THE CWD MID-YEAR BOOK REVIEW

Spy thrillers, outdoor literature, and Mrs. CWD’s romantasy picks.

I tend to read prolifically. In the first half of this year, I’ve finished in the neighborhood of thirty-some books. I don’t say this to brag, but instead as a matter-of-fact. When Kiddo and the Warthog go down for the evening and after we finish cleaning up, Mrs. CWD and I, rather than turn on the TV to watch a series, tend to instead open up our respective books du jour and read together¹.

I’ve always been a dedicated reader — I’ve written before that I mostly majored in English because I liked to read — and I attribute this to growing up in a household where reading was the norm. Nana and Grandfather CWD were — and still are — always reading. Our house was filled with books. We never passed a bookstore — a Barnes and Noble, a Borders, the one bookstore tucked away in the Crystal River Mall whose name I can’t recall² — that we didn’t stop in and, inevitably, come out from with at least new addition to the library³. One thing I hope to instill in our own gremlins is this same love of reading⁴ — hence, why Mrs. CWD has a bit of a conniption when she sees the stack of books on our coffee table, on my bedside table: I want to make sure that books and reading are both visible and prominent in our home⁵.

Because those who know me also know that I read a lot, I’m often asked for book recommendations. I figured, as we hit the mid-point of the year, it might be worth taking note of some of my favorites so far — both for me to remember them by and so when Roommate CWD, MD asks me for a recommendation, I can just point him to this post⁶.

A few caveats before the recommendations: I read primarily for pleasure — when I pick up a book, I’m not looking for self-improvement or to unlock some secret to life. I don’t (usually) annotate while reading⁷. Mostly, if I learn something, it’s through osmosis. I tend towards novels and I like a strong plot line. In fiction, unlike in essays, I can forgive mediocre writing for a riproaring story. When I read non-fiction, it’s generally on topics I’m particularly interested in, and I’ll tend to batch read the subject in succession (see the progression on Nature and Outdoors below). Usually, I’ll listen⁸ to non-fiction as an audiobook while driving. I tend to avoid anything overly literary⁹, overly academic¹⁰, or overly platitudinal¹¹.

So, with that as a backdrop — here’s the CWD Mid-Year Book Review.

Spy Thrillers

I’m a sucker for spy thrillers¹². I started with Tom Clancy¹³ years ago and have worked my way through him, through Brad Thor, through Jack Carr, and a few others — adding up to probably hundreds of books. Almost half the books I’ve read this year have come from this genre — the bulk being The Grey Man series by David Greaney, with which I’m now current. These books are straight-action: it’s not unusual for them to average a gunfight per chapter — and the chapters are usually only a dozen or so pages each — and they’re quick, easy reads. It’s no wonder they’ve been adapted to into a Netflix movie (and probably TV series). If you like Brad Thor but thought the plots were a little slow — or if you binge watched Burn Notice — these are for you.

I also read Damascus Station and Moscow X, both by David McCloskey. McCloskey is a former CIA analyst and the contrast between his books and those written by someone like Jack Carr — a former Navy SEAL — is immediately apparent: I said to Mrs. CWD, after getting a third of the way into Damascus Station, that it was remarkable that there hasn’t been a single gunshot. All that being said, both novels are gripping and probably, at the end of the day, better actual works of literature than what I usually read in this genre¹⁴.

Nature and Outdoors

Discounting the Grey Man series, the bulk of my reading I’d classify as nature and outdoor oriented. A lot about discovery, conservation, the American West and the American relationship with the outdoors (Wild New World, The Fair Chase, 1491, A Land So Strange¹⁵, and The Longhunters, for example). I also was on a little fishing kick with

David Coggins

’s latest, The Believer, and Monte Burke’s Lords of the Fly¹⁶ — the latter which blended nicely a story of conservation and modern fishing¹⁷.

I also read and loved A Sand County Almanac, which should be required reading for everyone who spends any amount of time interacting with nature. I’m just sad I didn’t read it sooner. If not quite a perfect fit for this category, Wendall Berry’s latest tome, A Need to be Whole, was also fascinating — if a bit of a rehash of many of the ideas he’s written extensively about in the past — and the audio narration from Nick Offerman was terrific.

The Best of the Rest

I listened to the audio version of

Michael Easter

’s new book, The Scarcity Brain. I always enjoy it when an author reads their own book — I think it adds a certain level of authenticity to the narration. The book itself was great; my only complaint — and I have this same complaint with most pop non-fiction books — is that, because I’ve read a lot of Easter’s stuff in the past, it felt like I already had read most of the book, it being reworked and expanded versions of the “teasers” he’s posted online. Still, the concepts were fascinating and I learned a thing or two about what makes us as humans tick.

Reader Meatball recommended Shadow Divers to me — and boy, am I glad he did. I have a love/hate relationship with narrative non-fiction — often, for me, the structure distracts from the story — but this one was griping from start to finish.

I also crushed two novels from Tara French, The Searcher and The Hunter, which chronicle an ex-Chicago’s cop “retirement” to the Irish country-side. I almost categorized these into the “spy thriller” section, but they’re more detective stories and are without international intrigue. Either way, I thought both of them were terrific.

So that’s the recap for you. I’ve got a few more books I’m working through currently — on bison, on bears, on Boston — and even more in the queue. The new Jack Carr book was just released and I’m still working through Peter Heller’s back catalogue. I have some fantasy I want to dip back into — my PT recommended Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series and I’m tempted to do a Wheel of Time reread. But, all that being said, if you have any recommendations, please share — I’m all ears.

With that, I’ll leave you to your weekends. No recipe this week — though I did recently pick up the cookbook Home Farm Cooking which has some lovely recipes — so rather than cooking, why don’t you order some pizza and dig into a new book. We’re heading into a holiday week and everyone deserves a good beach read.

The Family CWD is keeping it local, playing babysitter for the Cousins CWD. We have a big one planned, with some backyard camping, a campfire, and maybe even some s’mores. When you have a collective age of 9 years between four kids, everything is an adventure. We’re just here to take it in stride.

If we survive, we’ll see you back here next week.

1. Sometimes, if we’re reading the same thing, we’ll listen to the audiobook together, but typically we each have our own reading material. Mrs. CWD likes “romantasy” (thank you, Tia CWD, for leading her down that rabbit hole) and I, as you’ll see after reading through this post, like spy novels.

If you, too, are an avid follower of BookTok fantasy recommendations, I asked Mrs. CWD to give me a list of her top romantasy reads of 2024. She went through her extensive reading list (which has made navigating our Audible and Kindle libraries almost impossible) and came up with the below. Note that these are “not ranked… it would be impossible to do that!!”

• Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros

• The entire Court of Thorn and Roses series by Sarah J. Mass

• House of Earth and Blood (Book 1 in the Crescent City series) by Sarah J. Mass

• Blood & Steel by Helen Scheurer

• Powerless by Lauren Roberts (Book 1 in the Powerless Trilogy, “book 2 comes out on July 2nd!!”)

• The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Book 1 of the Crowns of Nyaxia series) by Stephanie Garber

• A Shadow in the Ember (Book 1 of the Flesh and Fire series) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

• From Blood and Ash (Book 2 of the Blood and Ash series) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

2. But which did stock the entirety of the Deltora Quest series, which probably did the most to spark my own love of fantasy.

3. And later on, once Amazon ate the chain bookstores’ lunches, we were always allowed to buy books online, no permission needed.

4. An example: I loved standardized test days at school because I could finish taking them in about 30 minutes and then read for the rest of the allotted time — and, usually the entire day was blocked off for test taking. I could typically finish a book a day during that week in March!

5. Selfishly, I’d also like the kids to, like Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird, enter kindergarten already reading — much to the chagrin and dismay of their teachers, them having somehow learned “wrong” from Mrs. CWD and myself.

6. I have, as promised in the nascent days of 2024, logged every book I’ve finished in a small notebook, so I do have a personal record. For a number of years I kept this as a spreadsheet online — you can still find it here, if you’re curious, updated with my annual list so far — but that petered out about two-thirds of the way through 2021. I’m hoping an analog version, with less prescriptive logging, will be easier to maintain.

7. Though Bill, you may have seen the notes in my copy of The Believer — which one day I might turn into an essay if I ever get the book back.

8. Which, when it comes to books, I consider interchangeable to reading actual words.

9. I battled my way through Infinite Jest for about a year, but mostly just took away from it an over-reliance on footnotes in my own writing.

10. Sorry I haven’t read your recommendations yet, Cheffy.

11. This was my way of trying to categorize “pop psychology” books, or the type of non-fiction, pseudo-self-help, pseudo-business-y books you’d find on the outward facing display at a Hudson News shop.

12. I use this as somewhat of a catch-all for any military/political/intelligence thriller.

13. The ones actually written by him.

14. There’s a hierarchy for this genre, ranking how “well-written” the books are. You have the “all thriller, no filler” type, like Mark Greaney and Jack Carr, the more cerebral, like the original Tom Clancy (and I’d probably put David McCloskey in this category as well), and then the slightly more balanced approach like Brad Thor. Then, you’ve got a guy like Jack Murphy, who’s book Grey Matter Splatter starts off with American mercenaries and war crimes and devolves into a plot centered around a pedophilic, Satanic, world-controlling, Elitist cabal. That was a bit much for even me — I only read the first book in that series (which is currently only clocking in at 4).

15. Thanks to Jay for this recommendation.

16. It’s no wonder I bought a saltwater fly rod after this curriculum.

17. The fact that much of it was set in Homosassa, spitting distance from where I grew up, only added to the allure.