In an effort to read more in 2025, this series is dedicated to a monthly recap of what we at TGP have been reading each month. Feel free to add what’s on your TBR below!
October Home Runs
Title: When The Sea Came Alive: An Oral History of D-Day Author: Garrett M. Graff TGP Contributor: Joe Edinger Synopsis: “From the New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Only Plane in the Sky’ and Pulitzer Prize finalist for ‘Watergate’ comes the most complete and up-to-date account of D-Day- the largest seaborne invasion in history
and the moment that secured the Allied victory in World War II- featuring hundreds of eyewitness accounts.” Review: This was my first time really diving into an oral history, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a topic many of course know something about, and much of what you’ll read isn’t new or is reused (much of the work behind Band of Brothers is used), but I still found it a very fascinating read. The book starts with mostly the voices of those that planned the invasion and civilians and slowly moves towards being almost exclusively the stories of those that were there. The author does a wonderful job of reconstructing the events of the day as seen by the people who lived it entirely through interviews gathered through meticulous research, from the landings on the beach right down to the interaction of just a handful of soldiers in one small area of the battlefield.
Title: I’m Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom
Author: Jason Pargin
TGP Contributor: Smarty
Synopsis: Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.
As these eccentric misfits hit the road, rumors spread on social media that the box is part of a carefully orchestrated terror attack intended to plunge the USA into civil war.
Review: Jason Pargin, best known for his “John Dies at the End” series, has written what might be the modern day great American novel.
The protagonist is first portrayed as a down on his luck everyman, but it is slowly revealed that much of his misery is self-inflicted, and he might actually be an awful person. The secondary protagonist seems like a “manic pixie dream girl” at the beginning until her problematic past is revealed. And the ostensibly villains might not be all that bad.
When the real “villain” of the story is revealed, it should hit home with just about everyone living in modern times with an ability for self-reflection.
On Deck for November
Title: The Final Girl Support Group
Author: Grady Hendrix
TGP Contributor: Allie
Synopsis: In horror movies, the final girls are the ones left standing when the credits roll. They made it through the worst night of their lives… but what happens after? Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl who survived a massacre. For more than a decade, she’s been meeting with five other final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, working to put their lives back together. Then one woman misses a meeting, and their worst fears are realized – someone knows about the group and is determined to rip their lives apart again, piece by piece. But the thing about final girls is that no matter how bad the odds, how dark the night, how sharp the knife, they will never, ever give up.
Preview: This has been on my TBR for a while and it’s finally available on my Libby app so I’m super excited to read it. It’s a concept I haven’t really thought of before coming across this book – what happens to the survivors of the horror and thriller novels I read after the final chapter? How do they return to normal life and move on from their trauma?
Title: The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball
Author: John W. Miller
TGP Contributor: Joe Edinger
Synopsis: “The first major biography of legendary Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver- who has been described as ‘the Copernicus of baseball” and ‘the grandfather of the modern game’- The Last Manager is a wild, thrilling, and hilarious ride with baseball’s most underappreciated genius, and one of its greatest characters.”
Preview: I’ve read plenty of baseball books, but they all almost exclusively have been about players rather than managers. So I’ve decided to change that here and chose one that seems like it would be a fun read.
Title: When the Moon Hits Your Eye
Author: John Scalzi
TGP Contributor: Smarty
Synopsis: The moon has turned into cheese. Now humanity has to deal with it.
Preview: Scalzi is one of my favorite authors, mixing science fiction with humor. In this one, the moon turns into cheese, and hilarity ensues. Except for the whole looming threat of mass extinction of course.
Title: In the Japanese Ballpark: Behind the Scenes of Nippon Professional Baseball
Author: Robert K. Fitts
TGP Contributor: Jared
Synopsis: A historian of Japanese baseball interviews 26 people associated with NPB– from players and managers to a sports card dealer and a beer vendor, all to show what makes Japanese baseball both similar to and distinct from the MLB experience.
Preview: I have a keen interest in NPB, but neither living in Japan nor speaking Japanese, my ability to follow it is limited. Apart from attending one game years ago (Go Go Swallows!), my experience with Japanese baseball has been limited to following English-language writing on the subject. While there’s not a lot of that, what we do have is often excellent. Robert K. Fitts is reliably fantastic, and I’ve followed his oral interviews with former members of the Hiroshima Carp with great interest. This book promises to be exactly what I’ve been looking for: a way to become more immersed in NPB, to tide me over until I finally get around to learning Japanese myself.
