Category Archives: Non-fiction

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II by Liz Mundy

05 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by in 20th century, History, Non-fiction, United States

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1942 – all the men were off to war.  An suddenly the Navy and Army needed brain power to break volumes of enemy codes. Senior women graduates started receiving mysterious letters asking them to come to Washington DC to help the war effort. 10,000 women responded from across the US and swore an oath of secrecy for life.  With these girls, I experienced WWII… battle to battle, ship by ship. Their efforts shortened the war, saved countless lives, and gave them access to careers previously denied to them. Fascinating!

“Mundy is a fine storyteller…. A sleek, compelling narrative…. The book is a winner. Her descriptions of codes and ciphers, how they worked and how they were broken, are remarkably clear and accessible. A well-researched, compellingly written, crucial addition to the literature of American involvement in World War II.”―Kirkus (starred review)

“Code Girls reveals a hidden army of female cryptographers, whose work played a crucial role in ending World War II. With clarity and insight, Mundy exposes the intertwined narratives of the women who broke codes and the burgeoning field of military intelligence in the 1940s. I cannot overstate the importance of this book; Mundy has rescued a piece of forgotten history, and given these American heroes the recognition they deserve.”―Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls

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American Heiress: the Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin

07 Tuesday Nov 2017

Posted by in 20th century, Biography, History, Non-fiction, United States

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I knew only the most basic facts about the kidnapping of Patty Hearst before reading this book, which provides many interesting details about the kidnapping as well as the people involved, the political and social climate of the time, and the Hearst family. Several moments in this story reminded me that sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction!

“Terrifically engrossing…Toobin uses his knowledge of the justice system and his examination of the evidence to pierce the veil of spectacle…As for Patty Hearst herself, Toobin treats her as a person, not a tabloid phantasm.—New York Times Book Review

“The abduction and subsequent radicalization of Patricia Hearst is one of the most bizarre but illuminating episodes of that tumultuous era of protest…and in American Heiress Jeffrey Toobin retells the story with a full-blown narrative treatment that may astonish readers too young to remember it themselves…Toobin spins this complex chapter of recent history into an absorbing and intelligent page-turner.”—The Washington Post 

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The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating by Elisabeth Tova Bailey

08 Friday Sep 2017

Posted by in Biography, nature, Non-fiction

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While an illness keeps her bedridden, Bailey watches a wild snail that has taken up residence on her nightstand. As a result, she discovers the solace and sense of wonder that this mysterious creature brings and comes to a greater understanding of her own confined place in the world.

“As I read Bailey’s description of how her snail moved, ate, slept, and reproduced, I felt myself shrinking and shrinking, like Alice in Wonderland, until I was snail-size myself.” – Anne Fadiman

A charming, delicate meditation on the meaning of life. — Kirkus Review

“Though illness may rob us of vitality, sometimes it can also help bring us understanding—-albeit in improbable disguises . . . Perhaps there’s something to be said for moving at a snail’s pace.” —NPR.org

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The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Biography, case studies, Non-fiction

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If you have ever dreamed of getting away from it all, then this is the book for you!

In 1986, a young man seeking a quiet and peaceful life, drove his car into the back woods of Maine, left the keys on the dashboard and disappeared for 27 years.  Where did he sleep, what did he eat, how did he survive the black fly season and the rain and the bitter cold and was he ever lonely?  All these questions and many more will be answered.  P.S. This book has a Metrowest Boston connection.

“A story that takes the two primary human relationships—to nature and to one another—and deftly upends our assumptions about both. This was a breathtaking book to read and many weeks later I am still thinking about the implications for our society and—by extension—for my own life.”—Sebastian Junger

“An absorbing exploration of solitude and man’s eroding relationship with the natural world. Though the ‘stranger’ in the title is Knight, one closes the book with the sense that Knight, like all seers, is the only sane person in a world gone insane—that modern civilization has made us strangers to ourselves.”—Nathaniel Rich, The Atlantic

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Never Caught : the Washingtons’ Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

17 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by in Biography, History, Non-fiction, United States

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“Oney Judge’s forgotten story is a powerful reminder that the tentacles of slavery could reach from the South all the way north to the State of New Hampshire.  The surprising part of the true history is not that she achieved her freedom, but the lengths to which George and Martha Washington would go to try to recapture a young woman who insulted them by rejecting bondage.” – Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina

“A startling, well-researched .  . . narrative that seriously questions the intentions of our first president.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Erica Armstrong Dunbar combines the known facts of Ona’s life in service to the Washingtons with vivid descriptions of the physical and emotional conditions early American slaves faced.” (New York Post)

“Totally engrossing and absolutely necessary for understanding the birth of the American Republic, Never Caught is richly human history from the vantage point of the enslaved fifth of the early American population. Here is Ona Judge’s (successful) quest for freedom, on one side, and, on the other, George and Martha Washington’s (vain) use of federal power to try to keep her enslaved.” (Nell Irvin Painter, author of Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol)

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Ruthless River: Love and Survival by Raft on the Amazon’s Relentless Madre de Dios by Holly FitzGerald

26 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by in Non-fiction, Travel

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True life story.  Holly FitzGerald and her husband set off on the adventure of their dreams a year into their marriage in the late ’70’s.  The harrowing story of what went wrong in the Amazon and how they survived, kept me racing through chapters as if my survival was bound up with theirs.  Short crisp chapters, excellent editing, and riveting determination make this a winner read.

“Both travel memoir and shocking adventure story, like a real-life Survivor or Naked and Afraid . . . A powerful story about survival, love, and faith in the face of impossible odds . . .  Unputdownable . . . absolutely fascinating.”—Katie Lawrence, Library Journal

“One of the great survival tales. An almost unbearable story told with a physical and emotional intensity that draws the reader in, not just as witness, but as virtual participant. It’s an exhausting, painful, inspiring read.”—Michael Palin, author of Traveling to Work

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Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

12 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by in Non-fiction, True crime

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This engaging work of nonfiction is a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history that took place in 1920s Oklahoma, targeting the wealthy Osage community.   His previous book is The Lost City of Z: a Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.

“A master of the detective form…Killers is something rather deep and not easily forgotten.”—Wall St. Journal

 “A marvel of detective-like research and narrative verve.”—Financial Times 

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Dead Wake: the Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson

22 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Non-fiction, Travel

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It is a story that many of us think we know but may not.  Erik Larson tells a thrilling story, switching between hunter and hunted, while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Gripping and important, Dead Wake captures the sheer drama and emotional power of a disaster whose intimate details and true meaning have long been obscured by history.

“In his gripping new examination of the last days of what was then the fastest cruise ship in the world, Larson brings the past stringingly alive…He draws upon telegrams, war logs, love letters, and survivor depositions to provide the intriguing details, things I didn’t know I wanted to know…Thrilling, dramatic and powerful.”—NPR

“Larson has a gift for transforming historical re-creations into popular recreations, and Dead Wake is no exception…[He] provides first-rate suspense, a remarkable achievement given that we already know how this is going to turn out…The tension, in the reader’s easy chair, is unbearable…”—The Boston Globe

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Some writer! : the story of E. B. White by Melissa Sweet.

01 Monday May 2017

Posted by in Biography, Non-fiction

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In Some Writer!, the two-time Caldecott Honor winner Melissa Sweet mixes White’s personal letters, photos, and family ephemera with her own exquisite artwork to tell his story, from his birth in 1899 to his death in 1985. This authorized tribute is the first fully illustrated biography of E. B. White and includes an afterword by Martha White, E. B. White’s granddaughter. Pure scrapbook delight for the eyes and heart!

“Whether the name E. B. White is a new discover or a much-loved author, Some Writer! will captivate readers of all ages.”—Christian Science Monitor

“Sweet raises her collage skills to new heights while bringing her love and admiration for fellow Mainer E. B. White to the page for everyone to appreciate. Just as her astounding collages blend materials that might have been found in a barn in Maine, the text carefully blends her words with those of the beloved writer of children’s books… Sweet has written and drawn a fast-moving, thorough, deeply researched, and accessible biography.”—Horn Book, STARRED review

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Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver

02 Thursday Mar 2017

Posted by in nature, Non-fiction

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First line:  “‘In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.’ This is a gem of a book that left me breathless with the simplicity of her choice of words combined with the magnitude of her reflection on nature.  I keep asking myself  “how does Mary Oliver do it?”  Emotionally powerful.

“Uniting essays from Oliver’s previous books and elsewhere, this gem of a collection offers a compelling synthesis of the poet’s thoughts on the natural, spiritual and artistic worlds .  . . With each page, the book gains accumulative power. The various threads intertwine and become taut.”
– The New York Times

“There’s hardly a page in my copy of Upstream that isn’t folded down or underlined and scribbled on, so charged is Oliver’s language…I need a moment away from unceasing word drip of debates about the election, about whether Elena Ferrante has the right to privacy, about whether Bob Dylan writes ‘Literature.’ I need a moment, more than a moment, in the steady and profound company of Mary Oliver and I think you might need one too.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air

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