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Book Review: On Writing by Stephen King

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 16, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Stephen King offers a memoir and discussion of the creative life in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. I tried to judiciously underline, but found so many valuable nuggets that my book is marked up like a high school English textbook.The book is divided into two major...

Book Review: Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 8, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else, RESIST: Social Justice

Johann Hari did so much more than enlighten me in his book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. I met all the players in this war, from the government officials to the cartels and dealers, to those on the global leading edge of...

Book Review: When We Were Arabs by Massoud Hayoun

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 2, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Massoud Hayoun combines two shorter books into one with his debut nonfiction, When We Were Arabs. It’s a family memoir, a political history, and a commentary. He uses his own family’s experience, primarily that of his maternal grandparents, to illustrate a wide...

Book Review: The DNA of Democracy by Richard C. Lyons

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 7, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Richard C. Lyons takes on an ambitious project in his history book, The DNA of Democracy. It begins with Egyptian Pharaohs and ends in the early 20th century. And at just over 375 pages, it’s impossible for the author to provide extensive detail on any one time period...

Book Review: The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 28, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Alan Weisman considers a conundrum in his book The World Without Us. Can we look at the past in order to see the future? And what if that future didn’t include humans? What would the earth and its revised balance of organisms look and act like?To do this, Weisman...

Book Review: The Pun Also Rises by John Pollack

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jun 20, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

John Pollack prefaces his exploration of puns with his experience at the world pun championship. This was the most intense part of his book, The Pun Also Rises: How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History, and Made Wordplay More than Some Antics. The...

Book Review: The Bonjour Effect by Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 10, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Freelance journalists Julie Barlow and Jean-Benoit Nadeau moved with their daughters to Paris for a year to write this book. As native Quebecers they were already fluent in French, and in fact had already lived in Paris some years earlier. And yet, they found that the...

Book Review: Unmentionable by Therese Oneill

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Apr 7, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Apparently, I get easily depressed these days. I thought Therese Oneill’s book, Unmentionable, was funny. Until it was just overwhelmingly sad and depressing. Sometimes history can be like that, though. And this book focuses on various parts of women’s lives in the...

Book Review: Women’s Minyan by Naomi Ragen

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 28, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else, RESIST: Feminism

Naomi Ragen is an acclaimed novelist, who wrote and produced this play set in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family and community. Women’s Minyan is about Chana, a married mother of twelve, who leaves her home and family. Two years after she leaves, the play opens as Chana...

Book Review: Forensics by Val McDermid

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 11, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Val McDermid covers exactly what’s in the subtitle for this book, and much more. The full title is Forensics: What Bugs, Burns, Prints, DNA and More Tell Us About Crime. Expect plenty about each sub-topic.In Forensics, she explains many (if not all) of the common ways...

Book Review: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 23, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes & Other Lessons from the Crematory is an examination of death and the so-called death industry from Caitlin Doughty. By death industry she means how funeral homes, mortuaries, crematories, medical facilities and government agencies like...

Book Review: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 19, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Sapiens covers a lot of ground in its 400+ pages, and author Yuval Noah Harari makes it readable. The title’s subheading, “A Brief History of Humankind,” is telling but incomplete. There’s much more than just history here. At the same time, Harari makes clear in the...

Book Review: The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jan 9, 2019 | LEARN: Everything Else

Author Jeff Guinn divides The Road to Jonestown into three parts. The final third of the book deals with the Jonestown endgame, which felt most familiar to me. It’s the remaining two-thirds that was new and most interesting. If you’ve ever wondered how a demagogue...

Book Review: Living an Orgasmic Life by Xanet Pailet

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 25, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else

Xanet Pailet is a woman with a cause. She wants everyone to begin Living an Orgasmic Life, and her book offers plenty of ideas and information. Her subtitle, Heal Yourself and Awaken Your Pleasure also gives you some clues about where she’s going with this....

Book Review: Typhoid Mary by Anthony Bourdain

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 23, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else

Anthony Bourdain enters the world of history with his short book, Typhoid Mary. While he’s best known for his memoirs, this is an exposé and social commentary. With typical Tony snark he tells the story of Mary Mallon, christened Typhoid Mary by the press. Mary was an...

Book Review: Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries by Kory Stamper

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 30, 2018 | LEARN: Everything Else

Near the end of Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries, Kory Stamper says, “We don’t just want our words to have meaning, we want them to mean something, and the difference is palpable.” In her book, which is both memoir and exposition, Stamper finds the...
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