A bookworm journalist blogs on literature and life
I’m in the middle of reading The Long Goodbye by Meaghan O’Rourke, the story of O’Rourke’s experiences after her mother’s death from at age 55. While I don’t actively seek out memoirs about grief, it seems like they have been a big part of my reading lately.
About a month ago, I read an article in the New York Times where O’Rourke and Joyce Carol Oates discuss why they chose to write about their own losses, and why books about loss can resonate with readers.
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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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One Sentence Summary: Between 1915 and 1970 almost six million African American migrated from the South to escape Jim Crow laws, which changed the entire face of the United States.
One Sentence Review: Wilkerson’s book manages to be both epic and deeply personal at the same time, and is the kind of nonfiction that changed the way I think about the world.
Why I Read It: This book was shortlisted for the Indie Lit Awards in nonfiction, and I am a judge for that panel. Opinions expressed in this review are my own, and don’t reflect the thoughts of the panel or reflect our ratings of the book.
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One Sentence Summary: A collection of David Grann’s previously published essays that cover a range of murder, madness, and obsession.
One Sentence Review: Individually, each of the essays is a lot of fun to read, but the collection as a whole seems a little thematically uneven.
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This is, I think, the oddest Narrative Nonfiction 5 list that I’ve put together. I’m not really that passionate about ocean creatures, but I just happened to see a lot of books on this topic come out recently that looked interesting, and the list sort of fell together from there. And, I have a special guest recommendation from a friend Erin, a science journalism student at UW-Madison where I did my Master’s.
But enough with the introduction, on to the books!
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Both Care (Care’s Online Book Club) and Jeanne (Necromancy Never Pays) said The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down was a book they wanted to read because I’ve been so enthusiastic about it. Enthusiastic is probably a nice way of putting it — it’s a narrative nonfiction book that I’m a little bit evangelical about.
See, nonfiction can be very topic focused, which means a particular book could be well-written and interesting and engaging, but not work for someone because the topic is so far off their radar. I’m a reader that loves learning about a huge variety of things, but not everyone is like that.
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For the last week or so I’ve been really in the mood to read, but not so much in the mood to write. But… I’m still like eight reviews behind, so I’m doing my best to kick through the writer’s block and share some book thoughts with you.
Today, two recently nonfiction history books, one that I liked and one that didn’t work as well for me. And they go together because they both have “madness” in the subtitle — a word that I really love.
I present, The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson and The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean.
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There’s a meme going around on Facebook that asks you to pick 15 novelists who’ve influenced you and will always stick with you. You’re supposed to take 15 minutes to compile the list, tag at least 15 friends, and then post your note.
I did that, but then found that I wanted to talk all about the authors I chose – not part of the meme! Luckily, I have a blog where I can blather on as much as I want and no Internet Meme Police are going to stop me.
I already cheated a bit on my list anyway – a lot of them are nonfiction writers. But, they write narrative nonfiction which is sometimes called the “nonfiction novel,” so it counts, right?
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One Sentence Summary: In Candyfreak, Steve Almond goes on an exploration of how the world of candy in the United States in changing and what that might mean.
One Sentence Review: Candyfreak has lots of mature themes about corporate takeover and the role of food with memory, but it’s best feature is the fact that it’s a book that loves and glorifies candy – yum.
Why I Read It: Candy is my favorite part of Halloween, so this seemed like a perfect sort of read to pick up around this time of year.
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Because I’m woefully behind on writing reviews, I’m combining a few of them to try and get caught up. These are three nonfiction books that I enjoyed, for the most part, but ended up not having a ton of stuff to say about. Click the photos to head to the reviews!
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