Book Review
Finding Elevation
by Meg Nola
Lisa Thompson’s memoir "Finding Elevation" is an exhilarating and harrowing chronicle of mountain climbing. Compelled at first by “blind ambition,” Thompson’s climbs ranged from Seattle’s Mount Rainier to treacherous K2, high...
Book Review
The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein
by Meg Nola
"The Travel Diaries of Albert Einstein" trace the enigmatic genius’s 1925 tour through Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Einstein agreed to the extended visit for academic and humanitarian reasons; he was also trying to end an affair...
Book Review
Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door
by Meg Nola
Emmanuel Laroche’s "Conversations Behind the Kitchen Door" features interviews with an impressive range of American chefs, restaurateurs, mixologists, and other culinary innovators. Born in Versailles, Laroche grew up with a gourmet...
Book Review
Motherland
by Meg Nola
Melissa Thompson’s enticing Jamaican-inspired cookbook "Motherland" combines a solemn history of the Caribbean island nation with notes about its delicious food and spirited reputation. The daughter of a Jamaican father and Maltese...
Book Review
MacLeish Sq.
by Meg Nola
In Dennis Must’s intriguing novel "MacLeish Sq.", illusion challenges reality and invades the unsettled past. John just bought an old farmhouse in his New England hometown. He left this “mostly desolate” place at eighteen, yet as...
Book Review
Chinese-Ish
by Meg Nola
Chinese-ish is a vibrant collaborative cookbook created by Asian Australian friends Rosheen Kaul and Joanna Hu. The pair share a passion for food and the experience of growing up in millennial Melbourne as the children of immigrants....
Book Review
Plain
by Meg Nola
In "Plain", Mary Alice Hostetter chronicles her formative years within a Mennonite family and her later quest for personal independence. In Pennsylvania, Hostetter and her siblings worked on her parents’ farm. She also helped with...
Book Review
Postcards from Absurdistan
by Meg Nola
Derek Sayer’s "Postcards from Absurdistan" is an encompassing review of cultural and sociopolitical Prague from tumultuous 1938 onward, detailed with compassion for the Czech people. It is meticulous in recounting the regimes they have...