Book Review

The Long Goodbye is poet and journalist Meghan O’Rourke’s memoir about losing her mother to metastatic colorectal cancer on Christmas Day, 2008, when O’Rourke was in her 30s and her mother was only 55-years-old. The book follows O’Rourke and her family through the initial cancer diagnosis, her mother’s short recovery and subsequent decline, and the aftermath of losing the center of their family. Throughout the book, O’Rourke constantly battles with an overwhelming question: How do we live with the knowledge that, eventually, we will die?

Earlier this week, my review of Blood Work by Holly Tucker was posted online. This was my second “professional” review (the first being Sarah Blake’s The Postmistress), and I have to say, this one was a lot easier to write. I think that’s because Blood Work is nonfiction, which is much more up my alley.

Blood Work is a history of blood transfusion, which was first attempted in France between 1665 and 1668. At that time, French and English scientists were in a race to see who could perform a successful transfusion the soonest, first focusing on animals and then people.

One Sentence Summary: When Neil White was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for bank fraud, he was sent to Careville, Louisiana, home to the last people in the United States disfigured by leprosy.

One Sentence Review: White’s memoir has the ingredients to be fascinating — and in parts, it is — but when writing about himself White manages to make the most unique stories feel flat.

For my big road trip home last weekend, I picked out Steven Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner’s book SuperFreakonomics as an audio book for my car ride. I felt really skeptical about it as a book, but within just an hour of listening I felt like most of my initial concerns were allayed pretty convincingly.

In fact, all of my notes on the book start out something like, “This was more funny than I expected!” or “Wow, economics is more understandable than I thought it would be.” The entire listening experience felt like I was constantly reassuring the Skeptical Reader in my head that the book was going to be good.

ust about every book that talks abut Victorian London inevitably spends time talking about how unclean the city became before the birth of modern sanitation. And one event that makes it into just about every book as the perfect example of the impact of sanitation is the cholera epidemic of 1854, when residents of a single neighborhood were decimated in a 10-day period by one of the worst disease outbreaks in the city’s history.

Two Sentence Summary: From the book jacket — “On June 8, 1966, an EF-5 tornado cut a 22-mile swath across eastern Kansas and straight through Topeka, Kansas’s capital city. When it was over, 16 people were dead, more than 500 were injured, and property damage had reached $100 million.”

One Sentence Review: The level of detail and strong use of visuals make this book an impressive and engrossing read.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is a story about how one woman fought back against one of the most repressive regimes in the world in order to save herself, her family, and her community, one dress at a time.

When the Taliban seized control of Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1996, life for the residents of the city, especially the women, changed dramatically. Women like Kamela Sediqi, a young, educated teacher, were suddenly forced to stay in their homes, restricted from even the most basic activities. At the same time, the men of Kabul were either conscripted or forced to flee, leaving a city of women that needed to work to survive but were forbidden from doing so. Out of these difficult circumstances, Kamela mobilized her sisters and started a dressmaking business to support her family through the occupation.

Review: In 1898 British adventurer Ewart Grogan fell in love, but was deemed unworthy by his sweetheart’s aristocratic family. To prove his worth, he set off on a quest to be the first man to cross the entire length of the unexplored African continent. About a century later, journalist Julian Smith came across Grogan’s story and found some kinship with the errant explorer. Although Smith was madly in love with his girlfriend of seven years, he was afraid of committing to her. In order to face his fears, Smith decided to retrace Grogan’s path and explore the heart of Africa.

If the summary makes the premise of the memoir sound like a bit of a stretch, you’d be right. I too was little skeptical if the two narratives would work together or if it would feel forced — there’s nothing worse than a memoir that feels more like a gimmick than an emotionally satisfying story.

One Sentence Summary: Journalist Joshua Foer spent a year immersing himself in the art of memory, culminating in competing in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship.

One Sentence Review: Foer’s book is wonderful when exploring the ideas of memory, but lacks the same sort of passion when Foer focuses on himself and tying his experiences to broader themes.

Why I Read It: I usually enjoy books written by journalists who spend a year immersed in a quirky subculture, so this book seemed right up my alley.