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Category Archives: Nonfiction – General
A Review of William Rosen’s Justinian’s Flea: The First Great Plague and the End of the Roman Empire (by Bethany)
This is the sort of history book I love – multidisciplinary, oriented around synthesis rather than analysis, and not afraid to go into detail about a sex act that a certain former empress of the Eastern Roman Empire liked to … Continue reading
Thoughts on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me (by Bethany)
I read this book in spite of its popularity, not because of it. I read it in a day and can’t quite imagine doing otherwise – this isn’t the sort of volume from which one can be easily distracted. In … Continue reading
To Stave Off That Feeling of Helplessness (And, OK, Also Because HAMILTON SOUNDTRACK)
When I started reading The Federalist a couple of nights ago, I didn’t know that it was about to become a blog challenge. I just thought I was expressing my abiding love for THE HAMILTON SOUNDTRACK in a characteristically nerdy … Continue reading
Thoughts on Christopher Hitchens’ Thomas Jefferson: Author of America
Robert Frost has been much on my mind lately – probably because my birthday is approaching. Along with Philip Larkin, Frost is the poet that best captures for me the slow but orderly forward motion of time. At the same … Continue reading
A Review of Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
Sarah Vowell has been a favorite of mine for a few years, ever since I read The Wordy Shipmates. If I could stomach NPR, I probably would have known of her sooner. Sarah Vowell does for American history what I … Continue reading
Thoughts on Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (by Jill)
I don’t even know how to begin talking about this book. Atul Gawande is a surgeon who has written several books before this one. Being Mortal is, essentially, about dying in a time in human history when more can … Continue reading
For Copy Editors Everywhere
I read a fantastic book of short stories this weekend – Thom Jones’ The Pugilist at Rest – and I really want to review it for you, but I don’t quite have the wherewithal for that now. I’ve been copy-editing … Continue reading
A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany)
Even a bookblogger needs a refresher course sometimes. I’ve found Thomas C. Foster’s books How to Read Literature Like a Professor and Twenty-Five Novels That Shaped America enormously helpful in my work as a teacher and as a reader. I … Continue reading
Thoughts on Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (by Jill)
Yes, I’m aware that I’m reading this book about nine years after the rest of the world discovered The Omnivore’s Dilemma. In my defense, I did purchase it when it was in the height of its popularity, but, well, … Continue reading
A Review of James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606
I thoroughly enjoyed this intense study of the year 1606 in the life and career of William Shakespeare, though I thought that an equally appropriate subtitle for the book would have been “England in 1606.” I’m not suggesting that Shakespeare … Continue reading
Postcards From Purgatory 