Non-Fiction

Radium Girls by Kate Moore. "I am not usually a non-fiction reader, but I could not put down this book.  The dial painters were girls in their teens and early twenties that put the luminous paint on watches during WWI and the early 1920s.  In order to get a nice point on the paint brush, they were taught to put the brushes containing radioactive paint in their mouths. As girls became radioactive themselves and developed horrible illnesses, they began to figure out the common cause of their diseases.  But labor laws were very different at the time, and the corporations were just as shrewd as today. These deathly ill women fought valiantly for justice. Their stories should have been told long ago".

Reading Lolita in Tehran By Azar Nafisi. “I think Reading Lolita in Tehran is only enjoyable if you've read Lolita.”

Real Boys: Rescuing our Sons from the Myths of Boyhood by William Pollack.  “Based on William Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School over two decades, Real Boys explores why many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really like, says Pollack, can we help them develop more self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression, love and sexuality, drugs and alcohol, divorce, and violence.  An important read for moms of boys and moms of daughters who will be dealing with these boys.”

Redefining Realness by Janet Mock. From Barnes and Noble: “With unflinching honesty and moving prose, Janet Mock relays her experiences of growing up young, multiracial, poor, and trans in America, offering readers accessible language while imparting vital insight about the unique challenges and vulnerabilities of a marginalized and misunderstood population. Though undoubtedly an account of one woman’s quest for self at all costs, Redefining Realness is a powerful vision of possibility and self-realization, pushing us all toward greater acceptance of one another—and of ourselves—showing as never before how to be unapologetic and real.”

Reinforcements by Heidi Grant. "This book will be released on June 12th. Grant is a professor at Columbia who specialized in the science of motivation. I love all of her books, plus she is a nice person in real life. This new one is about how to ask for help - a fear so many of us need help conquering."

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard.  "A gripping account of Roosevelt’s trip through the Amazon in the early 1900s."  From Amazon: After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Teddy Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever. Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubtbrings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.

Rod: The Autobiography “The best book I read all year. I liked Rod but was by no means a Rod fanatic. Now I am a HUGE Rod fan. His book is cheeky and so much fun. Rod is totally in on the joke. By not taking himself seriously, he opens up and gives his readers a very entertaining and honest back stage pass.”  (That's Rod Stewart, by the way).

Rosa Lee: A Mother and Her Family in Urban America by Leon Dash. "A devastating in depth view of the underclass in DC. I read it in 2 days."

A Round-Heeled Woman: My Late-Life Adventures in Sex and Romance by Jane Juska. "A divorced English teacher in the pre-online-dating era decides she's been celibate a couple of decades too long. So she submits this personal ad to The New York Review of Books: ‘Before I turn 67—next March—I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me.’ Read what happens next!”

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy.  "You may have read her piece in The New Yorker ('Thanksgiving in Mongolia') about her devastating miscarriage.  This book picks up on that story, expounding on the author’s unconventional life – yet making her feel entirely relatable by the beautiful and poignant writing."