Slim, Serious Reads

I like to read two or three books at a time, mixing up the genre and especially the amount of mental engagement needed to keep me sane. Sometimes I slip and choose simultaneous reads that have one particular focus, say death and dying.

I checked out The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers and Mortality by Christopher Hitchens.

The Yellow Birds is a novel about two American soldiers in Iraq in 2004. It's beautifully written, and that's a good thing because the death and destruction is hard to swallow.