Reviews
Are You My Mother?
From the best-selling author of “Fun Home”, Time magazine’s No. 1 Book of the Year, a brilliantly told graphic memoir of Alison Bechdel becoming the artist her mother wanted to be.
Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home” was a pop culture and literary phenomenon. Now, a second thrilling tale of filial sleuthery, this time about her mother: voracious reader, music lover, passionate amateur actor. Also a woman, unhappily married to a closeted gay man, whose artistic aspirations simmered under the surface of Bechdel's childhood . . . and who stopped touching or kissing her daughter good night, forever, when she was seven. Poignantly, hilariously, Bechdel embarks on a quest for answers concerning the mother-daughter gulf. It's a richly layered search that leads readers from the fascinating life and work of the iconic twentieth-century psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, to one explosively illuminating Dr. Seuss illustration, to Bechdel’s own (serially monogamous) adult love life. And, finally, back to Mother—to a truce, fragile and real-time, that will move and astonish all adult children of gifted mothers.
Displacement: A Travelogue
In her graphic memoirs, “New York Times” bestselling cartoonist Lucy Knisley paints a warts-and-all portrait of contemporary, twenty-something womanhood, like writer Lena Dunham (Girls). In the next installment of her graphic travelogue series, “Displacement”, Knisley volunteers to watch over her ailing grandparents on a cruise. (The book s watercolors evoke the ocean that surrounds them.)
In a book that is part graphic memoir, part travelogue, and part family history, Knisley not only tries to connect with her grandparents, but to reconcile their younger and older selves. She is aided in her quest by her grandfather s WWII memoir, which is excerpted. Readers will identify with Knisley s frustration, her fears, her compassion, and her attempts to come to terms with mortality, as she copes with the stress of travel complicated by her grandparents frailty
The Year of Living Biblically
From the bestselling author of "The Know-It-All" comes a fascinating and timely exploration of religion and the Bible. Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also to obey the hundreds of less publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers; to play a ten-string harp; to stone adulterers.
The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal and will make you see history's most influential book with new eyes.
Jacobs's quest transforms his life even more radically than the year spent reading the entire "Encyclopedia Britannica" for "The Know-It-All." His beard grows so unruly that he is regularly mistaken for a member of ZZ Top. He immerses himself in prayer, tends sheep in the Israeli desert, battles idolatry, and tells the absolute truth in all situations - much to his wife's chagrin.
Throughout the book, Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally. He tours a Kentucky-based creationist museum and sings hymns with Pennsylvania Amish. He dances with Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn and does Scripture study with Jehovah's Witnesses. He discovers ancient biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the twenty-first-century brain. Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. A book that will charm readers both secular and religious, "The Year of Living Biblically" is part Cliff Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to put it down.
Humbled by the Journey
In “Humbled by the Journey: Life Lessons For My Family…And Yours”, from which the proceeds will go to The Early Childhood Initiative Foundation, Miguel "Mike" Benito Fernandez takes readers on parallel journeys: A 508-mile pilgrimage along El Camino de Santiago from France through Spain – and from a dirt road Cuban town to the pinnacles of U.S. business success. The book shines a light on the lessons Mike has learned over a lifetime of working tirelessly, overcoming obstacles and “showing up.” The most important lesson: “You have to take care of those who come after you.”
In 2013, Mike hiked along El Camino -- an ancient, spiritual trail that attracts "pilgrims" from around the world -- with a pledge for each mile that led to more than $5 million for a children's hospital. The experience was challenging and rigorous and provided Mike with a unique opportunity to embrace his life in a deep, meaningful way. “Humbled by the Journey” is part self-portrait, part adventure story, and shuttles readers back and forth between Mike’s path on El Camino and his journey through life. El Camino becomes a metaphorical backdrop as Mike narrates the details of his 62 years of living.
In 1964, in the midst of revolutionary activity in Cuba, Mike’s family was expelled from their rural hometown without any warning or money and soon after made New York City home. Suddenly, they all were on a new trajectory of unforeseen challenges, opportunities and lessons. Mike lumbered through school, while working as a floor cleaner and delivery boy to help pay for tuition. During these years, Mike learned about values and principles from those around him, including his father and an extraordinary Jesuit priest. After a stint in the Army, Mike worked as a door-to door salesman, selling health insurance, and subsequently found his stride in business and success, against great odds.
Since then, Mike has given more than $125 million to causes focused on health care, education and those most in need. He requires only this: Recipients must want to help themselves, be willing to sacrifice to gain a better future, and promise to pay it forward when they can.
Filled with engaging stories and beautiful photographs, “Humbled by the Journey” is more than a rags-to-riches tale; it is a celebration of family, an appreciation of the brief encounters, fleeting moments and memorable events that irrevocably changed a man’s life. With humor, compassion and optimism, Mike inspires and reminds readers, that by giving to and connecting with others, they will gain for themselves the ultimate prize: a rewarding and “rich” life.
An Age of License: A Travelogue
Acclaimed cartoonist Lucy Knisley (French Milk, Relish) got an opportunity that most only dream of: a travel-expenses-paid trip to Europe/Scandinavia, thanks to a book tour. An Age of License is Knisley s comics travel memoir recounting her charming (and romantic!) adventures. It s punctuated by whimsical visual devices (such as a new experiences funnel); peppered with the cute cats she meets along the way; and, of course, features her hallmark drawings and descriptions of food that will make your mouth water. But it s not all kittens and raclette crepes: Knisley s experiences are colored by anxieties, introspective self-inquiries, and quotidian revelations about traveling alone in unfamiliar countries, and about her life and career that many young adults will relate to. An Age of License which takes its name from a French saying is an Eat, Pray, Love for the alternative comics fan."
Longitude
Anyone alive in the eighteenth century would have known that "the longitude problem" was the thorniest scientific dilemma of the day--and had been for centuries. Lacking the ability to measure their longitude, sailors throughout the great ages of exploration had been literally lost at sea as soon as they lost sight of land. Thousands of lives, and the increasing fortunes of nations, hung on a resolution.
The scientific establishment of Europe--from Galileo to Sir Issac Newton--had mapped the heavens in both hemispheres in its certain pursuit of a celestial answer. In stark contrast, one man, John Harrison, dared to imagine a mechanical solution--a clock that would keep precise time at sea, something no clock had ever been able to do on land. Longitude is a dramatic human story of an epic scientific quest and Harrison's forty-year obsession with building his perfect timekeeper, known today as the chronometer. Full of heroism and chicanery, it is also a fascinating brief history of astronomy, navigation, and clockmaking, and opens a new window on our world.
Picabo: Nothing to Hide
The compelling story of America's most loved Olympic champion. "Since winning an Olympic silver medal in 1994, Street has been the most interesting personality in a sport desperately lacking for charisma. The story she tells is an entertaining portrait of her eccentricities, insecurities, mindboggling crashes, and triumphs."--Philip Hersh, Chicago Tribune
"Nothing to Hide "offers an interesting insight into the world of big-time ski racing."--John Meyer, Denver Post
"Once you read Street's new autobiography, you understand how she did it . . . even a fraction of her life would make for an interesting story."--David King, San Antonio Express-News
"Picabo: Nothing to Hide" is powerful, honest autobiography. Picabo Street shares her coming-of-age experience, revealing how adversity shaped a rebellious tomboy into a champion athlete and compassionate woman, in harmony with her family and at peace with her fear of failure.
Five Weeks in the Amazon
If you enjoy a fast-paced read and a true story, Five Weeks in the Amazon is the book for you. It's packed with humor, full of unexpected twists and there is never any way to know how it will end. Author Sean Michael Hayes has written a book in a similar style to current blockbuster success, Cheryl Strayed's "Wild". His adventure puts him face to face with universal problems that we all must overcome in life. His search is a desperate attempt at something he has fought for since first being diagnosed with depression--how to live a happy life.
Hayes presents solutions which seem like wins not just for himself, but for the reader that's right there with him. Want to find out what happened to a backpacker that hiked alone into the Amazon jungle and live with a shaman?
Bringing Down the House
It's Friday night and you're on a red-eye to the city of sin. Strapped to your chest is half a million dollars; in your overnight bag is another twenty-five thousand in blackjack chips; and your wallet holds ten fake IDs. As soon as you land in Las Vegas, you are positive you are being investigated and followed. To top it all off, the IRS is auditing you, someone has been going through your mail -- and you have a multivariable calculus exam on Monday morning. Welcome to the world of an exclusive group of audacious MIT math geniuses who legally took the casinos for over three million dollars -- while still finding time for college keg parties, football games, and final exams. In the midst of the go-go eighties and nineties, a group of overachieving, anarchistic MIT students joined a decades-old underground blackjack club dedicated to counting cards and beating the system at major casinos around the world. While their classmates were working long hours in labs and libraries, the blackjack team traveled weekly to Las Vegas and other glamorous gambling locales, with hundreds of thousands of dollars duct-taped to their bodies. Underwritten by shady investors they would never meet, these kids bet fifty thousand dollars a hand, enjoyed VIP suites and other upscale treats, and partied with showgirls and celebrities.
Handpicked by an eccentric mastermind -- a former MIT professor and an obsessive player who had developed a unique system of verbal cues, body signals, and role-playing -- this one ring of card savants earned more than three million dollars from corporate Vegas, making them the object of the casinos' wrath and eventually targets of revenge. Here is their inside story, revealing their secrets for the first time.
Blankets
Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, “Blankets” explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith.
