I hate quitting on books. Hate. It. Because I’m a fast reader, I can usually convince myself to stick with my read. But I white-knuckled my way through about 100 pages of “The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters” before I finally tossed it and moved on. Life’s too short. I’d never heard of the Mitford Sisters before but I guess they’re pretty famous. They were socialites who managed to deliver more drama than the Kardashians. Beautiful, witty, articulate and unpredictable, they were at […]
Bellevue ain’t just for crazies any more
Bellevue has seen some sh*t. As New York City’s oldest public hospital, Bellevue hospital has been on the front lines of virtually every health crisis that hit our fine shores in the past 280 odd years. In this breathtakingly detailed history, Pulitzer Prize winning author, David Oshinsky (author of the equally cheerful Polio: An American Story), takes readers through this medical institution’s storied past. That description makes it sound like a bit of a snoozer. But, a textbook this is not. This well-paced tome puts […]
There’s certainly a lot of damned things that happen
If there’s one thing that can be said about this book, it’s that it lives up to its title. The premise is fascinating: An institute of historical research called St Mary’s, associated with the (also fictional) University of Thirsk in northern England, is not the stuffy old institution it appears to be but actually conducts its historical research in the most contemporary way possible–they go back in time and observe the events firsthand. The main character, Dr Madeleine Maxwell, called Max, is recruited by St […]
Trudge: The Unmooring of Exposition
Greetings CBR! I’m excited to begin my first ever half cannonball with a nod to my New Year’s resolution: to read more nonfiction in 2017. Unfortunately, I started with this disappointing book by one of my longtime favorite personalities, Rachel Maddow. In Drift, Maddow describes the USA’s descent into a near constant state of war. She laments how sharply we’ve deviated from the Jeffersonian ideal to “never keep an unnecessary soldier”, and how in our modern national security state, American civilian life continues largely unaffected […]