Nonfiction Friday
Non-Fiction Friday is a link-up where you can find all of the awesome non-fiction happenings of the week. Be sure to link-up your non-fiction posts too!
Category: non-fiction
Fantastic Narrative Nonfiction
At first glance, Ghettoside and The Train to Crystal City don’t appear to have much in common. Ghettoside tells the story of a detective determined to solve the murder of a fellow officer’s son and highlights the fact that a disproportionate number of murder victims in America are young, black men. It falls squarely in the true crime genre and reads like a gritty police procedural. The Train to Crystal City is a book about our history, specifically the only family internment camp in America during WWII, home to families (including American-born children) some of whom were exchanged for American POWs against their will. What made me choose to review these books together is that they are both exemplary works of narrative nonfiction. Read more »
Nonfiction Friday
Non-Fiction Friday is a link-up where you can find all of the awesome non-fiction happenings of the week. Be sure to link-up your non-fiction posts too!
Captive Paradise
Title: Captive Paradise Author: James L. Haley
Source: from publisher for review
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Despite having covered American history multiple times in school, I knew nothing about the way Hawaii became part of the US. It turns out, it’s a fascinating story! This history begins with Captain Cook’s arrival on the islands and the state of native culture at the time. From then on, everything is conflict. There’s a struggle between different world powers to make use of Hawaii economically, a culture clash between missionaries and Hawaiians who want preserve native traditions, and several tumultuous changes in the Hawaiian government. The history ends with the annexation of Hawaii, but I’d love to learned even more about the aftermath of annexation. Read more »
Nonfiction Friday
Non-Fiction Friday is a link-up where you can find all of the awesome non-fiction happenings of the week. Be sure to link-up your non-fiction posts too!
The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014
Title: The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014 Author: Deborah Blum, Tim Folger
Source: NetGalley
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic collection of essays! All were well written, the science ones were very accessible, and a surprisingly large number were relevant to daily life.
The Best American Science and Nature Writing collection is published every year to showcase exemplary popular science and nature essays. This year’s guest editor was Deborah Blum, who you might know as the author of The Poisoner’s Handbook. Contributors you might recognize include Barbara Kingsolver (author of The Poisonwood Bible) and E. O. Wilson (author of The Social Conquest of Earth). Read more »
Facehooked
Title: Facehooked Author: Suzana E. Flores
Source: from publisher for review
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: The anecdotes in this book were fascinating but the information was both obvious enough to be boring and not obvious enough to justify the nearly complete lack of citations.
I love books about the way technology affects our lives, so I was excited to hear what psychologist Suzana Flores thought about the way Facebook can influence our mental health. After noticing that many of her clients had Facebook related complaints, Dr. Flores began interviewing people specifically about their experiences with Facebook. In Facehooked, she shares many of the stories she heard, discusses some of the problems she believes Facebook can cause, and offers some advice for fighting bad Facebook habits. Read more »
Jane Austen Cover to Cover
Title: Jane Austen Cover to Cover Author: Margaret C. Sullivan
Source: from publisher for review
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: An interesting and beautiful book which would make a great gift for the Austen fan in your life – even if that’s yourself!
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Lives in Ruins
Title: Lives in Ruins Author: Marilyn Johnson
Source: from publisher for review
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: This fun romp through the world of archaeology is perfect for anyone who shares my love of learning about different professions.
I love learning about other professions, so Marilyn Johnson’s exploration of the world of archaeology was my kind of book. She joins a kind of archaeology boot camp, participates in digs, attends conferences, and interviews many archeologists. While she does focus on the more interesting and glamorous parts of the profession, she also makes it clear that the profession is hard and that steady jobs are rare. She also does a good job conveying the difficulties many archeologists face in finding public support for the preservation of important sites and their passion for the job.
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In Translation
Title: In Translation Author: Esther Allen, Susan Bernofsky
Source: Library
Links: Bookshop (affiliate link) |Goodreads
Rating:
Summary: Despite a somewhat academic tone, most of these essays addressed questions I found fascinating as a lay reader of translations in an accessible but thought-provoking way.
I’ve loved almost all of the translated work I’ve read and even those which aren’t my favorite have been enjoyable for their novelty, so I was excited to pick up this anthology of essays by translators about their work. The first essay was a bit a of a let down though, too academic and abstract for my taste. Fortunately, very few essays in the collection had this flaw. Essay two, for example, provided immediate gratification with a discussion of the way translations are allowed to flout literary conventions, which resonated with me as one of my favorite features of the genre. Read more »
