This was an overall interesting book full of conversations. It is not comedic itself but ABOUT comedy and the people who create it. So, if you’re going into the book expecting to laugh, you’re really setting both yourself and the book up for failure. This book isn’t for people looking for empty laughs, it’s for people looking to read sometimes very personal conversations about comedy behind the scenes, what it takes to do the work, how it effects comedians personally, what kind of person becomes […]
Everyone Give it up for America’s Favorite Fighting Frenchman
Like many people, I’ve been listening to the Hamilton soundtrack non-stop and learning more about the American Revolutionary War than I ever did in school. Lafayette is easily one of the coolest characters in the musical, but also in real life. I’d been meaning to get to one of Sarah Vowell’s books, so when she published Lafayette in the Somewhat United States in October, it was kismet. Vowell tells the story of the teenaged Marquis de Lafayette leaving his family in France to join the […]
Real Life Role Models
A historical look at the relationship between the notorious RGB and Sandra Day O’Connor? Yes please. I’d been looking forward to this one ever since I heard the premise and it didn’t disappoint. Hirshman delves into the childhoods and legal careers of these groundbreaking women and leaves the reader with a concrete impression of them as real people with strengths and flaws. I never realized just how different Ginsberg and O’Connor are from each other. O’Connor was one of Reagan’s few palatable options for Supreme […]
How to tell meaningful stories
Out on the Wire is a must read for anyone who does creative work, even if it’s just as a hobby. I guess it’d be helpful if you listen at least occasionally to podcasts or NPR-type radio too, just so you have context. Abel basically spent a year interviewing and observing the creatives at 99% Invisible, The Moth, Planet Money, Radio Diaries, Radiolab, Snap Judgment, and This American Life. Somehow she took all that information about the process of telling stories via radio and distilled […]
This book reminded me that I really need to start watching Masters of Sex
3.5 stars I don’t read a whole lot of non-fiction. What little I do read is usually in the celebrity biography genre. But for my Eclectic Reader Challenge, I needed to read something qualifying as Micro history. I didn’t even know what that was, but the internet was very helpful in clearing up my confusion. Goodreads even has a lot of useful suggestions of what I could read. As Bonk had a fairly high average rating, and was very highly rated by several of my […]
So. Fucking. Good.
Well this little gem of a memoir is definitely making my end of year best books list. I usually view nonfiction as a (sometimes enjoyable) chore, but this one latched onto my heart and wouldn’t let go. Macdonald’s writing is both electric and soothing. Apparently she’s written poetry in the past and from her lyrical writing style, I can believe it. This woman has a way with words. And birds. H is for Hawk is about the year after her father died when she became […]
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