All posts tagged: nonfiction

Great Writing, Important Message

Published by

Let me begin by saying that I am not yet finished with Between the World and Me. I think the lack of chapters is throwing me and making me take longer that I normally would. Couple that with the fact that I want to unpack, analyze, and process every single sentence, and here I am – still reading. So perhaps my review is not worth as much as another’s, I don’t know. If you don’t trust what I’m saying here, read Katherine C.’s review 🙂 Ta-Nehisi Coates is clearly a skilled writer and is able to craft a narrative that is at once poetic, emotional, and eye-opening. Things I believed merely a week earlier, ideas I had taken from one book, could be smashed to splinters by another. But it’s the message of the book that makes this book important. The writing is gorgeous, yes, but what it says is jaw-droopingly, heartbreakingly, painfully honest and agonizingly real. And this is not reducible to just you – the women around you must be responsible for their bodies …

An Absolute Must-Read!

Published by

I can’t say enough about this book. It’s been on my to-be-read list since it came out. However, I knew I needed to give it my full attention. So, as a mother of a one year old and two year old, I waited until taking a solo trip to read this one. I can remember sitting down with a few books to read the first few pages of each and determine my next read. After picking up Between the World and Me the next thing I knew I was more than 30 pages deep entranced by the writing. But of course, I interrupted by the end of naptime. So finally, during a 48hr trip to Idaho the hours spent waiting in airports and on planes were just what I needed to focus fully on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. The writing is so beautiful, so powerful, so approachable yet weighted with context and complex meaning. And that’s just the beginning. It’s beautifully written, yes, but the message Coates is writing is beyond. Not …

July Book

Published by

Image © Foreignpolicy.com This month we read to learn more about our Nation’s heritage with a good nonfiction book. There are many, many stories that make up who we are as a country. And it’s a goal of ours to keep educating ourselves on where we come from and who we are by reading a new one of these stories every year. This year’s is one from Ta-Nehisi Coates in the form of his acclaimed National Book Award winner and finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, Between the World and Me. This short, yet extremely powerful, 152-page book was published in July (fitting) of 2015. Coates was inspired to write the book after a meeting with President Obama in 2013 and reading James Baldwin’s 1963 The Fire Next Time. Between the World and Me is a series of letters from Coates to his son, Samori. In these letters Coates examines the notion of race in America and how it has shaped our history, most often at the cost of the bodies and lives of black men (and women). …

Confession Time

Published by

I have to admit, like Katie C., I was hesitant going in to this novel. I have complicated feelings about Amy Schumer — I thinks she’s funny, but can only take so much of her. 300+ pages of her humor had me a little nervous. But here’s my biggest confession: I didn’t finish it. And not because I didn’t like it, but because I wasn’t in to it. I also have made a new promise to myself to stop reading books I’m not enjoying. With over 300 unread books on my shelf (I’m not exaggerating), it’s becoming increasingly clear that abandoning books needs to be something I’m okay with. Otherwise I’ll never come even close to making that unread number smaller. Maybe at another time when I didn’t have so many other,  heavier books (ahem, Fates & Furies) calling my name I would have been able to muddle through. I laughed out loud a couple times in the beginning, and read some lines out loud to my husband, but like I am with her humor, …

Just What I Needed

Published by

If you’re reading my review, I’m going to assume you’ve read Katie C.’s review. I will admit here that I am the one who suggested this book for The Bookly Club, and I was SO NERVOUS to read it because I knew not everyone was so excited to do so. What if it was terrible or disgusting?  Or what if it just made you really dislike Amy? That has happened to me before. I won’t say who, but there is a person I adore(d) whose book I read and it just made me not like them. I was petrified this would happen again and everyone would blame me for making them read an awful book about someone who turned out to be an awful person. I was thrilled when Katie C. like the book. Because I liked the book, loved it even. When I would chuckle or straight up laugh while looking at my Kindle, my husband would say “Amy Schumer’s book?” And I would snort out a “yes,” and proceed to read him whatever …

Surprise, surprise

Published by

I had extremely low expectations for this book. In fact, at first I was against reading it at all. Not only is Amy Schumer someone I could give or take, but 300+ pages of her raw and self-deprecating humor seemed trivial, uninteresting and not worth the time it would take the read the book. So it’s a near miracle that I say now that not only do I not think this book was a waste of time, but I liked it. Like, really liked it. “One of the first times I was paparazzied, they caught me stand-up paddleboarding in Hawaii. I didn’t even recognize myself. I saw the shots in magazines and thought, Oh, cool, Alfred Hitchcock is alive and loves water sports.” Non-fiction short stories aren’t even really my ‘thing’ either. I don’t usually choose this genre. But I found this book to be not just funny (as one would expect), but relevant, empowering, even moving at times. I have an entirely new outlook on who Amy Schumer is and where she comes from. I …

April Book

Published by

All these April showers and exponential lack of vitamin D has us craving something happy, funny, and endorphin-releasing. A pick-me-up if you will. And who better to pick us up than Amy Schumer with her semi-autobiographical book and collection of personal essays The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo. This New York Times Bestseller, released in 2016, addresses some serious subjects such as gun violence, sexual assault and consent, domestic violence, Schumer’s troubled relationship with her mother and her father’s multiple sclerosis… but all from her raw and humorous perspective, of course. Schumer has dealt with a lot of criticisms for her stand up comedy and some subject matter from her show Inside Amy Schumer. Criticisms that her male counterparts may not face? But her seemingly inappropriate sense of humor and her willingness to tackle of sometimes taboo topics (see essay topics above) put her in the category of ground-breaking. And although she insists that this book should not be categorized as memoir, autobiography, or self-help, she offers some very personal stories and some very relevant advice (i.e. money, self-employment, sex, …

The Quick and the Dead

Published by

I will be honest – I was not looking forward to reading this book, but I have been on an unintentional hiatus and I just didn’t want it to last any longer. So here I was, holding my Kindle, Stiff on the screen, simply dreading reading a book about dead bodies when I so recently had to confront the reality of death in my life. That being said, here’s the good side. Roach’s writing is engaging, the topic is (admittedly) interesting, and I even found myself chuckling more than just a bit – she seems to have a delightfully dry, witty sense of humor and it comes across clearly in her writing. I truly do understand the value in using human cadavers to study most of the things Roach wrote about, and it really is fascinating what important information and learning can come from the science of the dead. Also, it was a fast read – just what I needed to break the hiatus. And here’s the bad side. Not really bad, I suppose. More like… …

Fast and Loose with Stiff

Published by

It took me longer than I’d expected to finish(ish) this one. I was excited to read this one, but it came at a busy time… the holidays, my brother’s wedding, the onset of winter illnesses for every member of my family. Ya know, the usual December/January stuff. So, I started off strong, but things kind of tapered off toward the end. I definitely enjoyed what I read, and learned a lot. There is a surprising amount to learn from cadaver “lives.” But I guess that’s what I liked most about this book, not only was it well written with a healthy lighten-the-mood sense of humor, but you could jump around with the chapters if needed. For example, I didn’t really have an interest in reading about plane crash cadavers. As a nervous flyer, I thought I’d do us all a favor by avoiding that one. But “Crimes of Anatomy,” “Holy Cadaver,” and “How to Know if You’re Dead” were my personal favorites. But, admittedly, there were a few more chapters at the end that I didn’t read. …

Stiff: An Interesting Case for Coping with Humor

Published by

  As a physician and, I guess more specifically, someone who has participated in a gross anatomy lab, I have a specific point of view about human cadavers.  I will start by saying this – the book provides some truly interesting history on the matter.  For that point alone, I would say Roach’s book is a worthy one. Albeit, it is not one for everyone. The subject is a bit – um – macabre.  If you didn’t know that from the cover, I’m not sure reading is for you. Now what I really took away from this book is that how we deal with things that make us uncomfortable is rather universal. I often wondered why I wasn’t more bothered by anatomy lab my first year of medical school. I didn’t particularly want to get physically sick or feel overwhelming guilt. But I also didn’t want to feel how I did – like it was normal. There was nothing normal about what I was doing. History may suggest otherwise. Personally, though, gross anatomy lab was …