(In rather vague groups right now):
HISTORY:
Akenfield – Ronald Blythe
The American Woman’s Home – Catherine Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
America’s Women – Gail Collins (women’s history)
At Her Majesty’s Request: An African Princess in Victorian England – Walter Dean Myers (1999)
Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England – Amanda Vickery
Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
Black Women of the Old West – William Loren Katz
BlackkKlansman – Ron Stallworth
Blue Latitudes : Boldly Going Where Captain Cook has Gone Before – Tony Horowitz
Book – DK Eye Witness Book
A Book on Medical Discourses in Two Parts – Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves – Adam Hochschild
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform Victorian Medicine – Lindsey Fitzharris (2017)
Columbine – Dave Cullen
Consuming Passions: Victorians and Leisure – Judith Flanders
The Country Diaries – Alan Taylor (ed.)
The Countryman’s Cottage Life Book – Fred Archer
Death at the Priory – James Ruddick (no blog post)
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes – David Grann (no blog post)
Diana: In Search of Herself – Sally Bedell Smith
Diary Without Dates – Edith Bagnold
Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights – Gretchen Sorin
The Edwardian Lady (bio Edith Holden) – Ina Taylor
Elizabeth the Queen – Sally Bedell Smith
Empty Mansions: Huguette Clark – Bill Dedman and Paulk Clark Newell
Explorers – DK Eye Witness
Fashion: The Definitive History – Smithsonian Museum
The Fifties: Oral Women’s History – Brett Harvey
The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – Steven Johnson
Going Home to Nicodemus – Daniel Chu and Bill Shaw
The Great Filth: Disease, Death and the Victorian Times – Stephen Halliday
The Great Starvation Experiment – Todd Tucker
Great Tales from English History Volume III – Robert Lacey
The Great Train Robbery – Michael Crichton
Great Tales of English History (Vol. III) – Robert Lacey
The Harlem Hellfighters – Max Brooks
Home Fires: The Story of the Women’s Institute in WW2 – Julie Summers
The Inconvenient Indian – Thomas King
Inside the Victorian Home – Judith Flanders
Killers of the Flower Moon – David Grann
London: A History – A. N. Wilson
Love Among the Butterflies – Margaret Fountaine
Mad, Sad, and Bad (women/mental illness history) – Lisa Appignanesi
Magnificent Obsession (Queen Vic/Prince Albert death) – Helen Rappaport
The Making of Home – Judith Flanders
Medical Apartheid – Harriet Washington
Miles from Nowhere: In Search of the American Frontier – Dayton Duncan
Mrs. Robinson’s Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady – Kate Summerscale (no blog post)
Narrative of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass
Necropolis (London graveyards history) – Catherine Arnold
The Negro Motorist Green Book – Victor Hugo Green
Not in Front of the Servants: Domestic Service in England 1850-1939 – Frank Dawes
No Idle Hands: Social History of Knitting – Anne L. McDonald
Obama: The Historic Journey (2009) – New York Times
Our Longest Days (WWII diaries) – Sandra Koa Wing (ed)
Pandora’s Daughters: The Secret History of Independent Women – Jane Robinson
The Queen’s Houses – Alan Titchmarsh
Prince Charles: The Passions and Paradoxes of an Improbable Life – Sally Bedell Smith (no blog post)
Radioactive: Marie and Pierre Curie – Laurie Redniss
They Called Us Enemy – George Takei et al. (post to come)
Thunder and Lightning: Weather Past, Present and Future – Laurie Redniss
Remember, Remember – Judy Parkinson
Saturday is for Funerals – Unity Dow/Max Essex (HIV/AIDS in Botswana)
Shadows of the Workhouse – Jennifer Worth
The Social Calendar – Anna Sproules
So We Read On: The Great Gatsby – Maureen Corrigan
Ten Days in a Madhouse – Nellie Bly
Texas Quilts, Texas Women – Suzanne Yabsley
Upstairs and Downstairs (Downton Abbey tie-in) – Sarah Warwick
Venus with Biceps: A Pictorial History of Muscular Women – David L. Chapman and Patricia Vertinsky
The Victorian Hospital – Lavinia Mitton
Victoria and Abdul – Shrabani Basu
Victoria: A Life – A.N. Wilson
Warriors don’t Cry – Melba Padillo Beals
When Everything Changed (history of women’s movement in the U.S.) – Gail Collins
Writers in Resident (U.S. writers) – Glynne Robinson Bette
Yellow Woman and Spirit of Beauty – Leslie Marmot Silko
MEMOIR/AUTOBIO/BIO:
A Long Way Home – Saroo Brierley
A Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
All-American Murder: The Aaron Hernandez Story – James Patterson (no post)
As I Went Out One Midsummer Morning – Laurie Lee
The Assassin’s Cloak: An Anthology of the World’s Greatest Diarists – Irene and Alan Taylor (eds.)
Barracoon: The Story of the “Last Cargo” – Zora Neale Hurston
Between the World and Me – Ta-Nehisi Coates
Becoming – Michelle Obama
The Bite of the Mango – Mariato Kamara/Susan McClelland
Black is the Body – Emily Harrison (essays)
Black Like Me – John Howard Griffin
BlacKKKlansman – Ron Stallworth
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind – William Kambwanba
Celia, a Slave – Melton McLaurin
The Country Diaries: A Year in the British Countryside – Alan Taylor (ed.)
Crowdie and Cream (Hebridean childhood) – Finley J. McDonald
The Crofter and the Laird (American expat in Hebrides) – John McPhee
The Bite of the Mango – Mariato Kamara/Susan McClelland
The Best We Could Do – Thi Bui
Born a Crime – Trevor Noah
Diary Without Dates – Edith Bagnold
Diary of a Bookseller – Sean Bychell
Dreams from my Father – Barack Obama
The Education of a WASP – Lois Mark Stalvey
Elvis Presley: The Reluctant Rebel – Glen Jeannsome, David Luhrsson and Dan Sokolovic
The End of Your Life Book Club – Will Schwalbe (no blog post)
The Endless Steppe – Esther Hautzig
Ethel and Ernest – Raymond Briggs
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer – Suddartha Muhkerjee
Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press – James McGrath Morris
The Family Next Door: The Heartbreaking Imprisonment of the Thirteen Turpin Siblings and their Extraordinary Rescue – John Glatt (2019)
From Middle England – Philip Oake
Ghost World – Daniel Clowes
Gift From the Sea – Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The Great Western Beach: A Memoir of a Cornish Childhood Between the Wars – Emma Smith
I Speak for Myself (American Muslim women) – Maria Ebrihimiji and Zahra Suratwala
In the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick up the Pieces – Mary Collins and Donald Collins
Kaffir Boy – Mark Mathabone
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Controlled Chaos – Lucy Knisley (graphic novel)
Letters from New York – Helen Hanff
Letters of a Woman Homesteader – Elinore Pruitt Stewart
Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History – Vashti Harrison
Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood – Barbara Demick
Love Among the Butterflies – Margaret Fountaine
Me – Elton John
Merry Hall – Beverley Nichols
Queen Victoria: A Biography – Giles Lytton Strachey
One and the Same (identical twins) – Abigail Pogrebin
Orange is the New Black – Piper Kerman
John Lewis
Me – Sir Elton John
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey – Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
The Lady and the Panda – Vicki Constantine Croke
My Life in France – Julia Child
Narrative of Frederick Douglass – Frederick Douglass
Negroland: A Memoir – Margo Jefferson (2015)
The Points of My Compass – E. B. White
Plain and Simple – Sue Bender (post to come)
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen – Lucy Knisley (graphic novel)
Queen Victoria: A Life – Giles Lytton Strachey (1921)
The Ravenmaster – Christopher Skaife
The Sanctuary of Outcasts – Neil White
She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman – Erica Armstrong Dunbar
Something Happened Yesterday – Beryl Bainbridge
Something New – Lucy Knisley
The Story of My Life – Helen Keller
Tangles – Sarah Leavitt
They Called Us the Enemy – George Takei et al.
This One Summer – Mariko Tamaki/Jillian Tamaki
Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology – Leah Remini (2015)
Village Christmas and other Stories – Laurie Lee
Victoria: A Life – A.N. Wilson
We Should all be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
When Breath Becomes Air – Paul Kalanithi
The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic (1910-1913) Volume I – Apsley Cherry-Garrard
The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic (1910-1913) Volume II – Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Zahra’s Paradise – Amir and Khalil (2011) GN
TRAVEL:
A Fine Romance (US/UK travel) – Susan Branch
American Notes – Charles Dickens
The Art of Travel: Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries – Francis Galton (1854)
The Astronaut’s Guide to Life – Chris Hadfield
The Best American Travel Writing 2011 – Sloane Crosley (ed.)
The Best American Travel Writing 2000 – Bill Bryson (ed.)
The Best American Travel Writing 2012 – William Vollman (ed.)
The Best American Travel Writing 2013 – Elizabeth Gilbert (ed.)
The Best American Travel Writing 2018 – Cheryl Strayed (ed.)
The Best American Travel Writing 2019 – Alexandra Fuller (ed.)
Chasing the Monsoon – Alexander Frater
The City of Djinns – William Dalrymple
Crowdie and Cream (Hebrides childhood) – Finlay J. McDonald
England for All Seasons – Susan Allen Toth
Himalaya – Michael Palin
I was a Stranger – John Hackett
In Search of England – H.V. Morton
A Kim Jong Il Production – Paul Fischer
Let Not the Waves – Simon Stephenson
Mustn’t Grumble – Joe Bennett
Nothing To Envy (life in N. Korea) – Barbara Demick
Off-Season (winter US beaches) – Ken McAlpine
Packing for Mars – Mary Roach
Saddlebags to Suitcases – Mary Bosanquet
The Sex Lives of Cannibals – J. Maarten Troost
Shooting the Boh: A Woman’s Voyage Down the Wildest River in Borneo – Tracy Johnston
Strength in What Remains – Tracy Kidder (2000)
Strange Stones – Peter Hessler
Twelve Years a Slave – Solomon Northup
Turn Right at Machu Picchu – Mark Adams
Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven – Susan Jane Gilman
The Worst Journey in the World: Antarctic (1910-1913) – Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Vacationland – John Hodgman
Knisley, Lucy
- French Milk (2008)
- Displacement (2015)
- The Age of License (2014)
- Something New (2016)
- Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Controlled Chaos (2019)
OTHER MISC.:
101 Things I Learned in Engineering School – John Kuprenas
500 Art Quilts – Ray Hemechandra and Karey Patterson Bresenhan
A Book on Medical Discourses in Two Parts – Rebecca Crumpler (1885) (post to come)
And the Band Played On – Randy Shiltz (1987)
The Beanie Baby Bubble – Zac Bissonette
Browsings – Michael Dirda
By the Lake of the Sleeping Children – Luis Alberto Urrea
Cooking and Stealing: A Tin House Non-fiction Anthology – Charles d’Ambrosia (ed.)
Collected – Fritz Karch and Rebecca Robertson
A Curious Mind – Brian Grazer and Charles Fishman
David and Goliath – Malcolm Gladwell
The Dead Beat – Marilyn Johnson
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes – David Grann
The Devil’s Highway – Louis Albero Urrea
The Emperor of All Maladies – Siddartha Muhkerjee
Endings: Deaths, Glorious and Otherwise… – Leon Prochnik
Envelopes: A Puzzling Journey Through the Royal Mail – Harriet Russell
The England of Ravilious – Freda Constable
Essays of E. B. White – E. B. White
Extra Extraordinary Chickens – Stephen Armitage-Green
The Gentle Art of Domesticity – Jane Brocket
Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal – Mary Roach
Grunt – Mary Roach
Forever England – Beryl Bainbridge
Happier at Home – Gretchen Rubin
Home (interior design) – Ellen DeGeneres
Housekeeping vs. the Dirt – Nick Hornby
Hope in the Dark – Rebecca Solnit
How to Disappear Completely: On Modern Anorexia – Kelsey Osgood
How to Get Dressed – Alison Freer
How to be a Woman – Caitlin Moran
How to be a Good Creature – Sy Montgomery
Inside the Not-So-Big House – Susan Susanka
Inside Scientology – Janet Reitman
Join Me – Danny Wallace
The Joy of Less – Francine Jay
The Lady in the Van – Alan Bennett
The Lady and the Panda: The True Adventures of the First American Explorer to Bring Back China’s Most Exotic Animal – Vicki Constantine Croke
Lean In – Sheryl Sandberg
Men of Niagara – W. E. B. DuBois
Methland: Death and Life of an American Rural Town – Nick Reding
Moondust: In Search of the Men who Fell to Earth – Andrew Smith
Normal (essays on gender) – Amy Bloom
Of Studies – Sir Francis Bacon (1597) (essay)
One and the Same (identical twins science) – Abigail Pogrebin
On Writing Well – William Zinsser
Once Upon a Quinceneara – Julie Alvarez
Old Faithful: Dogs of a Certain Age – Nick Thorne
On Studies – Sir Francis Bacon
Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities – Alexandra Robbins
The Polysyllabic Spree – Nick Hornby
The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
The Pleasures of Reading in the Age of Distraction – Alan Jacobs
Pledged: The Secret Life of Sororities – Alexandra Robbins
Quiet Girl in a Noisy World – Debbie Tung
Readings – Michael Dirda
Running the Books (prison library) – Avi Steinberg
The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain – Barbara Strauch
The Snowflake – Kenneth Kibbrecht and Patricia Rasmussen
The Social Animal – David Brooks
Steroid Nation – Sean Assael
Something Happened Yesterday – Beryl Bainbridge
The Summer Book – Susan Branch
Superfreakonomics – Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner
Sweetness and Light: The Mysterious History of the Honeybee – Hattie Ellis
Thunder and Lightning – Laura Redniss
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival – John Vaillant
This is What a Librarian Looks Like – Kyle Cassidy
Unforgettable Behavior – Rosemary Kidman Cox
The United States of Arugula – David Kamp
The Wal-Mart Effect – Charles Fishman (no blog post)
Wesley the Owl – Stacey O’Brien
Why do All the Black Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria? – Beverly Daniel Tatum (post to come)
(Updated: 02/22/2021.)