The Handbook of Us: Understanding and Accepting People with Autism by Matteo Musso (review by Kelsey W. '19)

Handbook of Us: Understanding and Accepting People with Autism by Matteo Musso
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Handbook of Us is a book written by Matteo Musso, a 13-year-old boy with Autism. Until the age of 12, Matteo was considered “non-verbal”, meaning that he could not conduct regular conversation. His mom discovered RPM (Rapid Prompting Method), a speech-prompting method that allowed Matteo to express his thoughts. Since then, Matteo experienced what he described as a “brain explosion” – he began writing beautifully about his experiences and perceptions of life. This book details how he himself portrays his diagnosis of autism and features some of his beautiful poetry. The autobiographical work is truly phenomenal and very moving, as Matteo’s unique perspectives draw us into his world. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone, particularly those who are looking to view neurodevelopmental differences in a different light. - Kelsey W. '19

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Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael J. Collins (review by Simar B. '20)

Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael J. Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hot Lights, Cold Steel tells the story of Dr. Collins while he was a resident at the Mayo Clinic. Specifically, it is a medical memoir about his life; Dr. Collins went from a lowly junior resident to the chief resident of orthopedics at one of the most renowned hospitals in the world. He did this by working his way up and working tirelessly, trying to learn all he could. Moreover, he worked extremely hard to support his family, moonlighting in Mankato Hospital 90 miles away from his home just to make ends meet. The story is centered on the theme of choices and making the right one for the patient in the hardest of circumstances. For example, a young teenager came to him with a severely damaged leg, and he had to make the choice of whether to amputate the leg or try to save the leg and risk the boy's life. Dr. Collins' story is absolutely riveting and a great read for anyone interested in becoming a doctor. - Simar B. '20

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (review by Saloni S. '21)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

From start to finish, I was thoroughly captivated by Rebecca Skloot’s biography, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Skloot masterfully conveys the heartbreaking story of Henrietta Lacks, a thirty-one year old African-American woman suffering from cervical cancer whose cells were taken for research without her consent. With a magical sensation, I learned that Henrietta Lacks’ cells, dubbed HeLa by scientists, reproduced rapidly and continuously unlike any cells before, resulting in a scientific miracle; however, Skloot stresses the fact that Lacks’ family was not informed about the mystifying HeLa cells as they struggled to survive in poverty, while commercial ventures profited from her cells.

Skloot effectively describes the high racial tensions during the 1950s, with only John Hopkins Hospital available for African-Americans for miles; she also narrates harrowing stories of research conducted on unsuspecting patients, especially African-Americans. She was able to warm the Lacks family’s heart, despite their profound distrust of reporters, by promising to reveal the face behind the name HeLa. With ten years of devotion to writing this book, Skloot not only described the ethical issues behind HeLa cells and scientific cell research, but also emotionally articulated the frustration and story of the Lacks family. Overall, I was amazed at how Skloot evokes so many different emotions from the reader throughout this detailed and interesting 381 page book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like to read a breathtaking, informative book about the science and ethics behind cell research. - Saloni S. '21


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Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (review by Simar B. '20)

Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is a thrilling biography of Dr. Paul Farmer, treats millions of patients from Haiti to Siberia with his charity Partners in Health. Dr. Farmer epitomizes the founding tenets of medicine, devoting himself to curing patients of their ailments regardless of their socio-economic status. He commits himself to serving the poor and the needy, trying to treat poverty and one of its symptom: sickness. The book is absolutely riveting and inspiring, putting you in the eyes of Dr. Farmer. This is a man who does not take “no” for an answer and will see everything to the end. He truly does change the world one patient at a time. Among other good works, the book describes how Dr. Farmer is able to reduce the cost of second-line drugs for multi-drug resistant tuberculosis by ninety-five percent and establishes a free clinic in Cange, a desolate region in Haiti. Overall, I loved how Kidder portrays Farmer and allows you to understand the motivation that pushes this man to give up everything for a cause. It reminds you that there are people in this world who will “fight the long defeat,” as Kidder puts it, to do the right thing and help the impoverished of the world (257). - Simar B. '20


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Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li (review by Andrew '17)

Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life by Yiyun Li
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

A few months after I finished Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, the Chinese-born writer Yiyun Li’s 2010 story collection, only one piece lingered in my mind: a novella, entitled “Kindness,” about a girl’s complex relationship with her female commander in the Chinese army. The storytelling style of “Kindness” is pretty run-of-the-mill realism, but there was something in the narrative, some hint toward a deeper melancholia, that stuck with me. Li’s brand-new memoir, Dear Friend, from My Life I Write to You in Your Life, helps pinpoint what that profound sadness is and where it comes from. Li wrote these essays during her years-long struggle with suicidal depression, but most often she presents recollections from earlier in her writing life. One essay deals with her decision to forsake Chinese entirely and write in English, another with her unlikely friendship with the legendary Irish writer William Trevor, a third with her mentor at the Iowa Writers Workshop, a man just as flawed as the commander from “Kindness.” The publisher bills this memoir as a “richly affirming examination of what makes life worth living.” It’s not. The essays here are pained and painful, meditative and often oppressively sad. Readers willing to brave all that will find insight on nearly every page into the particular somberness of Li’s life and art. - Andrew R. '17

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Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine by Sophie Pinkham (review by Tiffany Z. '17)

Black Square: Adventures in Post-Soviet Ukraine by Sophie Pinkham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Despite the subtitle, Black Square is not just about Ukraine. It is about the shrapnel the explosive nineties left in Russian and Ukrainian society, from the free travel of drugs that accompanied free borders, to Ukrainians’ struggle with their Soviet inheritance every Victory Day. Through anecdotes from Ukrainian and Russian colleagues and her own travels, Pinkham paints a portrait of Ukraine from the early 2000s to 2015 that, though vivid, falters in its attempt to illustrate a multifaceted society. Though she tries to cover all classes and regions in Ukraine, too often does she fall back on experiences with overwhelmingly young, artistic hipster types from Kyiv and western Ukraine. Some parts, like her discussion of the Donbas, almost entirely lack in-depth firsthand testimonies, even though those would have bolstered already interesting arguments rare in Western media. I wanted to see more like her coverage of the 2013-14 Maidan protests: though she did not attend them, she drew on rich historical contexts and personal interviews to represent the complex dialogue surrounding Ukrainian identity. Pinkham’s work sheds vital light on post-Soviet daily life, but I hesitate to extend Black Square from highly recommended for Russia-Ukraine aficionados to required reading for all. - Tiffany Z. '17

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A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter (review by Andrew R. '17)

A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ours is a young nation, and its literature is a young literature. But in A Jury of Her Peers: American Women’s Writing from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, feminist scholar Elaine Showalter profiles the enormous amount of progressive, boundary-pushing material that’s come out of America since the days of the Pilgrims. The writers featured in this encyclopedic book—more of a literary reference guide than a readable chronological account, although a few chapters are marked exceptions—tend to weigh toward the nineteenth century, with novelists like Harriet Beecher Stowe getting far more individual attention than the more modern women writers whose names come to mind when we think back on American literature. Civil War–era authors like Catherine Sedgwick may be in more dire need of recognition than better-known writers, but, with familiar names like Dorothy Parker and Flannery O’Connor on their way a few chapters later, it’s hard for the reader to stay invested in the dustier, more distant history of these early chapters. The core of the book is a long, engaging, and appealingly written dual portrait of Wharton and Cather. If Showalter had adopted this storytelling mode for the rest of the book, A Jury of Her Peers would have been not just informative but enjoyable, too. - Andrew R. '17

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Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis (review by Tiffany Z. '17)

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Picture a stock market: If you imagine yourself ringing up a broker and asking him to find a seller for, say, 10,000 shares of Google, you're about ten years behind. Welcome to the world of e-trading, where you and your seller can theoretically exchange stocks electronically without needing to go through that pesky broker. But high-frequency traders—the people behind the mysterious flash crash of May 6, 2010—are out to squeeze the profit out of you both, and a small handful of talented, dedicated people want to change that. Flash Boys is an intricate yet accessible history of the contemporary stock market and a handy introduction to the tactics (and profit-mongering) of high-frequency trading. But it's also the encouraging story of the rare few who, instead of putting their talents to squeezing every last penny out of unsuspecting investors, choose to set a moral example so that one day, we may stop thinking of the terms "fairness" and "Wall Street" as polar antonyms.

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling (review by Melissa K. '18)

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Television personality Mindy Kaling has an opinion about everything, from the ideal level of fame to men’s chest hair. In her first book, she recounts stories of photo shoot fiascos, lists her favorite moments in comedy, shares her elaborate “Revenge Fantasies While Jogging.” While her memoir may read like a series of unrelated essays—she might transition from a chapter about “Karaoke Etiquette” to a chapter about “Day Jobs” without so much as a page break—the lack of flow reflects Kaling’s writing style: spontaneous, bold, and prone to going off on hilarious tangents.

As a size eight Indian woman, Kaling is the minority in Hollywood. She could have easily preached to her readers or reveled in her own achievements. Luckily, she wrote a much more enjoyable book instead: one filled with sarcastic humor, random entertaining facts, and insightful observations. Highly recommended.

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The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang (review by Andrew R. '17)

The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Iris Chang’s account of the Rape of Nanking, the month-and-a-half-long period of looting, barbarism, and murder after Japanese forces captured the then-capital of China in 1937, is the first book of its kind to be published in English. Part of the reason for this appalling lack of coverage of the massacre in the United States is that certain details, like the exact death count (somewhere in the hundreds of thousands), are still debated and may never be known for sure; Japanese officials’ ongoing reluctance to acknowledge the episode, as well as the intense pain associated with it for the families of all involved, have also prevented it from being intensely studied by American historians. Chang’s book, then, is enormously important in that it fills a gaping hole in the library of English-language studies of World War II, but that doesn’t mean I’d recommend it. The Rape of Nanking is painful to read, with its graphic descriptions of mutilation and abduction and its photos of the episode’s victims, alive and dead; the early chapters especially are as unpleasant and intense as they are informative. This is a brave book, an important book, but you should know what you’re getting into before you pick it up.

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The Pentagon's Brain by Annie Jacobsen (review by Enya L. '19)

The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America's Top-Secret Military Research Agency, is original, provocative, and unforgettable. Starting with the nuclear device Castle Bravo, to the biomedical engineering of limb regeneration, Annie Jacobsen takes us behind-the-scenes to show what military technology is really doing. As a history book, this book was far from boring. Jacobsen's writing is fluid and nothing like the writing in textbooks. The topics outlined in the book are very interesting and sometimes altogether shocking. However, given Jacobsen's reputation, some scenes, I felt, strayed a bit far from reality. While most of the facts were taken from many sources, some "facts" only came from one source. All in all, whether you take it as fact or fiction, The Pentagon's Brain is a very enjoyable ride.

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The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin (Review by Daphne Y. '16)

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Fire Next Time, written by the legendary 1960's Civil Rights advocate James Baldwin, is a book every adolescent and young adult living in the United States should read. For the first half of his book, James Baldwin writes a letter to his nephew who is incarcerated, trying to inspire him to transcend anger in dealing with an unjust society. In the second half, the author writes about his own childhood growing up as an African-American boy in Harlem, and also his views upon the influence of Christianity on race relations. Though published in 1963, the book brings to light a problem that still exists today: a broad recognition of the inequity between races, but hardly any cooperation or a change in mindsets to be made. This book, with all its emotions, from thrilling to frustrating, is definitely something we should all read to educate ourselves about the state of our society, not just in the past, but also in the present.

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I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou (review by Andrew R. '17)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Maya Angelou, the beloved and decorated author who passed away just under a year ago, is known equally well as a poet and a memoirist, but reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings has left no doubt in my mind as to which part of her legacy is more accurate. Dr. Angelou was a poet. Yes, Caged Bird is a prose memoir, one that spans Angelou’s adoption by her grandmother (at age three) to the birth of her first child (at age 17), but the book is written like no autobiography I have ever encountered: the language possesses a lyricism and a flow that very little poetry, much less prose, can lay claim to. In fact, Caged Bird often felt like a long, simple poem, free of the intimidating erudition that so often accompanies book-length verse. Although Angelou writes in the voice of maturity, her narrative convincingly portrays the confusion of a young black child in the Deep South—and the portrait of racism that results is painful and jarring. Caged Bird is more than the sum of its parts: it’s not a poetic memoir or an autobiographical poem, but a beautiful and frightening vision of our country’s past. - Andrew R.'17

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I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter (review by Andrew R. '17)

I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In I Am a Strange Loop, Pulitzer Prize-winning professor Douglas Hofstadter proves that nonfiction doesn’t necessarily have to be built on fact; without much more than a lattice of elaborate metaphors and classical allusions to support the credibility of his arguments, he makes a case that’s both cogent and convincing. It boils down to this: in a brain comprised of complex neural symbols, the concept of “I” (also referred to as the “soul” or “self-symbol”) is a self-referential feedback loop of indefinite duration. Hofstadter presents a host of comparisons to better illustrate his abstract point, invoking repeatedly the ideas of a spring-loaded domino circuit, a video camera that points to its own screen, and, most effectively, a famous self-referential theorem by the mathematician Kurt Gödel. (Three chapter are spent providing mathematical context alone.) It’s in these creative metaphors that Hofstadter is most at home, and every time he spins off on a bizarre tangent you can be sure he’ll twist it to make his point even more forceful. In the end, his most abstract ideas were a little hard to swallow, but it’s easy to respect and value his arguments without totally agreeing with them. - Andrew R. '17



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Lost in Shangri-La: A True Story of survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff (review by Akshay B. '16)

Lost in Shangri-la: A True Story of Survival, Adventure, and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War II by Mitchell Zuckoff
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Lost in Shangri-La is the incredible true story of the "Gremlin Special," which crashed on May 13, 1945, in the uncharted New Guinea region referred to as Shangri-La. Of the original twenty-four officers, only three survived and struggled with their grief and injuries, all while fighting to survive in a harsh and unforgiving jungle surrounded by tribes rumored to be cannibals and Japanese soldiers infamous for their brutality. The narrative's greatest strength comes from the honest fortitude of the trio, but at the same time Zukoff critiques the Americans for completely altering the way-of-life of the New Guineans. Ultimately, the interaction with the natives mirrors the destructive conflicts between American settlers and Native Americans, in which the latter were at the outset the saviors of colonists but eventually were ruined by them. Thus, though the exterior reality of the rescue tale resounds within the reader, the deeper undertone condemns the methods in which the rescue was achieved. - Akshay B. '16

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One Summer by Bill Bryson (review by Andrew R. '17)

One Summer: America, 1927 by Bill Bryson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Modern American culture doesn’t pay much heed to the events of the 1920s, a decade crowded out by the Great Depression and with two World Wars looming on either side, but this was the decade that gave rise to some of our country’s biggest names. Charles Lindbergh, Henry Ford, Calvin Coolidge, Babe Ruth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Al Capone—all make appearances in this lengthy work of narrative nonfiction, even if they have to share the stage with a throng of less famous figures (including a frustrating number of forgotten aviators, small-time criminals, and local politicians). Even if One Summer is ostensibly a chronicle of the events of 1927, the year Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic by airplane and Babe Ruth clobbered an especially impressive number of baseballs, Bryson can’t help himself: he constantly backtracks to the 1910s and jumps ahead to the 1930s in search of more and more amusing anecdotes to stuff into his narrative. Some of these historical stories provide necessary context; others feel like dead weight. In the end, One Summer delivers all the information it promised, but the gems of historical factoids are all too often buried in a heap of gratuitous detail. - Andrew R. '17

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Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (review by Andrew R. '17)

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

When Amy Chua set out to chronicle her struggles with Chinese parenting and her views on Western child rearing in her memoir Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, she must have known she was venturing into dangerous territory. Its polarizing messages—that immigrant families suffer “generational decline” as they stray further and further from their mother cultures, that constant interference in a child’s life and education is a way of showing parental love—triggered cries of relief and fury alike. No two readers of Chua’s memoir will have the same opinion about her take on so touchy a topic; the book’s content is utterly un-critiquable. But, if readers manage to overlook the flashy sensationalism of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, they’ll notice certain elements that dilute the value and validity of its message: unsubstantiated research, sweeping generalizations, and, above all, the author’s habit of digressing into vignettes about her children’s scholastic and musical triumphs. Die-hard “Western parents” and aspiring tiger mothers can extol or condemn this memoir as much as they like, but their efforts won’t change its chronic lack of structure and authority. - Andrew R. '17

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The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell (review by Kshithija M. '17)

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Malcolm Gladwell’s first endeavor as an author, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, is an analysis on the concept of a tipping point: why mysterious changes in levels of success and our lives occur and what factors into these changes. Using examples such as statistics on sudden changes in crime rate and the spread of diseases, an exploration into how rumors diffuse through society, and the rise in sales of a shoe company, Gladwell discusses the factors that go into the tipping points of these changes such as the content of the tipping point, the “Law of the Few”, and the environment of these tipping points. Gladwell explains tipping points with easy-to-understand analysis and pages of research and supporting facts. Full of details and explanations, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference appeals to readers of all ages and interests and changes the way people understand social epidemics. -Kshithija M. '17

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Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones (review by Andrew R. '17)

Jim Henson: The Biography by Brian Jay Jones
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“Jim Henson” never quite became a household name, but his creations are known across the world: Kermit, Miss Piggy, Big Bird, the Great Gonzo…This biography, however, isn’t the story of the Muppets or Sesame Street, and it’s not a list of the wildly successful movies Henson produced in his day. Accomplished biographer Brian Jay Jones paints a picture of the man who launched some of the 20th century’s most successful ventures in entertainment, tracking his rise from madcap coffee advertisements to the creation of the “Muppet Show,” and even beyond, with films like Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal. Jones has done his research well, and the book’s pages are scattered liberally with wistful insights from Henson’s children, friends, and coworkers. Most remarkably, the book’s atmosphere is light and readable, a tribute to Henson’s love of simplicity and entertainment. Any reader with time to spare should pick up Jim Henson: The Biography—not because it’s an insightful or meaningful experience, just because it’s a fun look into the life and legacy of a this astoundingly creative man. - Andrew R. '17

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1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann (review by Andrew R. '17)

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

1491 is not for everyone. An ambitious outline of Native American history and accomplishments before Columbus’s landing, it intentionally lacks any hint of characters or plot. Instead, sandwiched between 200 pages of introductions, conclusions, and appendices is a dense pile of evidence and analysis, all supporting a single thesis: that Native American societies were bigger, older, and more complex than historians once thought. And Mann proves his point beyond a shadow of a doubt, citing legions of professors, archaeologists, anthropologists, and even a few botanists whose opinions match his own. So 1491’s problem is not one of credibility—the challenge with this book is that very few readers will feel interested enough to slog all the way through it. Occasional anecdotes about historical figures like Tisquantum, the so-called “Friendly Indian” from the Pilgrim legends, add some engaging material, but these are so few and far between that there can’t be more than six or seven of them in the entire tome. I would only recommend 1491 to readers with lots of free time and long attention spans. Although I can’t deny the educational value of this book, I don’t intend to take on Mann’s companion work, 1493. – Andrew R. ‘17

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