The Good Lord Bird
It weren’t slavery that made me want to be free. It was my heart.
If the cover of The Good Lord Bird did not disclose the author to be James McBride, the reader would think that Mark Twain was the genius behind this novel. Winner of the National Book Award (2013), The Good Lord Bird is the story of the years leading up to the historic raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 from the perspective of a young boy named Henry Shackleford, who is known throughout the book as Henrietta when he is mistaken as a girl and decides to play the part to save his hide. Read more 
The Third Plate
The Third Plate is one of those books that fall into the category of “if I read only one book this year, I need to read this.” Written by Dan Barber, the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill, a restaurant in Manhattan’s West Village and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, also a restaurant located within the Stone Barns Center for Food & Agriculture (a four season farm and education center) in Pocantico Hills, New York, The Third Plate is one of the most comprehensive and interesting books linking chefs to suppliers to farmers and producers to seed breeders. Sounds dry? It isn’t. In fact, the book is a page turner. Think Anthony Boudain:Parts Unknown meets Michael Pollan for a four course meal after absorbing the Farmer’s Almanac and telling everyone else in the restaurant about all the magnificent places they’ve visited, the food they’ve tasted, and how that food was grown. Read more
The Homemade Vegan Pantry
Join the homemade revolution.
One of the most fantastic aspects of adopting a plant-based diet is being part of a rapidly growing community that introduces new products nearly every day along with cookbooks on how to make delicious plant-based food. Years ago, just a few vegan cookbooks lined a shelf at the local bookstore but today the shelves are filled with vegan cookbooks – a testament to the growing popularity of this wholesome, nutritious diet. Read more
“The Afterlife”
People are fond of saying that the truth will make you free. But what happens when the truth is not one simple, brutal thing?
Personal memoirs about growing up with less than suitable parents, and particularly mothers – provide readers a glimpse into a world that managed to produce some of the most talented contemporary writers in this country while supporting the argument that nature wins over nurture but not without the long-lasting effects of childhood. Read more
Humans of New York: Stories
Several years ago, Brandon Stanton was an unemployed college graduate struggling to live in New York City when he began photographing people on the streets of New York City. Posting these pictures on a blog he created (www.HumansofNewYork.com), Stanton created an exhaustive fascinating visual catalog of life on the streets of the city, which caused a sensation on the internet. Soon, Stanton’s first book was published – Humans of New York – but Stanton sensed there was more to this photographic journey, that there was a human story behind each photograph which led him to publish Humans of New York: Stories – showing and telling the stories of strangers on the street. Read more
“Ingredients”
If food ingredient labels make your eyes glaze over, we hope that this book will open them instead.
Steve Ettlinger and Dwight Eschliman (of Twinkie, Deconstructed and 37 or So Ingredients fame) came together to create a book –Ingredients: A Visual Exploration of 75 Additives & 25 Food Products – that is both appealing to the eye and the brain. Noting that “almost everyone eats processed foods,” the authors set the reader at ease by pointing out the word “processed” needs to be considered with care because we often forget that processed food also includes the freezing, cooking, baking, drying, and pickling of food – processes that get a bad rep when additives (especially those with complicated hard-to-pronounce names) are added. Read more
“Bettyville”
Everyday it becomes more apparent to me, and I think to her – a woman who still calls the refrigerator an “icebox” – that her world is gone and she is standing almost by herself now, the only one who remembers how it was here, wondering half the time what it is that people are talking about.
George Hodgman, a 54-year old magazine and book editor who recently lost his job returns home to Paris, Missouri (population 1,246) to care for his fiercely independent but ailing 91-year old mother. Struggling to take care of himself and Betty, George is frustrated, angry, and sad because he can’t quite figure out the road map that both and he and his mother are trying to navigate (“Betty and I are both crossing bridges we would rather avoid”). Read more
“Relish”
Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate. Images are a way of writing. When you have the talent to be able to write and to draw, it seems a shame to choose one. I think it’s better to do both. ~Marjane Satrapi
Several months ago, my daughter told me she was reading a graphic novel and I’m ashamed to admit I thought she was reading a book with a triple “X” rating attached to it. Always trying to be open-minded, I asked a few questions and realized a graphic novel is simply a novel in comic strip format. Totally embarrassed by my ignorance, I made a note to self: stay better informed of current trends in young adult culture. Read more
“Zealot”
The more I probed the Bible to arm myself against the doubts of unbelievers, the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history – between Jesus the Christ and Jesus of Nazareth.
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan was given to me to read by a Jewish friend, who told me “you have to read this book.” He had recently attended a gathering where the keynote speaker was Reza Aslan – an American-Iranian writer and academic in religious studies and creative writing – and was mesmerized by both the author and the book. Read more
“Such Good Girls”
I knew I was Jewish, but I didn’t know I was Jewish.
There are hundreds if not thousands of books in print about the Holocaust, most of which cover the Nazi regime, concentration camps, survivors of the camps, and the political environment but there are very few books about the “hidden children” – the infants, toddlers, and school age children – who were hidden, often in plain sight of the Nazis during World War II, and survived.
These children grew up, often left Europe, and for the most part were silent because they were taught to stay quiet to avoid detection, didn’t know if they could trust their memories, and didn’t have the resources to process what had happened to them. And so, very little has been written about them because so little has been known, until recently. Read more
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