Where is your nonfiction section please.
Mud Sweeter Than Honey: Voices of Communist Albania, by Margo Rejmer, translated from the Polish by Zasia Krasodomska-Jones and Antonia Lloyd-JonesUsed and new at SecondSale.com What was meant to be has already happened.Time smooths out the edges of our recollections; the past is distorted by the weight of the present. Albania isn't a country I... Continue Reading →
Book review: Café Europa Revisited: How to Survive Post-Communism, by Slavenka Drakulic What a weird day to be writing about a book on democracy in Europe, as it teeters precariously in the United States. But I think Americans would do well to consider democratic processes and totalitarian histories in Europe, because it's abundantly clear that... Continue Reading →
The Age of Skin, by Dubrakva Ugrešić I was so excited for this book, because I don't think there's much Croatian-language nonfiction translated into English, and by a woman no less. Dubravka Ugrešić was born and raised in the former Yugoslavia and is now Amsterdam-based. She'd previously been a writer and journalist in her native... 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 →
Review: 1947: Where Now Begins, by Elisabeth Asbrink (Amazon / Book Depository) I try to assemble the year 1947 into a splintered whole. This is lunacy, but time does not leave me alone. Within the first few pages of 1947, I made myself slow down because I realized I was reading something special and I didn't want it... Continue Reading →
Book review: A Crime in the Family, by Sacha Batthyany Swiss journalist Sacha Batthyany heard a disturbing rumor: near the end of the Second World War, his Aunt Margit was alleged to have participated in the massacre of hundreds of Jewish prisoners in the small Austrian town of Rechnitz. The crime took place during a... Continue Reading →
Book review: Among the Living and the Dead, by Inara Verzemnieks "This is why I had journeyed to my grandmother's lost village, nestled at the edge of Latvia, which is itself nestled at the edge of Europe's psychic north, south, east and west, or, as Pope Innocent III described it...'the edge of the known world'. Because I... Continue Reading →
Book review: A Paris All Your Own, edited by Eleanor Brown (Amazon / Book Depository) "My time in Paris was like no one else's ever." "In the end, I think Paris kept us married for an extra five years." "I should probably write an article for a women's magazine about this: 'Lose Weight While Eating... Continue Reading →
Book review: Leading the Blind, by Alan Sillitoe (Amazon / Book Depository) Leading the Blind is Alan Sillitoe's witty compilation of some of the most interesting, bizarre, quirky or hilariously biased and outdated bits from 19th century guide books to continental Europe, with a select few parts of the Middle East thrown in for good measure. These guide books... Continue Reading →
Book review: Every Frenchman Has One, by Olivia deHavilland (Amazon / Book Depository) A quick, fun and light collection of anecdotes with lots of vintage charm by the actress I knew best as Melanie from Gone with the Wind, but of course she's legendary for way more than that. I had no idea she was... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 