2009 got off to a slow start. A few days before the New Year I drove to Kentucky to spend time with family and that put a serious crimp in my reading. The result was that I didn't finish a book until the new year was four days old. Still, I quickly got into the flow.I recommend George McGovern's Abraham Lincoln and -- if you are a runner -- Personal Record, A Love Affair with Running by Rachel Toor.
McGovern's biography is part of Times Book's American Presidents Series, which I have consistently recommended. Brief -- almost always fewer than 200 pages -- biographies that are universally well-told and well-written. The opening eig
ht to nine pages stand as one of the finest summaries of Lincoln that I have read.Seldom has a writer captured the experience of the average run as well as Toor in her book, published by the University of Nebraska Press. It is combines memoir and tutorial in an engaging, entertaining fashion.
Walter Mosley's The Right Mistake was odd. It's readable, Mosley is always readable, but I am not certain where he was trying to go with this book.
January
1. Abraham Lincoln, George McGovern. Biography 1-4 155
2. Mucho Mojo, Joe Lansdale. Mystery 1-4 308
3. Personal Record, A Love Affair with Running, Rachel Toor.
Running 1-5 163
4. The Right Mistake, Walter Mosley. Fiction 1-7 269
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