Where is your nonfiction section please.
A Promised Land, by Barack Obama Is it even worth reviewing former President Barack Obama's book? What can I add to any discussion? It sells itself; you probably already knew before it came out whether you would read it or not. I struggled with whether I had anything meaningful to say about it, or if... Continue Reading →
Before I start on my 2020 favorites, I'd rather take a quick look ahead first. We're all hoping for a better 2021 -- eventually, at least -- so let's start there instead. Here are some upcoming nonfiction titles scheduled for early 2021 that I've got my eye on. Any of these on your list too?... Continue Reading →
In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was picked up for a murder that he not only didn't commit, but that he ridiculously couldn't have committed: he'd been locked into a warehouse working an overnight shift miles away when the robbery and shooting occurred. No problem for the prosecution, though - they just alleged he scaled a... Continue Reading →
Reading Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek last year was one of those infrequent, world-altering reading experiences for me. Exciting, then, to realize what a back catalog of nonfiction Dillard has. I read Teaching a Stone to Talk, an essay collection, last year as well. I find her writing worlds apart from any other author I... Continue Reading →
Two new essay collections out this month, both with weird, different looks at aspects of Americana. First, Tom Zoellner's The National Road: Dispatches From a Changing America, which "attempts to paint a picture of 'American place' in this uncertain era of political toxin and economic rearrangement. These are observations collected from thirty years of traveling... Continue Reading →
She Come By It Natural collects author Sarah Smarsh's four long-form essays about Dolly Parton and the beloved singer's connections to feminism through her roots in rural poverty in Tennessee (it's better than I'm setting it up, but that's the basic premise). These essays were the result of a Freshgrass Foundation journalism fellowship Smarsh won,... Continue Reading →
Essay collections can be wildly mixed bags: there are usually some that sing and others that are duds. I've already had one life-changingly glorious essay collection this year, one that made me not hate pandemic writing, so what were the odds of two more outstanding ones in the trash dump that is this year? Yet... Continue Reading →
After the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week I barely even want to talk about this madman who may actually be responsible for putting a third Supreme Court Justice on the bench, but I did read two books about him last week. I don't know why I do these things to myself, besides... Continue Reading →
Book review: Chaos: Charles Manson, the CIA, and the Secret History of the Sixties, by Tom O'Neill with Dan Piepenbring So many years later, Manson’s name still served as a kind of shorthand for a very American form of brutal violence, the kind that erupts seemingly from nowhere and confirms the nation’s darkest fears about... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Secret Life of Groceries, by Benjamin Lorr This book is about the grocery store. About the people who work there and the routes of supply that define it. It is the product of five years of research, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of hours tracking down, and working alongside, the buyers, brokers,... Continue Reading →
Wiving is poet Caitlin Myer's memoir about growing up Mormon with a skewed view of relationships with men based on religious tenets and how her own experiences developed, and how that changed as she came into her own and achieved a form of independence. It also covers her relationship to her mentally ill mother and... Continue Reading →
Book review: True Crimes and Misdemeanors, by Jeffrey Toobin That was the whole case right there, stripped to its essentials. Trump didn't care about the people of Ukraine, who were fighting for their lives. (Nor, it was clear, did he care about American laws, norms, or national security interests.) All Trump cared about was the... Continue Reading →
