All in Non-fiction
With an absolutely stunning originality, Robin Wall Kimmerer takes her vast knowledge of plants from her scientific viewpoint as a PhD and Professor of Environmental Biology, and combines it with her perspective as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation to offer an alternate view on how we might look at the world and our place in it.
he Book of Joy came out of an amazing one-week meeting in 2015 when Archbishop Tutu traveled to India to celebrate his good friend, the Dalai Lama’s, eightieth birthday. With the author Douglas Abrams as witness and scribe, these two iconic figures reflected on the question: How can we find joy given life’s inevitable suffering?
You may know Michael Lewis from any of his previous successful books: The Big Short; The Blind Side; Moneyball; Liar’s Poker. In each of those books, Lewis took a timely topic, researched it well and wrote a compelling expose type of book. The Premonition fits that model.
This collection of essays is raunchy, self deprecating and hilarious, although definitely not for everyone. Irby’s writing made me laugh out loud as she describes moving in with her wife, her aging body, working as a writer on Shrill and living on the brink of poverty.
Another book where the title says it all. I have reviewed parenting books for L&L before and I wanted to be sure to pass this on to anyone in the toddler phase of parenting.
Not at all what I expected from the title, this book reads almost like a diary of the year following the sudden and unexpected death of Didion’s husband.
The title almost says it all: a very niche theatre book about the director/choreographer of Hello, Dolly! and 42nd Street. A fascinating portrait of an artist who was always looking to create something bigger and better.
Over the course of the last year and a half, I have challenged myself to read more antiracist literature both to educate myself and hopefully to make positive changes in the lives of my family and community. I bring this up because How The Word Is Passed is easily one of the top three books on this subject that I have read.
If you loved Half Broke Horses, you're going to love The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls’ memoir about growing up all over the American Southwest. Walls captures with humor and a sense of adventure what could have been quite a traumatic childhood, and allows the reader to see the events through her childhood eyes and not judge.
I guess this is my month to review books published when I was too young to read them. Tatum’s classic study of the development of racial identity during adolescence was first published in 1997, although she updated it and added a 75-page introduction in 2017 to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Celebrate might be the wrong word however since the intro takes the reader through the racial injustices of the last 20 years.
I initially bought this book for my son-in-law because grocery stores are in his realm of professional expertise. I am so glad that I asked to borrow it back from him after he had read it. I found Lorr’s non-fiction examination of the American supermarket fascinating on many levels.
I recently heard Erin French being interviewed on NPR and my ears perked up. I realized that she is the chef/owner of The Lost Kitchen, a tiny, impossible-to-get-into restaurant in Freedom, Maine. Ranked among the best restaurants in the United States, we live close enough to go there for dinner – if only we could get a reservation. But the restaurant’s immense success isn’t the only reason French was being interviewed. She recently released Finding Freedom in which she tells the back story to her success: how she worked long years at her father’s diner; broke away to go to college; and returned home after her second year, pregnant and determined to raise the child on her own.
It is still an unusual event when I choose to read a book about history. Even with my conversion by Doris Kearns Goodwin, I do not find myself naturally drawn to this genre. So again, I must celebrate being a member of the Bates Boston Alumna Book Club for forcing me to read books I wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.
In Breath from Salt, Bijal P. Trivedi takes what could have been a slog through scientific detail and creates a fascinating read by weaving the medical research together with the stories of real families desperate to find a cure for cystic fibrosis (CF), a congenital disease that kills most of its victims before they reach adulthood. The reader learns the details of how the cure was found through a combination of decades-long research looking for the causes of, and potential treatments for, the disease with the support of determined parents who fundraised hundreds of millions of dollars towards that research.
Given the title of this book and the subject matter, it is a wonder that I ever chose to read it. But, it appeared on a list of two “must-read” books for people anxious to understand what has brought the United States to the point where insurrectionists storm the Capital building in Washington D.C. and why Americans are so severely divided that they can no longer even talk to onr another.
Every once in a while I like to read a really good social psychology book. I’m not sure that’s exactly how Adam Grant would describe his work. But for me, Give and Take is a succinct, data-driven manifesto on how we interact with and treat the people around us and how that can determine our success.
I had wanted to read Christie Tate’s Group for a while. Reviewers compared it to Lori Gottlieb’s Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a book about a psychotherapist’s experience being in therapy herself, that I enjoyed immensely and recommended to you in a previous L & L Review. (And my co-editor praised in a Second Helping.) Reese Witherspoon selected Group for her book club. Although I was nervous that the book couldn’t possibly live up to its hype, I can happily recommend Group with the highest praise.
Back in June when so many people were sharing lists of resources for those who wanted to educate themselves about anti-racism, this book appeared over and over. I added it to my library cue, but it was in such high demand, I didn’t get to check it out until this month. Although it is a difficult read, I am glad I finally got the chance.
In this powerful novel, Ayad Akhtar tells the story of what it was like growing up in the 1970s and 1980s in America’s heartland the Muslim son of Pakistani immigrant physician parents. His father, a successful cardiologist, embraced the American dream, thrilled with his seemingly unlimited opportunity and all that his money could buy. Even while feeling a part of the U.S., however, father and son experienced discrimination because they were Black. Those experiences were magnified after the fall of the Twin Towers on 9/11, when being Muslim became another reason for discrimination.
October seems to be my month for memoirs. Without realizing it, I chose to review two memoirs in this edition of L&L. They are two of the best books I’ve read recently. Inheritance has been on my radar for a while having appeared on many “must read” lists. I am so glad that I finally opened it up and read it!
