Mark Seal
“The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” – paraphrased from Joseph Goebbels
There is something simply unbelievable in the stories of serial imposters like Frank Abaganle and “Clark Rockefeller”. How, you ask yourself, could so many people possibly believe such twaddle? And yet they do. …
Edward Ugel
It is a bit sad how many Americans use the phrase “when I win the lottery…” before expressing a dream or desire. What is surprising is how many people do win the lottery – and what a lousy deal it often is. Many states don’t allow lump-sum payments. …
Don Lattin
Touching on its early history, leaders of the movement and testimony of ex- and current members, Lattin presents a creepy portrait of the Children of God cult, otherwise known as The Family. The book loosely follows the life of David Berg, the charismatic and manipulative leader, and his …
John Lanchester
Lanchester, a Brit and writer by trade, started his research into the current financial debacle as background for a novel he was writing. He soon found a mind-boggling story worth telling without any fictional embellishment. His description of credit markets, hedge-funds, mortgages and other financial toys are remarkably …
Don Lattin
What we now associate with Timothy Leary – LSD, Grateful Dead concerts, hippies, tuning in and dropping out, first started out as psychological experiments at Harvard University. Leary, a charismatic and well-liked professor, hoped to help inmates rehabilitate by giving them mystical experiences via LSD. His early partners, …
Osa Johnson
Osa and Martin Johnson were once household names. In the 1920s and 30s they brought the wilds of Africa, Micronesia and Borneo to the big screen in little towns. Both were originally from small towns in Kansas. While Martin dreamed of seeing the world and photographing it, Osa …
Paco Underhill
What is wrong with the mall? Well, everything, according to consumer behavior specialist Underhill. And, he adds, the rise and fall of the mall has been almost entirely avoidable. Going through a standard mall visit, Underhill points out the numerous ways malls fail to satisfy the consumer. From …
Joseph Epstein
Snobbery often entails taking a petty, superficial, or irrelevant distinction and, so to say, running with it.
Epstein’s study of snobbery should be considered a guilty pleasure, replete with snarky little personal stories. His main premise is snobbery is a strangely unique phenomenon created by Americans. Our democracy …
Shira Boss
Not to flog a dead horse or anything… Green with Envy was quoted in House Lust, so I couldn’t resist reading this book too. Boss starts her book with her personal story. She and her unemployed husband worry over bills and try to subsist in New York …
Daniel McGinn
Boy howdy what a timely book! As the prices of houses plummet and loans are near-impossible to attain, this book makes it crystal clear where it all went wrong. Actually, House Lust author McGinn makes the claim that he will do nothing of the sort in his book. …
Michelle Dresbold
A self-proclaimed “top expert” of handwriting analysis (graphology), Dresbold gives quite a wild ride. After a few pages of self-congratulatory introduction, she gets down to business and covers a wealth of hidden information found in handwriting. While some does seem a hair far-fetched (you can see the weapon …
Oliver Sacks
Neurologist Oliver Sacks is probably best known for his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. With a focus on rare neurological diseases and maladies, Sacks was deeply interested to hear about the Island of Pingelap. Nearly 10% of the population is achromatopic – …
Dr. Brian Wansink
From the title, you’d never guess this book is a laugh riot. After reading an interview in Salon the Dr. Wansink, I had to read the book. Wansink and his lab study why humans overeat. Packed with great anecdotes, Wansink gives a behind-the-scenes look of his research. …
James Borden and Roger Brucker
I picked up this book earlier in the fall when we were vacationing at Mammoth Cave. Tag-teaming in an occasionally confusing way, Borden and Brucker tell of their various exploits exploring and mapping Mammoth Cave and the ensuing connection to Roppel Cave, making Mammoth Cave …
John Berendt
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the reader has a strong feeling of time. The story covers years and you can clearly feel Capote’s desire to tell the story to the end, but at the same time strongly fearing and wishing for a conclusion. In Berendt’s books, …
Martha Beck
I’m not sure really what to classify this book as. After deciding to have a Downs Syndrome baby, Beck describes her decision to leave grad school and Harvard to return to her hometown of Provo Utah and her Mormon family. Through a winding path she describes the friendliness …
