September 26, 2011 – 6:53 am
Goodbye, Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His One Month Presidency, by Keith W. Norris
If people even remember who William Henry Harrison is it’s only because everyone learned in school that he was stupid enough to give his inauguration speech in the rain with no coat and then died one month later. He [...]
September 17, 2011 – 8:24 pm
The Book: Bossypants, by Tina Fey
The Story: Tina Fey of Saturday Night Live/30 Rock/Sarah Palin fame tells her life story. From her early days as a drama nerd, to Second City, to her interview with Lorne Michaels, to the birth of her daughter and everything in between.
What I Thought: I hate driving. [...]
August 31, 2011 – 3:18 pm
The Book: The Lives and Loves of Violet and Daisy Hilton: A True Story of Conjoined Twins, by Dean Jenson
The Story: Violet and Daisy Hilton were born attached at the lower back in the early 1900’s. From day one, they were kind of a big hit. Their mother gave them up to the midwife who [...]
August 29, 2011 – 7:34 am
The Book: Going Up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation, by Joseph T. Hallinan
The Story: This is just the story of how the prison system has grown and changed in America over the last 200 years. Much of the book specifically focuses on how prisons have changed in the last 30 or so years, [...]
August 16, 2011 – 9:26 pm
Day #3. Today I babysat a friend’s 4 month old baby until the early afternoon and since then I’ve been cleaning and having fun with little ol’ Izey. We are headed out tonight for a little bit of alone time. Some friends are watching Isaac while we go get ice cream. Sounds like a dream! [...]
The Book: When You Are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris
The Story: This is just your typical David Sedaris book. If you don’t know what that means, here ya go: This is a book of essays that covers everything from social awkwardness, to family, to culture, to spiders, to smoking…. you name it.
David Sedaris is [...]
The Book: Radical: Taking Back Your Faith From the American Dream, by David Platt
The Story: The subtitle kind of says it all. This book is all about this goal that we have as Americans: to be successful, comfortable, busy and look great while we’re doing it. David Platt starts this book by questioning how our [...]
The Book: Girl Meets God, by Lauren Winner
The Story: Lauren was born into a kind of religiously-confused environment. Her mother was a Southern Baptist and her father was a Reform Jew. They kind of let her do what she wanted, religion-wise and she chose to become an Orthodox Jew.
As she grew up in the synagogue [...]
American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham
Ok, let me just say right off that I kind of love Andrew Jackson. I knew very little about him before starting this book, but as I read it I found myself bringing him up in conversation and going on and on. It’s like a [...]
The Book: Ava’s Man, by Rick Bragg
The Story: After writing All Over but the Shoutin’, Rick Bragg was approached on multiple occasions and told that he just has to tell more about his family’s history.
In this book, he goes back another generation and delves into the life of his maternal Grandpa, Charlie and his wife [...]