School’s Out – Beach Reads!

Okay, enough with all the business books already! Below are other selections I’ve read recently for pleasure and thoroughly enjoyed. Hopefully you will as well.

Live By Night, Dennis Lehane – This is Lehane’s second offering of the so-called Joe Coughlin series in which the lead badass runs roughshod over Prohibition from Boston to Miami to Cuba. If you’re a fan of the Dorchester native’s other works (e.g. A Drink Before the War, Mystic River), you won’t go wrong here. Sure, Matty in the Morning complains that Lehane went all Hollywood on us – and, yup, he literally did – but as one of the book’s characters might say, “Them’s the breaks, kid.”

Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman – Many folks don’t realize that the runaway hit TV show is based on Kerman’s true story about being an international drug mule. Why’d she risk everything in her early 20’s and throw it all away? Seems she was bored and kinda pissed at her family, so… yeah. I’ve never seen the show because the book is just that good. Included on my list of fears along with bees, heights, and Big Bird is that a show won’t live up to the gripping, terrific book, and this one is a truly intriguing memoir.

Dark Places, Gillian Flynn – Have you read Gone Girl?  Well, this is the author’s sick-and-twisted previous offering in which a young girl witnesses her brother massacre their mom and sisters on the family farm in Kansas. Or did she? Flynn jokes that her husband sleeps with one eye open and surely he does. As with all her books, this one is raw in every way with no shortage of carnage and dark humor. While not quite as wickedly entertaining as her massive best seller, this one will scratch your sicko itch. It’ll be great to see what Flynn does next, and she is due for a new release.

The Sports Gene, David Epstein – What makes this book particularly enticing is the one-word testimonial on the cover from none other than Malcolm Gladwell: “Fascinating.” It’s the much-ballyhooed 10,000-hour rule – the one that says we can purposely practice our way to greatness – that Epstein takes to task here, the same rule that Gladwell championed in his bestseller Outliers. Turns out this may not really apply in athletics. Wanna pursue your pole vaulting dream? Have at it; just know that this book spells out quite convincingly that success almost always comes down to genetics, so here’s hoping Pops or Aunt Peg were prior champs.

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, Rob Sheffield – I read this one in under two days – a rarity – and not just because Sheffield is my age and practical twin from an adolescence that included cluelessness around girls and an undying love of the Smiths. He tells the hilarious and awkward tale of his formative years built on a foundation of 80’s pop music and it’s perfect. You don’t need to hail from that era (or Boston, for that matter) to fully appreciate how the Milton native learned to leverage his working knowledge of Duran Duran on the path to really understanding women. Of course, having a few sisters also helps.

The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins – This is the story of three damaged – if not completely broken – women in Oxford, England. The title character is Rachel, hopelessly broken-hearted as she commutes aimlessly to the job in London she lost months before; Anna, the one who stole Rachel’s husband; and Megan, who’s seemingly leading the idyllic life. Let’s just say it gets very bloody and messy from there. Hawkins’ debut is a page-turning psychological study of alcoholism, unhappiness, and keeping up appearances. It’s extraordinarily well-written, so-so ending aside.