A thoughtful, thorough survey of the best nonfiction found in today’s libraries.
A retired Virginia librarian compiles an annotated bibliography of high-quality nonfiction.
With decades of experience in public and school libraries, Maxie has a lifetime of experience helping patrons locate the next book to add to their reading list. In her debut, written under the pen name of Library Lin, Maxie distills a century of nonfiction into a digestible best-of compilation. Following the organizational structure of the Dewey Decimal System, the book’s 10 chapters parallel the classification system’s 10 hierarchal divisions of knowledge, from General Knowledge and Computer Science (000-099) and Religion (200-299) to Languages (400-499) and Geography, Biography, and History (900-999). Drawing on 65 lists, including those of National Book Award winners and the Kirkus Best Nonfiction Books of the Year, Maxie’s entries include a brief synopsis paragraph that describes each book’s thesis. Books that make Maxie’s cut must meet three additional criteria: They “must teach me something new,” “must change the way I look at life in some small way,” and must “keep the pages turning with a clear, engaging writing style.” Adhering to the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, the book does not discriminate based on the ideology or background of the author and thus includes books that span a full range of sometimes competing perspectives on controversial topics like religion and politics. For a reference book of such enormous scope that has barely 400 pages, Maxie acknowledges her lists are “a tiny sampling,” part of a larger network of Library Lin book lists featured on her Further Reading blog. Dedicated “to all those who love to read and learn,” this is a useful reference tool for bibliophiles on the never-ending journey to find their next favorite book, and it’s accompanied by practical appendix material such as an author and title index. And while the book’s introductory chapter makes a too-cursory attempt to deal with topics like theoretical debates over blurred lines between “Fiction vs. Nonfiction,” its lists nevertheless make for a delightful guidebook.
A thoughtful, thorough survey of the best nonfiction found in today’s libraries.Pub Date: May 5, 2022
ISBN: 979-8-98592-340-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Spoon Creek Press
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.
The Top Chef host describes her journey to new heights.
For those who don’t know, Kish is a “gay Korean adopted woman, born in Seoul, raised in Michigan” and “a chef, a character, a host, and a cultural communicator—as well as a human being with a beating heart.” Though this book covers every step of her journey, every restaurant job and television role, and also discusses her experience as an adoptee (very positive) and a queer woman (late bloomer), the storytelling is so straightforward, lacking in suspense, character development, or dialogue, that it is basically a long version of its (longish) “About the Author.” Seemingly dramatic situations are not dramatized—when she was eliminated on her first Top Chef run, she assures us that she did the best she could, and drops it. “I can spare you the gory details (bouillabaisse and big personalities were involved).” Later, she cites a belief in protecting the privacy of others to omit the story of her first relationship with a woman. With no character development, neither does the reader get to know those who fall outside the privacy zone, like her best friend, Steph, and her wife, Bianca. When she gets mad, she says things like, “It’s a gross understatement to say I was crushed, beyond frustrated, and furious with the situation.” The fact that “I’ve never been a big reader” does not come as a surprise. It is more surprising when she confesses that “I believe the universe is selective about the moments in which it introduces life-changing prospects.”
Top Chef fans might savor this detailed account, but others will find it bland.Pub Date: April 22, 2025
ISBN: 9780316580915
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.
A charming bird journey with the bestselling author.
In his introduction to Tan’s “nature journal,” David Allen Sibley, the acclaimed ornithologist, nails the spirit of this book: a “collection of delightfully quirky, thoughtful, and personal observations of birds in sketches and words.” For years, Tan has looked out on her California backyard “paradise”—oaks, periwinkle vines, birch, Japanese maple, fuchsia shrubs—observing more than 60 species of birds, and she fashions her findings into delightful and approachable journal excerpts, accompanied by her gorgeous color sketches. As the entries—“a record of my life”—move along, the author becomes more adept at identifying and capturing them with words and pencils. Her first entry is September 16, 2017: Shortly after putting up hummingbird feeders, one of the tiny, delicate creatures landed on her hand and fed. “We have a relationship,” she writes. “I am in love.” By August 2018, her backyard “has become a menagerie of fledglings…all learning to fly.” Day by day, she has continued to learn more about the birds, their activities, and how she should relate to them; she also admits mistakes when they occur. In December 2018, she was excited to observe a Townsend’s Warbler—“Omigod! It’s looking at me. Displeased expression.” Battling pesky squirrels, Tan deployed Hot Pepper Suet to keep them away, and she deterred crows by hanging a fake one upside down. The author also declared war on outdoor cats when she learned they kill more than 1 billion birds per year. In May 2019, she notes that she spends $250 per month on beetle larvae. In June 2019, she confesses “spending more hours a day staring at birds than writing. How can I not?” Her last entry, on December 15, 2022, celebrates when an eating bird pauses, “looks and acknowledges I am there.”
An ebullient nature lover’s paean to birds.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593536131
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2024
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