A momentary thought on The Beatles’ album Help!, inspired by a Beatles-filled day while working on websites, and mere moments before I take off out the door to get my friend Josh at South Station

Steve's books finished so far this year

Toltz, Steve

Fraction of the Whole, A (finished 19 May)

Binet, Laurent

HHhH: A Novel (finished 6 May)

Roth, Philip

Counterlife, The (finished 2 May)

Sullivan, John Jeremiah

Pulphead: Essays (finished 26 April)

Tsiolkas, Christos

Slap, The (finished 24 April)

Higgins, George V.

Friends of Eddie Coyle, The (finished 22 April)

McPhee, John

Heirs of General Practice (finished 22 April)

Hornby, Nick

Polysyllabic Spree, The (finished 22 April)

Kahneman, Daniel

Thinking, Fast and Slow (finished 18 April)

Dyson, George

Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe (finished 8 April)

Wolfe, Tom

Right Stuff, The (finished 31 March)

Lamott, Anne

Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (finished 26 February)

McPhee, John

The Headmaster: Frank L. Boyden, of Deerfield (finished 25 February)

McPhee, John

Crofter and the Laird, The (finished 23 February)

Gawande, Atul

Checklist Manifesto, The: How To Get Things Right (finished 20 February)

Le Guin, Ursula K.

Left Hand of Darkness, The (finished 19 February)

Roth, Philip

Prague Orgy, The (finished 10 February)

Roth, Philip

Professor of Desire, The (finished 9 February)

Roth, Philip

Everyman (finished 4 February)

Rushdie, Salman

Haroun and the Sea of Stories (finished 4 February)

Roth, Philip

Ghost Writer, The (finished 29 January)

Levinson, Marc

Great A&P and the Struggle for Small Business in America, The (finished 16 January)

Achatz, Grant and Kokonas, Nick

Life, on the Line: A Chef's Story of Chasing Greatness, Facing Death, and Redefining the Way We Eat (finished 12 January)

Mumford, Lewis

City In History, The (finished 1 January)