Where is your nonfiction section please.
Book review: The Other Side, by Lacy M. Johnson (Amazon / Book Depository) The short version: Lacy Johnson was kidnapped by her ex-boyfriend and held prisoner in a soundproofed basement he'd constructed solely for the purpose of raping and brutally killing her. He didn't succeed in killing her. This book is about that event, how it... Continue Reading →
Book review: Riverine, by Angela Palm (Amazon / Book Depository) Angela Palm grew up in rural Indiana, in a house built in a dried-out riverbed created by redirecting the Kankakee River, their little town not even designated on maps. Next door lived a boy named Corey, and they had the typical girl-and-boy-next-door relationship, into their adolescence. They... Continue Reading →
I wasn't planning to do a midyear best-of list, and July is already half gone, so...well past the halfway mark. But realizing how many truly excellent nonfiction titles have come out already this year, I thought a year-end recap would be way too long if I didn't collect some standouts from the year's beginning! And... Continue Reading →
Book review: We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, by Samantha Irby (Amazon/ Book Depository) Samantha Irby is the Chicago-based blogger behind the popular, ultra-honest, hilariously confessional blog Bitches Gotta Eat. She opens her personal essay collection with a piece about how she'd fill out an application to be a Bachelorette contestant. It's a pretty wonderful, hilarious introduction,... Continue Reading →
Book review: Alligator Candy, by David Kushner When he was four years old, journalist and writer David Kushner's older brother Jon took off on his bike, riding through the woods of their neighborhood in Tampa, Florida en route to the 7-11, on a quest for candy. Before he left, David asked him to bring him the... Continue Reading →
Book review: All Over the Place, by Geraldine DeRuiter (Amazon / Book Depository) Geraldine deRuiter is the voice behind The Everywhereist, a funny, quirky travel blog. She started writing about her travels, and often her ineptitude in accomplishing them, after losing her job in the recession, thus freeing her up to accompany her husband, a workaholic SEO... Continue Reading →
Book review: Sunshine State, by Sarah Gerard Sunshine State, up and coming literary darling Sarah Gerard's essay collection rooted in her childhood home state of Florida, hits some high highs and low lows. The opening essay, "BFF", starts the book out as strongly as it could possibly be started; I was hooked. Gerard dreamily, wistfully... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Language of Baklava, by Diana Abu-Jaber (Amazon / Book Depository) I'm falling in love with "foodoirs" lately. Those are food-themed memoirs, in case you're late to the genre, like I was. This one moved me more than I unexpected. Novelist Diana Abu-Jaber was born in America to a Jordanian immigrant father and an... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Dead Inside, by Cyndy Etler In the late 80s, Cyndy Etler seemed to be a fairly typical Connecticut teenager. Her real problem was abuse at the hands of her creepy French stepfather, which her mother noticed and ignored, leaving her daughter instead to struggle to defend herself. With that kind of frustration in her home... Continue Reading →
Book review: The Polygamist's Daughter, by Anna LeBaron with Leslie Wilson (Amazon / Book Depository) Anna LeBaron is a daughter of Ervil LeBaron, the notorious polygamist Mormon cult leader whose sprawling family (she opens the prologue with, "At age nine, I had forty-nine siblings") underwent a vicious divide as Ervil ordered the murders of those who questioned his... Continue Reading →
Book review: Upstream, by Mary Oliver (Amazon / Book Depository) 'Come with me into the field of sunflowers' is a better line than anything you will find here, and the sunflowers themselves far more wonderful than any words about them. Quoting herself, renowned and much-loved poet Mary Oliver opens this collection of essays about nature and our... Continue Reading →
Book review: Down City, by Leah Carroll Leah Carroll's mother died when Leah was four years old, strangled in a motel room by two drug dealers with mafia connections to Rhode Island's Patriarca crime family and a misguided paranoia. She's then raised by her father and stepmother, with the ghost of her mother a constant... Continue Reading →
What's Nonfiction? 