Where is your nonfiction section please.
Book review: Berezina, by Sylvain Tesson (Amazon / Book Depository) It's during a previous journey that the idea of a future one comes to mind. Imagination carries the traveler far from the trap where he's gotten stuck. While in the Negev desert, he'll dream of a Scottish glen; in a monsoon, of the Hoggar Mountains;... Continue Reading →
Book review: Mud and Stars, by Sara Wheeler (Amazon / Book Depository) Russia was the first foreign country I ever visited. I was eleven. I have been looking over my shoulder at it ever since. I think there are many who share that sentiment, and it makes this genre of memoirs of Russia or travelogues... Continue Reading →
Nonfiction November, that time of year to celebrate stories filled with facts and footnotes, truth being stranger than fiction, and very, very long subtitles begins today! This week, a look at your year in nonfiction: Week 1: (Oct. 28 to Nov. 1) – Your Year in Nonfiction (Julie @ Julz Reads): Take a look back at your year of... Continue Reading →
Book review: Medallion Status, by John Hodgman (Amazon / Book Depository) Comedian, author and podcaster John Hodgman's second memoir-in-essay collection, Medallion Status, is ostensibly built around his obsession with the loyalty program of the airline he calls "Beloved Airlines," and the travels, specifically for acting jobs, he's had in connection with earning those miles. It's... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Cooking Gene, by Michael W. Twitty (Amazon / Book Depository) The Old South is a place where people use food to tell themselves who they are, to tell others who they are, and to tell stories about where they've been. Chef, historian, and Afroculinaria blogger Michael W. Twitty has another fascinating day job:... 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: Road Sides, by Emily Wallace (Amazon / Book Depository) There are miles left to go, meals left to eat, junque left to buy, stories left to collect. Folklore historian Emily Wallace writes that "roadside hyperbole is a thing I tend to heed": she can't see a sign proclaiming the best, or occasionally the worst, of something... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Dead Ladies Project, by Jessa Crispin (Amazon / Book Depository) It was my circumstances that were killing me, I was sure of it. Jessa Crispin, editor of the now-defunct online literary magazine Bookslut, published a memoir, The Dead Ladies Project in 2015, but I was in no hurry to read it. I couldn't... 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 Only Street in Paris, by Elaine Sciolino (Amazon / Book Depository) Former New York Times Paris Bureau Chief Elaine Sciolino's The Only Street in Paris is a travelogue memoir meets micro-history and sociocultural study of the Parisian street where she and her family made their home for a time. There's a lot going... Continue Reading →
Book review: Midwestern Strange, by B.J. Hollars (Amazon / Book Depository) Professor B.J. Hollars set out, after a challenge from his writing students, to investigate his region's tales of inexplicable monsters and events of "high strangeness," that is, "encounters that are improvable either as events or illusions." I've selected the Midwest as my testing ground... Continue Reading →
One last installment of 2019's upcoming nonfiction new releases: We've got cult insiders, lesser known Cold War tales, undercover in asylums, retracing Napoleon's Russian retreat, jackasses, life and death in colonial Sydney, women profiling women, and a genre-bending look at domestic abuse, and some new nonfiction in translation, among others. The Berlin Mission: The American... Continue Reading →
