About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Caleb Carr
Positive Booklist Tears will flow, and they will be warranted.
Lori Zabar
Positive Booklist ... charming ... Descriptions of the pogroms in Ostropolia, now part of Ukraine, that led Zabar’s ancestors to America a century ago are all too reminiscent of today.
Catie Marron
Positive Booklist This elegant ode to gardening is filled with charming watercolors, photographs, and illustrations of all things green and goodly. Marron eschews traditional how-to-grow guides, instead concentrating on the somewhat ethereal process of figuring out how to use the land via one’s favorite spots and other inspirations and, then, by trial and error, designing a garden with a nod to seasonality and sustainability. In this very personal road map, Marron also traces her own evolution as a gardener, with homage to her late husband. Her narrative itself mesmerizes ... Following in her footsteps will require not only a leap of faith, but a rock-solid hope that all will be fine. Great advice in these days.
Sally Schmitt
Rave Booklist [A] cookbook-memoir that’s humble, proud, and filled with family ... Along with her recipes (more than 100), Schmitt shares knowledge of ingredients and culinary wisdom that forswears fancy equipment and techniques to zero in on flavor and taste. Personal photographs grace her lessons ... Dishes themselves, reflective of Schmitt’s personality, are approachable, unintimidating, and respectful of flavors ... An inspiration up to her closing lines: \'I really have done just what I loved to do . . . and that’s all that mattered.\'
Rebecca Walker
Positive Booklist What is so powerful throughout each narrative is what one writer calls \'radical honesty,\' their openness to confront their relationships with money. As Walker points out, the Great Recession destroyed many dreams; on the other hand, those dreams were fueled by some wrong thinking about dollars and sense. Seen in the light of the trillions \'spent\' every year in undervalued domestic labor alone, this should be required reading for any woman.
Alison Hawthorne Deming
Positive Booklist [An] engaging and poetic memoir ... Deming’s memoir is a tribute to all makers, whether of high-fashion dressmaking or weir construction, with a view to the losses in environment and culture of our time.
Patric Richardson
Positive Booklist Who would have dreamed a book on laundry could be so entertaining⁠—and educational? Trust Richardson and Miller, two fashion-industry veterans who know their alpaca from vicuña ... A few of the directions would be more indelible if illustrated, like the \'how to iron\' section. It’s truth in print that laundry just might become your new best hobby.
Dominique Crenn
Positive Booklist Crenn is clear about the issues facing women who work in the culinary world—and is always an advocate for the different and the unusual. With her facing a diagnosis of an aggressive form of breast cancer at book’s end, readers of all ages and genders will wish her the very best. Spirited and inspiring.
Sheryl Sandberg
Rave Booklist With no small amount of self-deprecating humor, a massive quantity of facts and research, plus a liberal dose of very personal anecdotes, Sandberg forces each one of us—woman and man—to reexamine ourselves at work and in life, using a unique filter ... every single \'undoing\' of a woman’s career is examined thoughtfully and with twenty-first-century gentleness and exposed ... thanks to Sandberg, the world just might be a different place.
Lindsay McCrae
Positive Booklist Readers will laugh, cry, wince, and even bristle at the incredible word-pictures McCrae paints of the birds’ courting, births, and deaths ... Sharing well-documented science almost passively, McCrae, infuses his descriptions with plenty of scientific information, as well as compassion. Scenes of egg-laying, chick-hatching, and the inevitable struggles for survival in a world threatened by major climate change are especially unforgettable. Includes photographs not seen at time of review.
Adam Platt
Positive Booklist In a peripatetic manner, laced with adjectives and spiked with human and humorous observations, New York Magazine restaurant critic Platt joins fellow journalists like Frank Bruni and Ruth Reichl to chronicle his life in food, using a series of short pieces centered on memorable moments ... A meandering, entertaining, and honest account of restaurant journalism, and a life worth exploring.
Ole Thorstensen
Positive Booklist ...this is a humble yet noble tribute to the value of honest work ... Throughout, readers get advice on hiring building professionals, learn about the difference between parquet and solid wood floors, and begin to understand the mechanics of and psychology behind good and not-so-good construction. Readers will love Thorstensen’s insights into work and life.