Behind the scenes in House Key
Becoming by Michelle Obama My rating: 5 of 5 stars I resisted reading Becoming for months after it was published, concerned that it was overrated after having climbed to best-seller status almost immediately. I admit, however, that once I began … Continued
Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell My rating: 5 of 5 stars I have always enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell’s books and found them interesting, but Talking to Strangers ranks highest as … Continued
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Between the World and Me” was a quick read; not for its brevity or Ta-Nehisi Coates’s masterful economy of words, but because I couldn’t put it … Continued
Writing About Your Life: A Journey into the Past by William Zinsser My rating: 5 of 5 stars What I thought would be an instruction manual on how to write memoirs turned out to be a moving memoir about the … Continued
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari My rating: 5 of 5 stars Yuval Noah Harari writes with humor and conviction about complex topics in human history starting with the evolution of Homo sapiens through the Agricultural, … Continued
What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund My rating: 4 of 5 stars The cover caught my eye first while I was browsing in the bookstore. Not surprisingly, I later learned that the author, Peter Mendelsund, is an … Continued
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari My rating: 5 of 5 stars Homo Deus is an engaging and well-written book that explores the rise and perhaps imminent fall of humans (by our own collective design) … Continued
Another big take-away from Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips — along with making characters real — is knowing Country. Living and writing in Africa and Spain allowed Hemingway to write compelling novels in those settings. Hemingway advocates that you … Continued
I’ve been reading some excellent books on the craft of writing. All contain good advice, memorable insights and quotes that I mark with sticky tabs. One in particular that resonated from Ernest Hemingway on Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillips, … Continued
