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Cultish — Amanda Montell (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 22, 2022 | LEARN: Everything Else

Amanda Montell explores the unique ways cults use language to control their followers in her 2021 book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism. As you’d expect, she includes the phenomenon of some well-known quasi-religious organizations like Scientology and Jim Jones’...

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 5, 2022 | RESIST: Politics, RESIST: Social Justice

The essays in The 1619 Project, created and edited by Nikole Hannah-Jones and the New York Times Magazine, are more vital reading than ever. This week’s events at the Supreme Court have proven that. We’re watching the dismantling of privacy and human rights here in...

Andy Weir — Project Hail Mary (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 22, 2021 | RELAX: Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi

Andy Weir creates a science fiction masterwork in Project Hail Mary. It deserves to be on every “Best of 2021” list, particularly the audiobook lists. There’s copious science within this adventure story among the stars of a distant galaxy. And also considerably more...

The Warmth of Other Suns — Isabel Wilkerson (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 5, 2021 | RESIST: Social Justice

The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration is Isabel Wilkerson’s first tour de force, published in 2010. Her second is Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which I reviewed earlier this year. Reading them in reverse order didn’t change the...

Nicole Bell — What Lurks in the Woods (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 12, 2021 | LEARN: Medical Memoir

Nicole Bell tells her story of a thriving marriage unexpectedly disrupted in What Lurks in the Woods: Struggle and Hope in the Midst of Chronic Illness. Once I started it, I couldn’t put it down. Bell and her husband have two young kids. She lands a dream job, they...

Kevin Cook – The Burning Blue (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Sep 15, 2021 | LEARN: Everything Else

Kevin Cook does the narrative nonfiction genre proud in The Burning Blue: The Untold Story of Christa McAuliffe and NASA’s Challenger Disaster. His story of America’s Teacher in Space and the whole Challenger story kept me absorbed on every page. Once I started,...

Carol Anderson — One Person, No Vote (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 20, 2021 | RESIST: Politics

In 2018 I saw Carol Anderson speak about One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy. I’d just spent my first campaign season knocking doors to canvass for candidates I cared about. Anderson’s talk convinced me that voter suppression is the...

Jacob Soboroff on Human Cruelty—Separated: Inside an American Tragedy (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 11, 2020 | RESIST: Social Justice

Despite finishing Separated by Jacob Soboroff over a week ago, reviewing it is a struggle for me. It’s a complex book, so I worry I won’t do it justice. At the same time, at the center of it is the human ability to be cruel. And in this case children, even babies,...

The New Barack Obama Memoir: A Promised Land (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Dec 2, 2020 | RESIST: Politics

I spent 30 hours listening to Barack Obama in November. Hint: It was the audiobook of his recently released memoir, A Promised Land. I consider it time well spent, as well as an enjoyable listen. And even though I was alive and politically aware during the events of...

Amitav Ghosh: Gun Island is Socially Conscious Storytelling (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Oct 6, 2020 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

Gun Island is my first Amitav Ghosh, but certainly not my last. I love his style and this book. I’m particularly drawn to Ghosh’s ability to weave various current news topics into a compelling story. It grounds the narrative solidly in our own time period, and...

Robin Wall Kimmerer—Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Book Review)

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...

Brittany K. Barnett: A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Aug 25, 2020 | RESIST: Social Justice

Brittany K. Barnett tells a series of moving and disturbing stories in her new memoir, A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom. If you read social justice books like The New Jim Crow or Locking Up Our Own, you must get your hands on a copy of this...

Margaret Walker, Classic Southern Historical Fiction and Jubilee (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 4, 2020 | RELAX: Historical Fiction

Reviewing Jubilee by Margaret Walker, a classic piece of historical fiction, is a daunting thing. Walker crafts a story, “inspired by the memories of her maternal grandmother, Elvira Ware Dozier.” (see source below) The main character is Vyry, a woman born on a...

From R.L. Maizes: A Feel-Good Novel called Other People’s Pets (Book Review)

by Barbara the Bibliophage | Jul 2, 2020 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

Only R.L. Maizes would have thought to combine burglary with animal empaths. And she does just that in her sparkling, feel-good novel, Other People’s Pets. (Publishing on 14 July 2020.) I loved her 2019 short story collection, so I’m not surprised I feel the same way...

Book Review: And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 16, 2020 | LEARN: Chronic Illness

Randy Shilts creates a tour de force history of the early years of the AIDS epidemic in And the Band Played On: Politics, People and the AIDS Epidemic. It’s 600 pages of intense details, drawn from thousands of interviews with 900+ people. Despite being published in...

Book Review: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

by Barbara the Bibliophage | May 13, 2020 | RELAX: Other Relaxation

Carol Rifka Brunt created a debut novel with a huge emotional wallop. Tell the Wolves I’m Home hits the pain of teen years, family tensions, grief, and a looming virus. It’s set in the 1980s, when AIDS was just coming into the national consciousness. June, our 14-year...
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