Infant Sleep, Part IV: The No-Cry Sleep Solution

I wish I could say that

Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Greg Mortenson didn’t set out to be a hero. Shortly before he stumbled into a mountain village in northern Pakistan, he was wandering around on K2 trying to save his own life. Out of gratitude to the villagers who took him in following his climbing expedition gone awry, he promised to come back and build [...]

Campaigning for Punctuation

I was in the middle of one depressing novel and four books of nonfiction, and I needed some entertainment. So I turned to a book on–what else?–punctuation. If you’ve kept an eye on the bestseller lists at all over the past few years, you’ll have guessed that I picked up Eats, Shoots & Leaves by [...]

Little Boats & Big Salmon: Fishing Adventures in Alaska

Fishing has never held exceptional allure for me. My grandparents frequently took me fishing during my childhood visits to Texas, and I found the novelty exciting. But as an adult I have never felt compelled to pack up my gear and head for the nearest fishing hole. So it wasn’t the subject matter of Erv [...]

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, Part II

Barbara Kingsolver ranks high on my list of authors with whom I would love to have a lengthy chat (along with Diana Abu Jaber and Khaled Hosseini). Besides the fact that I admire her literary artistry, I am intrigued by Kingsolver’s spiritual and religious views. I tend, for example, to think Nathan Price in The [...]

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, by Barbara Kingsolver, Part I

Barbara Kingsolver is #74 on the list of America’s most dangerous people, according to the author of a recent well-publicized book cited in Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (p. 236). I’m not sure how Kingsolver earned her stripes in that author’s opinion, but I would agree that her linguistic artistry, self-deprecating humor, and winsome enthusiasm for [...]

The Carpet Wars, by Christopher Kremmer

I usually am not fond of travel writing, but I found Christopher Kremmer’s work more interesting than some others of that genre that I have encountered. Kremmer’s wry wit accounts for at least part of the entertainment value of The Carpet Wars, even eliciting a few chuckles, a somewhat rare occurrence. (Don’t analyze that last [...]

The Bookseller of Kabul, by Asne Seierstad

The Bookseller of Kabul is an outsider’s perspective on the inside world of an Afghan family. Asne Seierstad lived with a family in Kabul—a bookseller’s family—in the spring of 2002, after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. This book is not so much about her experiences as about the family she lived with.

Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder

The long waiting list for Mountains Beyond Mountains required us to wait some time before it became available at the library. But through the first few chapters, we were hard-pressed to identify the reason for the popularity of this biographical account of doctor Paul Farmer (b. 1959). Farmer struck us as arrogant and narcissistic, and [...]

What To Expect When You’re Expecting and The Official Lamaze Guide

Years before I became pregnant, a good friend with a one-year-old son gave me a short book titled While Waiting: The Information You Need to Know About Pregnancy, Birth, and Delivery, by George E. Verrilli and Anne Marie Mueser. My friend said, “Read this. Don’t read What To Expect When You’re Expecting. It’s probably a [...]