Where is your nonfiction section please.
Book review: Bettyville, by George Hodgman (Amazon / Book Depository) My friends worry that I am falling into a hole here, that this time away is really giving up, running away. Since I lost my job, I don’t know quite who it is I am now. Suddenly I feel older. In New York, my closet... Continue Reading →
Book review: They All Love Jack, by Bruce Robinson (Amazon / Book Depository) ... there was nothing illaudable about being a Victorian Mason, any more than it was improper to enjoy membership of a tricycle club. But ... this narrative is about the bad guys, and about one in particular who went rotten, and what... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Brothers, by Masha Gessen (Amazon / Book Depository) This American Life is one of my all-time favorite radio shows. But since they're so prolific and have been around for so long, I'm always eons behind on episodes, so I tend to skip through the archives looking for something interesting. That's how I landed on a 2014... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Unbreakable Miss Lovely, by Tony Ortega Amazon Journalist Paulette Cooper survived the Holocaust but she almost didn't survive Scientology. That thought lingered while reading this biography and account of her years of harassment by the cultlike religion for daring to write honestly and critically about them. Her parents suffered persecution as Jews... Continue Reading →
Book review: In the Skin of a Jihadist, by Anna Erelle (Amazon / Book Depository) When one worked on “societal” issues, it was out of passion. If only I could write about this topic in a new way, one that avoided treating individuals as part of a succession of similar cases. I wanted to investigate... Continue Reading →
Book review: Stalin's Daughter, by Rosemary Sullivan (Amazon / Book Depository) “What would it mean to be born Stalin’s daughter, to carry the weight of that name for a lifetime and never be free of it?” “I want to explain to you, he broke my life.” Even writing a biography showing the many sides of... Continue Reading →
Book review: Deliver Us, by Kathryn Casey (Amazon / Book Depository) It’s only natural to want to believe we are in control, that when we wake each morning, we decide what we do, that our lives don’t rest in the hands of others or, even worse, of that unseen yet eternal influence commonly referred to... Continue Reading →
Book review: The View from Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior Amazon An old adage says to write what you know. As a journalist living in a decayed Midwestern city waiting - and waiting and waiting - for the Great Recession to end, that was what I knew. Political writer, analyst and academic researcher of authoritarian... Continue Reading →
Book review: The World is On Fire, by Joni Tevis Joni Tevis has a strange talent for writing essays that combine the most unlikely, unrelated subjects, skipping without any obvious connection between topics and somehow making it work as a coherent, emotional, interesting piece. I've never read anything quite like it before. As one example,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Troublemaker, by Leah Remini (Amazon / Book Depository) I love Scientology. NOT LIKE THAT! I don't want to get put on some list, like their never-ending mailing list. But I'm obsessed with knowing about this cult masquerading as a religion. I'm a total SP! (That's Scientololingo for a Suppressive Person, someone who hates on them.) Going... Continue Reading →
Book review: Great Soul of Siberia, by Sooyong Park (Amazon / Book Depository) Back in 2010, I read a book so good that even while I was reading it I knew it was going to be hard to top. It was around the time I was shifting to reading primarily nonfiction, and John Vaillant's The Tiger was influential in... Continue Reading →
Book review: Heretic, by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Amazon / Book Depository) On ______, a group of ______ heavily armed, black-clad men burst into a ______ in ______, opening fire and killing a total of ______ people. The attackers were filmed shouting “Allahu akbar!” Speaking at a press conference, President ______ said: “We condemn this criminal act by... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 