Where is your nonfiction section please.
Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, by David Quammen (Amazon) The purpose of this book is not to make you more worried. The purpose of this book is to make you more smart. I bought this book as soon as COVID-19 appeared in the US for the above reason. I completely understand why... Continue Reading →
Not to sound like a cliched ancient person, but even given the surreal circumstances, this year is positively flying by, isn't it? I can't even fathom that we've already made it halfway. And yet we have! These are my favorite new releases of the nonfiction published between January and June 2020. What's been your favorite... Continue Reading →
Putin's People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West, by Catherine Belton You in the West, you think you’re playing chess with us. But you’re never going to win, because we’re not following any rules. Vladimir Putin seemingly came out of the shadows to run Russia and he's managed to... Continue Reading →
Under the Sea Wind and The Sea Around Us, by Rachel Carson The island lay in shadows only a little deeper than those that were swiftly stealing across the sound from the east. On its western shore the wet sand of the narrow beach caught the same reflection of palely gleaming sky that laid a... Continue Reading →
Book review: Flash Crash, by Liam Vaughan (Amazon / Book Depository) Over 36 minutes on the afternoon of May 6, 2010, a trillion-dollar crash, "the most dramatic market collapse in recent history," occurred on the US stock market. It (mostly) rebounded when the unusual trading activity that caused it ceased, but the exact impetus behind... Continue Reading →
Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature, by Viv Groskop This, then, is a book about the intersection between Frenchness and happiness through reading, as that is a place I have always found great comfort. My hope is to demonstrate, through the French writers I first discovered in my teens and twenties, how... Continue Reading →
It feels reductive even to say it, but I'm devastated by George Floyd's heinous murder by a police officer while his colleagues watched, Breonna Taylor's murder in her own home during an illegal raid at the wrong house, and all the stories that follow a similar narrative of police profiling Black Americans and abusing power... Continue Reading →
Book review: Surviving Autocracy, by Masha Gessen (Amazon / Book Depository) Journalist and author Masha Gessen lived through the changes of the Soviet Union, including Putin's ascendancy and increasing control over the state media. She's reported and written extensively about totalitarianism and the relationship of Putin's Russia with the west. In Surviving Autocracy, she turns her... Continue Reading →
Finding Dora Maar, by Brigitte Benkemoun, translated from French by Jody Gladding (Amazon / Book Depository) Author Brigitte Benkemoun's husband lost his Hermes agenda so she bought him a vintage replacement on eBay. When it arrived, she noticed that its old pages were intact. They dated back to 1951, an address book filled with a... Continue Reading →
