Where is your nonfiction section please.
Book review: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, by Brad Ricca (Amazon / Book Depository) Newly told stories of women who have faded into the annals of history despite significant contributions from their life's work are becoming an increasingly popular, welcomed trend. Author Brad Ricca's Mrs. Sherlock Holmes covers one such story - that of Grace Humiston, a... Continue Reading →
Book review: Heating & Cooling, by Beth Ann Fennelly (Amazon / Book Depository) Poet Beth Ann Fennelly writes a collection of 52 "micro-memoirs": mini-essays, a genre idea I love, loosely based around family, marriage, love, sex, and sometimes grief. This book got a surprising amount of buzz upon its release last year, in my opinion,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Incendiary, by Michael Cannell (Amazon / Book Depository) In 1956 there was no such thing as criminal profiling; nobody could recall an instance when the police had consulted a psychiatrist. It was a collaboration fabricated in detective novels, but never found in real life. Every one of today’s profilers, real or televised, traces his... Continue Reading →
Book review: Black Dahlia, Red Rose, by Piu Eatwell (Amazon / Book Depository) More compelling still is the woman at the center of it all. The woman about whom there is so much speculation, but whom nobody really knows. We know that she was young, beautiful, complex, elusive, contradictory. That in her real life she... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Unwomanly Face of War, by Svetlana Alexievich Amazon Yet another book about war? What for? There have been a thousand wars—small and big, known and unknown. And still more has been written about them. But…it was men writing about men—that much was clear at once. Everything we know about war we know... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Only Girl in the World, by Maude Julien (Amazon / Book Depository) My father is convinced that the mind can achieve anything. Absolutely anything: it can overcome every danger and conquer every obstacle. But to do this requires long, rigorous training away from the impurities of this dirty world. He’s always saying,... Continue Reading →
Are you completely sick of 2017's best of/favorites lists yet? Personally, I'm a sucker for anything in list form. Here's my last one for this year, I promise! As I've mentioned, these were my favorite reads from 2017's new nonfiction. These were the books that stood out and made the most impact on me. My... Continue Reading →
Photo of Baroque bookshelves in the Austrian National Library in Vienna, © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar, via Wikimedia Commons I couldn't confine my favorites to one year end best list. I need three! First, here's the companion to my midyear best-so-far-titles published in 2017 list. Next week, my favorites read but not published this year, plus a final... Continue Reading →
Review: The Best American Magazine Writing 2017 Amazon / Book Depository Sid Holt compiles this year's Best American Magazine Writing for the American Society of Magazine Editors. For anyone who loves topical, well-written and affecting long-form journalism, this year's collection of award-winners and finalists is excellent. It should come as no surprise that the selections swerve heavily... Continue Reading →
Book review: Stalin's Meteorologist, by Olivier Rolin (Amazon / Book Depository) I have not glossed over Alexey Feodosievich's faults, when I was aware of them. I have not sought to turn him into an exemplary hero. He was neither a scientific genius nor a great poet, he was in many ways an ordinary man, but... Continue Reading →
Book review: Breaking Free, by Rachel Jeffs (Amazon / Book Depository) I am not a victim, and I do not want anyone’s sympathy. I wrote this book to help others who have suffered from similar experiences, whether in the FLDS church, or in thrall to some other circumstance beyond their control. I want people to... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Rules Do Not Apply, by Ariel Levy (Amazon / Book Depository) Until recently, I lived in a world where lost things could always be replaced. But it has been made overwhelmingly clear to me now that anything you think is yours by right can vanish, and what you can do about that... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 