Hello friends. I’ve been away, but I return with some new books for you to read. Recently, during my hiatus I opened Snapchat (The Social Media Platform the kids are using), and this public post by a friend jumped out at me:
“I’m looking for people to participate in a huge book exchange. All you have to do is buy your favorite book (just one) and send it to a stranger; it’s even easier to Amazon it to them! (I’ll send their details in a private message). You’ll receive a maximum of 36 books back to you to keep. They’ll be favorite books from strangers all over! If you’re interested in taking part, reply to this story with “in.”
So obviously I immediately responded, only to immediately receive the following:
“Now, repost the story (at the bottom of this message) to your story. When someone responds, send them this message but swap out the address above for my address below, and then put your address where mine is.”
I was going to just order one of my faves from Amazon, but I have so many books that I just decided to take one of my old favorites- A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – (which I reviewed in my very first Book Club Article in these pages) and mail it out.
This kicked off me looking at my books all on the same shelf for the first time since I left New York in 2020. I figured it was probably time to send out another book club article. Next, another friend stopped by to see my new spot, and I loaned her Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain.
What always struck me about Kitchen Confidential is how specific it is to that old New York — the pre-Instagram, pre–celebrity-chef era where the line cooks were unhinged pirates. Bourdain writes about the kitchens like they’re fever dreams: cocaine, burns, sex in dry storage, the brutal ballet of Saturday night service. And yet beneath the swagger there’s reverence — for craft, for the unspoken hierarchy of the brigade, for the lifers who never get famous but keep the stoves lit. He is above all about feeding people.
And near the end of the book, there’s a subtle softening. He admits, in his way, that his path — the drugs, the rage, the martyrdom to the line — isn’t the only way to love food. He concedes that you can run a kitchen without burning it down, that professionalism doesn’t have to mean nihilism. That humility lands differently at 43 than it would have at 25. At 25, I would’ve wanted to be him.
A week later I finally got around to reposting the message above to continue the book mail chain. I immediately got a message from another friend agreeing to mail out another book,k and the saga continues.
Thinking back to August of last year and my last Book Club article, I assigned myself Tom O’Neill’s CHAOS: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, the story of the CIA’s MKULTRA program, Frank Olson,n and his connection to Deep Creek Lake. That book was excellent and one of the deepest rabbit holes in American History. That rabbit hole led to the book Secrets of Deep Creek Lake: Little-Known Stories & Hidden History in and Around Maryland’s Largest Lake – This is one of the most direct books about Deep Creek Lake itself. It collects fascinating local history, folklore, quirky regional stories, and little-known events tied to the lake and Garrett County. It’s a history-leaning but highly readable book that really places you in the area’s past.
Next, to continue my never-ending quest to spin out into literary rabbit holes,s I present to you Whitney Webb. Webb is an author who brings receipts. Her 2022 pair of books, ks One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein, Volumes 1 and 2, is an almost exhaustive look at the shadowy network of names that people have been whispering about for the first half of the 2020s.
Webb traces the evolution of intelligence-linked criminal networks from organized crime alliances through the Cold War, financial corruption, sexual blackmail operations, and the rise of Epstein as a kind of horrifying culmination of decades of institutional rot. Reading it feels less like consuming a book and more like being trapped in an elevator with the one journalist who actually did all the homework while the rest of the media was busy writing listicles about “quiet luxury.”
The most shocking thing about these volumes isn’t even the allegations—it’s how meticulously interconnected everything becomes. Political dynasties. Intelligence agencies. Banking scandals. Arms trafficking. Media influence. Billionaire immunity. By page 400 you’re no longer asking, “Is this plausible?” You’re asking, “Why did nobody explain history to me like this before?”
Finally, as a 43-year-old illustrator who has spent the better part of two decades chasing clean lines and visual clarity, I return to The Castafiore Emerald a Tin Tin Adventure -by Hergé. é Most readers come to Tintin for intrigue and coded messages smuggled in briefcases held by colorful characters. Instead, this book strands us at Marlinspike Hall, a grand house isolated in the forest -and dares to ask: what if nothing happens? Or rather—what if everything happens, but only in the margins? Much like our little wooded community here in Appalachia, it can seem like nothing is going on, until you take a closer look.
What moves me most now, at 43, is the confidence of telling a story where the villains never materialize. Hergé doesn’t need a chase scene across borders. He doesn’t need villains in trench coats. He trusts character, timing, and visual rhythm. The joke lands because the staging is impeccable. The red herrings are placed like compositional accents. Even the final reveal—absurd and anticlimactic—is perfectly earned.
There’s also something deeply modern about it. The satire of media frenzy, the way gossip outruns truth, the social paranoia directed at outsiders—none of it feels dated. If anything, it feels sharper.
Written by Collen DuBose.