Steven Kemper’s Our Man in Tokyo tells the story of Joseph Grew, the United States’ Ambassador to Japan in the decade leading up to World War II. Ultimately, of course, the story has to be a tragedy. Despite Grew’s tireless efforts to…
Tag: dad books
Wake of War author Zac Topping is a veteran, and it shows. In Topping’s debut novel, war is not treated as a glorious thing, but rather as an absurd cancer, or a toxin. The reader leaves with the distinct feeling…
My interest in neighborhood walks started when I was a teenager and I read Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write. In it, she writes about the value that regular walking does for creative folks. I took to walking based…
The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo recently interviewed musician and journalist Bob Spitz’ Led Zeppelin: The Biopgraphy. If Spitz’ name sounds familiar, you may have read his biography on the The Beatles, Ronald Reagan, Julia Child, or Bob Dylan. The writer’s credibility…
Fans of Comedy Central’s tv show “Drunk History” may be familiar with the story of Dr. William Minor: The Civil War doctor showed signs of struggling with mental health during and after the war (how could one not), and moved…
Bill Bryson is a delightfully dorky guy full of interesting and trivial facts. In this book, he utilizes his own English country home as a launching pad to discussing, room by room, the history of the modern home. The concept…
Longitude is one of the greatest kinds of books – the kind that makes the reader passionate about something I’ve never heard of or previously had an interest in. Not only that, this entertaining non-fiction gem taught me a few…
My old college roommate is by all accounts a very good and cool guy. He has a cool job, a family he loves, and he drag races and plays in the World Series of Poker fairly routinely. When he gave…
One of the first RPG videogames I ever played was Brave Fencer Musashi on the original Playstation. While the game was fun and lighthearted, I learned from a video game store employee that Musashi was actually an iconic Japanese figure. I wanted…
hen famed Texas historian T.R. Fehrenback died a few years ago, Texas Monthly eulogized the man and offered some early insight on his legacy and the book that made him famous – Lone Star: What makes Fehrenbach a great historian? The…
