Any stand-out historical non-fic

The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, is very good. It's about a cholera epidemic in London during the 1800s, and how figuring out the source and transmission pretty much gave rise to modern epidemiology. It's also the story of the partnership of Reverend Henry Whitehead and Dr. John Snow, who worked together to figure things out.

The Ghost Map sounds intriguing. And I read Three Cups of Tea and quite liked it.

The woman who wrote Reading Lolita in Tehran has come out with a memoir I want to read. I really liked RLiT.

I have The Ghost Map on my wishlist! And when I was working in the bookstore, so many people were asking for Three Cups of Tea. We could barely keep it in. It looks really good.

That's funny -- Three Cups of Tea was just recommended to me, and when I said I hadn't heard of it, the recommender assured me that I would see it everywhere.

I've got Stephen Johnson's new book, The Invention of Air, on top of my To Be Read pile. He's going to be on Colbert tonight--should be pretty interesting!

Three Cups of tea is that book that everyone in this area is reading/ having book discussion for, etc.There is even a children's book out.

I was also going to recommend The Ghost Map, which was excellent until the last chapter, in which the author tries to draw cosmic meaning about urban living from the story.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, I was reading a review at Dear Author that had this:

sex so terrible that even the idea of my parents’ coupling is preferable to revisiting this

snerk

anyone here read Fledgling? Any thoughts on it?

Octavia Butler?

HATED IT.

I choose to believe that if she'd lived longer she'd have fixed it. I found it clumsy and uncomfortable. I think I even wrote a couple negative reviews of it somewhere.