This month’s selection was chosen in honor of the centennial of the Armistice ending World War I effective on November 11, 1918. Despite the rather lurid title, Marthe McKenna’s memoir of her harrowing adventures as a real spy for the Allies during World War I is a valuable addition to the genre and to that time period. First published in 1932,...

Katrina, Harvey, Maria, Florence: everyone knows the names of these recent major U.S. hurricanes that caused immense physical and psychological damage. What few people know about, and which no one alive today remembers, is the hurricane of September 8, 1900 that decimated Galveston Island and part of the Texas southeastern coast. Erik Larson’s...

Zora Neale Hurston (b. 1/7/1891; d.1/28/1960) was an accomplished ethnographer, folklorist, anthropologist, and novelist. She attended Howard University and received her B.A. from Barnard College in 1927. As an African-American woman from the South at that time, she was driven and found ways to accomplish her goals. Her best-known work which has...

A strange thing happened on my way to this month’s blog. I had planned to discuss something completely different (which I’ll do another time), but Paula Huntley’s 2003 book kept creeping into my mind. Reading the blurbs raised a question for me: can one small, important book really change the lives of people in a far and troubled corner of the...

Summer is here, it’s vacation time--we’re off to the Tuscan town of Siena, Italy! Robert Rodi wrote Seven Seasons in Siena: My Quixotic Quest for Acceptance Among Italy’s Proudest People in 2011 after spending seven seasons in Siena between the summers of 2003 and 2010. He is an American of Italian descent on his paternal side, and traveled to...

by Rachel Kushner I’ve been thinking about the recent end of the Castro era in Cuba (both Fidel and Raul), which led me to think about pre-1959 Cuba. Even though I was still in grade school when Batista was overthrown and the revolutionaries took over, I remember it. I don’t know why, as I probably couldn’t even find Cuba on a map then, but it’s...

By David Michie This month’s offering is in celebration of the third child born to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (William and Catherine) on April 23, 2018; and of the pending marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018. It also marks the passing of the Queen’s last corgi in the line started by Susan, who was a gift to...

By Neil deGrasse Tyson When I was in high school all those decades ago, I was firmly anchored to Earth and on the liberal arts track. I had little interest in the sciences, and NONE in physics. All those equations… are you kidding?? What would I need that for? What would I do with it, anyway? I don’t think it was unusual for most young women in...

By Alexander McCall Smith Whenever a new book in the #1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is released, it’s an occasion to retreat to our favorite reading place for an uninterrupted afternoon of enjoyment with our old friends who remind us of the important things in life. Alexander McCall Smith’s 18th offering in this series, The House of...