In her autobiographical novel, Jan Kerouac, daughter of Beat icon Jack Kerouac, delivers an extremely raw journey that mirrors the restless spirit of her lineage while carving out its own identity. It’s gritty prose, and her ability to capture the visceral reality of life on the margins is commendable. Unlike her father’s more romanticized view of the road, Jan provides a necessary female perspective on the 1960s and 70s counterculture, detailing her travels through South America and the U.S....

It’s an intimate transcript that captures David Foster Wallace at the precise moment he transformed from a cult writer into an author icon. Based on a five-day road trip during the 1996 Infinite Jest  book tour, we follow Lipsky and Wallace through the mundane: diner meals, airport lounges, and long drives through the Midwest…while they engage in conversation. The book functions less like a traditional biography and more like a time capsule; it preserves Wallace’s distinctive voice,...

I love books like this.  A subject I’m not too familiar with (Captain James Cook, and his final voyage) and then have Hampton Sides telling it.   Tremendous … a masterful work of narrative history. Drawing on extensive research, including the journals of Cook's crew and the oral histories of Indigenous peoples, Sides crafts an all-encompassing, high-stakes adventure. The book chronicles Cook's third voyage, launched in 1776, as he searched for the legendary Northwest Passage while charting...