have Continue reading
-
Book Report: Moby-Dick
Some books have reputations that precede them. The reputation may be for genius, for popularity, for challenging readers, for polarization, for profundity, or for sheer heft. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick checks all of those boxes. Moby-Dick used to be a staple of American high school English curricula. (It might still be, but given the trajectory of Continue reading
-
Classics Every Day
In a previous post, I talked about classic literature, and how I experience mild pangs of regret over not appreciating the great works that were assigned to me back in high school. Since then, I gathered something of a classics starter collection and spent the month of January working my way through some of it. Continue reading
-
Classics
I am not one to wallow in regret. There aren’t many things that I’ve done or failed to do over the years that cause me to look back and want to kick myself. That said, there is one category of experience that does cause me to get annoyed with my past self: whenever, in retrospect, Continue reading
About Me
Researcher. Marketer. Teacher. Father of adult children and dogs. 20th Century holdover. Central New York native. Long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan. History nerd. Traveler. Vintage advertising enthusiast. Hat wearer.
a.k.a. V.J. 