Kevin D. Hendricks's Blog, page 2

Bill Madden 1926-2025

My maternal grandfather passed away last week, two weeks shy of his 98th birthday.

Here’s the piece I read at the funeral:

My name is Kevin Hendricks and I’m Bill’s grandson. I’m Pam’s youngest, for those connecting the dots. I’m the middle grandchild, the city kid, who came to visit grandma and grandpa during the summer. Basically they had to entertain my brother and I. 

We’d go down to the river or scout wildlife at Quivira or Cheyenne Bottoms. I’d tag along to the Co-op or the farm b...

2024 Reading Stats

All righty, I already covered total books in 2024, my top 10 fiction, and top 10 nonfiction. Let’s talk stats.

Record Number of Reads

So the headline is obviously the total number: 224 books.

Holy cow.

I thought last year’s 184 was a ridiculous number, but now I’m soaring to new heights of ridiculous. My previous record was 203 books in 2014, and back then I read a lot more middle grade fiction, which are shorter and lead to inflated numbers. This year YA, middle grade, and graphic ...

Top 10 Nonfiction of 2024

I read a record number of books in 2024, but only about 30% were nonfiction, which makes for an easier list (and no honorable mentions this year).

You can also check out my top 10 fiction and my reading stats.

The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose – Hands down my favorite book of the year, another one that has been on my list for over a decade. A flaming liberal went undercover at Liberty University and it’s not a complete flaying of con...

Top 10 Fiction of 2024

I read a lot in 2024, which makes coming up with the 10 best even harder. Seriously, I had 33 five-star fiction reads.

You can also check out my top 10 nonfiction and my reading stats.

Some of those may have been five stars in the excitement of the moment, and a few were re-reads, but still, it makes it hard to put together a list. With the backstop of honorable mentions, I’m pretty confident about my top 10 list, but not at all confident about the order. Rather than agonize over each plac...

2024 Reading List

Whew, ready? I read 224 books in 2024. Yes, that’s the most I’ve ever read in one year. And yes, it’s ridiculous. So?

You can also check out my previous reading lists: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001.

If you want to read more, check out my booklet 137 Books in One Year: How to Fall in Love With Reading Again.

Reading Themes for 2024I read a lot. That can just be the ...

Show Me How To

I love a good ‘how to’ book.

I don’t mean an instruction manual. I’m not talking about How to Fix Your Drain or A Dummy’s Guide to HTML.

I’m talking about a fiction book that explains how to do something. It’s often a job—how a job works, what the skills are you need, how to apply them, the tricks and insights to making it happen. But it can be other things. I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in high school and what I liked most was the motorcycle maintenace (I ...

2024 in Music: Spotify Wrapped

This year I listened to 57,251 minutes of music, accounting for 8,315 songs and 3,629 artists. So more songs and more artists than last year, but less total time.

Here’s 2021, 2022, and 2023 data to compare.

My Top 5 Songs of 2024

More girl-powered punk/pop vibe in my top songs (just like last year):

“And They Were Roommates” by Over Anna (97 times, among top .005% of fans)“Tiltawhirl” by Boys Go to Jupiter“Your Story” by Millie Manders and the Shutup“Love is Embarrassin...

Turning on the Heat 2024

Finally turned the heat on yesterday. Set a new record and made it in to November for the first time ever, so that’s something (I guess?).

It was sunny with a high of 57 yesterday, so theoretically we could have made it. Cooler and cloudy from today on out, so not sure we would have lasted any longer. But yesterday morning it was just too cold in the house and not worth waiting until afternoon for it to marginally warm up. Thus, heat.

2024: November 2 (inside temp: 56)2023: Octob...

2024 Presidential Election

Lately this blog has felt more like a time capsule, capturing my thoughts at any given moment in time. Elections are a massive tipping point in history (in the sense that a major change happens based on a single result, marking a stark change), so it seems like a good time to capture those thoughts just a week out.

Unprecedented

It’s overdone and cliche to say it, but this election feels unprecedented. With a former president back for more, January 6 and election denial, multiple impea...

Better Politics Please Again

In 2020, after four years of Donald Trump and in the midst of the divisiveness of a pandemic response, I wrote a book called Better Politics, Please.

It was hopeful.

Maybe naively hopeful.

On January 6, 2021, as the nation witnessed a violent attempt to overthrow an election—an unprecedented assault on our democracy—that hopeful book felt worse than naive.

Here we are four years later, barreling toward the 2024 election. Are our politics any better? Please?

No, they’re not....