Fresh Off the Shelf - Vol. 6

Recovering from My Book Reading Blues to Give You Four Books Worth Reading Right Now

Photo portrait of blues guitarist Robert Johnson.

This has been a long time coming.

Our last entry in this series was posted in early June of this year. Normally, I try to give you monthly reviews of the best books I’ve read. These books represent my highest recommendations. I give my sincere thoughts on each book and how it impacted me. But there’s been a problem between the last volume of Fresh Off the Shelf and now: I hadn’t finished enough books that I felt were worth recommending.

It has been to my extreme frustration that—out of the 32 books I’ve completed during four of the last five months—I couldn’t bring myself to give a full-throated recommendation for any of them.

My disappointment at not being able to deliver anything substantial, oddly enough, contributed to the reading slump that I experienced during that exact same period. That’s not to say I read nothing during this time frame. But of the many books I dabbled with in between lulls at the office or listened to on commutes, not enough books really pulled me to finish them. Many of those that did weren’t worthy of inclusion in this list.

That changed last month.

After this hiatus, I am finally back with a selection of four books that you should check out. These books have challenged me creatively. They’ve informed and infuriated me. They are emotional outlets for a degree of frustration and aimlessness that I have been experiencing lately.

I hope to dive into those themes much further in future articles, but without any further delay, here are the books that deserve your time right now.