Tag Archives: United States

Bobby Kennedy : a Raging Spirit by Chris Matthews

06 Friday Jul 2018

Posted by in Biography

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This book is recommended by a Weston library patron.

“Matthews is skilled at weaving tension and conflict throughout the book. One doesn’t just read the words, but experiences the tension and emotions….The depth of Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit provides insight into this man’s spirit and what drove him to greatness. Matthews does an excellent job of pulling Bobby out from behind any family shadows to give us an in-depth portrait of what could have been.”  –New York Journal of Books

“If you love reading about politics, if you ever loved the Kennedys or were fascinated by them, if you love biographical history or if you just like a good yarn about a brooding soul who turns into an uplifting, magnetic force—Chris Matthews’ “Bobby Kennedy: A Raging Spirit” Should be your next read. It’s well-researched, dramatically told. It brings those times—Camelot and after—back to life.” –Lesley Stahl, Correspondent for 60 Minutes

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Out of Line: A Life of Playing with Fire by Barbara Lynch

25 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by in 20th century, Biography

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Named one of Time‘s 100 Most Influential People in the World

Blood, Bones, & Butter meets A Devil in the Kitchen in this funny, fierce, and poignant memoir by world-renowned chef, restaurateur, and Top Chef judge Barbara Lynch, recounting her rise from a hard-knocks South Boston childhood to culinary stardom.

“If you have an appetite for culinary adventure, you’ll devour the feisty and fun memoir by James Beard award-winning chef and philanthropist Barbara Lynch.” —Elle

“Whenever she writes about food, her passion is evident, and she appends a number of recipes that will surely send some readers straight to the kitchen. A rugged tale of a self-made woman in a high-stress profession. ” (Kirkus Reviews)

“Lynch’s love of food and hard scrabble Southie upbringing are blended into a rich and engaging narrative that sheds light on the different influences that helped shape her career. The narrative is evocative of Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential…Foodies will enjoy the vivid language used to describe Lynch’s food exploits, and old neighbors will be treated to a trip around south Boston through the eyes of a local.” (Library Journal)

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The Rules Do Not Apply: a Memoir by Ariel Levy

20 Wednesday Sep 2017

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When 38-year-old New Yorker writer Ariel Levy left for a reporting trip to Mongolia in 2012, she was pregnant, married, financially secure, and successful on her own terms. A month later, none of that was true.  Levy picks you up and hurls you through the story of how she built an unconventional life – reinventing work, marriage, family, pregnancy, sex and divorce for herself from the ground up and  then watched it fall apart with astonishing speed.

“Every deep feeling a human is capable of will be shaken loose by this profound book. Ariel Levy has taken grief and made art out of it.”—David Sedaris

“A great memoir is not a trip through someone else’s life but a series of long looks into your own.  Ariel Levy’s book – grieving, hopeful, painful, funny – is that.” – Amy Bloom

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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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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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Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

20 Monday Mar 2017

Posted by in Biography, Humor

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Trevor Noah is a successful comedian who recently took over as the host of The Daily Show, but you learn none of that reading his book. Instead, this memoir focuses on his life growing up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a black mother and white father, an interracial relationship that was illegal at the time of his birth. Noah writes with humor and honesty about the joys and challenges of his life, and dedicates much of his book to his mother, who is in many ways the real hero of the story.

“A gritty memoir . . . studded with insight and provocative social criticism . . . with flashes of brilliant storytelling and acute observations.”—Kirkus Reviews

“[A] substantial collection of staggering personal essays . . . Incisive, funny, and vivid, these true tales are anchored to his portrait of his courageous, rebellious, and religious mother who defied racially restrictive laws to secure an education and a career for herself—and to have a child with a white Swiss/German even though sex between whites and blacks was illegal. . . . [Trevor Noah’s] electrifying memoir sparkles with funny stories . . . and his candid and compassionate essays deepen our perception of the complexities of race, gender, and class.”—Booklist (starred review)

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Hillbilly Elegy: a Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

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J.D. Vance grows up very poor in the Ohio rustbelt and after deciding to enlist in the Marine Corps eventually he pursues a law degree at Yale.  It’s a very personal account of the author’s childhood and parts of it felt similar to Jeannette Walls’ “The Glass Castle.” I liked it because while the author conveyed a lot of love and respect for aspects of his culture, he also comments on the contradictions, inconsistencies, and issues.

“[An] understated, engaging debut…An unusually timely and deeply affecting view of a social class whose health and economic problems are making headlines in this election year.” (Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“[Vance’s] description of the culture he grew up in is essential reading for this moment in history.” (David Brooks, New York Times)

“J.D. Vance’s memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy”, offers a starkly honest look at what that shattering of faith feels like for a family who lived through it. You will not read a more important book about America this year.” (The Economist)

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Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild

12 Monday Dec 2016

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Hochschild is a sociologist and liberal professor from Berkeley, California, who was trying to understand conservatives in the South for the purposes of finding common ground. She searches for the “deep story” of what drives them. It’s a fascinating account of her interviews with residents in Louisiana and their feelings and views about what is happening in modern society and politics.

2016 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR NONFICTION

“Strangers In Their Own Land is by far the best book by an outsider to the Tea Party I have ever encountered.—Forbes

 “Satisfying…[Hochschild’s] analysis is overdue at a time when questions of policy and legislation and even fact have all but vanished from the public discourse.”—Nathaniel Rich, The New York Review of Books

“Arlie Hochschild journeys into a far different world than her liberal academic enclave of Berkeley, into the heartland of the nation’s political right, in order to understand how the conservative white working class sees America. With compassion and empathy, she discovers the narrative that gives meaning and expression to their lives–and which explains their political convictions, along with much else. Anyone who wants to understand modern America should read this captivating book.”—Robert B. Reich, Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley

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Disgraced: a play by Ayad Akhtar

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by in Drama

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A thoughtful and suspenseful play that would be an excellent choice for a discussion group.  It is sure to enter the canon of classic American plays such as “Death of a Salesman”, “Angels in America” and “A Streetcar Named Desire”.

While reading just ninety-six pages, the reader is compelled to consider many of the problems in contemporary society – Islamophobia, race relations, terrorism, immigration and assimilation.  The author forces us to examine our racial and religious beliefs and prejudices which is particularly powerful after the recent terror attacks in Paris and Brussels.

“Compelling… DISGRACED raises and toys with provocative and nuanced ideas.” —Jesse Oxfeld, New York Observer

“A continuously engaging, vitally engaged play about thorny questions of identity and religion in the contemporary world…. In dialogue that bristles with wit and intelligence, Mr. Akhtar…puts contemporary attitudes toward religion under a microscope, revealing how tenuous self-image can be for people born into one way of being who have embraced another…. Everyone has been told that politics and religion are two subjects that should be off limits at social gatherings. But watching Mr. Akhtar’s characters rip into these forbidden topics, there’s no arguing that they make for ear-tickling good theater.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times

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Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

04 Monday Jan 2016

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The author wrote this book as a letter to his son about what it means to be black in America. His words and ideas are valuable for every American regardless of race or politics. The author not only describes his personal experiences and feelings but also analyzes race in the broader context of American society and history. His powerful insights are the product of a brilliant mind.   The audio is read by the author.  I haven’t been so moved by a book since reading “A House in the Sky” by Amanda Lindhout.

“The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future . . . Coates offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. . . . This moving, potent testament might have been titled Black Lives Matter.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Ta-Nehisi Coates is the James Baldwin of our era, and this is his cri de coeur. A brilliant thinker at the top of his powers, he has distilled four hundred years of history and his own anguish and wisdom into a prayer for his beloved son and an invocation to the conscience of his country. Between the World and Me is an instant classic and a gift to us all.”—Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns

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