Where is your nonfiction section please.
Book review: Before and After, by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate (Amazon / Book Depository) Author Lisa Wingate wrote a popular novel in 2017, Before We Were Yours, a fictionalized story about children adopted from the notorious Tennessee Children's Home Society ("TCHS"). Starting in the 1920s through 1950, a woman named Georgia Tann ran this "questionable"... Continue Reading →
Book review: Horror Stories, by Liz Phair (Amazon / Book Depository) We can be monsters, we human beings, in the most offhand and cavalier ways. I don't much like celebrity memoirs unless they're about escaping Scientology or Tina Fey's. The writing can drag and I don't care about behind-the-scenes stories, so I'd planned to skip... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Poisoner's Handbook, by Deborah Blum (Amazon / Book Depository) The Poisoner's Handbook came up in Nonfiction November last year, when Silver Button Books mentioned it as an exceptional example of nonfiction that reads like fiction. I was surprised, as I wouldn't guess a book involving chemistry in any form would be so readable,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Medallion Status, by John Hodgman (Amazon / Book Depository) Comedian, author and podcaster John Hodgman's second memoir-in-essay collection, Medallion Status, is ostensibly built around his obsession with the loyalty program of the airline he calls "Beloved Airlines," and the travels, specifically for acting jobs, he's had in connection with earning those miles. It's... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Cooking Gene, by Michael W. Twitty (Amazon / Book Depository) The Old South is a place where people use food to tell themselves who they are, to tell others who they are, and to tell stories about where they've been. Chef, historian, and Afroculinaria blogger Michael W. Twitty has another fascinating day job:... Continue Reading →
Book review: Erosion, by Terry Tempest Williams (Amazon / Book Depository) If the world is torn to pieces, I want to see what story I can find in fragmentation. Renowned nature writer and conservationist Terry Tempest Williams' latest comprises essays written between 2012 and 2019, "a seven-year cycle exploring the idea of erosion; the erosion... Continue Reading →
Book review: Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell (Amazon / Book Depository) We think we can easily see into the hearts of others based on the flimsiest of clues. We jump at the chance to judge strangers. We would never do that to ourselves, of course. We are nuanced and complex and enigmatic. But the... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Forest City Killer, by Vanessa Brown (Amazon / Book Depository) Author, bookstore owner, and local historian of London, Ontario Vanessa Brown spent five years researching a series of unsolved, decades-old homicides in her quiet hometown. *Keith Morrison voice* Well, mostly quiet, that is: London had the unofficial and unenviable title of the "serial killer... Continue Reading →
Book review: Scream: Chilling Adventures in the Science of Fear, by Margee Kerr (Amazon / Book Depository) Last year I'd read enough spooky nonfiction to make a list for October, but this year I didn't have enough appropriate titles to compile one (though you can also terrify yourself by just browsing the "true crime" tab). But the positively wonderful... Continue Reading →
Book review: Road Sides, by Emily Wallace (Amazon / Book Depository) There are miles left to go, meals left to eat, junque left to buy, stories left to collect. Folklore historian Emily Wallace writes that "roadside hyperbole is a thing I tend to heed": she can't see a sign proclaiming the best, or occasionally the worst, of something... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Skeleton Crew, by Deborah Halber (Amazon / Book Depository) Chances are good that you or someone you know has at one point stumbled over a dead body. There are shockingly large numbers of them out there. According to the National Institute of Justice, America is home to tens of thousands of unidentified... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Splendid Things We Planned, by Blake Bailey (Amazon / Book Depository) Award-winning biographer Blake Bailey took on a different kind of challenging biographical subject in The Splendid Things We Planned -- his own dysfunctional family. The central point of his memoir, around which everything in this story revolves, is his older brother, Scott. Scott... Continue Reading →
