I’m catching up on a stack of reading this week. Everything is half read, so no reviews. Here’s what’s on my coffee table and e-reader.

• The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream – My dad handed me this book last week. We share a great love of Chicago. He grew up on the South Side, and I lived there for two years.
• Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, Revised 25th Anniversary Edition – A friend who is going through a transition bought this for me. I’m not going through a transition, but she wanted some feedback on it. We’re having drinks next week. Better crack that spine.
• Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life – Two months ago, this was the assignment for the book club. I didn’t get the book in time for the meeting, but it looks good. A graphic novel about Austria teenagers bumming through Europe in the mid-1980s. Since I was a teenager in the mid-1980s who spent a few weeks bumming through Europe, I really must finish this book.
• The Interestings: A Novel – This was this month’s book club book, which I also didn’t finish in time for the meeting. Yesterday, I read about 100 pages in the public library and a coffee shop. Teenagers in New York City in the mid-1980s and then how their lives develop. It’s nice when authors are my age. The characters in this book are also my type of people, so this is a fun read.
• Crossroads: How the Blues Shaped Rock ‘n’ Roll (and Rock Saved the Blues) – My brother handed me this book last week. The book describes a time when blues music suddenly became popular, so young, white, Jewish record producers ran down South looking for old black blues singers. Some of these old  dudes hadn’t played a guitar in decades and had to be retaught guitar before being shoved in front of audiences. Sounds like a Coen brothers movie.
• The Up Side of Down: Why Failing Well Is the Key to Success – I’m really interested in Megan’s primary thesis that failure leads to success, because… well… failure and I are old friends.