Posts tagged with nonfiction
Never Tell Our Business to Strangers: A Memoir, by Jennifer Mascia
When Jennifer Mascia was five years old, her father was taken away by the FBI. It was the first sign that there was something different about her family—a difference that Mascia only dimly unders...
Superheroes and Beyond, by Christopher Hart
Christopher Hart's Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw The Leading and Supporting Characters of Today's Comics promises to provide "the knowledge necessary to create great comic book characters......
Like The Rules, but even sadder.
Huh. It turns out Lori Gottlieb's Marry Him: The Case for Settling For Mr. Good Enough isn't a joke. It's a real book (due out next week!), not just fodder for AustenBlog's "It worked so well fo...
Michael Pollan's costly advice
Okay, I like Michael Pollan, and I've heard good things about Food Rules, his "pocket compendium of food wisdom". But, dude: it costs eleven dollars. For a collection of sixty-four paragraphs. For...
Comic Book Design, by Gary Spencer Millidge
Gary Spencer Millidge's Comic Book Design offers readers a colorful and informative tour of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into the creation and promotion of comic books. He delves into cons...
In Cheap We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue, by Lauren Weber
Many bookstores celebrate the first of the year by promoting two kinds of titles: diet guides and books about finances—both subjects likely to find a wide audience in the weeks following a ho...
The darker side of Ikea?
Salon recently posted a very interesting Spiegel article about a tell-all book by Johan Stenebo, a former Ikea bigwig with quite the axe to grind. Sadly, I don't read Swedish and I have no idea ho...
I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon), by Richard Polsky
In early 2005, art dealer Richard Polsky decided to sell a small Andy Warhol "Fright Wig" painting for $375,000. The sale originally seemed like a success, but Polsky had misjudged his moment, bad...
Advertising run amok
So, as kind of a palate-cleanser after the orgy of fiction I've been reading lately, I picked up a copy* of Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky's Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consume...
Mystery solved
Speaking of movies, I've been wondering how Hollywood is going to turn Malcolm Gladwell's nonfiction bestseller Blink into a movie, and now I know: they're going to ignore 99% of their source mate...
Fellow pop science geeks take note!
Oooooh, paleontologist Peter Ward (author of the awesome non-fiction book Out of Thin Air) is going to be appearing at the Burnside Powell's in Portland, Oregon next Monday. He's talking about hi...
The Two-Income Trap, by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi
I first heard Elizabeth Warren speak in 2003 during an interview with Michele Norris on NPR’s All Things Considered. Warren appeared on the show to discuss The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class...
Required Reading
I was reading an article in my Sunday paper about Las Vegas's dwindling water supply (apparently, water could fall below the existing pipe to Lake Mead by 2012, thereby cutting off 40 percent of t...
The Mighty Queens of Freeville, by Amy Dickinson
Amy Dickinson is the author of “Ask Amy”, an advice column that began in the Chicago Tribune in 2003 and now appears in more than 150 newspapers nationwide. In her bestselling memoir The Mighty Queens of Freeville...
The World Without Us... the movie?
Huh. According to THR.com, Fox Pictures has acquired the film rights to Alan Weisman's The World Without Us. They plan to transform the bestselling nonfiction title into "a fictional feature [film...
Rick Steves goes hardcore.
Heh. Okay, not really.Anyway, Salon has a fascinating interview up with the travel writer, who shares his feelings on Iran, ugly American stereotypes, and the decriminalization of marijuana. It ma...
Want to read a free chapter of Daniel Gross's Dumb Money?
Anyone interested in seeing the first chapter of Slate and NPR commentator Daniel Gross's new e-book Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation should send an e-mail to: du...
Public Enemies
Trailer's up for Public Enemies, Michael Mann's upcoming movie adaptation of Bryan Burrough's nonfiction book Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–34:Looks ...
Gimme Shelter, by Mary Elizabeth Williams
If, like me, you can't get enough of burst-housing-bubble news, Salon is currently featuring an excerpt from Mary Elizabeth Williams's Gimme Shelter. Williams, a freelance journalist, takes her re...
Pinching pennies
Judith Levine, author of the Wordcandy-approved (albeit with reservations) nonfiction book Not Buying It, posted an essay in Salon on Tuesday about the questionable virtue of thrift. I'm not sure ...
Inauguration Day Reading, Part II
Publishers have plenty of (unsolicited, but cute!) advice for Barack Obama, too:McSweeney's has published Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country: Kids' Letters to President Obama. This title, whi...
Inauguration Day Reading, Part I
Can't get enough inauguration news?Check out Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady. This book of poetry, advice, and letters to the brand-spanking-new First Lady (...
Near-sickening cuteness
Powell's Books is currently featuring the paperback book Sukie Iron-Ons in their New Favorites section, which means you can pick it up for 30% off of the cover price of $12.95. Sukie is a British ...
Life After Oil, Part II
Remember our post on Luz, the webcomic about a girl living in a post-abundant-petroleum world? Well, if online comics aren't your thing, but you're still interested in literature about living in a...
Pricey! But also cool!
The new book-and-DVD set The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages might cost a whopping $60, but it looks totally awesome:More than 300 of the Times front pages have been reproduced in this bo...
We Interrupt this Broadcast, by Joe Garner
Effectively combining history, commentary, and audio recordings of actual news broadcasts, Joe Garner’s recently re-released We Interrupt This Broadcast is a far cry above the typical coffee-table...
Soul-crushing... but in a good way!
I heard about New York's "Cringe" gatherings on NPR about a year ago, but I've never been lucky enough to attend one (and, seeing as I'm something of a delicate flower, that's probably just as wel...
The Smart Cookies' Guide to Making More Dough, by Assorted Authors
In 2006, inspired by an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, five young women decided to form a “money group”—a Weight Watchers-style support group to help them pay off their debt, start saving, and...
French Women Don't Get Fat: the movie
Yes, dear readers, Hollywood would like to make a movie (a romantic comedy, no less!) out of Mireille Guiliano's diet-advice hit French Women Don't Get Fat: The Secret to Eating for Pleasure.My mi...