Where is your nonfiction section please.
Berlin: Life and Death in the City at the Center of the World, by Sinclair McKayUsed or new @SecondSale.com Throughout the twentieth century, Berlin stood at the centre of a convulsing world. It alternately seduced and haunted the international imagination. The essence of the city seemed to be its sharp duality: the radiant boulevards, the... Continue Reading →
Nazi Billionaires: The Dark History of Germany's Wealthiest Dynasties, by David de Jong (published April 19, 2022 by Mariner Books) In the newly released and fairly jaw-dropping Nazi Billionaires, Dutch journalist David de Jong, a Bloomberg News reporter on wealth and finance, profiles five German-Austrian families (the Quandts, Flicks, von Fincks, Porsche-Piëchs, and Oetkers) whose... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Isn't science grand? Let's look at some very different recent releases in pop science. Ravenous: Otto Warburg, the Nazis, and the Search for the Cancer-Diet Connection, by Sam Apple Did you know that Hitler was obsessed with both sugar and cancer? He was! He was also consuming the former in the worst possible proportions if... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Ravine, by Wendy Lower & Those Who Forget, by Geraldine Schwarz In her new book The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed, Wendy Lower, a historian with extensive work around the Holocaust, is put onto an intriguing research journey: Lower encountered an extremely rare photograph depicting the murder of... Continue Reading →
I think I look forward more to putting together my list of backlist favorites each year than the new releases. What was better for you this year -- new releases or older nonfiction? Borrowed Finery, by Paula Fox - Children's novelist Fox's memoir is brilliant, especially for memoir that's non-linear and kind of hazy in... Continue Reading →
It's finally time to close the book on a year none of us will forget, much as we'd like to! 2020 may have sucked unendingly for so very many reasons, but it did have some redeeming qualities in the new nonfiction department. Here are my favorites, in no particular order, from the 2020 new nonfiction... 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 →
Review: A Demon-Haunted Land, by Monica Black (Bookshop.org) To understand something about how one type of society began the process of becoming a very different one, this book looks at two distinctive but related forms of postwar haunting. One plagued individuals, beleaguered souls who sought spiritual respite -- who wanted to be healed, transformed, or... Continue Reading →
Although it was overshadowed by the US Election Day beginning the next morning, on November 2 there was a terror attack in my former home of Vienna. I lived there for more than seven years and met my husband there, so it'll always be a place precious to me, even if I was very ready... Continue Reading →
There are few things I love more than a good memoir of Russia. Recently I've read two, both around emigration to the US and the lingering ties to family and country that remain. The park looked well kept, even cheerful, as darkness settled over the tress. Here, history inundated every square centimeter of ground --... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 