Rebecca Reads

Bhutto’s autobiography, Daughter of Destiny (published in 1988 as Daughter of the East), tells a completely unique story. Bhutto was the first woman prime minister of a Muslim country (Pakistan), and she first went through years of struggle, including years of solitary confinement, before she could be an example of democracy.
Much of her autobiography was [...]

Sometimes I read nonfiction to get a general idea about something I don’t know anything about or a person who intrigues me. Other times I read nonfiction to learn something specific in depth; such books may be hard to read cover to cover, but they still merit a careful reading.
The Discoverers by Daniel Boorstin was [...]

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino was a book that confused me from beginning to end, and yet I am glad I read it. Calvino was trying to do something creatively strange, and I think I missed it, but the strangeness was a bit rewarding in the end. All that said, I am struggling to say [...]

I let myself browse the library a few weeks ago, and I ended up coming home with a huge coffee table book of photography, Moments: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs by Hal Buell. I thought I’d browse through the award-winning photographs and then return it.
To my delight, the short summaries on the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs were [...]

When I handed Pat the Bunny by Dorothy Kunhardt to my son after I read it to him in the library, he got a really big kid smile on his face and he held it close to him. It’s a small book, just right for little hands. But the pleasure comes from the interaction: my [...]

When, in 1918, a clerk erroneously ordered twelve times the number of children’s books, Western Publishing Company may have faced ruin. Instead, the company persuaded Woolworth’s department stores to sell it, a practice unusual since children’s books were normally only sold during the holiday season.
Years later, in the 1930s, one publishing novice was inspired when [...]

Much of the life of William Shakespeare is a mystery. He carefully did not keep a diary nor send love letters to his wife. Shakespeare, the prolific writer who, in just over 50 years wrote an almost unbelievable number of remarkable poems and plays, did not leave many personal details of his life beyond public [...]

In George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the boars lead the other farm animals in a revolution against Mr. Jones’, in hope of a better life. Together, the animals take over Manor Farm, making it their own farm. Running a farm is a lot of work, but the farm animals are convinced the work is worth it [...]

In Edwin A. Abbott’s novella Flatland, A Square explains to the three-dimensional world how he lives in Flatland, his world of two dimensions. When a sphere visits his world, his familiar, customary world is upset.
Although I had read Flatland a decade ago, I recalled none of the details and greatly enjoyed reading it again. It [...]

There was no doubt that John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (reviewed here) was written to teach both children and adults lesson about Christianity and life; there was little attempt to veil the message behind the story.
While the message in modern children’s literature may not be so thinly veiled, to me it seems obvious that authors still [...]