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Back to topSpring 2024 Nonfiction Reviews
Hello to you, nonfiction readers from us nonfiction readers!
We read a variety of titles this Spring; we hope you enjoy our humble reviews of these ambitious books.
Please bring your feedback to us here in the store -- we love seeing you and talking books!
(Reviews appear in Alphabetical Order by Title.)
Growing up on the same street in New Rochelle, New York, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor had a lot in common and became best friends. They were both bright, but Michael was extremely smart. They were both personable, but Michael was very outgoing. They both went to Yale, but Michael graduated in three years and it took Jonathan four. Michael had a charmed life until the year after he graduated when he was diagnosed as a schizophrenic. The Best Minds is Michael's story before and after the diagnosis as well as how mental illness is dealt with. This work of nonfiction is fantastic. It is part memoir, part treatise on schizophrenia, and also part description of the people and organizations who helped Michael and why it wasn't enough. Rosen has a wry sense of humor usually directed at himself. His figures of speech are creative and usually right on. The Best Minds clearly and objectively describes Michael Laudor: an exceptional person with an horrific disease. (This book was named one of the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2023, and it is now in paperback.)
Reviewed by Nancy Randall
Publishers Weekly gives this a starred review, calling it, "Twisty and cinematic... A mesmerizing and disconcerting look at an era when consensus dissolved into deadly polarization." Kirkus Reviews says this is, "a welcome addition to any Civil War buff's library."
Erik Larson drops the reader right into the heated tension that is boiling over after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. It is filled with details, differing perspectives, and an understanding of what was happening throughout the young country. This new book is riveting, intense, and hard to put down.
Reviewed by Andrea Fossier
When Benjamin Herold visited the suburb he grew up in outside of Pittsburgh, he noticed that it had become poorer, more diversified in terms of the population, the infrastructure was old and in disrepair, and the educational system was suffering. He pursued this and began investigating suburbs of Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta as well as his own hometown. He zeroed in on one family in each of these suburbs to help him and his readers understand the change. I read this work of nonfiction because I live in a suburb, and one of the suburbs that Benjamin Herold describes is 10 miles from my home. At first I kept getting the five families and their suburbs mixed up, but eventually I was able to keep them straight. The author researched each suburb and describes the fears, goals and daily lives of the families, but I never got a clear understanding of how to solve the suburban dilemma.
Reviewed by Nancy Randall
In October 2022, my five best friends and I, known as the Drake Girls in our group chat, met in Paris for a long overdue reunion. We have all been friends since 1991! Since one of us lives in Paris, a couple of us had visited several times, but three of us had never been. We are fortunate to have our very own "Emily in Paris", who is much smarter, cooler, and definitely more attractive than the fictional television one. Our Emily planned a beautiful experience at La Cuisine Paris, a local cooking school, during which we had an incredible market tour, returned to the school to cook with our brilliant guide and chef, Cyril, and then ate the fruits of our labor, so to speak. It was one of the highlights of my trip to Paris.
And now, the founder of the school, Jane Bertch, has published her story in her fascinating memoir, The French Ingredient. I devoured this book! I cannot decide where it should be shelved in the bookstore - Memoir, Travel, Food Writing, or Inspiration. Frankly, it can go in all four. Jane, an American, first travelled to Paris with her mom as a graduation gift from high school. It was not a positive experience, and she swore she would never go back. Fast forward some years, and Jane found herself working as a banker and being transferred to Paris for her job. She has documented for us all the peaks and valleys of making a life in Paris, starting a new career, and fulfilling your dreams against the odds. The audacity of an American woman, a banker no less, opening a cooking school in Paris, France! This memoir is not just a love letter to Paris, but a love letter to listening to and believing in yourself.
If you have been to Paris, are planning a trip to Paris, know someone about to embark on a trip, or are anyone who needs inspiration for following their dreams, pick up this wonderful memoir. (Of course I got six copies of the book for me and my Drake Girls.) I also had the great pleasure of meeting Jane while she is on her book tour to have them signed. (Merci Jane for making the time to meet with me. It was such a pleasure to meet you. I wish you all the success!) I hope you all read The French Ingredient, and I hope when you travel to Paris you plan an experience @lacuisineparis. I truly recommend you purchase a copy... or six.
Reviewed by Inna Feldman Gerber
Calvin Trillin wears many hats. He has written novels, memoirs, articles and essays. He is a reporter, a liberal, a family man and a gourmand. When he writes he can be funny, nostalgic, sensitive, sarcastic or angry. He can be serious when writing about the civil rights movement and humorous when describing pompous politicians. The Lede is a compilation of some of Trillin's articles dating from the 1960's to 2013.
When I saw that Calvin Trillin had another book published (he is 88 years old), it was like welcoming back an old friend. Although I don't think The Lede is Trillin at his best, I'll take his writing any way that I can get it!
Reviewed by Nancy Randall
Ilyon Woo's work of nonfiction tells the story of Ellen and William Craft; both of them were slaves in Macon, Georgia. In 1848, they leave Macon on the train. Ellen, who can easily pass for white, travels in disguise as a sickly young man, with William as her/his slave. They believe that once they reach Philadelphia their lives will be safe and easy. However, the North presents a whole new set of problems, especially with the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act. As I read Master Slave Husband Wife, I kept thinking,"Why hadn't I known anything about this remarkable couple?" Woo's well-written, well-researched work describes the Craft couple's escape to Philadelphia, Boston, Canada, and finally England. Woo describes a couple who with the help of friends, Quakers and abolitionists, lived harrowing and extraordinary lives. (This book was named one of the New York Times Top 10 Books of 2023, and it is now in paperback.)
Reviewed by Nancy Randall
This book is NOT new, but it is a great one to re-read when you may have lost your way in business or in life.
Simon Sinek can illustrate the ways that people with passion and purpose either succeed or fail based on the clarity of their reasons why they do what they do.
From the myriad of examples of success (mostly Apple LOL) to the many ways he challenges you to question your "why", this read is valuable in so many ways.
Reviewed by Alli Gilley
Jeremy Eichler is a classical music critic who spent ten years researching and writing this beautiful book. While it is a nonfiction book, it reads more like a novel. It is hard to put into words how much I loved this book. In “Time’s Echo,” Eichler examines the life and work of Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich. He tells us the history of the "before, during, and after" of these composers’ memorialization of the Holocaust. But this tremendous book is so much more. Eichler writes about how music is used to process trauma and the atrocities and losses of the Holocaust. He also walks us through the aftermath and how art and music were used to deny the roots of Nazism, which was a genocide of Jews. We always believe that music can be a soundtrack for our lives, and Eichler beautifully states that not only do we remember music, but music can and does remember us. The Jewish Book Council has named Time’s Echo as the Everett Family Foundation Book of the Year, and it has won both Gerrard and Ella Berman Memorial Award for History and the Holocaust Award in Memory of Ernest W. Michel. I have now read it twice and hope that if you love history, music, and art that you will read it also.
Reviewed by Inna Feldman-Gerber