AltWeeklies Wire
'The Oxford Project' Uses Photography as a Kind of Time Machinenew
Ultimately, The Oxford Project is an homage to Americana, a photographic record of small-town America and the story of intertwined lives. It is about history, personal and collective, and that ubiquitous force: change. This book, like the facets of human features, is so intriguing, it is nearly impossible to put down.
San Antonio Current |
Lyle Rosdahl |
11-13-2008 |
Nonfiction
Rose Aguilar Looks for Change on 'Red Highways'new
Red Highways: A Liberal's Journey into the Heartland is the result of Aguilar's six-month road trip through reliably red states to ask people why they identify with one party over another, or vote for certain candidates, or don't vote at all.
San Francisco Bay Guardian |
Amanda Witherell |
11-12-2008 |
Nonfiction
Mafiaboy Finally Writes About Being the World's Most Notorious Hackernew
In Mafiaboy: How I Cracked The Internet And Why It's Still Broken, Michael Calce and his writing buddy Craig Silverman have delivered a fun retrospective on the hacking underworld at the dawn of the new millennium.
NOW Magazine |
Howard Goldenthal |
11-10-2008 |
Nonfiction
'Awaiting the Heavenly Country' Examines the American Death Cultnew
With generous illustrated examples, Professor Mark S. Schantz depicts an America preoccupied with death. In this America, Shakespeare and militaristic Greek classicists like Herodotus were popular reading, and families of the 1830s and 1840s treasured photographic portraits of the freshly dead, including infants and children.
Shepherd Express |
Eric Beaumont |
11-10-2008 |
Nonfiction
Diane Wilson's Memoir of Her Fundamentalist Upbringing is a Delightnew
Holy Roller: Growing Up in the Church of the Knock Down, Drag Out; Or, How I Quit Loving a Blue-Eyed Jesus describes Wilson's Pentecostal upbringing in a tiny fishing town in Texas, where residents were ruled by poverty, labor, elaborate religious mores, and corrupt authorities.
The Texas Observer |
Emily DePrang |
11-06-2008 |
Nonfiction
'Scratch Beginnings' is Kind, Compassionate, and Naivenew
Instead of challenging his beliefs, Shepard's descent into poverty only adds to the already vexing verisimilitudes of poverty. Instead of offering insight into what he experienced and what that means to others like him, Shepard offers a book dazed by reality and confused by how to respond to it.
Charleston City Paper |
John Stoehr |
11-05-2008 |
Nonfiction
Author Geoff Nicholson Gets Pedestriannew
The Lost Art of Walking explores the creative fuel for history's greatest thinkers.
L.A. Weekly |
Matthew Fleischer |
10-31-2008 |
Nonfiction
Ed McClanahan's Memoir is Generous and Irreverentnew
Formally meticulous and thematically irreverent, O the Clear Moment is a loose collection of autobiographical pieces in which McClanahan reflects on an idyllic childhood in small-town Kentucky, chronicles the successes and humiliations of high school, and opens a few small but well-placed windows onto his adult eccentricities.
The Portland Mercury |
Alison Hallett |
10-31-2008 |
Nonfiction
Eric Nuzum Becomes the Vampire in 'The Dead Travel Fast'new
In The Dead Travel Fast, the pop culture critic documents his epic, and naively hilarious, quest to single-handedly sort out the history and peculiar grip vampires hold on modern culture.
Weekly Alibi |
Steven Nery |
10-28-2008 |
Nonfiction
'Veeps' is an Irreverent Guide to the History of the Vice Presidencynew
There are three people on the blue side of the political spectrum who benefited from the selection of the profoundly terrifying Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential candidate: Tina Fey, Bill Kelter, and Wayne Shellabarger.
The Portland Mercury |
Alison Hallett |
10-24-2008 |
Nonfiction
Author Justin Catanoso Discovers His Family's Remarkable Legacynew
My Cousin the Saint is a reminder that the word "work" is as crucial as "miracle" in the phrases they share.
INDY Week |
Adam Sobsey |
10-16-2008 |
Nonfiction
Bill Kauffman Debunks the Myth of America's 'Town Drunk'new
The common thread running through Bill Kauffman's work is his admiration for the local in the face of the monolithic American empire.
Charleston City Paper |
Dylan Hales |
10-09-2008 |
Nonfiction
Sarah Vowell Makes Pilgrims Piss-Pants Hilarious in Her Latestnew
The book is two parts extensive review of key Pilgrim documents -- like the letters and journals of John Winthrop, Roger Williams and John Cotton -- and one part humorous, anecdotal stories of Vowell's experience researching the topic.
Willamette Week |
Whitney Hawke |
10-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
Tags: Sarah Vowell, The Wordy Shipmates
'The Gulf Stream' Helps Us Understand Human-Centered Ecologynew
Stan Ulanski has written a multilayered and eminently insightful book about the way the natural world works. His topic is what the founder of modern oceanography, Matthew Fontaine Maury, has called "a river in the ocean" -- the Gulf Stream.
The Texas Observer |
James E. McWilliams |
10-08-2008 |
Nonfiction
How Do You Feed an Anorexic Eel or Mend a Giraffe's Dislocated Hip?new
The Rhino With Glue-on Shoes, edited by veterinarians Lucy Spelman and Ted Mashima, is a collection of true stories written by zoo vets who have faced these situations.
Baltimore City Paper |
Anny Hoge |
10-07-2008 |
Nonfiction
