WWW.WEDNESDAY

To play along, just answer the following three questions ...

• What are you currently reading? The Presidents Club by Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy follows the interpersonal relationship between each of our modern Presidents and his predecessors. As I read about the fondness George HW Bush and Bill Clinton share, I wonder how current Washington got so ridiculously fractious.

The linked-to NY Times review says this reads like "the longest Time Magazine cover story ever written," and I suppose that's true. Gibbs and Duffy are Time reporters, not historians, and it shows in their writing. But that's no necessarily bad. Each chapter is neatly self contained, so I can pick it up, read awhile, put it down and then pick it up again without that disorienting moment of, "What was happening?"

• What did you recently finish reading? W Is for Wasted by Sue Grafton. As the series moves to the last letter, our girl Kinsey is growing up. Now 38, she's more concerned than ever with adult issues like family, commitment and finance. Naturally, there's a compelling mystery, too. Santa Theresa finds itself home to two dead bodies. There's a connection between the two dead men, and Kinsey finds it. As always, Grafton shows great respect for her craft, her creation and her audience. The book stands on its own, so no, you don't need to have read every "letter" since A Is for Alibi to enjoy it.

• What do you think you’ll read next? I don't know. Next on the TBR pile is Five Days at Memorial about the Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans and how they coped during the crisis of Katrina. But it sounds too intense and too sad for my current state of mind. So maybe Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin.

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