Romney, as the subtitle notes, is a rare book collector, and one of the things such folk do is ask pointed questions and do follow-up research. In Romney’s case, it was a line written in a non-fiction book about the history of the novel, which stated that the formative period of Jane Austen’s life was “was one of the …
This is my favorite kind of non-fiction book—a failure. Which is to say that it isn’t a biography of the influential mid-century poet Frank O’Hara, although it’s full of biographical detail and wise analysis of his life and work. It also doesn’t offer definitive answers about the fraught relationship between distant fathers and their underappreciated …
Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country’s Love Affair with the World’s Most Famous Writer by Gretchen Minton has been honored as the 2020 Montana Book of the Year. You can read a wonderful piece about the author, the book, and the award on the Montana State University website. (The author is a Montana State University English …
This is fascinating historical true crime, in which Weinman shares the real story behind controversial fictional novel Lolita. Weinman tells of Sally Horner’s kidnapping and 21 months of mistreatment at the the hands of a Frank La Salle. Through extensive archival research, Weinman is able to make a persuasive claim that Vladmir Nabakov’s Lolita was inspired …
