Where is your nonfiction section please.
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: 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: 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: 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 Vagina Bible, by Jen Gunter, MD (Amazon / Book Depository) Misinforming women about their bodies serves no one. And I’m here to help end it. The Vagina Bible is a book that should be owned by anyone who also owns a vagina, and read by anyone who has close contact with one.... Continue Reading →
Book review: Underland, by Robert Macfarlane (Amazon / Book Depository) What happened here? The mouth of the chasm says nothing. The trees say nothing. Leaning over the edge of the sinkhole, I can see only darkness beneath me. British author Robert Macfarlane's Underland is a difficult book to describe or do justice to. It's more of a... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Nature of Life and Death, by Patricia Wiltshire (Amazon / Book Depository) Patricia Wiltshire is a botanist, forensic ecologist, and palynologist -- what she defines as "one who studies pollen and other palynomorphs." She works with the police in the United Kingdom, drawing on decades of experience and meticulous microscopic examinations to... Continue Reading →
Book review: Pleased to Meet Me, by Bill Sullivan (Amazon / Book Depository) Bill Sullivan, professor of pharmacology and microbiology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, writes that he's always been curious about why we are the way we are, with all of our many often peculiar differences. So many traits, preferences, and physical qualities seem... Continue Reading →
Book review: Gross Anatomy: A Field Guide to Loving Your Body, Warts and All, by Mara Altman (Amazon / Book Depository) Mara Altman's Gross Anatomy, a loose memoir told through investigation of myths, practices, and biases around the female body, is a book I ignored on its original publication last August. It seemed guidebook-y or goofy, or... Continue Reading →
Book review: Crisis in the Red Zone, by Richard Preston (Amazon / Book Depository) Viruses are the undead of the living world, the zombies of deep time. Nobody knows the origin of viruses--how they came into existence or when they appeared in the history of life on earth. Viruses may be examples or relics of... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Crimes of Paris, by Dorothy & Thomas Hoobler (Amazon / Book Depository) The disappearance of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre stunned Parisians, who had long dismissed any impossible task with the remark that doing so 'would be like trying to steal the Mona Lisa.' The central defining event in The Crimes of... Continue Reading →
What's the best nonfiction you've read so far this year? Any standouts yet? Looking back from the halfway point, I think it's already been a pretty good year for nonfiction. In no particular order, here are my favorites from the new nonfiction published in the first half of 2019. Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide... Continue Reading →
