Where is your nonfiction section please.
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 →
Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family, by Louise DeSalvo In our house, no one ever went with the flow. There was no flow. There were only dangerous rapids, huge whirlpools, gigantic waterfalls. In our house, you had to be wary, vigilant. To stop paying attention, even for a... Continue Reading →
Book review: I'm Telling the Truth but I'm Lying, by Bassey Ikpi (Amazon / Book Depository) It's difficult to distinguish which lies from my childhood are my own and which belong to my family. Which lies I told myself to close the gaps in my brain and which were told to me to silence my... Continue Reading →
Book review: Fed, White, and Blue, by Simon Majumdar (Amazon / Book Depository) Food writer and "food expert," whatever that means, Simon Majumdar relocated from his beloved England to Los Angeles to be with his girlfriend. Some time after their marriage, he was faced with the decision of becoming a US citizen. This unleashes a... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Wrong End of the Table, by Ayser Salman (Amazon / Book Depository) If you've ever felt like you've been at the wrong end of the table - whether you were born in an Iraqi dictatorship or hail from Lexington, Kentucky - this is for you. Though I can't speak for all of... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Brothers, by Masha Gessen (Amazon / Book Depository) This American Life is one of my all-time favorite radio shows. But since they're so prolific and have been around for so long, I'm always eons behind on episodes, so I tend to skip through the archives looking for something interesting. That's how I landed on a 2014... Continue Reading →
Book review: Adrift, by Brian Murphy with Toula Vlahou Amazon Adrift tells the story of the packet ship John Rutledge, which in 1856 crossed the North Atlantic from Liverpool to New York with a cargo consisting mostly of mail and around 100 passengers, many of them emigrating from Ireland. The ship navigated turbulent winter conditions before... Continue Reading →
Book review: Patriot Number One, by Lauren Hilgers (Amazon / Book Depository) Journalist Lauren Hilgers was somewhat surprised when an acquaintance from her years spent working in Shanghai showed up on her Brooklyn doorstep one evening. The man, Zhuang Lehong, was a Chinese activist-labeled-dissident who had traveled to the United States with his wife, Little... Continue Reading →
Book review: Feel Free, by Zadie Smith (Amazon / Book Depository) Novelist Zadie Smith has got to be one of the most brilliant minds writing today. She burst onto the literary scene with the novel White Teeth in 2000 and has been a heavyweight presence ever since. I read that book and only retained from... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Line Becomes a River, by Francisco Cantú (Amazon / Book Depository) When I was in school, I spent all this time studying international relations, immigration, border security. I was always reading about policy and economics, looking at all these complex academic ways of addressing this big unsolvable problem. When I made the... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman (Amazon / Book Depository) Published twenty years ago this year, this book consistently tops lists of the best (narrative) nonfiction. I was late reading it, but so glad I finally got around to it. This'll be my last review this year -... Continue Reading →
Book review: Crossing the River Kabul, by Kevin McLean Book Depository Author Kevin McLean adopts the voice of Baryalai Popal to tell his dramatic true story, spanning decades, of escaping Afghanistan in 1980 during the Russian invasion and war, and his eventual trek to America. Now an American citizen, Baryalai (called Bar) was born into one... Continue Reading →
