Tag: nonfiction books

— book review, nonfiction —

Clever Girl: Jurassic Park by Hannah McGregor (Review)

October 21, 2024

A smart and incisive exploration of everyone’s favorite dinosaur movie and the female dinosaurs who embody what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free

The Jurassic Park series is one of the most famous and profitable movie franchises of all time — an entire generation of people has never known life without these CGI dinosaurs. The movie spectacle broke film and merchandising records, pioneered special effects, and made Jeff Goldblum into an unlikely sex symbol, and now it has also been re-envisioned as a classic of queer feminist storytelling.

In Clever Girl, Hannah McGregor argues that the female-only dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are stand-ins for monstrous women, engineered by men to be intelligent, violent, and adaptive, and whose chaos resists the systems designed to control them. As they run wild through their prison, a profit-driven theme park, they destroy the men and structures who mistakenly believed in their own colonialist and capitalist power, showing the audience what it means to be angry, monstrous, and free. The velociraptors were not just jump scares for children, but also revelatory and predatory symbols of feminist rage. Clever girls, indeed.… Read More Clever Girl: Jurassic Park by Hannah McGregor (Review)

— book review, nonfiction —

The Time of My Life: Dirty Dancing by Andrea Warner (Review)

August 19, 2024

An engaging exploration into the enduring popularity of Dirty Dancing and its lasting themes of feminism, activism, and reproductive rights When Dirty Dancing was released in 1987, it had already been rejected by producers and distributors several times over, and expectations for the summer romance were low. But then the film, written by former dancer Eleanor Bergstein and starring Jennifer Grey and Patrick Swayze as a couple from two different worlds, exploded. Since then, Dirty Dancing ’s popularity has never waned. The truth has always been that Dirty Dancing was never just a teen romance or a dance movie ― it also explored abortion rights, class, and political activism, with a smattering of light crime-solving. In The Time of My Life , celebrated music journalist Andrea Warner excavates the layers of Dirty Dancing , from its anachronistic, chart-topping soundtrack, to Baby and Johnny’s chemistry, to Bergstein’s political intentions, to the abortion subplot that is more relevant today than ever. The film’s remarkable longevity would never have been possible if it was just a throwaway summer fling story. It is precisely because of its themes ― deeply feminist, sensitively written ― that we, over 30 years later, are still holding our breath during that last, exhilarating lift… Read More The Time of My Life: Dirty Dancing by Andrea Warner (Review)

— ARC review, book review, nonfiction —

Do Better by Rachel Ricketts (ARC Review)

March 16, 2021

Do Better is a revolutionary offering that addresses anti-racism from a comprehensive, intersectional, and spiritually-aligned perspective. This actionable guidebook illustrates how to engage in the heart-centered and mindfulness-based practices that racial justice educator and healer Rachel Ricketts has developed to fight white supremacy from the inside out, in our personal lives and communities alike. It is a loving and assertive call to do the deep—and often uncomfortable—inner work that precipitates much-needed external and global change. Radical racial justice includes daily, intentional, and informed action. It demands addressing the emotional violence we have perpetuated on ourselves and others (most notably toward Black and Indigenous women and femmes), both as individuals and as a society. Do Better provides the missing pieces to manifest practicable, sustainable solutions such as identifying where we most get stuck, mitigating the harm we inflict on others, and mending our hearts from our most painful race and gender-based experiences, plus much more… Read More Do Better by Rachel Ricketts (ARC Review)

— book review, food & drink, nonfiction —

Asma’s Indian Kitchen by Darjeeling Express (Review)

May 20, 2019

Let Asma Khan feed your soul with this collection of authentic Indian recipes. Award-winning restaurant Darjeeling Express began life as a dinner party with friends; Indian food lovingly cooked from family recipes that go back generations. In this book, Asma reveals the secret to her success, telling her immigrant’s story and how food brought her home. The recipes pay homage to her royal Mughlai ancestry and follow the route of the Darjeeling Express train from the busy streets of Bengal, through Calcutta… Read More Asma’s Indian Kitchen by Darjeeling Express (Review)

— book review, nonfiction —

The Astrology of You and Me by Gary Goldschneider (Review)

October 17, 2018

Use the power of the stars to perfect your relationships with friends, family, partners… everyone you know! Do you know how to live peacefully with a Taurus? Discuss money issues with a Cancer? Improve your sex life with a Scorpio? The Astrology of You and Me offers help and guidance direct from the heavens, perfect for solving every for every star-crossed situation imaginable.… Read More The Astrology of You and Me by Gary Goldschneider (Review)

— ARC review, book review, nonfiction, young adult —

Mary Shelley: The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein’s Creator by Catherine Reef (ARC Review)

September 5, 2018

On the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein,comes a riveting biography of its author, Mary Shelley, whose life reads like a dark gothic novel, filled with scandal, death, drama, and one of the strangest love stories in literary history…… Read More Mary Shelley: The Strange True Tale of Frankenstein’s Creator by Catherine Reef (ARC Review)