Book report time!

I started my new job in downtown Boston six weeks ago. I love the company, the software is a blast to work with, as are my co-workers. The neighborhood around the office is a little funky (Ft. Point), and it's full of outstanding lunch choices. There is one element of the job I don't like: my commute just plain sucks. Commuter rail to the dreaded Red Line of the T, then a five minute walk to the office. The Red Line is the worst part of it, no doubt about it. No matter how you slice it, when it's an hour and a half from door to door, there's no such thing as a "good" commute, it's just gradations of craptastic. I love the job, so it's worth it, but my main coping mechanism has been reading. I've finally decided that a Kindle will be in my future, in spite of what I said a couple years ago...I still love reading actual books, but my circumstances have changed. Weight and one-touch manipulating on a train matter more than they did before. Besides, the Kindle is now half the cost of the original device. My reading speed has approached warp speed. I'm averaging one book a week, in 30-minute chunks. Six weeks, six books. Of those six, five of them were terrific They were so good, in fact, that it's time for a blahblahginger book report. What I've read since April 1 (except for Dale Brown's "Executive Intent," which you should read on the beach, and not worry too much if you accidentally drop it in the bushes on the way back to the car. It's really not worth keeping on your bookshelf.)

"The Wordy Shipmates" by Sarah Vowell.  Ms. Vowell is a delightful, slightly (ok, very) sarcastic social essayist. She's been on NPR's This American Life, as well as Letterman, Conan, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. "The Wordy Shipmates" is Vowell's very funny, acerbic, absolutely factual take on how it all went for the Pilgrims who made the treacherous journey across the Atlantic to start a new life in the colonies. "Oh please, David, that sounds boring as hell," you say? No, it definitely wasn't boring. It was fascinating, laugh-out-loud funny, and more than a little thought-provoking. John Winthrop, Roger Williams and John Cotton become more than stilted oil paintings. They're real, flesh and blood people with emotions, irrational behavior, and lots and lots of ego thrown in. This is a terrific book, and one that you wouldn't necessarily pick up in a bookstore and say "I've GOT to check this out!" You really should, though.

Unbroken: by Laura Hillenbrand. Do you remember "Seabiscuit"? Not the movie. The movie was good. The book was outstanding, and I still say it's one of the half dozen finest non-fiction sports books I've ever read. The author was Laura Hillenbrand. I didn't think she'd be able to outdo herself, but "Unbroken" is an epic story. And it's all true. Louis Zamperini was a world class track and field athlete, a teammate of Jesse Owens on the 1936 US Olympic Team in the Munich Games. How he got to that world stage is a story in and of itself. After that, World War II started, and Zamperini's life took a series of turns that defy imagination, much less belief. I'd get to sections of the book and say to myself "Well, it can't get more dramatic than this." And then it does. "Oh c'mon, that episode really has to be the climax." Nope. You've heard the term life is stranger than fiction? This story is stark proof. An extraordinary achievement in storytelling about a remarkable man.

You Suck: A Love Story, by Christopher Moore. Take Douglas Adams, sprinkle in some Monty Python, and let it all soak in a vat of Anne Rice-flavored rum. That's Christopher Moore's latest thrill ride of utter lunacy. It's a story about San Francisco, the undead, some utterly terrifying cats, a very wise homeless dude, and a bunch of stoners who work in a Safeway.  But it's really about a disturbing goth chick named Abby Normal who inexplicably doesn't get along with her mother. Oh yeah. Mel Brooks definitely has an influence on this novel, but I can't entirely describe how. Please don't read this book in public. You'll get some really odd looks when you burst out in hysterical laughter on a very quiet moving train early in the morning. Not that I know anything about that.

War, by Sebastian Junger His career started with the landmark "The Perfect Storm." Since then, Seb Junger has cemented his place as one of the few remaining true journalists in the book writing business. By true journalist, I mean just that. Junger sticks to Joe Friday's dictum: just the facts. He offers no editorial opinions one way or another. He simply tells you what he saw, and what he heard. You can make up your mind from there. "War" is about American forces in Afghanistan. And bullets. And ambushes. And fear. And bravery. "War" was the basis for the Oscar-nominated documentary "Restrepo," which was directed by Tim Heatherington. That name might be familiar if you follow the news. Heatherington was killed last month while covering the uprising in Libya. When you read a Sebastian Junger story, you don't just learn about what's going on, you're right there with him, hanging on for dear life. I had to put this book down numerous times because I couldn't bear to find out what was going to happen next. But I couldn't not know, either, so I'd pick it up again. It's like that.

Still Missing, by Chevy Stevens. I found this book on my bookshelf last week. Obviously I had bought it, but I had no memory of when or why. In retrospect, I now realize it had to have been on the strength of a rave review that must have read something like "a chilling, haunting work that will easily become the best first novel you'll read this year, or next year, or perhaps the year after that." I can't say the book was a fun read. It's a thriller. It's beautifully crafted. It's also deeply disturbing and very, very dark. Ms. Stevens sets the stage with a realtor's kidnapping near Vancouver. Then the disturbing part starts, and that pretty much continues the rest of the way. I finished the book today, and it's going to take some time to get the narrator's voice out of my head. I'd recommend reading this *before* "You Suck," so you have something to laugh about when you're done. You'll need it.

So that's five great books. Next week I start an 800-page biography. After that, I have to go shopping again.