Category: Nonfiction
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The London Scene: Five Essays by Virginia WoolfFrank Hallman, 1975
An elegant little book of essays (an edition of 750 was printed by The Stinehour Press): the physical object, well-designed text on expensive paper, and, of course, Woolf’s prose. The essays were written in the early 1930s for Good Housekeeping, and they’re about modernity, democracy, Englishness, the present of London and the ever-present past, but…
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In Search of London by H.V. MortonDa Capo Press, 2002 (originally Methuen, 1951)
Quirky and fascinating and sweet London essays from the post-WWII years. Morton captures the span & glory of history, from Roman London onward: monarchs & intrigue & so many old buildings. Though his tone can be sentimental or overly nostalgic or a little stuffy (referring to bebop as “the latest disharmony”), it’s mostly just wonderfully…
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Decreation by Anne CarsonBorzoi Books (A.A. Knopf), 2005
I read this book last month, quickly, and loved it, though I didn’t yet have anything to say about it. So I took a break, read some lighter things, and then picked it up again. On a second reading, familiar with the arguments and names and allusions, I was more able to grin at Carson’s…
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On Subbing: The First Four Years by Dave RocheMicrocosm Publishing, 2005 (2nd edition)
I was reading this on the train, and a man came over to me and asked something about the title. Internally, I rolled my eyes: no, it’s not that kind of subbing. In this slim volume, Dave tells of his experiences over the course of four years as a substitute educational assistant (EA) in special…
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Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West by Donald WorsterOxford University Press, 1985 (originally Pantheon, 1985)
In this history of the American West, Worster writes against the myth of the West as a place of rugged individualism, a place of democratic opportunity that existed in contrast to the hierarchically structured East. By focusing on the issue of irrigation, he aims to show that the West has (and has long had) a…
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Eats, Shoots, & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne TrussGotham Books, 2004 (originally Profile Books, 2003)
This weekend, I saw a cash register with a scrolling display that made me want to scream: “Thank’s for shoping at [store name].” Errors in spelling and punctuation jump out at me and grate on my nerves: it’d be fair to say that I’m a stickler when it comes to language and its usage. Somehow,…
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Happiness and Education by Nel NoddingsCambridge University Press, 2003
In this smart and eloquent book, Noddings argues that happiness should be taken seriously as one of education’s aims. She argues that our society presently seems to have an economic view of education: people go to school in order to go to college and people go to college in order to get better jobs (and…
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Vita Sackville West: Selected Writings edited by Mary Ann CawsPalgrave Macmillan, 2003 (Palgrave, 2002)
A mix of the very interesting and the less interesting. Wonderful: all of the short stories, the novella Seducers in Ecuador, with its shifts in perspective and pleasingly strange conceit, some of the poetry (lines about winter light, autumn color). These lines, from “The Quarryman”: “New shapes, new planes, undreamed by architect; An accidental beauty,…
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Campo Santo by W.G. SebaldTranslated by Anthea BellRandom House, 2005
Sebald writes about art and literature and memory, both personal and national. He also writes, compellingly, about the threads that run through life and thought, that occasional tantalizing feeling that nothing is quite coincidence, everything’s connected, and some things are inescapable. (His strings of associations prompt the reader to do the same: I’d been listening…
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Time’s Magpie: A Walk in Prague by Myla GoldbergCrown Journeys, 2004
This is the kind of book that’s perfect to read in one day, start to finish: on the subway to work, waiting for the elevator, over lunch, at home, before cleaning or having dinner or opening the mail. Small and lovely, well-chosen stories of a city, wonderfully accompanied by Ken Nash’s illustrations (perfectly drawn buildings,…