Hunger by Roxane Gay

Hunger by Roxane Gay
Read by Roxane Gay
Published June 2017 by HarperCollins Publishers
Source: audiobook checked out from my library

Publisher's Summary:
“I ate and ate and ate in the hopes that if I made myself big, my body would be safe. I buried the girl I was because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. . . . I was trapped in my body, one that I barely recognized or understood, but at least I was safe.”

In her phenomenally popular essays and long-running Tumblr blog, Roxane Gay has written with intimacy and sensitivity about food and body, using her own emotional and psychological struggles as a means of exploring our shared anxieties over pleasure, consumption, appearance, and health. As a woman who describes her own body as “wildly undisciplined,” Roxane understands the tension between desire and denial, between self-comfort and self-care. In Hunger, she explores her past—including the devastating act of violence that acted as a turning point in her young life—and brings readers along on her journey to understand and ultimately save herself.

With the bracing candor, vulnerability, and power that have made her one of the most admired writers of her generation, Roxane explores what it means to learn to take care of yourself: how to feed your hungers for delicious and satisfying food, a smaller and safer body, and a body that can love and be loved—in a time when the bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes.

My Thoughts:

"It turns out that when a wrenching past is confronted with wisdom and bravery, the outcome can be compassion and enlightenment—both for the reader who has lived through this kind of unimaginable pain, and for the reader who knows nothing of it. Roxane Gay shows us how to be decent to ourselves, and decent to one another. HUNGER is an amazing achievement in more ways than I can count." - Ann Patchett

Yes, Ann Patchett, yes.

This is one of those reviews I struggle with, not because I have have mixed feelings about it but because I have so many feelings about it. "Mom" me wanted to take Gay into my arms to comfort her. "Fat" me could relate with Gay's pain about her body. "Lane Bryant Fat" me was slapped upside the head and told that she had no idea what it was like to be the size Gay is and has been, a size which makes finding clothes that fit almost impossible, even in stores made for heavier women.

A terrible, terrible thing happened to Gay when she was twelve years old. She never told her parents what happened until she began writing about it well into her adult years. She has never fully recovered from it. She began putting on weight to try to feel safe, to make herself unappealing to men who might want to hurt her.  But being fat has hurt her in other ways, from her parents' reaction to her weight gain when she went off to boarding school to the way society looks down at her for her size and her inability to discipline her behaviors.

In her forties, Gay is healing now from the trauma she suffered as a young girl and the many abuses she has suffered since then. She is reconnecting with her family and working on having healthy relationships. But the fact of her "unruly" body and that pain that is never far from the surface make this book a tough read. Gay is brutally honest about her own failings and about the failings of society in dealing with those whose bodies do not fit what we consider "normal."

This book will speak to those who are fat (Gay's preferred word) or who have suffered from sexual abuse and self-image problems. For everyone else, I only hope it will make you more empathetic.

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson

The Trial of Lizzie Borden by Cara Robertson
Read by Amanda Carlin
Published March 2019 by Simon and Schuster
Source: audiobook checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:

When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her murder trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence. Was she a cold-blooded murderess or an unjustly persecuted lady? Did she or didn’t she?

An essential piece of American mythology, the popular fascination with the Borden murders has endured for more than one hundred years. Told and retold in every conceivable genre, the murders have secured a place in the American pantheon of mythic horror. Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper accounts, unpublished local accounts, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is [a book] that offers a window into America in the Gilded Age.

My Thoughts:

Lizzie Borden took an ax,

Gave her mother forty whacks.

When she saw what she had done,

She gave her father forty-one.

Why ever in the world an elementary-school girl in the 1960’s would have grown up knowing this ditty? Was it a rhyme we used when jumping rope? How gruesome is that for preteens? Then in1975, I watched a made-for-t.v. movie about the killings, starring Elizabeth Montgomery (of Bewitched fame) and the story has stuck with me ever since then. Yet, for some reason I had never picked up a book about the murders. So when I came across this book on my library’s website, I knew it was time to remedy that situation.

Cara Robertson is a lawyer (she clerked for the U. S. Supreme Court) who has been researching the Borden case since 1990. She’s done an impressive job of pulling together the research and facts of this case. Moreover, she’s managed to put it all out there for the reader without pointing the reader in one direction or another. And she’s managed to do share her research in a way that brings the case to life: the image of the jurors miserably being shuttled about, the oppressive heat in the courtroom, the little bouquets of flowers Lizzie held each day, the sartorial splendor of the esteemed counsels, the claustrophobia of the Borden household, and clamor to be a part of the proceedings.

Lizzie, Andrew, Abby, Emma Borden - top, left to right

Robertson lays out the cases of both the defense and the prosecution, both their strengths and their weaknesses. She explores the ways that class, gender, and ethnicity impacted the investigation and the trial. In exploring this trial so thoroughly, Robertson also points out the difficulties in all trials – contradicting witnesses and experts, society’s expectations of how a defendant “should” behave, allowable evidence, bias, egos, the role of the media, and all of the ways the investigation can be compromised.

While Kirkus Reviews says Robertson “manages to avoid the tedious repetitiveness inherent in a trial,” I did find that the book occasionally repetitive. This might have been because it sometimes felt like Robertson was trying to pack in every bit of information she had discovered in her research. And while Amanda Carlin does a fine job reading the book, I did wish that I had read this in print so I could refer back to some passages. Nothing I can see says that the book includes maps or lists of the players, but I think that would have been helpful.

I know you’re all wondering if Lizzie really did take an ax and murder her father and stepmother. Armed with all of the facts, I can’t see who else could have done it or why. But because of the sloppy police work and the questions raised by the defense, I doubt I could have voted to convict Lizzie Borden.

National Geographic History At A Glance

National Geographic History At A Glance
Published November 2019 by National Geographic
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Beautifully illustrated, this penetrating book offers a sweeping view of humanity from prehistory to the modern day, presented in a unique time-line format.

Sweeping but succinct, this comprehensive reference presents all of world history in a browsable format featuring more than three dozen maps, along with hundreds of photographs and illustrations. From the dawn of humankind to today’s global complexities, this book provides a compelling reminder that history is unfolding all around us.

The epic story of humanity on all seven continents is explored through a unique design that combines concise essays with expansive time lines that invite deeper reading on milestone moments, explained within the broader context of the era. The final chapter highlights such recent events as SpaceX’s heavy rocket launch, the restoration of U.S./Cuba relations, and the historical trends that were the precursors to the state of our world today.

Informative and richly illustrated, this authoritative take on world history will be a compelling reference you’ll turn to again and again.


My Thoughts:
It's that time of year - time for big, dramatic books to appear in the bookstores. We love to give books but it can be hard to make sure you're choosing a book that the person you're shopping for rather than a book that just appeals to you. Here is a book that's going to solve that problem. My boys would have loved this book when they were in grade school. My husband is stealing this book as soon as I write this review. My dad, who is always picking up books to learn, would find plenty to love.

What makes it such a great book for so many people?

Well, it's National Geographic so you already know that it's filled with beautiful photography and that's it's well researched. The chapters are divided into eras so it's easy to find a specific time period you're interested in learning more about; each chapter has an overview of that time period and a "World At A Glance" map showing the key events throughout the world in the time period. Each chapter is further broken down into shorter periods of time with additional maps, breakout boxes on specific events or landmarks, and essays.

Our favorite thing about this book, though, is the time line that runs through all of the chapters. The time line gives the history of four regions: The Americas, Europe, Middle East and Africa, and Asia and Oceania and allows readers to see what was going on in each region at any given time compared to the other regions. The time line compares Politics and Power, Geography and Environment, Culture and Religion, Science and Technology, and People and Society. For example, on the time line  for 1545-1560, we can see that in Europe, Mary became Queen of England at about the same time as the Tutsi established the kingdom of Rwanda and the Mongols crossed the Great Wall and laid siege to Beijing.

I think this would make a great reference book to have in your home for almost all school-aged children. It is so easy to access information, particularly when you're look to compare what was happening in the various regions of the word at any given time, that I doubt you could find the information faster on the internet. I know that my husband is going to insist that it stay handy for him to be able to pick it up at any time and peruse different time periods or topics. We've only had the book for a few days so I clearly have not read all of it but in just a few hours I've not just brushed up on my world history but I've learned quite a bit as well.

Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me on this tour. For other opinions, check out the full tour.

Purchase Links

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West

The Witches Are Coming by Lindy West
Published November 2019 by Hatchette Books
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher’s Summary:
THIS IS A WITCH HUNT.

WE'RE WITCHES,

AND WE'RE HUNTING YOU.



From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt. In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine. You've got one.



In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twenty-first century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.



West writes, "We were just a hair's breadth from electing America's first female president to succeed America's first black president. We weren't done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form-like the Balrog's whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, 'If I can't have you, no one can'-white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.

"

We cannot understand how we got here-how the land of the free became Trump's America-without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.

My Thoughts:
Lindy West is a superhero. She’s who I want to be when I grow up. She is fierce and articulate and funny as hell. Also, she is right. Only in the meaning that she is correct, of course. Because she is almost as far from the right as you can possibly be. So if you tend to be on the other end of the spectrum, I’m fairly certain that you are not going to like this book at all. Although, you probably gave up on this blog about three years ago if you are.

The Witches Are Coming is not as personal as West’s previous book, Shrill, but I got no less a sense of who West is as a person and why she is so fired up.

“”Witch” is something we call a woman who demands the benefit of the doubt, who speaks the truth, who punctures the con, who kills your joy if your joy is killing. A witch has power and power in women isn’t’ likable, it’s ugly, cartoonish. But to not assert our power – even if we fail – is to let them do it. This new truth telling, this witchcraft of ours, by definition cannot be likable. We cannot pander or wait for consensus; the world is too big and complicated and rigged.”

In this collection of essays, West acknowledges that we all may have done some things in our pasts that, in retrospect, seem inappropriate and maybe even heartless; but also that we're products of a time and place, both personally and as a country.

“From makeover shows I learned that I was ugly. From romantic comedies I learned that stalking means he loves you and persistence means he earned you, and also that I was ugly. From Disney movies I learned that if I made my waist small enough, a man or large hog-bear might marry me and let me sit quietly in his castle until death. From sitcoms I learned that it’s a wife’s job to be hot and a husband’s job to be funny. From The Smurfs I learned that boys can have seventy-eight possible personalities and girls can have one, which is “high heels.” From The Breakfast Club I learned that rage and degradation are the selling points of an alluring bad boy, not the red flags of an abuser (and the thing is I STILL WANT HIM). From pretty much all film and TV I learned that complicated women are “crazy” and complicated men are geniuses.”

At the same time, she’s not accepting any excuses for that and offers this to help us avoid falling into that trap again: “Maybe the only thing to do, when you are one speck in an ungovernable community of nearly eight billion people on this planet, is to always keep an eye trained on the deep why of things: Why do I like this? Where is this impulse coming from? Am I telling the truth to myself about myself?"

What West is demanding in this book is that we do better. That we stop attacking people for their activism, that we stop “choosing the comfortable over what is right,” that women stop chasing likability so that we can do the real work, that we stop accepting the idea that someone being “offended” is a “dishonest, manipulative way to overstate “hurt feelings,” that social media “make their platforms safe, constructive, and non-Nazi-infested for all users, that we stop ostracizing those who speak out, that men speak up for women and white people speak up for minorities, that we stop allowing one minority group (that would be Christianity) to “implement legislation that impedes other people’s freedom,” that we stop treating liberal values as “inherently frivolous, dishonest, a joke.” Yeah, she’s got a lot to say. And she defends it all so well. I need to buy a copy of this book, transfer my highlights into it, and then carry it with me everywhere so I can pull it out as a reference whenever I find myself in one of those conversations where I just can’t put into words why what I’m saying is valid.

Perhaps it’s best if I let West do the talking:

“If we’re going to pull our country and our planet back from the brink, we have to start living the truth. We have to start calling things by their real names: racism is racism, sexism is sexism, mistakes are mistakes, and they can be rectified if we do the work.”

“The witches are coming, but not for your life. We’re coming for your lies. We’re coming for your legacy.”

Conversations With RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law by Jeffrey Rosen

Conversations With RBG: Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Life, Love, Liberty, and Law by Jeffrey Rosen
Published November 2019 by Holt, Henry and Company, Inc.
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher’s Summary:
This remarkable book presents a unique portrait of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, drawing on more than twenty years of conversations with Jeffrey Rosen, starting in the 1990s and continuing through the Trump era. Rosen, a veteran legal journalist, scholar, and president of the National Constitution Center, shares with us the justice’s observations on a variety of topics, and her intellect, compassion, sense of humor, and humanity shine through. The affection they have for each other as friends is apparent in their banter and in their shared love for the Constitution—and for opera.
In Conversations with RBG, Justice Ginsburg discusses the future of Roe v. Wade, her favorite dissents, the cases she would most like to see overruled, the #MeToo movement, how to be a good listener, how to lead a productive and compassionate life, and of course the future of the Supreme Court itself. These frank exchanges illuminate the steely determination, self-mastery, and wit that have inspired Americans of all ages to embrace the woman known to all as “Notorious RBG.”
Whatever the topic, Justice Ginsburg always has something interesting—and often surprising—to say. And while few of us will ever have the opportunity to chat with her face-to-face, Jeffrey Rosen brings us by her side as never before. Conversations with RBG is a deeply felt portrait of an American hero.

My Thoughts:
I’m pretty sure I’ve made my love of Ruth Bader Ginsburg abundantly clear before. So you can imagine that I jumped at the chance to read this book.

Jeffrey Rosen first met RBG in an elevator in 1991 when he was a law clerk on the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit where she was then a judge. To break the silence in the elevator, he asked her which operas she’d seen recently. This without even knowing that RBG is a huge opera fan. It was the beginning of what has developed into a long friendship. Rosen’s familiarity with Ginsburg, both personally and professionally, gives readers the feeling that we are just eavesdropping in on conversation between two people sitting at the next table

Rosen says of Ginsburg that when she was appointed to the Supreme Court, she was “viewed as a judge’s judge, a judicial minimalist, praised by conservatives (and questioned by some liberals) for her restrained approach to the judicial function. That hardly seems to fit with the woman many call the “Dissenter in Chief.” But it’s clear, through these conversations, that Ginsburg remains a judge who believes that the courts should stay out of making big statements; rather, they should rule more narrowly, sticking just with the issue at hand. I learned so much, reading this book, about how Ginsburg rules and why. It hasn’t always made her as popular with some people as she is now (feminists were not happy with her opinion that the court had ruled too broadly in Roe v. Wade, for example) but it seems every bit as measured and thoughtful as I expected it would. I also gained an appreciation for how the Supreme Court works and the interactions of the justices. Ginsburg says that, for the most part, the justices work to keep politics out of their dealings with each other (and, in theory) out of their rulings. This, and a mutual love of opera, helped Ginsburg become great friends with the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a man conservatives loved.

Rosen and Ginsburg talk a lot about the cases she has been a part of over the years, as a lawyer defending cases before the Court, as a Circuit Court judge, and as a Supreme Court justice. They talk about Roe v. Wade, the Hobby Lobby ruling, and the Citizen’s United ruling. Rosen has organized the book by subjects but I often found the same cases coming up again and again. It did get repetitive at times and I sometimes struggled to remember to which case they were referring when only the case name was referenced. My only other issue was that, sometimes, things felt a bit disjointed, as though the conversations hadn’t been edited as smoothly as they might have been. Occasionally I found myself rereading passages to understand what it was Rosen was trying to convey.

Over her career, Ginsburg has often fought for women’s right circuitously, bringing issues to court with a male defendant. Her theory was that it would be easier to convince judges that the men deserved equal rights with the women as the reverse. In so doing, it has been her experience that women are the ones who truly gain. In this book, she talks a great deal about how laws have been made to “protect” women and what it has taken to overturn those laws.

“…my objective was to take the Court step by step to the realization in Justice Brennan’s words, that the pedestal on which some thought women were standing was all too often turned into a cage.”

“We were trying to get rid of all laws modeled on that stereotypical view of the world, that men earn the bread and women take care of the home and children.”

Going forward, Ginsburg says that to secure full equality, there need to be legal changes to the unconscious bias and work-life balance. Here’s to hoping she has many more years to help make those changes.

“Even when one is all grown up, death of a beloved parent is a loss difficult to bear. But you will honor your mother best if you carry on with your work and days, thriving in the challenges and joys of being alive. Isn’t that just what she would have willed?” – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I feel the same way about you, Justice Ginsburg!

Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants by H. W. Brands

Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants by H. W. Brands
Published November 2018 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Source: my ecopy courtesy of the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
In the early 1800s, three young men strode onto the national stage, elected to Congress at a moment when the Founding Fathers were beginning to retire to their farms. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts, a champion orator known for his eloquence, spoke for the North and its business class. Henry Clay of Kentucky, as dashing as he was ambitious, embodied the hopes of the rising West. South Carolina's John Calhoun, with piercing eyes and an even more piercing intellect, defended the South and slavery.

Together these heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Adams took the country to war, battled one another for the presidency and set themselves the task of finishing the work the Founders had left undone. Their rise was marked by dramatic duels, fierce debates, scandal and political betrayal. Yet each in his own way sought to remedy the two glaring flaws in the Constitution: its refusal to specify where authority ultimately rested, with the states or the nation, and its unwillingness to address the essential incompatibility of republicanism and slavery.

They wrestled with these issues for four decades, arguing bitterly and hammering out political compromises that held the Union together, but only just. Then, in 1850, when California moved to join the Union as a free state, "the immortal trio" had one last chance to save the country from the real risk of civil war. But, by that point, they had never been further apart.

My Thoughts:
So, I had all kinds of fantastic things highlighted in my ecopy of this book, things I really wanted to share with you. But when you are reading the book right up to the very last minute before the book archives, you don't have access to it to share things. Which is a shame because there was so much in this book that I wanted to share with you.

On the heels of listening to Lin Manuel Miranda's Hamilton, this was the right book at the right time for me. This second generation of American leaders is every bit as interesting as the first generation and certainly deserve their fair share of attention. They faced some of the same battles as that first generation - battles with Britain, battles of egos, and a battle to make a new country of a disparate collection of states. But they are also forced to deal with the unfinished business of that first generation. Is this group of states a confederacy or a union? How does this new country find its place in the world? And what to do about the question of slavery?

You can't write about Calhoun, Webster, and Clay without talking about the other key players of their generation: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, James Madison, James Monroe, and Chief Justice John Marshall. Which means that there are a lot of players to talk about and keep track of and Brands manages to do all of that without losing sight of who and what his book is about.

Unlike George Washington, who reluctantly accepted the presidency, Calhoun, Webster and Clay spent their entire political lives working to put themselves into that position. The maneuverings were fascinating as were the ensuing battles between these players. While all three rose to the heights of the young government, none of them ever reached the goal they so coveted.

What was, perhaps, most interesting about this book for me about this book was how much what is happening in our country currently echoes what was happening in the first half of the nineteenth century. The politicians battled each other endlessly. At least, our current politicians only battle each other with words and not with pistols in duels. The country was hopelessly divided - the South, the West, New England. They battled over the Constitution and states' rights. They battled over taxes. Sound familiar? It all started to feel like we were reliving history right now.

As someone who grew up with the study of the U. S. Civil War as a part of regular life, it's always interesting to me to read accounts of the events that led up to the war. The only problem with reading books like this turns out to be my dad's problem because I'm bound to put the book into his hands to get his opinion on it. This book is no exception. I hope he enjoys it as much as I did and can learn some new things to add to his knowledge of these captivating men. I definitely recommend it for all fans of U.S. history, particular politics.

Life: It Goes On - December 2

Happy December! Hope this finds you all...oh heck, I hope this finds you all. I've been so lax on my blogging lately that I'll be really surprised if there are any of you still out there reading.

I am hunkered down for the day. We got a few inches of heavy snow last night, after a whole day of rain, sleet, and slush and I have no reason to venture out into it other than to have been out to scoop the driveway. Besides, I was hardly at home yesterday so this girl needs some quiet home time.

Also, it's time for me to finally finish the Christmas decorating. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know I've spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about, playing with, and re-doing just the mantle. I'm working on a less busy look this year and I have several new pieces to work into that so it means rethinking everything I've done before. Maybe next year it will actually be easier to put up?

November came to an end, as did my attempts to write my first novel during National Novel Writing Month. The goal was 50,000 words. My final total? About 15,000. It's a fail in every way other than that I did do some writing; I have a start and can move forward from there if I so chose.

The end of November also meant the end of Nonfiction November. I always look forward to this month and it's always another thing I just can't seem to do right. I did read a lot of nonfiction last month and got up quite a few reviews. But I didn't manage to do any of the posts associated with the event. Ah well, we can't do everything, right?

Last Week I:

Listened To: As much of The Woman's Hour as I could get listened to before my loan was up with my library. I've got it back on hold and hope that next time it doesn't become available when I still have ten hours left of another book! On Friday I started Chloe Benjamin's The Immortalists, and I must say, I'm quite enjoying listening to fiction after several nonfiction books in a row.

Watched: Last night we went to see Widows with friends. I think I liked it better than the rest of our crew. I appreciated the fact that director Steve McQueen was able to make an action film that isn't gratuitously violent and the way he turned an action film into a film about people.

Read: Like I said, not much. I'm having a hard time focusing on books right now. I do have several books I need to get read in the next month so I need to find my reading mojo again soon.

Made: Homemade mac 'n' cheese, chicken noodle casserole, beef stew. It's been cold and it's time for comfort food!

Enjoyed: A couple of parties yesterday.

This Week I’m: 

Planning: On finishing up most of my Christmas shopping this week. I'm mostly finished but need to get Mini-me's and Ms. S's gifts off in the mail to them; the first year they weren't here I waited too long and it cost me $95 to get their gifts to them on time! Never again.

Thinking About: Christmas cards. I need to get them ordered today so that they can go out in the mail by the end of the week.

Feeling: Lazy. Not a good thing with so much to get done today.

Looking forward to: I don't think we have anything on the calendar this week. Which means I'm probably forgetting something!

Question of the week: How do you decorate for the holidays? What is the one thing that you absolutely have to put out to make things feel festive?

Five Days At Memorial by Sheri Fink

Five Days At Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by Sheri Fink
Read by Kirsten Potter
Published March 2014 by Gale Group
Source: my audiobook copy checked out from my local library

Publisher's Summary:
In the tradition of the best investigative journalism, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs 5 days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and maintain life amid chaos.

After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several of those caregivers faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.

Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing.

In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis.

My Thoughts:
Do you ever watch Dateline? If you do, you're familiar with the way they present a story in such a way that you are absolutely certain you know what happened and who the bad guy is...and then they present the contradictory evidence and you have no idea what the truth is.

I got that same feeling as I listened to Five Days At Memorial.

Fink begins by bringing readers up to speed with New Orlean's history of flooding and the measures that could have been, but weren't, put in place to prevent future disasters. And then she brings on the disaster. Fink wants readers to know the people who were trapped in Memorial Hospital when Katrina came ashore; more importantly, she wants us to care. Which makes it all the more appalling when the generators stop working. When communications with possible rescuers go to hell. When it becomes so hot inside the building that employees and families (who took shelter at the hospital) are forced to use furniture to break out windows. Medications ran low. Moving patients to the helipad or the parking garage ramp that became a boat rescue landing space was exhausting; and because patients had to be ready to go when rescue arrived, they often spent hours outside. Family members were called into action to help carry patients to rescue and fan those who were bed ridden. Stairwells were dark, floors became slick with the humidity. Difficult decisions had to be made as to who would be rescued first; then, as the situation changed, those decisions were changed. Patients died. And administrators, doctors, and nurses talked about easing patients' pain.

On the fifth day, some medical professionals gave nine patients high doses of medication to relieve their suffering. All nine of those patients died.

When I'd heard about those patients all those years ago, I felt certain that if the choice had been made to euthanize patients, it was the right choice given the dire circumstances and the patients' conditions. By the time those patients died in the book, I wasn't so sure. After all, on day five, even as the patients were being given the medications, mass evacuation was beginning. In the second half of the book, Fink explores the aftermath of the disaster at Memorial that culminated in the arrest of Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses for second degree murder. And here is where your mind really becomes muddled. The investigators, coroners, and prosecutors make valid cases for charging some of the caregivers with murder. But their motives are suspect and their handling of the cases are mangled. Public opinion among the medical community and those who went through Katrina was decidedly biased.

There's no question that there is plenty of blame to go around for all of the deaths that happened with Katrina. The government had known for eighty years that there were things that could, and should, be done to shore up the levee system. Tenet  Healthcare, owner of Memorial Hospital, did not have a proper emergency plan, hadn't moved generators to higher ground, and hadn't even insured that their helipad was safe for landing. The evacuation of the areas impacted was badly mishandled and communication was horrific.

In the end, Fink wants readers to understand that the measures in place when Katrina struck were woefully lacking, from the levees to the power supply to the evacuation procedures to the plan for how to allocate limited supplies in the event of a major crisis. What's more, in the Epilogue Fink details time she spent in Bellevue Hospital in New York when Super Storm Sandy flooding New York City and finds that some of the same problems still existed years later.

As much as I really enjoyed Potter's reading, I often wished that I had been reading this one in print so I could keep track of the players better and so I could highlight the heck out of it. I saw Fink talking about what happened at Memorial a few years ago and knew I was going to love her writing. I was right. This book brings up important questions, it made me think. It made me think that I may need to buy a copy of this book to read again. It was that good.

Whiskey In A Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me about Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits by Reese Witherspoon

Whiskey In A Teacup: What Growing Up in the South Taught Me about Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits by Reese Witherspoon
Narrated by Reese Witherspoon
Published September 2018 by Touchstone
Source: audiobook checked out through my local library

Publisher's Summary:
Reese Witherspoon’s grandmother Dorothea always said that a combination of beauty and strength made southern women “whiskey in a teacup.” We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside we’re strong and fiery.

Reese’s southern heritage informs her whole life, and she loves sharing the joys of southern living with practically everyone she meets. She takes the South wherever she goes with bluegrass, big holiday parties, and plenty of Dorothea’s fried chicken. It’s reflected in how she entertains, decorates her home, and makes holidays special for her kids—not to mention how she talks, dances, and does her hair (in these pages, you will learn Reese’s fail-proof, only slightly insane hot-roller technique). Reese loves sharing Dorothea’s most delicious recipes as well as her favorite southern traditions, from midnight barn parties to backyard bridal showers, magical Christmas mornings to rollicking honky-tonks.

It’s easy to bring a little bit of Reese’s world into your home, no matter where you live. After all, there’s a southern side to every place in the world, right?


My Thoughts:
Guys, do not check out the audiobook copy of this book from your local library. Nothing against Witherspoon's narration (well, sort of, but more on that later); but you're missing all of the recipes, tips, and pictures. There is a pdf that includes all of these things if you've bought the audiobook, but I didn't and I think it took away from the book. I really don't even know why the library carries the book on audio, given how much you lose by listening.

Now, back to that narration. I love, love Reese Witherspoon. She's a woman who has managed to have a successful acting career for almost 30 years, she's an entrepreneur, and she's huge book lover who has done a lot to promote books. And I've always thought her voice was charming and sweet. But, I'm sorry to say, it really started to grate on my nerves as the book went on. Now I'm a little worried that the next time I see her in a movie, I'm going to have this experience coloring my impression of her performance.

I'm sorry to say that's not my only beef with this book.

The book is, of course, Witherspoon's take on her life growing up in the South. But throughout the book, she seems to imply that all Southern women mind their manners, love hot rollers, and wallpaper and monogram everything. The thing is, Witherspoon's experience is as a privileged, white woman. I've been to the South and can vouch that not every woman in that part of the country wears pearls to the grocery story and minds her manners in public. Again, Witherspoon is writing from her own experience, but in trying to wrap her lily-white arms around all women, she's largely ignoring a huge population of Southern women. She does periodically talk about "strong black women" and civil rights activism, but those pieces felt compulsory and not as heart-felt as the rest of the book.

Once in a while, too, I got the impression that Witherspoon was a woman who had never much been out of the South, which is obviously not true. How else, then, to account for the fact that she seems to think that some sayings, some behaviors, are strictly Southern? For example, more than once she talked about how friendly the people are in the South. But I'm told on a regular basis, by people who've come to Nebraska from other places, that the Midwest has the nicest people. I'm not saying we're the only nice people in the country; I'm just saying Witherspoon should be aware that Southerners are either.

These are all things that might not have been as noticeable to me if I had been looking at this book, eager to turn the shiny pages and see the next beautiful image.

All of that being said, I did like this book (and I'm sure it will be hugely successful despite its flaws). Witherspoon's personality shines throughout the book as she shares family stories, the ways her upbringing formed her, and lots of humor. I mean, who else is going to give you a two-page spread about how to hot-roller your hair (that includes telling you to leave the house with the rollers still in your hair!)?

I did learn some things about the South that do make it unique. That Easter scene in the movie Steel Magnolias? Apparently, that's common in the South. Of course, they can probably count on warmer temps in Tennessee at Easter than we can count on in Nebraska. I think my favorite parts of the book were when Witherspoon got personal. In one story, Witherspoon tells about how, on the day of her wedding to her current husband, her best friend reminded her that "You only get married for the second time once,"making Reese crack up laughing and easing the tension. I sort of love her best friend!

I will be checking out the print copy of this book as soon as it's available because I have to get my hands on some of the recipes Witherspoon includes in the book. She talks a lot about food in this book and it's only through tremendous willpower that I didn't find myself regularly driving off to find some comfort food (although even Witherspoon couldn't talk me into trying black-eyed peas again).

I'd also like to be able to get a copy of all of the books she recommends here in both the book club section and a section where she talks about Southern novels she loves.

Apollo To The Moon: A History In 50 Objects by Teasel Muir-Harmony

Apollo To The Moon: A History in 50 Objects by Teasel Muir-Harmony
Published October 2018 by National Geographic Society
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher, through TLC Book Tours, in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
Bold photographs, fascinating graphics, and engaging stories commemorate the 20th century's most important space endeavor: NASA's Apollo program to reach the moon. From the lunar rover and a survival kit to space food and moon rocks, it's a carefully curated array of objects—complete with intriguing back stories and profiles of key participants.

This book showcases the historic space exploration program that landed humans on the moon, advanced the world's capabilities for space travel, and revolutionized our sense of humanity's place in the universe. Each historic accomplishment is symbolized by a different object, from a Russian stamp honoring Yuri Gagarin and plastic astronaut action figures to the Apollo 11 command module, piloted by Michael Collins as Armstrong and Aldrin made the first moonwalk, together with the monumental art inspired by these moon missions. Throughout, Apollo to the Moon also tells the story of people who made the journey possible: the heroic astronauts as well as their supporters, including President John F. Kennedy, newsman Walter Cronkite, and NASA scientists such as Margaret Hamilton.

My Thoughts:
I vividly remember where I was, who I was with, and what I was doing July 16, 1969, the night Apollo 11's Lunar Module landed on the moon and Neil Armstrong took that first step onto that unknown surface. I don't pretend to understand to all of the science involved (other than to know it took a lot of people who knew a hell of a lot about it), but it space travel has fascinated me ever since.

Friday night we went to see First Man, the story of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Saturday I started this book. I didn't plan for that but what wonderful serendipity.  While the movie is Armstrong's story, it is also the story of all of the other people involved in getting Armstrong to the moon and all of the scientific and engineering innovations it took. In Apollo To The Moon, Muir-Harmony takes readers even deeper into that story, and all of the other stories that make up the full Apollo history, literally piece by piece.

Muir-Harmony is the curator of the Smithsonian Nation Air and Space Museum and a scholar of space history. She has access to everything in the museum's collection so you can be sure that's she's given considerable thought to what she wanted to include in this book to tell a story. Among the things she's included a piece of the Wright Brothers' airplane to moon rocks, from cameras and pen lights to a lunar rover wheel. But Muir-Harmony doesn't just tell the story of the 50 objects; she has included brief stories of people she calls Apollo VIPs (Wernher von Braun, Margaret Hamilton, and John F. Kennedy's Space Policy), and backstory pieces (Apollo Mission Insignia, Nixon's Speech, and The NASA Art Program). The book is also filled with photos, drawings, and other art work that add the visual piece that makes this type of book for getting bogged down in facts.

I got just enough information from each of the pieces to give me what felt like a well-rounded history of the Apollo program. There is something here for everyone from the person who doesn't know about these missions at all to the person who is looking to fill in the spaces of their knowledge. I see this book as an excellent addition to school media centers for middle- and high-schools. In my house, I know my husband will be picking it up to read soon and I'm sure I'll be passing it along - with the proviso that it make it back to my house as a nice resource. I definitely recommend this book for those of you with readers in your house from ten to eighty years old.

Thanks to the ladies at TLC Book Tours for including me in this tour. For other reviews, check out the full tour.

The Witches: Salem 1692 by Stacy Schiff

The Witches Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff
Published October 2015 by Little, Brown, and Company
Source: my copy was a Christmas gift

Publisher's Summary:
The panic began early in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's niece began to writhe and roar. It spread quickly, confounding the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors, husbands accused wives, parents and children one another. It ended less than a year later, but not before nineteen men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

Speaking loudly and emphatically, adolescent girls stood at the center of the crisis. Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. She illuminates the demands of a rigorous faith, the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country, perched-at a politically tumultuous time-on the edge of what a visitor termed a "remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness."

My Thoughts:
At the beginning of this book, there is a long list of "characters." It's more than a bit daunting, but absolutely necessary. My book club read The Witches this month and everyone of us, even with that list, had a hard time remembering, when we talked about the characters, if they were the accused or the accuser. And that's because there is so much information in this book and then, all along the timeline, Schiff detours off to give readers detailed histories and character studies of each of the players.

You would think that something that happened more than 300 years ago might not be that well documented, wouldn't you? I thought so. Turns out that 17th-century Puritans were prolific diarists. Heck, they recorded absolutely everything. Everyone recorded everything. Which is how, even though the official transcripts mysteriously disappeared, there were plenty of records still available for historians to comb through. Still, as much as I'm impressed with the amount of research Schiff and her team have done, it can get more than a little overwhelming. This is not a book you'll race through; but then, it's not a book you should race through. Although those who know report that Schiff doesn't break any new ground here, there was certainly a lot of information that was new to me. For example, I had no idea how widespread witch hunts had been in Europe before they made their way across the Atlantic or the extent to which the judges at the "witches'" trials ignored glaring contradictions that would have led any rational person to find these men and women innocent.

Although the book made a lot of best-of lists in 2015, it's not a book without bias and Schiff frequently made modern references that felt a little out of place in the narration. I went into this book with high hopes that it would be a book that would pull me in and keep me reading. In that regard I was disappointed. When I struggled with the book in print, I moved to audio. I had some concerns about being able to stay focused but it turned out that by combining the audio and print, I was able to find the balance I needed to finish the book. Which I liked quite a lot, even though, on rereading this, it sort of sounds like I didn't.

Nonfiction November - Nonfiction Favorites

This week's prompt is hosted by Katy at Doing Dewey:

"We’ve talked about how you pick nonfiction books in previous years, but this week I’m excited to talk about what makes a book you’ve read one of your favorites. Is the topic pretty much all that matters? Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love? Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone? Let us know what qualities make you add a nonfiction book to your list of favorites."

Do you remember the other day when I said my nonfiction reading was all over the place? Because I thought that, I assumed it would be tough to do this prompt. Since six years ago I started tracking my favorite books of the year, breaking out nonfiction, I thought I'd head to those lists to see if I could find any patterns. It turns out that, while the subject can be almost anything (from drug addiction, careers in math and science, the Civil War), I tend to like to get those stories in the form of a biography, memoir, or personal essay collection. Apparently I need to be able to learn about a topic through an individual.

How the information is presented is less important. Some of my favorite personal stories are incredibly sad (The Year Of Magical Thinking, An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination, Behind The Beautiful Forevers, This Republic of Suffering). Other favorite nonfiction works include healthy doses of humor (Cocktail Hour Under The Tree of Forgiveness, anything by Sarah Vowell, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, and I Feel Bad About My Neck).

Like any book I pick up, my nonfiction choices are largely a matter of what appeals at a particular time. Am I ready to immerse myself in a book dense with information (anything by Ron Chernow, Instant City, On China) ? Or, maybe something that give me information in a way that's less scholarly (Moranthology, Orange Is The New Black, The Happiness Project). What it comes down to is that the book needs to be well written, just like any other book.

What qualities do you look for in a nonfiction book?

Nonfiction November - Be The Expert, Ask The Expert, Become The Expert

AND I'm caught up! This week's prompt is hosted by Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness.

Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

My nonfiction reading is all over the place (I'm not sure I've ever read three nonfiction books about the same subject) so "being the expert" is out. I'm not necessarily looking for recommendations about specific topics at this time; I tend to choose nonfiction books because they sound interesting not because I was looking for a book on a specific topic. So "ask the expert" isn't for me right now. So I went to my TBR list and sorted it by type to find out what kind of nonfiction books I've got on it to see if there's a topic that it appears I want to become an expert on. Turns out, that seems to be murders. So, here are three books I'd like to read that will help me become the expert:

The Girls of Murder City: Fame, Lust, and the Beautiful Killers Who Inspired Chicago by Douglas Perry and The Devil In The White City: Murder, Magic Madness at The Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson are both set in Chicago. Three Bodies Burning: The Anatomy of An Investigation Into Murder, Money, and Mexican Marijuana by Brian Bogdanoff was added to my list after hearing Bogdanoff speak (he was the lead investigator on the case) and is about murder right here in Omaha.

Now that you know about my fascination with murders, I'll understand if you don't want to be friends any more!

Nonfiction November - Book Pairings

Week Two's prompt is hosted by Sarah, of Sarah's Book Shelves:

It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

This is the prompt that always proves tough for me and I often skip it. This year, I'm in!

My first pairing combines one of my favorite fiction reads of 2016, Jesmyn Ward's Salvage The Bones and Sheri Fink's nonfiction Five Days At Memorial, which I've been meaning to read for a long time. Both share Hurricane Katrina as a central event.

My second pairing is a pair of books set in India which both examine the lives of the poorest of that country's people, Thrity Umrigar's The Space Between Us (one of my favorite books of 2010) and Katherine Boo's Behind The Beautiful Forevers (one of my favorite books of 2016).

My final pairing is two books that deal with the recovery of art in France following the Nazi occupation: Sarah Houghtelling's Pictures At An Exhibition and Robert Edsel's The Monuments Men. George Clooney thought Edsel's book was so interesting that he turned it into the 2014 movie of the same name.

What nonfiction pairings would you suggest?

Seduced by Mrs. Robinson by Beverly Gray

Seduced by Mrs. Robinson: How The Graduate Became The Touchstone of A Generation by Beverly Gray
Published November 2017 by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
Source: my copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Publisher's Summary:
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”

When The Graduate premiered in December 1967, its filmmakers had only modest expectations attached to what seemed to be a small, sexy, art house comedy adapted from an obscure first novel by an eccentric twenty-four-year-old. There was little indication that this offbeat story--a young man just out of college has an affair with one of his parents’ friends and then runs off with her daughter--would turn out to be a monster hit, with an extended run in theaters and seven Academy Award nominations.

My Thoughts:
I was seven years old when The Graduate came out; clearly I didn't see it for years after it was released. Still, I can't remember a time when I wasn't aware of it. Let's face it, everyone knows the Simon and Garfunkel soundtrack. I've read some interesting things about the making of the film before so I didn't even read the synopsis when I saw this book was available.

Here's some of what I learned:

• Producer Larry Turman read Charles Webb's book after reading it because a book reviewer had compared it's protagonist to Catcher In The Rye's Holden Caulfield. He paid Webb $1,000 for the rights because two scenes particularly grabbed him: young Benjamin Braddock decked out in an entire SCUBA get up floating in the bottom of his parents' pool and the final shot of a disheveled Benjamin in the back of a bus with a young woman in a wedding gown. 
• Robert Redford really wanted the role of Benjamin Braddock and, physically, he was perfect for the role of a young California man, suntanned, blond, and tall. But Benjamin was a kid who was supposed to have had little luck with girls. When director Mike Nichols asked him if he had ever struck out with a girl, Redford said, in all earnestness, "What do you mean?" He was out.
• Dustin Hoffman gave up a role in Mel Brooks' The Producers to play Benjamin and make love to Brooks' wife, Anne Bancroft, who played Mrs. Robinson. My background has always led me to find nothing odd at all about Hoffman being cast as Benjamin but, at the time, a Jewish leading man was certainly a daring choice.

"The casting of Dustin Hoffman as The Graduate's romantic leading man was a shock to Hollywood, which had spent decades trying to sidestep the Judaic roots of its founders. But in the wake of The Graduate, young Jewish males were suddenly everywhere, and often they were playing characters with backgrounds similar to their own."

• Much of Mrs. Robinson's look and her home decor are the result of Nichol's reading Henry James' novella The Beast In The Jungle. Hence, Mrs. Bancroft appears almost exclusively in animal prints and her sunroom is backed by a jungle of tropical plants.
• Mike Nichols used light and dark to differentiate between Mrs. Braddock and Mrs. Robinson and glass and water to illustrate the way Benjamin was trapped in his parents' world. In fact, a lot of the things Nichols did in this movie changed the way other filmmakers make movies. 

• That iconic shot at the end of the movie of Hoffman and Katherine Ross, where their faces turn from exuberance to "what the hell have we done?" That wasn't scripted or directed. Someone forget to say "cut" at what was to have been the end of the scene and that's what happened to Hoffman's and Ross' faces when they thought they were done with the shot. It was so perfect that Nichols left it in. 

"In hindsight, it's easy to wonder: If Ben and Elaine have backed away from the future that's been preordained for them by a hypocritical older generations, where exactly are they headed? The fact that there's no good answer reminds us of what this film may actually portend. Perhaps that's what it's secretly about - the end of the happy ending."

• No one expected this movie to the hit that it was. Young people stood in long lines, even in the cold, to see it because of the way it spoke to them about what would come to be known as the Generation Gap. But not everyone loved it; critics definitely had a wide range of opinions about what it was, what it wasn't, and what it could have been.

"The Graduate's prescience about matters of grave concern to the Baby Boom generation gave it a life of its own. If we young Americans were anxious about parental pressure, or about sex (and our lack thereof), or about marriage, or about the temptations posed by plastics, it was all visible for us on the movie screen. Today The Graduate continues to serve as a touchstone of that pivotal moment just before some of us began morphing into angry war protesters and spaced-out hippies."

"...those of my generation - didn't much want to face a life built on a bedrock of our elders' choices. In Benjamin we found a hero willing to turn his back on the kind of bright upper-middle-class future we weren't sure we wanted." 

• Gray has done a thorough job of researching and presents a lot of material. She gives the background of all of the players in the making of the movie and follows up with them afterward; she takes viewers through the entire movie to explain what makes each scene work; and she talks about the impact the movie had on the generation it was targeted at and the generations that followed. 
• As much as I learned, and as much as I did enjoy the book, I think I'm not the kind of person that wants to read a book that breaks down one movie quite as much as this one did. I must admit that I started skimming quite a lot in the last 100 pages. I think if you were a person for whom this movie was a touchstone (a.k.a. someone about ten or fifteen years older than I am) or someone who really enjoys learning about movies, you'd likely enjoy this book even more. 
• I definitely need to watch this movie again soon while all of this is still fresh in my brain and I can really appreciate the film making touches that made the story work so well.

"The Graduate lasts partly because it offers something for everyone, the restless youth; the disappointed elder; the cinephile who values the artistic innovation that's the legacy of director Mike Nichols. And this film has also burrowed its way into Hollywood's dream factory. The American movie industry, which worships box-office success, has learned from The Graduate brave new ideas about casting, about cinematic style, about the benefits of a familiar pop music score."

Nonfiction November - My Year In Nonfiction

Well, this month clearly got away from me and I'm hard pressed to say how. Nevertheless, as nonfiction is something I'm really pushing myself to read more of, I definitely didn't want this month to go by without me playing along with everyone for Nonfiction November. So this week, I'll be playing catch up. Week 1's was hosted by Jules of @JulesReads:

Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

What Was Your Favorite Nonfiction Read Of The Year?
This one's a tie between Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica Of A Figment Of My Imagination and TaNehisi Coates' We Were Eight Years In Power. Two very different books - one that made my heart break and one that made my brain work.

That Nonfiction Book Have You Recommended The Most?
Even more than fiction, I feel that nonfiction is something that I recommend based on what I know about particular readers. For example, I have recommended Shrill by Lindy West to all of my feminist friends but West's language and graphic subject matters make it a book that's not for everyone. For biography buffs, I highly recommend both Grant by Ron Chernow and Victoria: The Queen by Julia Baird. But they are both very big books and definitely not for the faint of heart. For my more liberal friends, I always recommend Sarah Vowell's books and Assassination Vacation is no exception. Perhaps the book that I find myself recommending most, of the nonfiction books I read this year, is Notorious RBG which really has something in it for everyone.

What Is One Topic or Type of Nonfiction You Haven't Read Enough Of Yet?
Easy - science. I'm not looking for textbook reads but I would like to read some of Mary Roach's books, perhaps some Carl Sagan, and, definitely, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Astrophysics For People In A Hurry.

What Are You Hoping To Get Out Of Participating In Nonfiction November?
As always, it's a great chance to remember the nonfiction books I've read this year and to kick myself in the rear for not reading more nonfiction (although I may have reached a personal best this year). Most of all, it's always great fun to visit the sites of everyone participating so I can find even more nonfiction reads I want to read.

What about you - how was your year in nonfiction?