Review by Linda Lappin Travel writing has been pronounced dead at various times over the last century, only to spring back with new vigor, enticing new readers to lace up…
Category: Nonfiction
The Fall of the House of Dixie by Bruce Levine
The Fall of the House of Dixie is a fascinating account, extensively researched and written in an accessible style.
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
Review by David Starkey For those of us who love Joan Didion’s writing, we who can imagine her arched eyebrow as she crafts another perfectly turned phrase that is both…
Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South by Margaret Renkl
Review by David Starkey Living blue in the red states is no easy matter, but New York Times “contributing opinion writer” Margaret Renkl, whose beat is the “flora, fauna, politics…
How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith
Review by Brian Tanguay As the controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments and tumult over critical race theory makes evident, American history is contentious and unsettled, with nostalgia and…
Until Justice Be Done: America’s First Civil Rights Movement, From The Revolution to Reconstruction By Kate Masur
Review by Brian Tanguay Prior to reading Until Justice Be Done by Kate Masur, a historian who teaches at Northwestern University, I assumed that the critical period in the struggle…
Gilded Age Cocktails: History, Lore, and Recipes from America’s Golden Age by Cecelia Tichi
by George Yatchisin If you’ve ever wondered how historical nonfiction can be dry like a martini and not dry like a textbook tome, you need to pick up Cecelia Tichi’s…
The Cruelty Is The Point: The Past, Present and Future of Trump’s America by Adam Serwer
Review by Brian Tanguay When Donald J. Trump ran for president in 2016 he made many promises, from rebuilding America’s infrastructure to reducing the federal deficit to replacing the Affordable…
The Dreamt Land: Chasing Water and Dust Across California by Mark Arax
Review by Brian Tanguay On the coast of California where I live drought has been a constant feature of the past twenty years. Enough rain some years made us forget,…
We Are What We Eat: A Slow Food Manifesto by Alice Waters with Bob Carrau and Cristina Mueller
Review by George Yatchisin In Charles Laughton’s fantastic 1955 fairy tale noir Night of the Hunter, Robert Mitchum’s curdled preacher is infamous for having “love” and “hate” tattooed across the…