All in Non-fiction
It was exactly one year ago that I had my breakthrough and realized that there are well-written, non-fiction books about history that even I could enjoy reading. It was Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals that opened my eyes. After Goodwin, I solicited ideas from friends and tried Jill Lepore’s These Truths and realized that not all popular history books would be to my liking. Therefore, when I read Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, I was thrilled to find it so accessible and entertaining.
This is not the kind of book I would normally pick out for myself, but my husband Dan saw Hadfield speak and brought his memoir home. His high praise of the man’s message and the book itself put it at the top of my list, and I wasn’t disappointed.
My co-editor and I so enjoy receiving book recommendations from our readers that we both read Born A Crime this month after our friend Jane Amara endorsed it. I was aware of the book, but unsure of its appeal. Thanks to Jane, I read it and recommend it highly.
I could not put this book down once I started reading it. At the same time, I didn’t want to read too much at one sitting because I wanted to absorb what I’d read and I didn’t want the book to end.
Thank goodness for the twice-yearly “Authors on Stage” program at Wellesley College, which I’ve happily attended for years with my friend, Pam. If not for this wonderful series, which each time features three authors talking about their new books, I may never have found The Food Explorer. As the title suggests, the book tells the remarkable story of David Fairchild, an American botanist, who from the late nineteenth century well into the twentieth, devoted his life to traveling the world in search of new plants and foods that he could bring back to America. He added a vast quantity of foods to Americans’ diets and increased by a huge amount the diversity of what farmers grow.
This amazing book is the true story of the woman who created the Veuve Clicquot empire in France just after the French Revolution when women weren’t generally allowed to own property or run businesses. Upon her husband’s death when she was 27 years old, Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin assumed leadership of the wine company she and her husband had run together. With genuine strength and a natural ability for business, she nurtured the company through multiple political and financial firestorms – to become one of the first and most successful business women of her time.
While not a memoir, this book takes a very close look at a young woman who was born male and her journey, along with her family, to transition to the gender she was meant to be.
I don’t read a ton of memoirs, but this one is GREAT! I devoured it, staying up way too late several nights in a row. Not only is the story completely hypnotic, the book is structured to keep you turning pages.
Caroline Fraser has written a fascinating biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Using precious little autobiographical information left by Wilder and supplementing it with a similarly small amount left by her daughter, Fraser adroitly weaves a compelling tale of Wilder’s life. She explains how Wilder came to write her beloved Little House on the Prairie series in the midst of the Great Depression when she herself was in her mid-sixties.
There is no doubt about it: I am a huge Anna Quindlen fan. She occupies a spot on my “must read” list. Every time I see that she’s published a new book, I scoop it up. (See reviews of Miller’s Valley, May 2017 and Alternate Side, June 2018.) Quindlen won the Pulitzer Prize and for a long time wrote a column for the New York Times.
H Is for Hawk appeared on many “best books of the year” lists for 2015 and it’s been on my “must read” list since then. I want to spare all of you any further delay: pick up this book today and read it. It is an absolute treasure! I can honestly state that I’ve never read anything quite like it.
Unbelievable was recommended to me by a friend and frankly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it. Don’t get me wrong. I happily spend many an evening glued to MSNBC, following Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. But, the idea of using my leisure time reading about Donald Trump’s successful presidential campaign run seemed potentially anxiety-producing, rather than pleasant. I decided to try it though, and I am delighted that I did.
If I weren’t a member of the Boston area Bates College Alumna Book Club, I might never have found One Goal, a true gem. Written by a Bates alumna, One Goal tells the story of the Lewiston High School men’s soccer team’s quest for a 2015 state championship with a team composed mainly of Somali immigrants that had settled in the Maine town.
Neither my mom nor I read, or review much non-fiction, and for me part of my avoidance is that when I read non-fiction, I feel like I’m going to be tested. I get stressed like I have to remember all the facts and figures being thrown at me. But this book is incredible, and never once did I feel lost in a sea of statistics.
In reading a first lady’s memoir you might expect descriptions, perhaps some even heartfelt, about what it was really like spending four, or maybe eight, years in the White House. Michelle Obama delivers that, hands down. But, in addition she offers her readers much, much more.
One gauge of a great book, I believe, is how long it stays with you after you’ve finished reading it. Another is how many excerpts you read out loud to your significant other. A third is how many times you talk about it with everyone you know who likes to read. A fourth is how many times you recommend it to your friends and family. By all these standards, Lab Girl is a great read.
I read this book before my daughter Charlotte was born, and it was and remains one of my top two favorite books on parenting. I know I enjoyed it in part because there is a narrative. Rather than being an endless list of charts and data, Druckerman tells her own story about raising her three children. But she is a journalist, and so she supplements her experience with interviews and data, and even a few charts!
We’re well into our second year of the L & L Review and up to this point I’ve never reviewed a book about history. Historical fiction, sure. But reading an entire book about history? Normally that would appeal to me about as much as reading an entire book about math. So how did I happen to find my way to Team of Rivals? It’s a selection for my Bates College Boston Alumna book club and is going to be discussed in November. Since it’s 800+ pages, I thought I better get to it.
Several people told me that I really needed to read Educated. When I finally began to read it, I wondered if it could possibly live up to all the hype. Well, add me to the book’s long list of admirers. Educated will draw you in and bowl you over. It is the true story of Tara Westover, the youngest child of seven, who was raised by survivalist parents in Idaho.
Anyone who has read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In knows that she writes well and has a compelling story to tell. Anyone who has read Adam Grant’sOriginals or Give and Take knows that he also has an interesting set of beliefs and is able to articulate them clearly. When these two successful authors teamed up to write Option B, it’s no wonder the resulting book is a real knock-out.
