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Category Archives: Non-fiction – History
Thoughts on A.H. Jones’ Constantine and the Conversion of Europe (by Bethany)
About 75 pages of this book were assigned for one of the MOOC’s I’m taking, and since I’m a bit of an overachiever (at least in College Education 2.0 I’m an overachiever; in the first go-round not so much), I … Continue reading
A Review of Richard Rodriguez’s Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father (by Bethany)
Richard Rodriguez’s memoir Hunger of Memory has been a favorite of mine ever since I first read it as a freshman in college. The American-born son of Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez wrote in that book about juggling two cultures: the close-knit, … Continue reading
A Review of Norman F. Cantor’s In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Made (by Bethany)
The interconnection of history and science is one of my favorite topics to read about. I took a memorable interdisciplinary course in college called ‘Plagues, Science, and the Humanistic Vision,” and I’ve also taken a fair number of literature classes … Continue reading
A Review of David Talbot’s Season of the Witch
When I was very young – about two or three – I had a recurring dream about a hillside that looked exactly like the hillside in the opening credits of the TV series Little House on the Prairie. You remember … Continue reading
A Review of Rick Steves’ Travel as a Political Act (by Bethany)
Up until recently, I worked at a chain of tutoring and learning centers in the Bay Area. Modeled on the Asian-style “cram school,” these centers offered one-on-one tutoring, SAT-, ACT-, and AP-prep classes, and other classes for younger students designed … Continue reading
A Review of Jill Lepore’s The Whites of their Eyes: The Tea Party’s Revolution and the Battle over American History (by Bethany)
Postcards from Purgatory is not a political blog, and thank goodness for that. If we were, there would be a chance that we would become really famous someday and get invited to events where we would have to make small … Continue reading
A Review of Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir
I just found out this week that back in high school Jill thought I was “so cool” because I owned a copy of The Satanic Verses. This is how lucky I’ve been in my life: by fifteen, I had found … Continue reading
One Pound, Nine Ounces: A Review of Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman (by Bethany)
TBCWL So Far: 3 pounds, 1 ounce I know people who hate war but love football, and I don’t even want to think about the kind of cognitive dissonance that has to happen inside their heads to make that weird … Continue reading
Postcards From Purgatory 