“The Way I Heard It” by Mike Rowe

I totally read this book because the Dirty Jobs guy wrote it.

The book was unexpected. I only know the dude as the Dirty Jobs guy and didn’t know much else about him, but I liked him because of the show and was curious to see what he’d written about. When I realized the book was actually a bunch of vignettes about famous people throughout history, I was sold. I like books like this because I often end up learning something I didn’t know before. I even learned stuff about the Dirty Jobs dude.

Genre:

Nonfiction – History

Pubbed:

2019

Goodreads summary:

Executive producer and host Mike Rowe presents a delightfully entertaining, seriously fascinating collection of his favorite episodes from America’s #1 short-form podcast, The Way I Heard It, along with a host of personal memories, ruminations, and insights. It’s a captivating must-read.

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“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” by Seth Grahame-Smith

My reading experience with Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter was one of the best I’ve ever had. While reading the book, I went on a guided bus tour of Washington, D.C., and was told facts that confirmed some of the passages from the story.

I also visited an old train museum and read the book while sitting in its café area, which was restored to maintain how it looked back in the late 1800s. Doing so also helped to cement the novel’s worldbuilding in my mind making it easier for me to imagine the setting. I felt as if I was looking out on history while reading a story that called to it.

Goodreads summary:

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation. (Goodreads)

“The Way In: Journal Writing for Self-Discovery” by Rita D. Jacobs

Cover via Amazon

If like me you love to read books on writing in order to motivate yourself to write or if like me you like to read books on writing to get ideas of what and how to write or if like me you like to read books on writing just for the hell of it, then this little book is one you should pick up.

I have many journals (mainly because the attractive covers lure me into buying them so I’m almost always starting afresh in a new book) and usually I just write in them whenever I feel like and write about whatever I feel like at the moment. Most times I think I treat them like a diary – writing about all the things I did in a particular day. Other times I think I treat them as they ought to – writing about what I’ve observed on a particular day. My idea of a journal is a book where a person documents her observations of people, places, things, and ideas.

According to Jacobs, a journal is a place where all these things are documented and much more. To prove this to us, she opens with excerpts of journal entries, showing us how writers have used the journal in their daily lives. She also talks about whether or not there is a difference between a journal and a diary. Like any writing book, Jacobs also covers when to write, how often to write, and what to write. Basically, that’s all up to the writer. You decide when, how, or what.