Best Books: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010
Summer Reads: 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

The Last Bohemia: Scenes from the Life of Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Robert Anasi (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Anasi, who wrote about competing in New York City’s Golden Gloves boxing tournament (The Gloves), here takes readers to on a personal, passionate journey to Williamsburg, Brooklyn—ca. 1994. Rents were $300 a month, artists lived cheaply, a bar had a table where you can snort a line of cook—and there wasn’t a Trustafarian or UPPAbaby stroller in sight.

LIST

A Man and His Ship: America’s Greatest Naval Architect and His Quest to Build the SS United States

Steven Ujifusa (Simon & Schuster)

If you’re taking an ocean cruise this summer, or just lying on the beach gazing at the vast watery horizon, you can return to the glory days of transatlantic cruising with Ufijusa’s masterly account of William Francis Gibs, who dreamed of building the swiftest and best ocean liner, and succeeded with the SS United States.

LIST

Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter

Frank Deford (Algonquin)

Sportswriter Deford got his first gig out of Princeton in 1962, with Sports Illustrated, a struggling magazine that had recently turned profitable. And in this nostalgic and witty memoir, Deford takes readers on a thoughtful journey beginning with his early writing life—when he made a name for himself early with pieces on Bill Bradley and Boston hockey great, Bobby Orr—to his current pieces on NPR’s Morning Edition.

LIST

Lobster Shacks: a Road-Trip Guide to New England's Best Lobster Joints

Mike Urban (The Countryman Press )

Road trips say summer and road trips in New England say lobster and Mike Urban has done all the leg work for finding the best shacks (never eat a New England lobster in a restaurant) along the coastline from Connecticut to Maine. There's directions, history, photos and recipes along with plenty of lobster lore.

LIST

Marilyn: The Passion and the Paradox

Lois Banner (Bloomsbury)

Marilyn, Marilyn, Marilyn. Will we ever get enough? It's the 50th anniversary of the platinum blond beauty's death and cutting through the endless Monroe-mania is feminist historian Banner's biography that tells the story that will put the rest to sleep

LIST

Yes Chef: A Memoir

Marcus Samuelsson (Random House)

Samuelsson tracks his phenomenal life from a remote Ethiopian village to owner of the famous Red Rooster restaurant in New York City's Harlem. That an orphan, adopted by a Swedish family, would become the toast of New York's food scene is a great story and Samuelson talent for telling it rivals his skill in the kitchen.

LIST

Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. One Step at a Time

Ed Stafford (Plume)

Stafford’s gripping tale is at once an ecological treatise and an incredible memoir of a punishing journey, which spanned over 4,000 miles and saw the author face off against machete-wielding tribesmen, rampant deforestation, and his own physical and mental limits. A testament to the destructive force of humanity, and the triumphant possibilities of a determined individual.

LIST

All We Know: Three Lives

Lisa Cohen (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Style, sexual identity, and artistic longings take center stage in Cohen’s lively and learned biographical triptych of intellectual Esther Murphy, “seductress” Mercedes de Acosta, and British Vogue editor Madge Garland. Coming of age in the early 20th century, and traveling in glamorous and intellectual social circles in New York, Paris, and London, their life stories will transport readers to a bygone era.

LIST

Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies

Ben Macintyre (Crown)

Agent Garbo, Agent Bronx, Agent Tricycle: these three real-life double agents and two colleagues are characters worthy of John LeCarre, as is their story of WWII espionage. Best-sellilng writer Manintyre turns in another thrilling tale pitting MI5 against the Nazis. At stake—the success or failure of the D-Day invasion.

LIST

A Disposition to Be Rich

Geoffry C. Ward (Knopf)

Bestselling historian and Ken Burns collaborator Ward tells the entertaining and shocking tale of a 19th-century master con artist—his own great-grandfather, Ferdinand Ward. Beguililng and amoral, Ferdinand swindled Ulysses S. Grant and others out of millions, and kidnapped his own son for blackmail.

LIST

© PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

X
X

Loading...