Three star review, originally posted here on August 1, 2019 I was surprised to find myself kinda meh on this book. I think the biggest issue was that I did things backwards and had already read Grandin’s later book, Animals in Translation, which I found much more engaging. Grandin repeated a lot of the most … More Goodreads Review: Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin and Deborah Marlowe

Four star review, originally posted here on July 19, 2019. I don’t really have too much to say about this one besides what can already be inferred from the blurb. Ratner does a good job telling a sad, crazy story about childhood in Cambodia. It is a seriously messed up story, beautifully told with the … More Goodreads Review: In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner

Four star review, originally posted here on July 16, 2019. Well this story is just batshit crazy! This is one of those non-fiction books with content so outrageously despicable that every couple pages you wind up screaming to somebody near you “Oh my God, they put the radium on their faces FOR FUN!” (or maybe … More Goodreads Review: The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

Four star review, originally posted here on June 20, 2019. I’m a little behind and catching up the last few weeks worth of book reviews, so I’m a little surprised to see that I put 4 stars; current memory would have put it at 3 stars, because I am remembering the issues I had with … More Goodreads Review: Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker

Three star review, originally posted here on June 4, 2019.   Meh, kinda repetitive, and the characters were stupid. (har har) Okay, no, for real, I’m not sure how to review a Special Report, but I read the whole damn thing, so I’m gonna try. First of all, I listened to the audiobook, which is … More Goodreads Review: The Mueller Report: The Findings of the Special Counsel Investigation by Robert S. Mueller III

Three star review, originally posted here on May 31, 2019.   This was a tough one to rate, and really I think I come down more around 3.4 stars than three- technically I’m more than neutral on it, but not quite more enough to say I liked it. Starting with the obvious pro: I’m a … More Goodreads Review of Among the Living and the Dead: A Tale of Exile and Homecoming on the War Roads of Europe by Inara Verzemnieks

Four star review, originally posted here on May 19, 2019. Dave Cullen’s “Columbine” is easily one of the best, most important books I have ever read. And so I could not wait to get my hands on this, his second book, as soon as it came out. It is a very different book in many … More Goodreads Review: Parlkand: Birth of a Movement by Dave Cullen

Four star review, originally posted here on April 26, 2019. So my favorite author is Tony Horwitz, and when I heard his new book was coming out, I took a look at his website in hopes of a book tour, and from there I learned that he’s married to another author names Geraldine Brooks. “Huh,” … More Goodreads Review: Year of Miracles by Geraldine Brooks

Three star review, originally posted here on March 29, 2019. This was fine. It was interesting to get some backstory on Justice Sotomayor and to hear her own voice. I particularly appreciated her take on affirmative action and its role in her life. But the book was also, frankly, a little boring. Maybe even a … More Goodreads Review: My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor

Two star review, originally posted here on April 17, 2019.   I went into this book knowing virtually nothing about it or its author, except for the fact that it had a recognizable name and seems to be one of those modern classics that most people seemed to have read and liked at some point. … More Goodreads Review: The World According to Garp by John Irving