It was the enthusiasm of Reading Matters that moved me to put this Booker Prize winning novel by a British author on my Books to Read list in 2023. In the past I have enjoyed seeing videos of Chris Hadfield brushing his teeth in the space station, and that was the extent of my knowledge. This novel does an amazing job of putting you in the minds of those who do this work by following the six...
The author says she has always connected more readily with non-human creatures than with her fellow humans. In fact she credits her pet pig Christopher Hogwood, named for the British conductor, with her increased ability to enjoy other people. She and her husband Howard adopted Chris when he was a runty little fellow on a nearby farm in New Hampshire. He thrived in their care, was able to escape...
It was thanks to Laura that I listened to this memoir of a blind federal judge. I was immediately charmed by the mention of locations of his youth in Washington, DC: Glen Echo, Rock Creek Park, these are magical names from my childhood in then-rural Northern Virginia. I’m not sure I ever went to Glen Echo Amusement Park, but my siblings and I sang the Glen Echo jingle, “Glen Echo...
It was great to listen to this narrative about researching family history, written by someone who has written several other books. She had heard family talk about the four sisters who were cousins of her grandmother; their names were Selma, Malvina, Marcella, and Ruth. Three of them and their older brother were born around the turn of the century in Romania while Ruth was born in the US. The...
In 1995 Bill Bryson wrote Notes from a Small Island about his wander through the UK. I believe I read it, though I don’t remember it. This was written 20 years later, describing visits throughout the island with a big dollop of grumpiness on display. The word “stupid” makes too many appearances in this text. My favorite book of his, In a Sunburned Country, is quite funny, and is...
What a pleasure was this 25-hour audiobook about Franklin. Recently when I watched a series with Michael Douglas playing Franklin about his time in Paris, I realized how little I knew about Franklin. And while I hope I will not be quizzed on facts about Franklin’s life, I have loved being impressed with the accomplishments of that amazing man. For example, though higher education was not...
Fredericka Mandelbaum arrived in the US in 1850 from Germany. She and her husband had been peddlers there and continued that work in New York. She became a fence and before long was very successful, ultimately becoming a true organized crime boss. Millions of dollars in jewels, gold, cash, and silk material passed through her shop. Her success came from her meticulous work in choosing and...
Besides being an award-winning author, Alice McDermott has been active in teaching creative writing in many settings. This book is subtitled “Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction.” Though I don’t aspire to write, as a reader, I have appreciated authors’ reflections on what makes fiction work. I loved George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, a 400-page...
One of Michael Lewis’s early books is Moneyball, about efforts to find more accurate ways to predict how well an individual baseball player or baseball team will perform. The subject of this book is the work of two Israeli psychologists, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, that was the background of those efforts to make more accurate judgments and to improve decision-making. The two...
I heard Zoë Schlanger, a long time science writer, interviewed on Fresh Air and found her an unusually appealing speaker. Her writing is equally appealing; she explains unfamiliar concepts clearly and in an entertaining way. In the last 15 years there has been a revival of plant behavior research that has brought revelations about the attributes of plants that could be called “intelligence...