Category Archives: Nonfiction – General

A Review of Benjamin Lorr’s Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga (by Bethany)

Posted on October 31, 2014 by lfpbe

  I was the kid who watched Annie and wished I was an orphan. Even now, reading a book about Scientology makes me itch to sign a billion-year contract, and a documentary about the FLDS will send me off to … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Benjamin Lorr, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Memoir/Biography, Nonfiction - Sports/Recreation, Reviews by Bethany | 2 Comments

A Review of John Durant’s The Paleo Manifesto: Ancient Wisdom for Lifelong Health (by Bethany)

Posted on October 7, 2014 by lfpbe

I read this book not because I’m planning to go on the Paleo diet but because I thought (correctly) that it would affirm my general belief that the world has been screwy since the Industrial Revolution. (The world was screwy before … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, John Durant, Nonfiction - Food and Cooking, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Science, Reviews by Bethany | 3 Comments

A Review of Norman F. Cantor’s In the Wake of the Plague: The Black Death and the World it Made (by Bethany)

Posted on August 11, 2014 by lfpbe

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 →

Posted in Authors, Non-fiction - History, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Science, Norman F. Cantor, Reviews by Bethany | Leave a comment

A Review of Kim Barker’s The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan (by Bethany)

Posted on July 28, 2014 by lfpbe

This book was nothing at all like I expected. I bought it (before my book-buying fast, I should add) when it became clear that one of the pieces of fiction I’m working on might need to include some farcical elements … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Kim Barker, Non-fiction - History, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Memoir/Biography, Nonfiction - Politics/Current Events, Nonfiction - Travel, Reviews by Bethany | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

A Review of Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English’s Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers (by Bethany)

Posted on June 8, 2014 by lfpbe

Recently I was accused of planning a witch-themed English I syllabus. I had done nothing of the kind, of course, but once I thought about it for a minute or two I realized that it was a great idea. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Barbara Ehrenreich and Dierdre English, Non-fiction - History, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Science, Reviews by Bethany | Leave a comment

Some First-World Complaints About My Life (Loosely Disguised as a Review of Alan Sepinwall’s The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever)

Posted on April 17, 2014 by lfpbe

The revolution was televised – but I missed it because I was too busy grading papers. I have such mixed feelings about the intensity of my teaching career. On the one hand, I loved my work. Every time I see … Continue reading →

Posted in Alan Sepinwall, Authors, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Media and Pop Culture, Reviews by Bethany | 2 Comments

Out Like a Lamb

Posted on March 31, 2014 by lfpbe

I just wrote a post about Thoreau. More specifically, it was about Transcendentalist literature, which is the Classics Club’s theme for April. I took a bunch of pictures of my nasty old falling-apart copy of Walden, with a focus on … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Book-related personal narratives, Henry David Thoreau, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Memoir/Biography, Reviews by Bethany, Transcendentalist Literature (Classics Club - April 2014 | Leave a comment

A Review of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Posted on March 30, 2014 by lfpbe

I’m a little sorry that Feminism Month is almost over. I knew from the beginning that my goals were too ambitious, but I’m still sorry I didn’t reread Mating, which is one of my favorite contemporary novels, and I also … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Feminist Literature (Classics Club - March 2014), Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Literary Studies, Reviews by Bethany, Virginia Woolf | Leave a comment

Thoughts on Writers’ Workspaces and on Alice Munro’s “The Office”

Posted on March 16, 2014 by lfpbe

There’s no question that Alice Munro’s short story “The Office” – from her first collection, Dance of the Happy Shades, published in 1968 – was written with Virginia Woolf in mind. The story’s opening paragraph is an arrow pointing directly … Continue reading →

Posted in Alice Munro, Authors, Book-related personal narratives, Feminist Literature (Classics Club - March 2014), Fiction - general, Fiction - Important Award Winners, Fiction - literary, Fiction - Short Stories, Nonfiction - Essays, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Literary Studies, Reviews by Bethany, Virginia Woolf | 6 Comments

Some Brief Thoughts from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own

Posted on March 14, 2014 by lfpbe

I had hoped to be finished with A Room of One’s Own by now, and I was going to write about Woolf’s manifesto side by side with Alice Munro’s story “The Office.” But it’s well past dinner and I still … Continue reading →

Posted in Authors, Feminist Literature (Classics Club - March 2014), Nonfiction - Essays, Nonfiction - General, Nonfiction - Literary Studies, Reviews by Bethany, Virginia Woolf | Leave a comment