Book of Ages was a 2013 National Book Award finalist in the non-fiction category. Historian Jill Lepore pieces together the life of Ben Franklin’s sister Jane and in doing so not only reveals the life of a fascinating “ordinary” 18th-century woman who happened to be the beloved little sister of a Founding Father, but also demonstrates her own prodigious skills as an historian. Lepore’s work is specifically about Jane but more broadly about history and historians, biography and novels, and determining whose lives are worth […]
That’s More Like It, Mary!
I have no idea why the author & book information was left out; it is there in the draft. Anyway, the book is Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal by Mary Roach. This is the purchase link: http://www.amazon.com/Gulp-Adventures-Alimentary-Mary-Roach/dp/0393081575. Ah, this is what a Mary Roach book should be.
Anarchy in Italy
Graphic memoirs are in a real danger of becoming an old hat. The genre seemed so groundbreaking in the early 90’s when Art Spiegelman finished Maus, or even in 2000 with Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and there are still some interesting work published under the umbrella “graphic memoir.” And it’s a good thing that the new comic book releases shelve in our local library calls to me like heroin calls to Iggy Pop, or I might have missed one of them, namely Ulli Lust’s
The true crime here is lackadaisical proofreading.
Did Lizzie Borden brutally murder her parents with a hatchet? Did anyone bother to proofread this book? What happened to the rest of this post, including the link to my review? We may never know.
Badkittyuno’s Review #6: Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
“Rule number one: Always stick around for one more drink. That’s when things happen. That’s when you find out everything you want to know.” Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is probably the best of the (six) books I’ve read so far this year. I’m hardly surprised, since I loved The City of Falling Angels by Berendt as well. He has a great writing style that makes his stories easy to read, and hard to remember that they’re not fiction. The events of Midnight in […]
The Tender Memoir You Might Not Expect From a Radical Feminist
I hope I will not be criticized for enjoying Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood simply as a childhood memoir of well-known feminist lecturer and author bell hooks. It was surprising to me how sweet and tender her quickly sketched remembrances of her childhood could be, as they were unexpected from someone so admired (and by some reviled) for her outspokenness and advocacy for and about women, especially women of color. Mrs Smith Reads Bone Black by bell hooks