Dec 5, 2024
Review of All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me by Patrick Bringley
Met Museum guard Bringley reflects on the decade he spent guarding priceless works of art, encountering a fascinating range of...
Oct 25, 2024
Six More Illuminating Memoirs to Lose Yourself In
More Memoirs I've Loved I love a good memoir, one that offers a glimpse or a deep dive into the life and pivotal experiences of another...
Oct 22, 2024
Review of What I Ate in One Year (and Related Thoughts) by Stanley Tucci
The gems of What I Ate in One Year are, as promised in the title, the food-related moments Stanley Tucci delves into over the course of...
Sep 18, 2024
Review of Among the Bros: A Fraternity Crime Story by Max Marshall
Among the Bros is a disturbing true story of increasing greed, shocking carelessness with human life, drug addiction, tragic turns and...
Jun 4, 2024
Review of Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley
Crosley's memoir traces a treasured friendship and the gutting loss of that dear friend. She's vulnerable enough to allow the reader in...
May 23, 2024
Review of The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion by Barbara Brown Taylor
Barbara Brown Taylor is one of my favorite authors, but this slim, early book of hers didn't offer the candid, thought-provoking, wise...
May 17, 2024
Six Illuminating Memoirs to Dive Into
Do you love reading memoirs like I do? I love digging into the story of someone's life--notable because of chance, circumstance, or...
May 9, 2024
Review of The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year by Margaret Renkl
This gorgeously written set of fifty-two love letters to nature encourage reflection and urge the reader to pause to honor even the less...
May 3, 2024
Six Nonfiction and Memoir Reads I Loved in the Past Year
Six Great Bossy Nonfiction Reads I promise that this is the last roundup list of 2023 favorites, which seems appropriate now that we have...
Jan 10, 2024
Review of Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
Atul Gawande writes clearly and poignantly about the search to achieve maximum well-being rather than prolonging diminished life at all...
Dec 6, 2023
Review of Madame Restell by Jennifer Wright
Madame Restell is compelling nonfiction about an ambitious feminist in pre-Gilded Age New York and her profession as a surgeon offering...
Nov 8, 2023
Review of They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies that Raised Us by Prachi Gupta
In her memoir, Gupta explores the stressful, tragic disconnect between the "perfect minority" image her father demanded of the family and...
Oct 11, 2023
Review of The Price You Pay for College by Ron Lieber
"Success here means knowing how the system works and who pays what and why. It is about figuring out what is worth paying extra for--and...
Oct 10, 2023
Review of Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni
"Does a prestigious college make you successful? Or do you do that for yourself?" But for every person whose contentment and fulfillment...
Aug 31, 2023
Review of A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella L. Bird
Isabella Bird's nonfiction account of her 1873 travels through the rugged, wondrous American West is full of her irresistible...
Aug 29, 2023
Review of Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions by Jeffrey Selingo
Fascinating, sometimes infuriating firsthand peeks at admissions procedures and priorities; ways to evaluate buyer schools and seller...
Aug 8, 2023
Review of A Fever in the Heartland: The Ku Klux Klan's Plot to Take Over America by Timothy Egan
In this narrative nonfiction, Egan explores the Klan's explosive growth and power in the 1920s in states like Indiana and beyond, while...
May 25, 2023
Review of The Light of the World: A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander
ICYMI: Poet Elizabeth Alexander writes a gorgeous account of her love affair with her husband and the trauma of his sudden death in a...
May 5, 2023
Six of My Favorite Nonfiction Reads from the Past Year
Six Bossy Favorite Nonfiction Reads Fridays are for highlighting books I've loved! I thought these titles were fascinating, surprised me,...
May 4, 2023
Review of How to Say Goodbye by Wendy MacNaughton
A former artist-in-residence at a hospice, MacNaughton distills the process of witnessing a loved one's end of life into a few elements...