Where is your nonfiction section please.
As much as I love reading pop science, for some reason I find these books the hardest to write and discuss. Is it because I'm afraid of summarizing them poorly or inaccurately? I have no idea. Minis it is! In Virus: Vaccinations, the CDC, and the Hijacking of America's Response to the Pandemic, journalist Nina... Continue Reading →
British-American art history writer Kirsty Bell relocated from New York to Berlin, where she and her German husband later bought an apartment on the Tempelhofer Ufer along the Landwehr Canal to raise their two sons. The significance of this location is impressive: "The building has stood on the banks of the canal since 1869, its... Continue Reading →
Authors Elisa Gabbert and Kathleen Rooney have similar, or at least compatible writing styles: meditative, super-smart and humorous, deeply self-aware, and literary without feeling academic. I think they've even collaborated on a poetry book together. It worked out well to read two of their books in tandem over this past week. Gabbert's The Unreality of... Continue Reading →
Every once in awhile I go on a spree of visiting my old home of France in my mind by reading a bunch of books about it. I did this over the summer again by finally picking up Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, the book that kicked off the trend in recent decades of... Continue Reading →
The long-awaited conclusion of biographer Robert Crawford's biography of T.S. Eliot, Eliot After "The Waste Land", is finally here. Crawford waited until the letters between Eliot (referred to as Tom throughout) and his longtime muse and one-that-got-away, Emily Hale, were unsealed in 2020. Hale donated the correspondence to the Princeton University Library, against Eliot's wishes... Continue Reading →
On the Rocks: Straight Talk about Women and Drinking, by Susan D. Stewart American women are swimming in a sea of alcohol, and we are letting them drown. When I read this book a couple years ago, what I'd really been looking for in it was a book specifically about why alcohol has been so... Continue Reading →
Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis, by Beth MacyUsed or new @SecondSale.com Journalist Beth Macy, who has been on the forefront of chronicling the opioid epidemic in the US for years, recently released her follow-up to 2018's Dopesick. I haven't really seen this new book get as much attention yet... Continue Reading →
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 →
The Queens Night Market has become a beloved summertime institution since its founding by Texas native John Wang, who modeled it on the night markets he discovered as a child while visiting family in Taiwan during the summers. Up to 100 vendors (historically from over 90 countries) gather from 5 pm to midnight at the... Continue Reading →
The podcast Appalachian Mysteria kicked off a few years ago by covering the 1970 murders of West Virginia University coeds Mared Malarik and Karen Ferrell. The two had hitchhiked back to their dorms after seeing Oliver! in the college town of Morgantown, West Virginia, and disappeared. Their headless bodies were found later in a nearby... Continue Reading →
I'm Glad My Mom Died, by Jennette McCurdy Buy used or new @SecondSale.com My life purpose has always been to make Mom happy, to be who she wants me to be. So without Mom, who am I supposed to be now? I only know what iCarly, a former Nickelodeon TV show about three friends who... Continue Reading →
Three weeks of Women in Translation Month left to go, so plenty of time to pick up something to celebrate! Over this past year, the number of books I've read since last year's WITMonth surprised me -- I think it was so many thanks to the Annie Ernaux odyssey I mentioned. Here's what I read:... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 