PositiveBooklistWhether hauling shrimp, being greeted at gunpoint, or interviewing Jesus in an off-white robe at Epcot Center, Russell writes of his home state with the affectionate exasperation of kinship. His rollicking style is interspersed with screenplay-like scenes that capture the punchy back-and-forth between the three men, their trip as changeable and open to reinvention as the great state they set out to capture.
Amy Stanley
RaveBooklistTsuneno belongs to a vanished world, but historian Stanley brings both her and the Japanese city of Edo back to life in this breathtaking work ... Vividly recounted in letters are her struggles to find her way and make peace with her family. While she was there, Edo was transformed from the glamorous metropolis the village girl had dreamed of to a city besieged by stringent moral reforms. Even as the reforms lifted, underlying issues remained, and a short time after Tsuneno’s death, her city fell to an uprising, to be reborn as Tokyo. This is an eye-opening account of an extraordinary ordinary life.
Ginger Gaffney
PositiveBooklist[Gaffney] recounts her own journey to ranch life, her sense of never quite fitting in, and how she found solace with these beautiful, powerful animals. With exciting showdowns and poignant moments, Half Broke finds freedom in self-control.
Leah Hager Cohen
PositiveBooklistCohen perfectly captures the chaos of a big family event, with all the personalities and baggage that come with the territory, adeptly mixing humor and sentiment to create an intoxicatingly rich story that bursts off the page with life ... Fine summer reading.
