The Mountain Story by Lori Lansens

• Lansens weaves a story traveling between present day and the past.
• The narrator is a strong, fallible, and endearing character.
• This novel strongly focuses on character development.

The End of Advertising by Andrew Essex

• Essex explores what the development of advertising-evasion technologies mean for the advertising industry.  Essex mostly focuses on ad-blocking software.  The ability to skip commercials with DVRed television content is also mentioned.
• The book feels like a very long essay obsessed with ad-blocking software.
• All the focus on ad-blocking software effectively delivers Essex to his argument for meaningful and thoughtful advertising (e.g. Citi Bank's Citi Bike program).

How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson

• Johnson explores how inventions and discoveries are interconnected.
• One of the most notable take-aways is that discoveries are rarely independent. He demonstrates how many discoveries are simultaneous with several people making the same discovering at about the same time.
• Until this book I had underestimated the importance of glass in modern society. 

Mexico by Josh Barkan

• A collection of short stories about life in modern Mexico.
• The stories shared common themes, while providing a variety of settings and characters.
• It is a great quick read.

The Heirs by Susan Rieger

• This novel is about family secrets that emerge after the father's death.
• The plot keeps a nice pace that mixes action with character development.

Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010 by Charles Murray

• After seeing this book referenced several times and taking an extremely accurate online quiz about class based on Murray's work, I decided to read this book.
• The majority of this book looks to data, and sidesteps moralistic augments.  However, the end of the book concludes with Murray's call for reversing troubling trends.
• The audiobook handles tables and graphs oddly.  It verbally references them, without describing exactly what information the referenced items convey.  Additionally, the last CD of the 10 CD audiobook includes notes and sources, which is quite awkward.

Into the Water by Paula Hawkins

• I loved Girl on the Train, and was excited to dive into Hawkins next novel.
• The story is told from the perspective of numerous characters, which can be confusing.  Listening to the novel helped me better differentiate between the characters by the narrators voices.
• Into the Water captured the murkiness I enjoyed with Girl on the Train.