Book Review
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I knew what to expect from Nicholas Enrich’s Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower’s Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID because I followed news of the agency shut down in real time. Enrich details his experience immediately following President Trump’s second inauguration when contracts were canceled, staff were placed on administrative leave and… Read more
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Every gardener should read The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild by Thomas D. Seeley. Gardeners are aware of the mix of pollinators required to service our plants and make food growing possible. We tend to forget this key insect, Apis mellifera, has been present on Earth for… Read more
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Hannah Ritchie is the kind of data head I would like to be and her new book, Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers is part of the reason. In it, she explains many aspects of solving the climate crisis using data to back up her statements.… Read more
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Sunday I finished reading A Basket of Apples: Recipes and Paintings from a Country Orchard by Val Archer. I wrote a brief review: “The paintings are gorgeous. The recipes very British, heavy on dairy and animal flesh. If you cook like that, give it a go!” Planting apple trees on our lot in 1996 was… Read more
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This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig is exactly what the title suggests. Descriptions of the author’s rural Montana life are vivid in their presentation of the hard-scrabble ranching life in which Doig came up. Out of that challenging youth — farming, sheep herding, haying, rural community — he became… Read more
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Sarah Smarsh’s strongest work to date is in Bone of the Bone: Essays on America by a Daughter of the Working Class. Her first book, Heartland, was a sensation; her second, She Come By It Naturally, fell flat for me. Smarsh’s strengths are well suited to the type of short essays in Bone of the… Read more
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Packinghouse Daughter: A Memoir by Cheri Register is a book I wouldn’t have found except for patronizing an excellent local used bookstore. They have a deal where you set an amount of money to spend, tell them your interests, and they locate books that match. I have yet to be disappointed by their choices. One… Read more
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In late November I’ve read 63 books this year. Not all of them were good, yet many of them were exceptional. This post is about books I am glad to have read this year. The Politics of Resentment by Katherine Cramer Cramer’s examination of rural political consciousness — and the resentment often directed toward “liberal… Read more
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I did not receive an advance reader’s copy of Queen Esther by John Irving. I emailed the bookstore in the county seat to make sure they would have it on publication day. On Nov. 4, I drove there and parked on Iowa Avenue, the same Iowa Avenue Irving described in The Water Method Man. I… Read more
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Art Cullen is the kind of writer I have to watch what I write about him in public. Chances are, unless the Good Lord takes him from us, I’ll run into him in some unforeseen context to experience consequences for writing anything too negative. Not that I would, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest:… Read more
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