On the reading table (or tablet)

• Crazy U: One Dad's Crash Course in Getting His Kid Into College, Andrew Ferguson. I'm glad I didn't read this book before our family got into the process years ago. Things turn out OK for this kid (as I think they did for ours), but one gets the idea that it was more the operation of luck than the result of a rational exercise. Sitting on the sidelines many years later, I found the book an amusing and poignant fable of true parenting.


• America the Edible: A Hungry History, from Sea to Dining Sea, Adam Richman. Apparently the author hosts a TV travel show; this book might be a riff on it. It hits a number of American cities including Austin and Portland, Maine. The narrative arc is a little contrived, but trying to inflict narrative on travelogue is likely to be, right?


• This Boy's Faith: Notes from a Southern Baptist Upbringing, Hamilton Cain. Having been "brung up" Baptist, myself, I tend to be interested in memoirs such as these, but I wish I'd given this one a miss. There's a lot of reciting of his history here and not much in the way of reflection. His parents get bashed hard and, in my view, unfairly. Over at Amazon I gave it two stars, which was generous.