by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 12, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Elizabeth Norman delivers everything I want from narrative nonfiction in her 2000 book We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of American Nurses Trapped on Bataan by the Japanese. It’s engaging and obviously well-researched, including many interviews with the women...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 4, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Saxons vs. Vikings is the first mini-history book on my shelf from Ed West. And it’s worthy of the subtitle: Alfred the Great and England in the Dark Ages. But it also contains interminable descriptions of battles and considering its brevity that’s saying a lot....
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 19, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Lara Maiklem introduced me to a whole new world in Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames. Not that I haven’t been to London. I have. She takes readers specifically to the foreshore of Britain’s iconic Thames, with all of its quirks and...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Feb 4, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else
Hope Jahren developed the crux of The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where We Go from Here as an introductory class for college students. And fundamentally, it reads this way. There’s a lot of science, some history, a bit of humor, and a smattering of...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 18, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Shoshana Zuboff is a professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, among other academic qualifications. And that informs everything about her book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. It’s more academic than...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 26, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Reading My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg is like dipping my toe into the world of judges and legal briefs. It’s a marginally vast compilation of lectures, briefs, interviews, and other writings from the Supreme Court Justice. They begin early in life—with a school...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 20, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Julia L.F. Goldstein offers environmental research and information in her upcoming book Rethink the Bins: Your Guide to Smart Recycling and Less Household Waste. Her first book, Material Value covered a lot of manufacturing processes and a little household advice. On...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Nov 5, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
From author Colin Dickey, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places is just the kind of book choice readers make in October. It combines history, travel, architecture, urban legend, and philosophy. But I also have to say it wasn’t nearly as gripping as I...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 14, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
From indigenous American botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass is absolutely beautiful in concept and execution. It’s the perfect antidote and balm for the world of 2020. Kimmerer takes indigenous wisdom and marries it with both science and social...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 5, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Stacy Schiff looks for hidden details about the world’s most famous female monarch in Cleopatra: A Life. And, believe me, those details hide among gobs of information about the men she loved. In order to tell Cleopatra’s life, Schiff really tells the stories of Caesar...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 27, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, and it’s an environmental science classic. She was one of the first authors to expose the realities of pesticides to the general public. Now, the world has always had natural pesticides. Sometimes it’s a protective...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 21, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
In Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century Jessica Bruder explores the subculture of houseless individuals. She primarily addresses the decisions that people make in their 50s and 60s and greater. Lacking pensions or savings, they need to take extreme...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 30, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Mark Nepo is the only author with a spiritual bent that I consistently read. And his May 2020 book, The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters is no exception. It’s a peaceful, warm, and caring respite from a world on fire. Nepo talks about topics such as how...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 26, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Les Standiford writes a compelling history of the very rich in South Florida, in his 2019 book Palm Beach, Mar-a-Lago and the Rise of America’s Xanadu. Picking up a book like this is pretty out of character for me. But I lived in Palm Beach County for eight years back...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 25, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
In the midst of anxiety and uncertainty, I turned to Pema Chödrön and her 1997 book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Truthfully, I should probably listen to it on an unending loop right now. Chödrön is an American Buddhist nun, and has been...
by Barbara the Bibliophage | Mar 1, 2020 | LEARN: Everything Else
Dahr Jamail is an adventurer and journalist. His 2019 book, The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption, is both objective and deeply personal. Jamail has spent plenty of time exploring various parts of our world’s outdoors,...
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