Art, Art, Lifestyles, Nonfiction

The Work of Art

The Work of Art is a visionary compendium of ephemera that makes visible the bridge between idea and artwork.

Biography, Nonfiction

Ingenious

Richard Munson’s splendid biography of Benjamin Franklin provides an insightful view of the statesman’s lesser known accomplishments in science.

Biography, Literature, Nonfiction

Nonfiction Literature Biography

Didion and Babitz

Lili Anolik’s Didion and Babitz is a freewheeling and engaging narrative about two iconic literary rivals and their world in 1970s Los Angeles.

All Nonfiction Coverage

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What it is about today’s society that gives fathers so much disrespect, especially around Father’s Day? On Mother’s Day, our opposite numbers get flowers and jewelry and candy and sentiment, but on our day we dads get shirts that don’t fit, underwear, gag gifts and goofy cards. It’s those attempts at humor that really hurt, mainly because they’re usually true. I present to you a case in point: Richard Jarman’s Smooth Operators: The Secrets Behind Their Success, a look at men’s fashions of the 1970s and ’80s, told with an almost straight face. Jarman’s motivation is not to humiliate every man who lived through those decades (though he’s wildly successful in this), but to come to terms with the way his newly divorced father acted and dressed during that time. Evidence abounds in the advertising of those years; the scary part, for me, is that I know these guys heck, I was trying to be these guys! This droll little book illustrates our decades-long fashion faux pas, and as someone who lived through that time and who committed some of the same fashion atrocities (polyester, mutton-chops, platform shoes), I find this book downright embarrassing! So will your dad.

What it is about today's society that gives fathers so much disrespect, especially around Father's Day? On Mother's Day, our opposite numbers get flowers and jewelry and candy and sentiment, but on our day we dads get shirts that don't fit, underwear, gag gifts and…

Going home again

by bookpagedev

Memoir

Memoir

Boys will be boys

Review by bookpagedev

by Howard Shirley

As for those adventures, which ones are more significant to a boy than those at summer camp? For years, if anyone asked me what my happiest moments were, I’d have recalled summers spent in a stretch of wood, field and rustic buildings nestled in the North Carolina foothills, safe in a haven of boyhood whose call has lingered to this day. That same call spurred 33-year-old Josh Wolk to return one last time to the beloved camp of his youth. Cabin Pressure: One Man’s Desperate Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor is Wolk’s humorous account of his life in a cabin with 10 hormonal 14-year-olds, a science teacher turned mountain-climbing god, a 67-year-old Peter Pan and an aging extreme kayaker who thinks anyone who won’t jump off a 25-foot-high bridge into a Maine river can’t possibly be a real man. Wolk’s writing is fluid, funny and compelling, and his observations of human foibles whether in the campers, the counselors or himself are spot-on. More often than not, I saw my own camp experiences mirrored in Wolk’s account, and once again found myself traveling back to my old summer home a trip every man secretly longs to take.

As for those adventures, which ones are more significant to a boy than those at summer camp? For years, if anyone asked me what my happiest moments were, I'd have recalled summers spent in a stretch of wood, field and rustic buildings nestled in the…

A search for fellow travelers

by bookpagedev

Nonfiction

Nonfiction

Check your list

Review by bookpagedev

by MiChelle Jones

If you’ve ever laughed at those of us compulsive enough to shred our grocery lists, you’ll think again after reading Bill Keaggy’s Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found. Keaggy, who must be a bit of an obsessive-compulsive himself, found, saved and sorted this detritus of everyday life, presented here in scanned images so clear that every lipstick smudge, crossed-out item and doodle is visible. The lists are grouped thematically and paired with his snarky comments about bad eating habits, bizarre combinations of items and it must be said atrocious spelling for our laugh-out-loud pleasure. Aside from pointing out shoppers’ foibles, Milk Eggs Vodka shows our similarities and resourcefulness (see the Creative Recycling chapter), and offers food trivia in the bargain.

If you've ever laughed at those of us compulsive enough to shred our grocery lists, you'll think again after reading Bill Keaggy's Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found. Keaggy, who must be a bit of an obsessive-compulsive himself, found, saved and sorted…

A journalist’s tribute to a mentor from the ancient world

by bookpagedev

Biography

Biography

Generals in war and peace

Review by bookpagedev

by John T. Slania

15 Stars is more than just a clever book title. It represents the collective careers of three five-star generals: Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall and Dwight D. Eisenhower. These three military giants led the United States to victory in World War II and helped shape the world following the war. Not since the immense fame of Grant, Sherman and Lee at the close of the Civil War have three generals become such household names, writes Stanley Weintraub, an accomplished author of more than 50 histories and biographies, many with military themes.

But while these generals were contemporaries, they were a study in contrasts. MacArthur was urbane and egotistical. Marshall exuded quiet confidence. Eisenhower was modest and unassuming. And their relationships to each other were complex. Colleagues, and on occasion competitors, they leapfrogged each other, sometimes stonewalled each other, even supported and protected each other, throughout their celebrated careers, Weintraub writes.

And each accomplished great things: MacArthur conquered the Pacific Theater; Marshall brought order to postwar Europe; Eisenhower was the architect of D-Day. But only one, Eisenhower, would achieve the greatest prize: the presidency. In the public mind they appeared, in turn, as glamour, integrity, and competence, Weintraub writes. But for the twists of circumstance, all three rather than one might have occupied the White House. 15 Stars chronicles those circumstances, from the start of World War II to the height of the Cold War. It is a well-researched book that thoroughly examines the lives of three American military icons. The material is complicated, but Weintraub’s easy writing makes it understandable and engaging. The book reads like a literary narrative, beginning with the bombing of Pearl Harbor and ending in the twilight of each man’s life. It is a worthy choice for the bookshelf of any reader who loves military history or historical nonfiction. John T. Slania is a journalism professor at Loyola University in Chicago.

Examining decisions that set the course of the 20th century

by bookpagedev

Lifestyles

Lifestyles

Knitting the impossible sweater

Review by Rebecca Bain

by Rebecca Bain

Creating colossal challenges for oneself appears to be a firmly ingrained part of the human psyche, whether it’s Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reaching the summit of Mt. Everest in 1953 or Julie Powell cooking her way through Julia Child’s Mastering The Art of French Cooking in 2002. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that writer Adrienne Martini decided to knit an impossibly complicated sweater as a way of taking charge of her life.

As a wife and working mother of two, Martini often felt as if she were being pulled in a hundred different directions and seldom of her own choosing. Knitting, which she took up seriously after the birth of her first baby in 2002, grounded her. As she writes in her new memoir, Sweater Quest, “Making stuff with my very own hands has enriched my life in innumerable ways. Both kids and craft have taught me how to deal with frustration so acute that I’d want to bite the head off a kitten. Both are great courses in expectation management. Both have given more than they’ve taken—and introduced me to a community that I otherwise never would have known.”

But with a closet full of the hats, scarves and gloves she had knitted since the birth of her first baby, Martini wanted a challenge that would truly push her to her limits. She found it in the Fair Isle sweater pattern “Mary Tudor,” designed by Alice Starmore. Undaunted by the fact that the pattern was in an out-of-print book in a discontinued yarn, she embarked upon her “sweater quest” two years ago. Her adventure brought her into contact with knitters from all over the world (knitters are an interesting breed of folk) and, of course, helped her discover a few things about herself in the process.

Which is why Sweater Quest is not just a book about knitting, although readers certainly learn a great deal of the history of the craft in its pages. It’s a reminder that the human race loves a challenge—indeed, thrives on the quest—to be able to say with pride, “I did this.”

Convincing answers to a centuries-old question

by Roger Bishop

Memoir

Memoir

Family heirlooms hold undiscovered stories

Review by Lacey Galbraith

by Lacey Galbraith

Objects of Our Affection by journalist Lisa Tracy is one woman’s personal “Antiques Roadshow”-like quest through three generations’ worth of bric-a-brac, photographs, dishes and piece after endless piece of furniture. Told with equal parts humor and bittersweet sentiment, the book opens as Tracy and her sister are moving their independent—yet increasingly frail—83-year-old mother from her Lexington, Virginia, home to a nearby retirement community. “I was on an archaeological dig,” Tracy writes, “plowing through layers of family possessions we’d managed to ignore for decades, or in some cases had never seen before.” Inside one chest of drawers are a miscellany of family papers: “genealogy charts, military commendations, fragments of biographies, letters from the War of 1812, a photocopy of a journal from the 1840s, and what seemed like dozens of little framed daguerreotypes of people whose identity was a complete mystery to me.”

The sisters decide to take care of their mother first and worry about all the stuff later, but 10 years on, there’s still a bursting storage bin to contend with. An auction is scheduled, and though Tracy is relieved that “the family’s centuries-long accumulation of material goods is no longer going to be our personal responsibility,” she can’t help but wince at the parting of so many long-treasured items. “It’s hard to let go of objects because they are full of stories,” she writes.

Stories shape Objects of Our Affection. Believing that “we can . . . never be free of our stuff until we have dealt with the stories it carries,” Tracy consults curators and librarians, her research taking her from Philadelphia to the Philippines. Far from a mere cataloguing of expensive heirlooms, the book is a journey into the past, into family and community, and a look at the mystifying way that an aged Victorian horsehair sofa can stand as a silent yet eloquent reminder of “loss and pride, anger and love for a world that was.” Objects of Our Affection is a touching tribute to the lesson that “somewhere in the hastily sorted documents and photographs were probably our last best clues to who we were, where we’d come from, and why we’d lugged all this furniture with us.”

Lacey Galbraith is a writer in Nashville.

Behind the headlines of a pivotal war

by James Summerville

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Nonfiction Politics Memoir

How to Stand Up to a Dictator

Maria Ressa

By Sarojini Seupersad

Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.