Super late but better late than never when it comes to looking ahead to the year's new nonfiction, right? Right! Here's what's caught my eye in new and recent nonfiction releases: Longshot: The Inside Story of the Race for a COVID-19 Vaccine, by David Heath (January 18) - "Investigative journalist David Heath takes readers inside... Continue Reading →
Three Memoirs About Moms
Mother-daughter stories aren't always my thing, but I somehow ended up reading three (!) recent memoirs (momoirs?) about just that. One of them you've certainly already heard of: It seems like every year there's one memoir that blows up and is absolutely everywhere (think Educated) and last year it was Michelle Zauner's Crying in H... Continue Reading →
21 New Release Favorites of 2021
Eking in at the veeeery last minute, I've compiled my new release favorites of 2021. Let's dive in! Unsurprisingly, nothing surpassed Elissa Washuta's White Magic for me. This memoir-in-essays is like nothing I've ever read before, although I've come across a lot of memoirs that attempt similar things less successfully. This uses a blend of... Continue Reading →
17 Favorites from the Backlist
It's the most wonderful time of the year: Christmas stresses are over and it's time for year-end favorites lists! I love dividing up my year's favorite books by new releases and backlist selections because it means I can include more books. Also, since my blogging has deteriorated into a truly awful state, I realized that... Continue Reading →
Nonfiction November Week 4: Stranger Than Fiction
Nonfiction November continues to fly by! I've been very excited for this week's prompt, courtesy of Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks: Week 4: (November 22-26) – Stranger Than Fiction with Christopher at Plucked from the Stacks: This week we’re focusing on all the great nonfiction books that *almost* don’t seem real. A sports biography involving overcoming massive... Continue Reading →
Ideas of Memory From a Family in Russia
In Memory of Memory, by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale The subjectivity and selectiveness of the memory means we can fix on a historical “excerpt“ that has nothing in common with history itself – there will be people out there for whom the 1930s were a lost paradise of innocence and permanence. Especially during... Continue Reading →
Nonfiction November Week 3: Be/Ask/Become The Expert: Foodoir and Food Writing
Week 3 here we go! This week our host is Veronica @ The Thousand Book Project and here's our topic: Week 3: (November 15-19) – Be The Expert/ Ask the Expert/ Become the Expert: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share 3 or more books on a single topic that you... Continue Reading →
Mini Reviews: The Quiet Zone, Mystery at the Blue Sea Cottage, Sex Cult Nun
Some minis today: A town with no WiFi, growing up in a sex cult, and the unsolved murder of a Jazz Age dancer. They have nothing in common besides their blue-green cover schemes. I didn't plan it that way, but I like it! The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence... Continue Reading →
Rest and Restoration in the North: Finnish Forests and Wintering
The Sisterhood of the Enchanted Forest: Sustenance, Wisdom, and Awakening in Finland's Karelia by Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle (buy it used or new at SecondSale.com) Naomi Moriyama, a Tokyo-born Manhattanite, was uprooted from her noisy but familiar New York City existence when her husband got a Fulbright to the University of Eastern Finland in... Continue Reading →
Two on Cults: Cultish and Slonim Woods 9
One of my most anticipated this year was Slonim Woods 9, a memoir by Daniel Barban Levin, a former Sarah Lawrence student who was in a notorious cult run out of their college dorm by the father of one of his roommates. That's a lot to take in right there, but my god does it... Continue Reading →
Nonfiction Centered in Germany: Tunneling the Wall, Reading Stasi Files, and the Enigmatic Chancellor
In preparation for (a little Vorfreude - something like the joy in anticipating something) and during my time in Germany this summer, I was reading more German nonfiction than usual, two of which are new/upcoming releases and absolutely stellar. Los geht's! Tunnel 29: The True Story of an Extraordinary Escape Beneath the Berlin Wall, by... Continue Reading →
Lyrical Translated Nonfiction From the Sea + Giveaway
Programming note: It's been a long, inadvertent break; oops! I'm in Berlin, where my husband is working, and we're moving from a little temporary apartment into our own. I've been trying to work as normal while dealing with the move, buying every piece of furniture, houseware, appliance, etc. (a nightmare), and taking time for bike... Continue Reading →