Books and Breads Blog

June 16, 2010

The Best American Travel Writing 2007 Edited by Susan Orlean *** (of 4)

On the upside, no kidding, Orlean and the series editor really do skim the cream from thousands of annual travel articles. On the down, there...

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June 16, 2010

Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose ** (of 4)

A story of Easy Company during WW II that trained as the most elite paratrooper unit in the Army and fought in the Battle of...

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June 13, 2010

An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina *** (of 4)

A painfully clear explanation of the genocide that overtook Rwanda as seen through the eyes of a man who survived and simultaneously saved the lives...

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May 15, 2010

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot *** (of 4)

Cells from Henrietta Lacks’ cancerous cervix were the first to ever be cultured in a lab in perpetuity making the woman they came from in...

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May 15, 2010

The Help by Kathryn Stockett **** (of 4)

The characters in this book – racist, southern white women in the early sixties and the black maids that work for them – are so...

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May 15, 2010

War by Sebastian Junger

Because I’ve really enjoyed all of Junger’s writing. This book is the first hand account of two years embedded with American troops in the recently...

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April 30, 2010

The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs **** (of 4)

Jacobs takes a year to live strictly adhering to the bible. He doesn’t know bubkes when he begins and figures he’ll start reading Genesis and...

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April 30, 2010

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks *** (of 4)

The plot is contrived and straight as ruler and the characters are one dimensional, but the book is still a great read. Like Brooks’ People of...

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April 30, 2010

The White Tiger by Arivan Adiga ** (of 4)

Hard to imagine why this book won the 2008 Booker Prize, England’s Pulitzer. The protagonist is a low-caste Indian who makes good, but most of...

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April 30, 2010

What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng by Dave Eggers **** (of 4)

It’s hard to comprehend how anyone survives what Valentino had to in escaping Arab militiamen in southern Sudan and comes away only with excrutiating headaches....

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