A Fractured Mind : My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder — By Robert B. Oxnam This was an impulse pick from the new books shelf at the library. I’ve never read any of the other famous memoirs about Multiple Personality … Continue reading
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of The Oxford English Dictionary — By Simon Winchester This is one of those books that I’ve been so familiar with for so long that it was … Continue reading
Too Close to the Falls — By Catherine Gildiner Young Catherine has an unusual, adventurous childhood, growing up in the small town of Lewiston, New York, near Niagara Falls. At the suggestion of the family doctor, Catherine’s parents put their … Continue reading
Minds Made Feeble: The Myth and Legacy of the Kallikaks — By J. David Smith I first read about the Kallikak family as a child, reading my parents’ copy of “You and Heredity” by Amram Scheinfeld. This was one of … Continue reading
Our Inner Ape : A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are — by Frans De Waal I remember reading Desmond Morris’s famous The Naked Ape when I was about eighteen. I found it fascinating, and I am … Continue reading
Fierce Attachments: A Memoir — By Vivian Gornick Deborah Tannen’s You’re Wearning That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation uses several examples from Gornick’s memoir, which attracted my interest to this book. Gornick writes of growing up in a Bronx … Continue reading
You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation — By Deborah Tannen I have always liked Deborah Tannen’s books, especially That’s Not What I Meant! and You Just Don’t Understand: Men and Women in Conversation. And I was very … Continue reading
Honor Killing : How the Infamous “Massie Affair” Transformed Hawai’i — By David E. Stannard In 1931, something happens to Thalia Massie, the young wife of a Naval officer stationed in Hawaii, but it almost certainly wasn’t what she said: … Continue reading
The Sun Never Sets: Travels to the Remaining Outposts of the British Empire By Simon Winchester In the early 1980s, journalist Winchester decided to visit what was left of the British Empire. It was an odd assortment of places including … Continue reading
Dave Gorman’s Googlewhack Adventure At the age of 31, Englishman Dave Gorman decides it’s time to act like a grown-up, and write a Are You Dave Gorman?.real novel. He talks his way into a book contract, and accepts an advance. … Continue reading