Frank's Book Log

Journalist Scott Carney investigates Wim Hof’s cold exposure and breathing methods. He enters a skeptic but emerges a believer, joining Hof on a record-breaking ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro. Continue reading...

Raymond Chandler’s debut novel. Los Angeles private investigator Philip Marlowe takes on an aging tycoon’s blackmail case that spirals into a labyrinthine series of murders. Continue reading...

Chuck Palahniuk relates the tools he learned from his years in Tom Spanbauer’s minimalist writing workshop. Continue reading...

Stephen King’s debut novel. Carrie White is a fat, pimple-faced, black-haired girl who’s endured nothing but torment from her high-school peers and oppression from her deranged mother. But Carrie harbors a hidden talent. She can move things with her mind. Continue reading...

Joe Kenda recounts his career as a Colorado Springs homicide detective. Continue reading...

A series of essays concerning John McPhee’s writing process. Given how interview-driven non-fiction dominates his work, these speak to how he conducts the interviews, conducts research, and structures the pieces. If Stephen King’s On Writing is a 101-level writing class, Draft No. 4 is a higher-level elective.

That said, McPhee offers an anecdote about fact-checking, worth reading by all:

The worst checking error is calling people dead who are not dead. In the words of Joshua Hersh, “It really annoys them.” Sara remembers a reader in a nursing home who read in The New Yorker that he was “the late” reader in the nursing home. He wrote demanding a correction. The New Yorker, in its next issue, of course complied, inadvertently doubling the error, because the reader died over the weekend while the magazine was being printed.

I laughed even harder when I realized it was too preposterous to include in a fictional story.

Two collegiate girls stop at a roadside diner in a small town in the California wilderness. Across the street at the town’s lone motel, Lander Dills pulls in with his wife, their collegiate daughter and her boyfriend. All six soon discover the town’s dark secret when they’re abducted and ferried out to the wilderness as tribute to the Krulls, a clan of cannibalistic forest denizens. Continue reading...

Comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s standup material arranged in chronological order with autobiographical interludes. It begins with his first successful bits—one of my favorites concerns Life cereal—builds to his star making Tonight Show appearance and carries through his self-titled sitcom and I’m Telling You for the Last Time HBO special.

At this point, Seinfeld had retired. But seeing Chris Rock perform reignited his passion for the art. Rather than recycle his old material, he starts over. The later third comprises bits he developed in the New York clubs post-stardom. It has a distinct voice, one older and crankier, but still Seinfeld. While amusing, these bits lacked instant classics like “The Helmet” or “Public Speaking.”

A candid and rollicking memoir by a flawed man but gifted leader. Continue reading...

Single father Todd relaxes at the beach with his son Anthony, who’ll soon be starting first grade. A man approaches, appearing to recognize Todd. Jolted, Todd recognizes the man as Jack, his high-school bully. Bad things ensue. Continue reading...