ALT: BJ Novak's Check List: Taking Notes

I really loved the show, "Succession." Still do. Such iconic characters that could be ruthless, inept, and ruthlessly inept. It was also fiction. I mean, yeah, you kinda knew in the recesses of your brain it wasn't too fictional, but the moral depravity was so far outside what could possibly be real that it was easy to roll with it.

Ah, mistakes. The factor by which our lives become anything but predictable. There are the mistakes you make that you KNOW are mistakes. Watching TV instead of studying for finals. Going out and overdoing it the night before a big job interview. Or, in Mira Winston's case, sleeping with a married man 30 years her senior. What Mira could not see coming, was what happens when you choose to hit golf balls without checking the safety net first.

I had this very conversation not too long ago with a coworker: If you could live in any era, which one would it be? The conversation was both fascinating and sobering. Every time we began to wax nostalgic about a time we chose, the inevitable atrocities associated with that time came to mind. I mean, I am a sucker for the 1980s, but ...

Renowned musician Glen Hansard has died overnight in a motorcycle crash in Dublin’s Lucan.

Apologies to horse fans everywhere: Despite the chestnut-colored beauty on the cover, Ann Patchett's lartest novel, Whistler, is not about a horse. But by no means should you pass on it — there is in fact a gem of a short story about a horse inside these pages. No, this is a story about how family comes in all kinds of forms.

If only I could believe there is little more than a tiny, tiny kernel of truth to this story. Erin Van Der Meer's debut, "The Scoop," is likely one of the most non-fictioney pieces of fiction I've read in a while. Another Independent Bookstore Day find, the book checked off my "need something soapy and diabolical" box. "The Scoop" delivered in spades.

If only the Flynns were Stoics. I've been trying to get into the habit of reading a daily passage from Ryan Holiday's "The Daily Stoic" and it occurs to me if Bud, Catherine, Abigail, Louise or Harper had simply focused on the choices they can make every day, each one of the Flynn clan would have had what they sought so much sooner.

It's been a while since my brain had to ping pong between two characters in a book trying to one-up each other in the "Yeah, I'm not a good person" department. But honestly, Joni, WTF? If your book club needs a new summer pick, stop looking. Corey Ann Haydu's adult contemporary fiction debut, "Mothers and Other Strangers" is the PERFECT debate-starting, choose your sides and get ready to duke it out kind of read, and simply just as entertaining and engrossing as anything I've read lately.

Is anyone here actually living the dream? I mean, we all kinda know that nearly everything on social media is BS, right? The escapism, though. The chance to imagine a Zen to which you can only aspire to — is that what so many people are addicted to online? Pile the number of books, essays, doctoral theses and transcripts of podcasts that take a deep dive into social media and its influence on society in general, and you'd have a stack likely taller than the Eiffel Tower.

It's just plain bad for you, folks. And I say this as a lover of a good steak. L-O-V-E-R. It was a thrill just to watch a $270 Swinging Tomahawk steak presented to a young couple at the restaurant table next to my husband and I last weekend. Long gone are the days when I could scarf down a New York strip or a filet mignon.

My bedside TBR pile is truly horrifying. And I just keep making it worse. Whether it's an indie bookstore purchase or a library find, it just keeps growing and growing. I grabbed Liz Moore's "The God of The Woods" from the near bottom for two reasons: I saw my soon-to-be daughter-in-law enthralled with it on vacation, and becaue it's kinda thick, I figured it might make a small dent in the TBR pile's height.

Hard to believe it's only March and I think I have my 2026 villains of the year. Congratulations to Hyrum and Kendra! More on them later, or maybe not — for Crux isn't about horrible people. It's about the depths of friendship and discovering yourself in this coming of age tale by Gabriel Tallent. Dan and Tamma have spent their entire lives — all 18 years of it so far — as BFFs in California backcountry, living in various states of poverty, but not really caring all that much.

Dang, I just wish people were better at communicating. Let me be more specific: Dang, I wish men were better at communicating. Then maybe there wouldn't be so many shoulda coulda wouldas. Then again, none of that matters if you believe in presentism. Lily King's "Heart the Lover" was on my TBR list late late year I had really enjoyed her previous "

Have you ever found yourself, a woman of a certain age, to be second-guessing life decisions? And then wondering to yourself, "Is this menopause, or is this a mid-life crisis?" For Dinah Newman, it's likely both. In Jennifer Niven's "Meet the Newmans," readers are welcomed into the 1960s era of family television by way of the Newman clan — Del, Dinah and their two sons Guy and Shep.

Corby Ledbetter's prison cell may be real, but the one in which he resides inside his head is infinitely worse. Convinced by a good friend that texted me several times she was wrecked by this book, I moved my copy of Wally Lamb's "The River Is Waiting" off my TBR list and spent a large chunk of the weekend with my nose in Corby's business.

Anyone out there take magnesium before bed? Having frequent struggles with restless leg syndrome, I will on occasion pop a couple of magnesium supplements before bed to take the edge off, knowing full well I will also likely experience a really vivid dream. This in and of itself is not a bad thing — take the other night, for example, when I was in an upstairs attic room of sorts with my daughter and soon-to-be daughter-in-law and Prince shows up with racks of clothing he is getting ready to thrift and lets us take first crack at it before he packs it up.

The start of each year challenges my internal dialogue day in and day out. On one hand, a fresh start. A chance to shake off bad habits and negative thoughts and lean into as much Zen as possible. On the other hand, I live in the Midwest. It's a frozen tundra until Memorial Day and January is just the start of a gauntlet of subzero temps and little sunshine.

Maybe it's time to go retro and start letter writing again. It'd give me an excuse to get in on the stationary fad that's currently en vogue. Plus, I just love paper. And pens. All the accoutrements that come with the fine art of writing. Letter writing is the structure of Virginia Evans' "The Correspondent," a 2025 critical darling and the book I had hoped to close out the year with, had I had a few more days.

It’s my favorite post of the year — everything I’ve read in 2025!

It's my favorite post of the year — everything I've read in 2025!

Somewhere, Dr. Ian Malcolm is muttering "I told you so" and toasting the fate of Hank Jones. Charlotte McConaghy's "Wild Dark Shore" was a heckuva book to end 2025 on — my 30th and final read of the year. It's the tale of a widower, Dominic Salt, and his three children — Fen, Raf and Orly — the last group of caretakers on a remote island somewhere in between Australia and Antarctica.

"When the Cranes Fly South" is about a man and his dog and a son and his father, but it is so, so much more. Definite trigger warnings here: If you have a loved one in a memory care facility, have deep, deep emotional connections to your pets and/or have any kind of dysfunctional family relationship, you either need to sit on this for a while, or keep a box of tissue next to you at all times during this, Lisa Ridzen's amazing…

I try to make sure I share my literary love with more than just a couple of genres, and typically peg the October-ish time frame for a thiller ... and then just go straight to the Stephen King shelf at the bookstore. Because he never fails to deliver. King has been somewhat of an interesting conversation starter these days with friends, when they see me with one of his books.

I'm comfortable enough with my reading whims to admit I usually have entirely shallow reasons for reading literary fiction. It's usually one of two things — I feel like I need to up my street cred by having something that's been nominated for something on my book list for the year, or because something gets so many rave reviews I have to cave and read it (see: …

Full disclosure: Big Jess Walter fan. I was lucky enough to interview him more than a decade ago for "Beautiful Ruins," which honestly I feel like I need to re-read post-Season Two of White Lotus. I haven't read everything by Walter just yet, but I saw "So Far Gone" released this summer and knew it should be added to the TBR pile.

There's family dysfunction and then there's Saul Effin' Williams. Had someone told me earlier that Janelle Brown's latest, "What Kind of Paradise" is crazy family dynamics on top of the tech boom of the 90s, I likely would have picked it up sooner. Because this is a page-turning humdinger of a story. Jane Williams is the home-schooled, living off-the-grid-with-her-father-in-rural-Montana protagonist I've been waiting a while for.

Anyone who is a fan of reading for pleasure has at least one author that serves as comfort food. I've got a few, and Taylor Jenkins Reid is one. I can always count on her books to be accessible, binge-worthy and not too taxing on the noggin. "Atmosphere" did not disappoint. It's not my favorite novel of hers — that honor likely falls to "

Have you ever thought about how your narrate your own life? Do you tell stories to your kids? Family? Friends? Are you a prolific poster on the socials, and if so, how accurate a representation of your life is it? Maybe you are a journalist. Or perhaps you just talk to yourself. And however the manner, is it with purpose or passion?

It's only a matter of time before we see Lily and Sam coming to a streaming service near you, so you may as well read "The Compound" now. I just hope they stick to the storyline and not actually .... no, they wouldn't make this an actual reality show, right? Both highly entertaining and horrifying, Aisling Rawle's dark satire on a Love Island-esque competition reality show highlights both the lengths television producers will go to elicit desired responses from contestants and the amount of psychological torture and physical pain people are willing to endure for the fleeting, at best, gift of fame.

I'm late to the party on all things Kristin Hannah — yes, this means I have not read "The Nightingale" yet. But it was that or her latest, "The Women," which honestly, it seemed like everyone was talking up to be as good if not better. <Maybe a hot take, incoming ....> I thought it was fine. Good. I didn't abandon it, though I thought about it during the first 75 pages or so.

This started out as such a great day. Really. I got up at 5:15 a.m, was out the door by 5:30, and knocked out a 4-mile run. Came home, took the dog out for his morning constitutional, made coffee, got my upper-body weight work in (here's to all of us past-50 women trying to hold on to bone density and muscle mass, am I right?) and was thinking to myself, "It's really been a nice couple of days, weather-wise, I'm in my summer era, all is right with my corner of the world."

Book friends are the best kind of friends. Book friends are the kind of people that you sometimes will not hear from for weeks, months or even years. But the second they read something life changing, they are sliding into your DMs without hesitation, dropping book recs like they can't sleep until someone else takes up their cause. These are my people.

Version 1.0.0 If you are a good and decent person, you should read "One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This." (If you are not a good person, it's not going to matter but yes you should read it as well.) If you are a good and decent person, you will absolutely be traumatized and feel attacked. Good.

Here's one for all the "I wasn't really interested in getting that promotion anyway" folks. Samantha Harvey's "Orbital" is a slim but mega-impactful read that should come with a trigger warning for anyone with anxiety, including those that live in fear of climate change, catastrophic weather events, and well, Earth's timeline in general. A story of a single day in the lives of six astronauts aboard an orbiting space station, readers are invited inside the thoughts of each as they move through their routines, beginning with morning exercises and ending with a movie night, all while a mega-typhoon is swiftly moving toward landfall on Earth below.

"Deep Cuts" is the reason you keep reading a book even if at first you aren't completely in love with the story. And that's not a poke or jab at debut author Holly Brickley — if anything, quite the opposite. "Deep Cuts" is a compelling story about all kinds of friendship from start to finish. For me, I just had to look past my own Judgy McJudgerson attitude toward certain personality traits to see the characters for who they really were.

It's officially summer reading season. Are you ready? Thanks to Independent Bookstore Day last month, I have a TBR pile that will likely last me well into 2026. I tapped into it this week for my latest read, Eric Puchner's "Dream State" — one of Oprah's picks for 2025. Short review? It didn't disappoint and was a great way to kick off summer.

This shouldn't have taken so long to read. I sat on Chris Whitaker's "All the Colors of the Dark" for a good while, pushing it further down into my TBR stack than it deserved. It's a longer story, amongst all of my TBR books that are longer stories, and I had received some mixed commentary about it. (Also, I decided to binge the entirety of "The Pitt" last weekend, which significantly cut into free reading time.

Adulting is .... exhausting. Sure, it's got its perks. We can pick our own bedtime. Control the TV remote. Eat an entire box of Ding Dongs. We only have ourselves to answer to for the choices we make, the consequences of which we are mostly the only ones to have to experience. When it comes to emotions, though, the choices we make in engaging, reacting and just plain feeling impact not just ourselves but those around us — our spouses, kids, friends, coworkers, neighbors, strangers — when it comes to emotions, more often than not, there's more than one person on the receiving end of your reaction to something.

Maybe this is the right book at the right time. I live in the Chicago 'burbs. We still haven't turned the corner into Spring, despite what the calendar says. Both work and personal life bring new challenges every day, it seems, and I am sick to death of having to dress like I am doing time on The Wall just to take my dog out for a walk in the morning.

Keru and Nate just might be my spirit animals. In Weike Wang's "Rental House," readers are invited into the lives of Keru ("like Peru") and Nate, an interracial couple that met each other at a Halloween party in college and never looked back. Both considering themselves outsiders to their environment, they were drawn together by a shared social awkwardness that neither seemed to mind having.

I just ... wow. A good friend of mine texted me a few weeks back and asked if I had read Miranda July's "All Fours" yet. "Have you read this? It's super crazy," she wrote. I asked if it was good, and she responded, "Interesting. Weird sex stuff. Kind of like watching a train wreck. It's good. I could see the movie version."

I've been asked more than once, "When are you going to write a book?" At least now I can say, "Go read 'Colored Television' and then ask me that." It's a natural question to ask of someone that loves to both read and write. And I am sure there are plenty of life experiences from which I can pull storylines.

"It is so much easier to sit in things and wait for something to save us." Wooooo, Phoebe. You just said a mouthful, sister. That pretty much sums up my generation's current modus operandi — ill-prepared to tackle any of today's societal freakouts because we've spent the entirety of our lives cos-playing disaffection, just sitting back and waiting. Thankfully, for Phoebe in Alison Espach's "

I should not have sat on this one. Percival Everett's "James" was one of the "It" books last year — so much so that I got a little contrarian about it, dug my heels in a bit, and even talked myself into a convoluted justification for not reading it. It felt like homework, I said, based on my elementary understanding of its premise — that it was a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from Jim the runaway slave's perspective.

This year. Whoo boy. I am incredibly grateful for my love of books. This was an outstanding year for reading. There’s little else from this year I want to remember, except for the books I rea…