A bookworm journalist blogs on literature and life
The Taliban Shuffle was a book that hit on many of my book weaknesses – journalism, the Middle East, foreign politics, and the role of women in all of those fields. So in that respect, I should have been completely in love with The Taliban Shuffle. Except I wasn’t, at least not as entirely as I expected, and I cannot figure out why.
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Because of a little mailing fluke, I have two copies of a book I am super excited to read – PAGE ONE: Inside the New York Times from Public Affairs. The book is a collection of essays on the future of journalism, timed to coincide with a recently-released documentary about the newspaper. The essays range from pieces about The New York Times to stories on the changing landscape of journalism and finally to some thoughts on how citizens can think about the media.
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As I sat down to start writing my review for today, I realized I have a bunch of books in the queue that I just don’t have a lot to say about. They all happen to be fiction, which is probably because I’m out of practice writing fiction reviews. I also didn’t take take any notes on these books, which made writing long reviews impossible.
I kept all of these to two paragraphs (super short for me!), so if you have more specific questions about any of the books, leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them as soon as I can.
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I check out and buy a lot of books that end up getting returned or languishing on my shelves unread for reasons that have nothing to do with the book. I wanted to find a way to highlight those books, so decided to start a new weekly-ish feature called “Off the Stacks.”
Each week in “Off the Stacks” I’ll highlight one recent nonfiction that I want to read but, because I can only read so many books, may not get to try. I’m hoping that by highlighting titles this way, I can encourage other people to give the book a try, and, if it’s great, consider nominating it later this year in the Indie Lit Awards.
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Review: I read Nothing Left to Burn midway through the Read-a-Thon and know that I enjoyed it, but I’m having a complete brain malfunction trying to talk about it. I was impressed with the way Varner was able to build tension in the story even though at least part of the mystery — his grandfather’s history as an arsonist — is disclosed early in the book. There’s still a strong tension as Varner uncovers the clues and puts together the stories of his past.
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On Friday afternoon I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, NPR MonkeySee’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, which was discussing upcoming summer movies the various participants were excited about. One person mentioned The Help, which will be coming out this August.
I knew the movie was coming out, but hadn’t seen a trailer yet, so popped over to YouTube to find one.
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Today I have a guest post over at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog for Anastasia’s monthly “Classroom Takeover” feature. I wrote my post for a class called Journalists Who Say “I” — a class that would focus on discussing a particular kind of narrative nonfiction in an English department. My favorite part about writing the post — other than imagining what a spectacular teacher I’d be (ha!) — is that I got to form my class entirely around books I’ve already read and reviewed over on the blog, so long-time readers might be familiar with the titles.
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One Sentence Summary: When Neil White was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for bank fraud, he was sent to Careville, Louisiana, home to the last people in the United States disfigured by leprosy.
One Sentence Review: White’s memoir has the ingredients to be fascinating — and in parts, it is — but when writing about himself White manages to make the most unique stories feel flat.
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Two Sentence Summary: From the book jacket — “On June 8, 1966, an EF-5 tornado cut a 22-mile swath across eastern Kansas and straight through Topeka, Kansas’s capital city. When it was over, 16 people were dead, more than 500 were injured, and property damage had reached $100 million.”
One Sentence Review: The level of detail and strong use of visuals make this book an impressive and engrossing read.
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