All incoming University of Denver students are reading this discussion of stories and the Native American experience - it's thought provoking and I hope will create perception-challenging conversations.

I don't understand how this was on Time's best 100 novels list. I slogged through 75 pages of self-indulgent misogyny and pettiness before quitting, which I rarely do.

"Empathy isn't just listening, it's asking the questions whose answers need to be listened to. Empathy requires inquiry as much as imagination. Empathy requires knowing you know nothing."

An incredibly well-written example of narrative non-fiction, where Brown brings the story of the 1936 USA men's 8 rowing team to life. I was on the edge of my seat the whole book, even though I knew the outcome already. Highly recommend!

Just finished this behemoth - it's very well laid out, and I became addicted near the middle as the mystery pieces came together. I wish I hadn't let the length of this deter me for so long!

"I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard."

"The whole future - I thought - will be that way, life lives together with the damp odor of the land of the dead, attention with inattention, passionate leaps of the heart along with abrupt losses of meaning. But it won't be worse than the past."

My bedside TBR pile - lots of influence from The Rooster Tournament of Books past winners and competitors.

"I have certainly mourned for myself. I have wallowed in grief for the lonesome, deliberate seep of my love into the air like the smell of uneaten popcorn greening to rubbery staleness."