This is probably one of the best nonfiction books I’ve ever read. I’ve been reading about one nonfiction book a month for the past five years or so but I’m still a fiction reader in my heart of hearts. I generally read my nonfiction at night before bed because I don’t worry too much about falling into the “one more chapter” trap […]
4 Stars. I don’t know that I agree that these Olympics “changed the world” but I would definitely agree that they showcased changes that were happening in the world at large. I’m not a sports fan but I read this for the “Eclectic Reader Challenge” as a sports book that I might be able to tolerate. I was pleasantly surprised to find […]
Author Kenneth C. Davis sets out to fill in the gaps of the average reader’s knowledge of mythology. Don’t expect a book of stories about Zeus and Hera; they’re here but so are gods from Egypt, Celtic lands, Africa, the Americas, Asia, India, and just about every culture you can think of. This was not […]
“‘I think this is the greatest generation any society has ever produced.’ I know that this was a bold statement and a sweeping judgment, but since than I have restated it on many occasions. While I am periodically challenged on this premise, I believe I have the facts on my side.” So writes Tom Brokaw […]
Seabiscuit. An American Legend. I think the only reason I even know the horse’s name is because of the movie they filmed a few years ago. I’m obviously not a horse-racing fan, right? I don’t even remember why I grabbed this at a library book sale. A friend here on GR must have given it […]
Telling the story of an epic flood of the Mississippi River in 1927, this book explores the early history of flood control efforts and a rivalry that made flood controls at the time practically a joke, the politics involved in decisions for handling the flood itself, the politics of disaster relief, and the impact of […]
This is the continuation of the true story of Vladek Spiegelman’s survival as a Jew in WWII Poland. Most of what I wrote in my review of Maus I still stands, but there’s a bit more of the author’s feelings included. You can see the catharsis he’s going through as he writes this novel. He’s […]
Art Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, was a Jew living in Poland in WWII. He made it through, and Maus I is Spiegelman’s story of his father’s life, as well as an exploration of the way the lives of the survivors and their family members were never the same. Okay, let’s look at the fact that this […]
Primo Levi was a young Jewish man living in Turin, Italy when he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. Due to a combination of luck and calculation, he survived. I truly, truly hate to give any Holocaust memoir less than five stars. They are all important and they should all be read. That said. Somehow […]
Jan and Antonina Żabiński were the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo when Germany invaded Poland. Between the bombing, Nazi cruelty, and the Nazi desire to keep all of the rare animals for themselves, there quickly wasn’t much of a zoo to keep. But Jan was an ingenious thinker and he came up with various ideas […]
We take so much in our daily lives for granted. Bill Bryson looked around his house one day, realized how little he knew about the everyday objects surrounding him, and, being Bill Bryson, decided to research and write a book about them. I read this slowly as my before-bed book, and I’m not sure that […]