This is one of those books that I want to put into everyone’s hands and one that I’m planning to own (because I read a library copy.) Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, and one of the many interesting talking heads in Ava DuVenay’s documentary, 13th, has crafted a book that is part memoir, part investigative journalism, and all heart—angry, tearful, heart. It tackles the mess that is our criminal justice system by focusing specifically on Stevenson’s work with prisoners on death […]
Hello Old Friends
I really can’t be objective when Harlan Coben writes another Myron Bolitar mystery. I’m just so darn happy to see Myron, Win, and the rest of the Scooby gang again and find out what they’re up to. I read this latest outing in about four hours and it felt like a great way to start the summer reading season with a book that doesn’t break any new ground but which engaged me from beginning to end. Jumping into this book is a bit like coming […]
Happy People Rarely Make Great Art
The Animators is Kayla Rae Whitaker’s debut novel, and it’s hard not to feel jealous that someone so young could create such a darkly complex but sometimes funny novel that often went places I didn’t expect. It’s the story of Mel Vaught and Sharon Kisses, who meet as scholarship kids their first week at a pricey liberal arts college in upstate New York and bond over their love of comics and animation as well as their working-class backgrounds. Narrated by Sharon, the story jumps quickly […]
Maybe It’s Because I Like My Dresses To Come in Bright Colors
This was one of those books that I thought I was going to like but just couldn’t fully get into. In this memoir, Mary Pflum Peterson, a former CNN reporter and current Good Morning America producer, uses a series of white dresses to anchor a set of stories about herself and her mother, Anne Diener Pflum. We read descriptions of baptismal outfits, communion dresses, and wedding gowns, but we also learn about the lives of these two women—their joys and a lot of their sorrows. […]
Another Book That Won’t Be on President Trump’s Nightstand (But Should Be!)
It might seem odd that in cities teetering at the edge of the abyss young people still go to class—in this case an evening class on corporate identity and product branding—but that is the way of things, with cities as with life, for one moment we are pottering about our errands as usual and the next we are dying and our eternally impending ending does not put a stop to our transient beginnings and middles until the instant when it does (3-4). This passage, written […]
Humans are the Only Ones Who Will Follow Unstable Pack Leaders
Like most non-fiction books I pick up, this choice started with listening to Terri Gross interviewing Bronwen Dickey on Fresh Air last year. I remember both being fascinated by the discussion about pit bulls, which at the turn of the century were considered classic family dogs, and by the stories Dickey told about growing up in a household that involved both dogs and a famous parent with addiction issues. This fall, I worked with a former student several times in the writing center as she […]
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