Morgue: A Life in Death by Dr. Vincent Di Maio and Ron Franscell
★★★★☆ Morgue: A Life in Death is an enlightening read; do not be put off by the title. Although there are graphic descriptions of wounds and modes of death, this is not a blood...
Category: Nonfiction
Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve by Ben Blatt
★★★☆☆ In 2002, bookstores were enthralled by the card-counting gamblers from MIT in Ben Mezrich’s Bringing Down the House; a year later Michael Lewis’ 2003 book Moneyball showed that baseball could be gamed apart...
Word by Word by Kory Stamper
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ How do you define words and learn to pronounce them? Do you adhere to Standard English and, at the same time, reconcile it with the spoken English that you...
Fallen Glory by James Crawford
★★★★☆ Like Rome, no buildings were ever built in a day; however, they can disappear in a day or through the slow accretion of time. In the thoughtful and provocative Fallen Glory, James Crawford...
On Trails by Robert Moor
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Robert Moor opens his book On Trails by recalling the five months he spent walking the Appalachian Trail (AT) from Georgia to Maine. His timing was unidyllic as that...
Unforbidden Pleasures by Adam Phillips
★☆☆☆☆ Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips asks us to cast aside our desire for the forbidden and taboo, in favor of the society-approved pleasures readily available to us. His book Unforbidden Pleasures is a wandering exploration...
Somebody With a Little Hammer by Mary Gaitskill
★★★☆☆ An uneven collection of essays, criticism and reviews, Mary Gaitskill’s Somebody With a Little Hammer is as frustrating as it is inspiring. Despite a handful of standout, excellent pieces, much of the work...
The Face of Water by Sarah Ruden
★★★★☆ Water is capricious. Even when it seems still, it is ready to change, to appear and be different. Place a measuring device into a body of water and you have affected its flow....
How America Lost Its Secrets by Edward Jay Epstein
★★★☆☆ Many of Edward Snowden’s detractors contend that while his 2013 NSA surveillance revelations began with good intentions, he acted egotistically and in so doing compromised the efficiency of America’s counterterrorism operations. Author Edward...
