This is a book I wouldn’t have turned to, left to my own devices, but it was a favorite of the crew of my favorite literary podcast, “Literary Disco” so I filed it away and planned to check it out via audio. Non-fiction is not my preferred genre, and for me is often a bit of a slog, so I figured the audio format would get me through it, and keep me honest and not skimming passages. As it was I cranked it up to […]
What Do You Mean We Don’t Agree On How To Run Triage?
I have an interest in what happens in worst case scenarios. I find disaster documentaries fascinating. I don’t know what that says about me, but it does mean that books like Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital are up my alley. Following a glowing review from Lollygagger way back in Cannonball Read 6, I added Sheri Fink’s book to my to read list, and then kept pushing it farther down. Because even though this is an area of non-fiction that […]
A beautiful, sad book about Hurricane Katrina–and it’s for children, no less.
A few years back, I was browsing the children’s display at Barnes and Noble (in other words: a day that ends in y), and I noticed a book about Hurricane Katrina that had just won the Coretta Scott King Award. That book was Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Ninth Ward, and it sounded intriguing. I’ve not read a lot of fiction about Hurricane Katrina, just a collection of poetry by Katie Ford (which, by the way is excellent. Check out Colosseum if you can). I can hardly […]
More About Katrina
While at a friend’s house for dinner last week, a friend lent me this book. This is the same one who turned me on to steampunk, so I trusted her judgment. I found this to be a really compelling, interesting and infuriating book about one component of the horrors of Hurricane Katrina. However, I really wish that I hadn’t Googled Mr. Zeitoun when I finished it, for reasons I’ll share at the end. This review will contain some spoilers, because there is a bit of […]