Welcome to “Read State,” a recurring TM Daily Post feature in which we ask noteworthy Texans—from writers and singers to athletes and politicians—what they’re reading. Today we bring you the reading habits of acclaimed sportswriter Dan Jenkins, who lives in Fort Worth.
{media number=1 align=left}{/media}At my doorstep every morning I get the Fort Worth Star-Telegram (what there is of it), the New York Times (although I’m under doctor’s orders not to read Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd, but I do enjoy Gail Collins’ wit even though she seems to represent the other team), and my life-saver, the Wall Street Journal, best newspaper in America today. The Saturday WSJ has more good stuff to read—and enjoy or be informed by—than any single publication, magazine, or newspaper in North America.
When I’m done with all that and breakfast and coffee are over, I go to the computer and get on Drudge. Then I click on the Washington Post and see if my daughter, Sally Jenkins, has a column up that she hasn’t told me about. Then I check all the usual suspects—Noonan, Coulter, Steyn, Cal Thomas, Buchanan, Thomas Sowell, and, of course, Charles Krauthammer, the smartest man in America. By now you may have guessed my politics.
Sally Jenkins of the Washington Post is the best sports columnist in the country. Second best is Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com, and third is Dan Wetzel on Yahoo!.
As for books? I like to be entertained, not smothered with “literary” riddles. So keep me stacked up with the latest Daniel Silva, Michael Connelly, Vince Flynn, John Sandford, and John Lescroart while I’m rooting for another dragon tattoo trilogy to come along,
You may think this doesn’t leave me much time to work on my own magazine and book stuff. Well, it’s getting less and less. But a new Administration would probably add ten years to my life.
There is no magazine I read religiously. I used to never miss the New Yorker or New York. Now I never bother. And I haven’t looked at Time or Newsweek in years. They’re no longer relevant. Early on, I tried to support Texas Monthly, but somewhere along the way I realized that it never considers Fort Worth as important as Dallas, Houston, Austin, or San Antonio, which is stupid. Also, I learned to hate, loathe, and despise TM’s restaurant reviews. There’s usually one piece in Vanity Fair every month that grabs me, but when it presents hatchet jobs without substantiation to impress its liberal friends, I laugh first, then toss.
I do read Golf Digest and Golf World because I work for them, and I glance at Sports Illustrated because I worked there for more than twenty years.
