Blazing Guns On The Chisholm Trail – Borden Chase, 1948 ★★★

Cowboys' Work Is Never Done

When the tough get going, when is it better not to go along? That’s the question that underlies Borden Chase’s Blazing Guns On The Chisholm Trail, a western novel better known by its other name, the one they named the movie after, Red River.

Love's Labor's Lost – William Shakespeare, c. 1588-94 ★★

Losing the Game of Love

Shakespeare comedies are often tough reads; you need to be aware of the difficulty of humor to translate well across the centuries.

Even with that necessary caveat, Love's Labor's Lost seems overly dense and caught up in itself; the thin plot begs a title the Bard used in another of his works: Much ado about nothing.

The Old Patagonian Express – Paul Theroux, 1979 ★★★★

Rolling and Grumbling

For one of the most recognized travel writers ever, Paul Theroux doesn't seem to go in much for the genre. His 1979 account of riding the rails all the way from Medford, Massachusetts to Esquel, Argentina is loaded with disdain for travel-writings conventions and expected pieties.

Innocent Blood – P. D. James, 1980 ★★★★½

Blood Is Thicker

A departure from P. D. James' famous run of detective novels featuring Adam Dalgliesh, Innocent Blood is a stand-alone mystery less about crime than those who are its victims. It's a satisfying read, well-plotted and suspenseful, that raises unsettling questions about identity and love.

The Complete Beatles Chronicle – Mark Lewisohn, 1992 ★★★★

Fab Days

It took Mark Lewisohn 12 years to gather the research that informs this book, and it shows. If he doesn't capture every little thing that set the world at the Beatles' command, it's not from lack of trying.

Late Innings – Roger Angell, 1982 ★★★★

Baseball in the Jacksonian Era

This collection of baseball essays by Roger Angell details baseball during one of its pivot periods, 1977 to 1981, an era where free agency and player strikes dominated sports headlines. It was an era personified by the player who also dominated headlines while leading the New York Yankees to three World Series appearances, Reggie Jackson.