Nick Harkaway © Clare Cornwell

A Handbook for Staying Human in a Digital Age: Nick Harkaway’s Blind Giant

Welcome to the beginnings of a purely digital society. Will this brave new world of ours be heavenly or hellish? That's the question blogger and novelist Harkaway is here to answer.

May 15, 2012

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Living to Tell the Tale: Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?

Fifteen years after a chance meeting with a rock 'n' roll icon, Tyler reveals himself like never before through anecdotes, philosophy, history, advice and more.

May 14, 2012

One Woman’s Miraculous Gift: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot

This true account is a beautifully woven dual narrative that juxtaposes the life of Henrietta Lacks with the science surrounding her immortal HeLa cells and their consequent impact on the medical world.

May 13, 2012

Confessions of a Scary Mommy and 6 Unusual Reads About Motherhood

To all the mommies out there, I hope you're having a relaxing day of pampering. But if it's not exactly what you expected, take heart.

May 11, 2012

Girl Walks Into a Bar by Rachel Dratch: Funny, Sure, But Surprising Too

Stop me if you've heard this one before: a female comedienne/actress writes a book on her mishaps in life and love, starting with herself as an awkward child and wrapping up the book with a happy ending. If this story is, in fact, old news to you, prepare to be refreshed by Dratch's telling.

May 9, 2012

The Man Who Froze the World: Mark Kurlansky’s Birdseye

Mark Kurlansky wrote a book-within-a-book when he put together Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man. The author of Salt and Cod could not resist penning a new history of a ubiquitous consumable: ice.

May 5, 2012

Breaking Away From a Hasidic Life: Deborah Feldman’s Memoir, Unorthodox

No reading English-language books. Attending college is not allowed. Always wear long skirts and thick stockings. No dating boys. TV, radio, and newspapers banned from the home. Welcome to the world Deborah Feldman grew up in and join her on her transforming journey in her candid memoir, Unorthodox.

April 28, 2012

A Feast for the Senses and Intellect: Adam Gopnik’s The Table Comes First

The various food movements sound complicated and how we actually arrived at this place in our culture that so esteems food can seem a mystery. But now, Gopnik, best-selling author and veteran writer for The New Yorker, takes an intellectual stab at the basis of how we eat and why we eat what we eat in his latest book

April 27, 2012

Oaxaca Journal: In Mexico, Oliver Sacks Looks at Ferns; Hilarity Ensues

Well, not exactly hilarity. You will never see a film adaptation of Oliver Sacks' Oaxaca Journal in your Netflix queue. But this quirky little book is a romance -- about nature, knowledge, and camaraderie.

April 25, 2012

The Wonders of Friendship, Aging, and Headstands: Anna Quindlen’s Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake

Much like she did with her popular column, “Life In the 30’s,” Quindlen writes invitingly about everyday life, though the focus is now on life in the 50s and 60s. Still, what’s wonderful about Quindlen’s writing is that she manages to be universally relatable.

April 24, 2012

The Great Inversion: A Change Is Coming to Downtown and Other Lessons in City Planning

A change is coming, and it has the potential to turn your hometown upside down. Are you ready for it? Alan Ehrenhalt addresses the issue in his book The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City.

April 23, 2012

The Best Occupy Wall Street Book the Occupiers Never Made: Robert B. Reich’s Beyond Outrage

For a movement criticized for being unorganized and without a clear message, Reich's Outrage serves to crystalize their concerns with the gravitas of a respected economist and the clarity of a man not stoned and drumming on a bongo in Zuccotti Park.

April 18, 2012

Inside the Circus: Your First-Class Ticket to the 2012 Political Race

Politico's Mike Allen and Evan Thomas have teamed up to write four eBooks documenting the GOP race to the White House. The aptly named Inside the Circus marks their second foray in the POLITICO-sponsored series, one that's proving to redefine journalism as we know it in the twenty-first century.

April 16, 2012

Rachel Maddow’s Drift: Our Military, Our Monolith, Our Mistake?

Maddow, MSNBC host and Stanford and Oxford graduate, offers her attempt to discuss how our national security apparatus has become the monolith that Dwight Eisenhower once warned about -- and how we can change.

April 13, 2012

100 Years After Titanic: 9 Books That Take Us Back

From Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage to Walter Lord's A Night to Remember, we look back at the tragic events surrounding the Titanic on its centennial anniversary with these seven books.