Category Archives: Biography

Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft & Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

28 Monday Nov 2016

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9780812980479_p0_v3_s192x300This biography follows writer and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, novelist Mary Shelley, in alternating chapters. It is worth the time to savor their vivid journey across Revolutionary France and Victorian England, from the Italian seaports to the highlands of Scotland. I knew only a little about these women before starting this book and was engrossed by their fascinating life stories.

“By linking these two lives, Ms. Gordon’s biography stretches over a fascinating era in history, characterized by great flux in political and cultural thinking and involving some of the main figures in English literary and philosophical history.”—The Wall Street Journal

“Gordon unfolds the two stories in tandem, deftly balancing the gossipy aspects of her subjects’ lives with their serious intellectual concerns.”—The New Yorker

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Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

06 Monday Jun 2016

Posted by in Biography, Humor, Non-fiction

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I was riveted by Hope Jahren’s interview on NPR and startled by the sincere gratitude of those women in science fields who called to thank her for writing this book.  Hope is a fighter.  She is passionate about the plant world.  She has fought tooth and nail to practice “her science” and not let academia dictate, squelch, or underfund her path……and she writes in beautiful prose…and she includes some hysterically funny experiences.  Hope is best at teaching, nurturing. Open these pages and walk into nature with an inspirational guide.

“Lab Girl surprised, delighted, and moved me. I was drawn in from the start by the clarity and beauty of Jahren’s prose, whether she was examining the inner world of a seed, the ecosystem around the trunk of a tree, or recounting her own inspiring journey. With Lab Girl, Jahren joins those talented scientists who are able to reveal to us the miracle of this world in which we live.” —Abraham Verghese

“Some people are great writers, while other people live lives of adventure and importance. Almost no one does both. Hope Jahren does both. She makes me wish I’d been a scientist.” —Ann Patchett

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How to Cook a Moose: A Culinary Memoir by Kate Christensen

23 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Biography, Non-fiction

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In this engaging memoir, the author and her boyfriend move from New York City to New England, where they spend time in New Hampshire before making a home in Portland, Maine. The book includes plenty of recipes, interesting facts about New England, and the author’s own love story.

“[An] exuberant, unabashedly gourmand-esque follow-up to Blue Plate Special…Christensen is eating well, in love, and radiating the ‘quiet internal daily joy of living in a culture based on authenticity and integrity.'”—Kirkus Reviews

I like that Ms. Christensen shows us, as M.F.K. Fisher did, the pleasures of a world of food where the scrupulous weighing out of precise calories, vitamins and other nutritional units doesn t exist, because to labor over it is to exist without spirit…Her book gets us thinking about what we are really hungry for and whether the rules of eating have begun to outweigh its pleasures. —Wall Street Journal

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Vanessa and Her Sister by Priya Parmar

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Biography, Fiction, Historical Fiction

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Here is an excerpt from Vanessa’s diary – “every moment with Virginia – one feels more alive, not just alive, but living.  I have understood this Virginia equation – there is no rational, logical, or reachable Virginia lurking beneath – eventually Virginia  becomes exhausting”.  One would never want a sister like Virginia Woolf!

“Parmar inhabits the gilded ‘bohemian hinterland’ of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa, creating a vibrant fictional homage.”—O: The Oprah Magazine

“Parmar does a stellar job conveying Virginia’s complicated, almost incestuous feelings for Vanessa. . . . The author also deftly brings to life the various artists and writers who formed the nascent Bloomsbury group. . . . Parmar’s narrative is riveting and successfully takes on the task of turning larger-than-life figures into real people. . . . [She] weaves their stories together so effortlessly that nothing seems out of place.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Becoming Nicole: the Transformation of an American Family by Amy Ellis Nutt

04 Monday Apr 2016

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Amy Ellis Nutt won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011.  In her very capable hands, she puts the reader inside the household of the Maines family and their identical boy twins.  A very mainstream American family must struggle, transform, persevere  in a landmark discrimination case.  A fascinating true story about a courageous girl.

“A transgender girl’s coming-of-age saga, an exploration of the budding science of gender identity, a civil rights time capsule, a tear-jerking legal drama and, perhaps most of all, an education about what can happen when a child doesn’t turn out as his or her parents expected—and they’re forced to either shut their eyes and hearts or see everything differently.”—Time

“[An] exceptional chronicle . . . ‘Stories move the walls that need to be moved,’ Nicole told her father last year. In telling Nicole’s story and those of her brother and parents luminously, and with great compassion and intelligence, that is exactly what Amy Ellis Nutt has done here.”—Sue Halpern, The Washington Post

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When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

21 Monday Mar 2016

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I read this on a snowy morning in one sitting.  Written by a neurosurgeon who passed away last year, this is a short but very powerful book. Paul Kalanithi was a successful neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in his thirties. In addition to his work in medicine, he also studied literature, and this memoir is a beautiful combination of the two fields. His words and story are poignant and hard to forget “The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattened out into a perpetual present.”

“Rattling, heartbreaking, and ultimately beautiful, the too-young Dr. Kalanithi’s memoir is proof that the dying are the ones who have the most to teach us about life.”—Atul Gawande

“A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity . . . Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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Reading Claudius: a Memoir in Two Parts by Caroline Heller

21 Thursday Jan 2016

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I highly recommend this memoir written by Caroline Heller.  She describes her parents stories of living in the cosmopolitan city of Prague before Hitler and the devastation World War II brought.  Interwoven throughout the book are literature and poetry quotes which sustained her family through their darkest times.

“This fine book contains moments of emotion so pure that in the end, we too fall in love with the writer’s past.”—The New York Times Book Review

“[Caroline] Heller plunges us lovingly and convincingly into [a] lost world.”—The Boston Globe

“Caroline Heller writes with both honesty and delicacy. I was particularly enthralled by her finely drawn portrait of prewar Central Europe: a lost world whose memories are inestimably valuable and fiercely beautiful but which, without accounts like this, would fade forever.”—Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

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My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life by Ruth Reichel

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

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In 2009, Gourmet magazine suddenly closes its doors and Ruth faces a world with no job.  Part personal narrative, part cookbook, heal with Ruth as she turns to her favorite recipes and foods for the seasons.  Beautifully illustrated, the book exudes warmth and cheer.  Food therapy at its best!

“Ruth is one of our greatest storytellers today, which you will feel from the moment you open this book and begin to read: No one writes as warmly and engagingly about the all-important intersection of food, life, love, and loss. This book is a lyrical and deeply intimate journey told through recipes, as only Ruth can do.”—Alice Waters

“The dishes are clearly fun and uplifting for Reichl, and the unexpected shift from culinary guru to happy home cook chases her blues away. Reichl reminds readers that getting lost in a recipe can be excellent therapy.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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The Secret Chord by Geraldine Brooks

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Biography, Fiction, Historical Fiction

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I recommend Geraldine Brooks titles to anyone who loves historical fiction.  She has done it once again!  I was swept away into Second Iron Age Israel, most violent of times. This vivid, imaginative account takes one through the tribal battlefields and into the heart of David’s family of 8 wives and 9 children. Inspired by the lost book of Nathan.

“There’s something bordering on the supernatural about Geraldine Brooks.  She seems able to transport herself back to earlier time periods, to time travel.  Sometimes, reading her work, she draws you so thoroughly into another era that you swear she’s actually lived in it.  With sensory acuity and a deep and complex understanding of emotional states, she conjures up the way we lived then. . .Brooks has humanized the king and cleverly added a modern perspective to our understanding of him. . .[Her] vision of the biblical world is enrapturing.”  —The Boston Globe
“The best historical fiction. . .Brooks gives the whole king his due. . .It’s a tall order to breathe life into such a human being, and she manages it admirably.”—NPR
“In her gorgeously written novel of ambition, courage, retribution, and triumph, Brooks imagines the life and character of King David in all his complexity. . .The language, clear and precise throughout, turns soaringly poetic when describing music or the glory of David’s city. . .taken as a whole, the novel feels simultaneously ancient, accessible, and timeless.” —ALA Booklist
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The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife and the Missing Corpse: An extraordinary Edwardian case of deception and intrigue by Piu Marie Eatwell

07 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by in Biography, History, Non-fiction

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This non-fiction account reads like fiction.  Eatwell structured the book like a play; instead of chapters she has written acts and scenes so it reads like a farce. I learned that in 19th-century Britain, it wasn’t unheard of for men to lead double lives and have two families and two different names/personalities. Fans of Oscar Wilde will like it!

“A riveting true crime from yesteryear.” (Better Homes & Gardens)

“It’s Downton Abbey meets The Addams Family in Piu Marie Eatwell’s The Dead Duke, His Secret Wife, and the Missing Corpse, a delightfully offbeat history of a bizarre Edwardian legal case that became tabloid fodder and kept the British public spellbound for a decade…. Eatwell’s marvelous book reads like a Wilkie Collins gothic novel, but at times truth is stranger than fiction.” (Wilda Williams – Library Journal (Editor’s Fall Picks)
“A meticulous examination of a late Victorian/early Edwardian cause célèbre…with juicy details from the time period.” (Publishers Weekly)“[An] engrossing tale of mystery, lies, and intrigue…Besides recounting years of subterfuge, media hype, greed, and fraud, Eatwell throws light on Victorian and Edwardian society: aristocratic entitlement and power, numbing poverty, political corruption, and many secret lives.” (Kirkus Reviews)

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