As we know, 2020 has been the living worst. A helpful balm for the seemingly endless parade of horrors this year has thrown at us is reading some facts about how the state of the world and humanity in general aren't as horrible as they might seem or feel. Let's investigate. First is Factfulness: Ten... Continue Reading →
Nonfiction November Wrap-Up
To end Nonfiction November this year, Julie, Katie and I recorded an episode of Leann's Shelf Aware podcast. We talked Nonfiction November history, reading preferences, and a bunch of other stuff. It was so much fun to get to chat about books with my fellow hosts and I hope it's fun to listen to! I... Continue Reading →
Memoirs of Family and Leaving the Soviet Union
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 →
Spooky Scary Nonfiction for Halloween and Frighteningly Good Reads: The Frighteners and Damnation Island
It's Halloween month! What spooky scary nonfiction might you be reading? I mean yes -- real life is scary enough, especially this year, but perhaps you're distracting from the everyday horror and existential angst with some nonfiction about less-present scariness? Just me? The wonderful Molly at Silver Button Books is again hosting Frighteningly Good Reads,... Continue Reading →
Matt Haig on Depression, Anxiety, Panic, and Our Overconnected World
Novelist Matt Haig's two short but powerful books cover his struggles and coping methods for mental illness -- namely depression, in Reasons to Stay Alive, and anxiety in Notes on a Nervous Planet. They both read blog-like -- sometimes confessional, sometimes lists, here focusing on a brighter side and elsewhere acknowledging the depths these illnesses... Continue Reading →
Kapka Kassabova on Balkan Heritage and Ancient Lakes
Book review: To the Lake, by Kapka Kassabova (Amazon) When I lay in bed, I could hear the splash of waves on the shore as if they were outside the door. I dreamt of the lake rising in the night and engulfing the town, like an old prophecy. Bulgarian-born, Scottish-based author Kapka Kassabova became an... Continue Reading →
Running in the Family
Book review: Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker (Amazon / Book Depository) The symptoms muffle nothing and amplify everything. They're deafening, overpowering for the subject and frightening for those who love them -- impossible for anyone close to them to process intellectually. For a family, schizophrenia is, primarily, a felt experience, as if the foundation... Continue Reading →
Pre-2019 Favorites
If new nonfiction this year was a little lackluster, I did feel more enthusiastic about the backlist titles I read throughout the year. It was one of these that was my absolute favorite and the best book I read this year: Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova - Kassabova returned... Continue Reading →
14 New Nonfiction Releases Coming in 2020
2019 hasn't shown itself out quite yet but I'm already looking forward to what new nonfiction 2020 has in store. Here are some upcoming new releases from the new decade that I have my eye on. F*ck Your Diet: And Other Things My Thighs Tell Me, by ChloĆ© Hilliard (January 7) --Hilliard was cursed with... Continue Reading →
Research and Case Studies on the Misunderstood Condition of Compulsive Hoarding
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, by Randy Frost & Gail Steketee (Amazon / Book Depository) Chances are you know someone with a hoarding problem. Recent studies of hoarding put the prevalence rate at somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the population. That means that six million to fifteen million Americans suffer... Continue Reading →
A Couples Therapist Breaks Down the Psychology — and Potential — of Infidelity
Book review: The State of Affairs, by Esther Perel (Amazon / Book Depository) Almost everywhere people marry, monogamy is the official norm and infidelity the clandestine one. So what are we to make of this time-honored tabooāuniversally forbidden yet universally practiced? Reading the overhyped and even troubling Three Women, I found myself most interested in... Continue Reading →
Carmen Maria Machado’s Stylistic, Genre-Bending Memoir of Domestic Abuse
Book review: In the Dream House, by Carmen Maria Machado (Amazon / Book Depository) Author Carmen Maria Machado writes a groundbreaking, stylistic account of an emotionally and mentally abusive lesbian relationship, and underscores the message that domestic abuse in LGBTQ+ relationships are neither the subject of adequate scholarship nor open discussion, nor even, to some... Continue Reading →