Nonfiction: August 2007 Archives

This book's comic-book cover and the word "sperm" screamed so loud from me from the shelf, how could I not pick it up? And besides, it provides nice contrast to the two previous entries about nuns, don't you think?

Sperm Counts: Overcome by Man's Most Precious Fluid (New York University Press, 164 pages, $26.95) by Lisa Jean Moore ...

Continuing with yesterday's theme, I bring you Dog Spelled Backwards: Soulful Writing by Literary Dog Lovers (St. Martin's Press, 279 pages, $23.95) by Mordecai Siegal, president emeritus ...

I love the title of today's book: Shaggy Muses. If not for the sepia-toned cover photo of Virginia Woolf gazing upon her beloved spaniel Pinka, the book's title conjures all manner of images.

I asked a co-worker what came to mind upon hearing the title and she replied: "Um, long-haired, unshaven hippie girls who were muses for artists/authors in the '60s?"

Good answer....

Books about war have never interested me. Reading about battle strategy and political conflict will send my eyeballs spinning toward the back of my head and knock me out cold.

It's not that I'm not interested in the subject matter; I just don't want to read about it. I'd much rather see a documentary or even a feature film dramatizing specific events. It humanizes war for me, which helps me to better understand the overall cause and effects of such drastic actions, especially these days as our troops are still fighting a questionable war in the Middle East.

The human element evident in High Tea in Mosul: The True Story of Two Englishwomen in War-torn Iraq (Cyan Books, 207 pages, $21.95) ...

There she is, Winnie Cooper — Kevin Arnold's first kiss on "The Wonder Years" — all grown up and an internationally recognized mathematician? Whaaat?? Wasn't she working in "The West Wing" White House a couple of seasons ago?

Clearly she — and when I say "she" I mean Danica McKellar, the girl who played Winnie Cooper on TV — found time to go to college, graduate with honors, and pen the excellently titled, Math Doesn't Suck: How To Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail (Hudson Street Press, 294 pages, $23.95). Sounds.... practical.

As I mentioned in my column in Sunday's Sun-Times Books section, I am starting a Book of the Day Club, where I’ll take one book a day off the shelves of the actual book room — where we store all the new books being published — and I’ll post some thoughts about it online.

For our inaugural entry I’ve chosen American Band: Music, Dreams, and Coming of Age in the Heartland (Gotham Books, 324 pages, $26) by Kristen Laine. I had never heard of the author or the book; I was drawn to it by the photo of uniformed marching band members on the book cover.