Luke Skywalker Can’t Read: And Other Geeky Truths Ryan Britt Plume (November 2015), trade paper (ISBN 0147517575 / 9780147517579) Nonfiction: pop culture/essays, 224 pages Source: publisher This post contains affiliate links to Indiebound. Just in time for the release of the seventh Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, Ryan Britt discusses this and other cornerstones of over fifty years of nerd culture in a collection of smart and occasionally snarky essays, Luke Skywalker Can’t […]
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician’s First Year Matt McCarthy (Twitter) Audiobook read by the author Crown (April 2015), hardcover (ISBN 9780804138659) Nonfiction: memoir, 336 pages Audiobook: Random House Audio (2015), ISBN 9781101889251 Source: Los Angeles Public Library, via Overdrive This post contains affiliate links to Indiebound. I was never inclined to pursue a medical career, but I find hospitals fascinating places, and medical memoirs have become one of my […]
I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban Malala Yousafzai, with Christina Lamb Audiobook read by Archie Panjabi Back Bay Books (2015), trade paper (ISBN 0316322423 / 9780316322423) Nonfiction: autobiography, 368 pages Source: purchased audiobook (Hachette Audio, 2013, ISBN 9781478979791) This post contains affiliate links to Indiebound. I spent a week last month reading the autobiography of a sixteen-year-old. The idea of a sixteen-year-old publishing an autobiography […]
Love Her, Love Her Not: The Hillary Paradox edited by Joanne Cronrath Bamberger (Twitter) She Writes Press (November 2015), trade paper (ISBN 1631528068 / 9781631528064) Nonfiction: politics/essays, 226 pages A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (November 24, 2015). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted. This post contains affiliate links to Indiebound. […]
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memoir Felicia Day (book website) (Twitter) (Facebook) Audiobook read by the author Touchstone Books (August 2015), hardcover (ISBN 1476785651 / 9781476785653) Nonfiction: memoir, 272 pages Source: Purchased audiobook (Simon & Schuster Audio, August 2015, ISBN 9781442386822) This review contains links to indiebound.org In the introduction to her memoir You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), Felicia Day describes herself as “Comic-Con famous.” In the nerdy, Comic-Con-adjacent circles I hover […]
It’s What I Do: A Photographer’s Life of Love and War Lynsey Addario (Twitter) (Facebook) Audiobook read by Tavia Gilbert Penguin Press (February 2015), hardcover (ISBN 159420537X / 9781594205378) Nonfiction: memoir/journalism, 368 pages Source: Purchased audiobook (Blackstone Audio, February 2015: ISBN 9781481505833, Audible ASIN B00SYNWZBC) This post contains affiliate links to IndieBound. ————————————————————————————————————— Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has done much of her work in a post-9/11 world, in the part of the world […]
Good Mourning: A Memoir Elizabeth Meyer (Twitter) (Facebook), with Caitlin Moscatello Gallery Books (August 25, 2015), hardcover (ISBN 1476783616 / 9781476783611) Nonfiction: memoir, 288 pages A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (September 11, 2015). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted. This post contains affiliate links to Indiebound. Good Mourning is the story […]
I haven’t been a regular viewer of the Weather Channel since I moved to sunny coastal Southern California, but even this region does have its weather issues. (And when weather is a story here, it’s huge.) It’s literally been years since this mostly desert climate has received adequate annual rainfall, and that’s led to a wildfire “season” that lasts nearly year-round. The wildfires clear land that turns into mud and floods when we do get rain. […]
Anchor and Flares: A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service Kate Braestrup Little, Brown and Company (July 14, 2015), Hardcover (ISBN 0316373788 / 9780316373784) Nonfiction: memoir, 336 pages Shelf Awareness for Readers provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, but it was not submitted, published, or compensated by them because it was not completed by deadline. Kate Braestrup’s Anchor and Flares is subtitled “A Memoir of Motherhood, Hope, and Service.” I’d suggest that “hope” and […]
Leaving Before the Rains Come Alexandra Fuller Audiobook read by the author Penguin Press (January 2015), Hardcover (ISBN 1594205868 / 9781594205866) Nonfiction: memoir, 272 pages Source: Purchased audiobook (Recorded Books, Jan. 2015, ISBN 9781490654881, ASIN B00QVWQVSQ) ——————————————————————————————————————— As a daughter of White colonists in southern Africa during a time when those colonies were at war for the independence of their native Black populations, Alexandra Fuller’s youth would have been unsettled enough by virtue of the […]
My Salinger Year Joanna Rakoff (Twitter) (Facebook) Audiobook read by the author Knopf (June 2014), Hardcover (ISBN 0307958000 / 9780307958006) Nonfiction: memoir, 272 pages Source: Purchased audiobook (Audible Studios, June 2014, ASIN B00KAGAMTI) —————————————————————————————————————— When Joanna Rakoff left graduate school in London and returned home to New York City, she was rather at loose ends. As an aspiring poet, a job somewhere in the publishing industry seemed like a good idea for the time being, […]
The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir Vivian Gornick Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 19, 2015), Hardcover (ISBN 0374298602 / 9780374298609) Nonfiction: memoir, 192 pages A version of this review was previously published in Shelf Awareness for Readers (June 9, 2015). Shelf Awareness provided me with a publisher-furnished galley to facilitate the review, and compensated me for the review they received and posted. —————————————————————————————————————– At times The Odd Woman and the City, Vivian Gornick’s collection of […]
