Joe Bolin > Recent Status Updates

A fantastic read...fast-paced and with unique characters. A noir mystery in a modern (noir) setting.

This book about obsessions--mostly obsessions with the largest trees on Earth--is also a fascinating study of the people who hold the obsessions.

I'm enjoying the structure of this book, with in-depth studies of the characters interspersed with their discoveries.

This book was recommended by the docents at the Visitors Center on the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt County. Seeing the Coastal Redwoods inspires curiosity.

I've just finished reading Chapter 16 and I have never<\i> read a more complete or sensible explanation of the connections between addiction, mental illness, and homelessness.

I just read Chapter 15, a collection of Stringer's "Dear Homey" columns from his days with Street News. Brilliant writing and an interesting view of the issues homelessness and race that---20 years later--still divide our communities.

Sometimes I read a book at exactly the right time in my life (meaning when it's most relevant). I believe that's what happened with Grand Central Winter. While reading this book, I've learned about the connection between addiction and homelessness. These two demons have recently taken an old friend of mine.

Grand Central Winter was published in 1996 and it must have been right around that time I put it in my mind as something I wanted to read. Why it took me almost twenty years to get to it, I don't know, but I'm really glad I did.

I just don't know about this book. I enjoy reading anything about gardening, from seed catalogs to "Greenprints" to novels. This book, though, could be subtitled "gardening with the very wealthy".

This book has picked up since my last comment…I'm glad I kept reading. The author is still a "gentleman farmer", but he's gotten more hands-on, especially with pest management. Sad for him…hilarious for me!

This is going to be a tough book for me to get into, but I'll give it another fifty pages. So far, I'm not relating to this "gardener" who has hired a landscape design to plan his vegetable garden and a contractor to build it.

I'm enjoying Steinbeck's commentary on the more mundane aspects of 1960s American life (mobile home living, hoarding, food vending) as well as his philosophical discourse on the lack of roots in modern society, isolation, and the breakneck pace of our lives. I'm also surprised at how little has really changed in the past 50 years!