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Category Archives: Nonfiction – Politics/Current Events
A Review of J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
On the one hand, reacting to the Trump victory by immediately reading a bunch of books about poor people is a condescending and despicable thing to do. I feel a little dirty about it, honestly. On the other hand, the … 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
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
Postcards From Purgatory 