The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

The Night Circus Jacket

Somewhere in the middle of this book, I became annoyed with the so-called magic night circus. There are only so many synonyms for the word “magical” and the author uses them all.

Kudos to Morgenstern for description after description of the most tactile visuals she could dream up. But [...]

New Orleans and A Confederacy of Dunces

Ignatius J. Reilly

How would you psych up for a trip to New Orleans? I am re-reading A Confederacy of Dunces, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that epitomizes the city, the tale that puts the color in the phrase “colorful characters.”

I read Dunces first for the funny, fantastic madcap story. But re-reading it, [...]

Kitchen Confidential

Dangerous New York Cooks

The tell-all Kitchen Confidential published in 2000 propelled Anthony Bourdain from the sweaty bowels of New York restaurants to the height of foodie fame.

I spent more than a couple years slinging hash myself so I identify with Bourdain’s portrayal of restaurant life and it’s lineup of characters. [...]

Somerset Maugham’s Bondage

Book Cover

Every once in a while, I feel I must read some classic book I missed in high school and college just to expand my limited horizons.

Sometimes reading from that backlog pays off. I plucked Of Human Bondage from Modern Library’s 100 best books of the 20th century (at number [...]

Turning On: The Harvard Psychedelic Club

The Harvard Psychedelic Club

Timothy Leary took his first psychedelic trip the day I was born: August 9, 1960. With that first magic mushroom, the Sixties counterculture was born.

The Harvard Psychedelic Club journeys through the psychedelic explorations of four key players in the birth of the counterculture: Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston [...]