by envisionmg | Sep 26, 2018 | Michelle Reviews, Non-fiction
On March 20, 1969, the day after she slipped a color-coded piece of paper into an on-campus mailbox designated for ride sharing requests, University of Michigan student Jane Mixer was murdered. Picked up by the man who had replied to her request for a lift back to her...
by envisionmg | Jan 23, 2018 | Michelle Reviews
Here’s the thing: I can’t remember the last book that made me laugh so hard, so often. And I’m talking out loud, tear-producing laughter. The kind of laughter that prompts whoever is nearest to inquire in a suspect manner, Is it really that funny? A...
by envisionmg | Jan 23, 2017 | Michelle Reviews, Non-fiction
The full title of Sobel’s latest is The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars. What the book contains is what it says on the tin, mostly. I would add emphasis to one word in the subtitle: How. I would...
by envisionmg | Dec 12, 2016 | Biography, History, Michelle Reviews
I know what you’re thinking, those of you with less than pleasant memories of Kafka (thanks to High School English class, right?), but here’s the thing: For all that this book is billed as a biography, Kafka is mostly just along for the ride. Which is to...
by envisionmg | Mar 14, 2016 | Michelle Reviews, Non-fiction, YA
You’re on the hunt for a lighthearted or uplifting book to read while winter wanes; your eager eye has wandered here, to this title by National Book Award winner M.T. Anderson, but I must tell you: Symphony for the City of the Dead is neither lighthearted, nor...
by envisionmg | Mar 8, 2016 | Michelle Reviews, Non-fiction
There was a bit of a line in Jennifer Senior’s New York Times review of The Man With the Golden Typewriter that drew my eye back to read it again, because, I suppose, I was trying to imagine what a giant stalk of catnip might look like, if it would be...