2017's Non-fiction

Yes, I know.  Really behind with this post, but I was doing the previous one and discovered this draft.  I'm bad.  So here you are.

As promised, here are the non-fiction titles I read last year.

1.  Deborah Alun-Jones, The Wry Romance of the Literary Rectory  A rather delightful book in which Alun-Jones discusses the effect of growing up, or living in, a rectory on some British literary figures, ranging from the Brontes to Dorothy L. Sayers to the various Bensons.

2.  Tim Anderson, Japaneasy: Classic and Modern Japanese Recipes to Cook at Home  Anderson seeks to demystify Japanese cooking for the nervous westerner.  The recipes are straightforward, but there's humor as well.  Each recipe has a different description for the level of difficulty, ranging from "not at all difficult" to really bad puns like "soy not difficult" (for edamame).   It's also a beautifully designed book, with lovely photographs and drawings.  I haven't tried any of the recipes yet (hey, I just got it at Christmas), but I expect that I will.

3.  Anomymous, Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen  For those who are "perplexed by doubtful points of Etiquette, or by the frequent changes in the fashions of Society".

4.  Elif Batuman, The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who read them  A combination of memoir and literary criticism, with some travel writing thrown in.  I enjoyed it, but then I spent one summer when I was in college reading nothing but Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.

5.   Pierre Berton, The Dionne Years: a Thirties Melodrama   Gosh, it certainly was!   Poor kids.  Mom gives birth to quintuplets at home, and everybody thinks they know better than the parents how to raise them.   The girls are basically put on show.  They didn't do very well as adults, and it's no surprise.

6.  Stefan Bollman, Women who read are dangerous  The title is misleading; it's actually a collection of images of women reading with short essays about those images. 

7.  Timothy Brook, Vermeer's Hat: the Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World  Globalism isn't new, kiddies!   Brook uses the objects in a painting by Vermeer (fur hat, pottery, etc.) as jumping-off points for a discussion of the expansion of trade around the world. 

8.  A.S. Byatt, Peacock & Vine: on William Morris and Mariano Fortuny  

9.  Franco Cardini, et al., The Medici Women  A collection of essays, and quite a collection of women

10.  Katherine Reynolds Craddock, Uncompromising Activist: Richard Greener, First Black Graduate of Harvard College

11.  James Gleick, Time Travel: a history 

12.  Daisy Hernández, A Cup of Water under my Bed

13.  Angela Jackson, A Surprised Queenhood in the New Black Sun: the life and legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks

14.  Dean Jackson, Empire of Deception: the incredible story of a master swindler who seduced a city and captivated a nation

15.  Michael Lenahan, Much Ado: a Summer with a Repertory Theater Company

16.  Ethan Michaeli,  The Defender: How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America

17.  Craig A. Monson, Habitual Offenders: a true tale of nuns, prostitutes, and murderers in 17th-century Italy

18.  R.J. Nelson, Dirty Waters: Confessions of Chicago's Last Harbor Boss

19.  Paul Poiret, King of Fashion: the autobiography of Paul Poiret

20.  Leigh Eric Schmidt, Village Atheists: How America's Unbelievers Made their Way in a Godly Nation

21.  Vincent Scully, The Meyer May House, Grand Rapids, Michigan

22.  Edward Sorel, Mary Astor's Purple Diary: the great American sex scandal of 1936

23.  Hilary Spurling, La Grande Thérèse: the Greatest Scandal of the Century

24.  Wendy Welch, The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

25.  Frank Lloyd Wright, The Japanese Print, an interpretation