Cummings, who grew up in a military family, honors the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, a division of the WACs, the only Black unit that served overseas. Made up of women of color, with 855 members, its mission was organizing, sorting, and moving out mail to soldiers during World War II. In a segregated army, […]
Even before the author could read, his grandmother wrote him letters almost weekly. “In fact,” he notes, “I have few memories that come before my remembrance of receiving regular missives from ‘Mama Ceal’ as we called her.” For almost 30 years (until his grandmother died in 1995), these letters were a constant presence in Pryor’s […]
“This book is never trying to say anything even close to important,” writes comedian Bargatze, whose following has been blowing up lately thanks to a couple of well-received Saturday Night Live appearances—a surprise, perhaps, given his G-rated approach to comedy. Yet Bargatze, a native Tennessean, does dig a little deeper into important territory here, writing, […]
Walking the streets, the young narrator proclaims, “I come from the City of Jasmine…where sweet scents dance in the wind, filling air, calming hearts.” Statements that begin with the phrase “I come from” introduce descriptions of other locations, among them the Umayyad Mosque, Qala’at Dimashq (the Citadel of Damascus), and the oasis of Ghouta—all of […]
Goldberg (1883-1970) imagined how ordinary objects might do extraordinary things. He channeled his ideas into comics, and along the way, the name Rube Goldberg became an adjective: “doing something simple in a very complicated way that is not necessary.” Take Goldberg’s comic “Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin”—a man takes a spoonful of soup, which […]
In New Jersey in 2000, Tony Mazza (like matzah, only not, ha ha) stumbles out of a courtroom, wondering where he’s gone wrong in his life, and his narrative provides a thousand answers ranging from funny to sad. He relates his life in reverse: 2000 becomes 1994, then 1991 and so on, going back to […]
Alexander Matthews retired from the CIA and started Trinity Capital, a highly successful venture capital firm that often brings him to Russia. Once he’d been the CIA’s top spy in Moscow, but that’s all behind him now. But the Agency asks him for a favor: help extricate a Russian asset code-named Byron, a KGB-trained intelligence […]
Belichick coached the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl wins, but here he targets readers in less glamorous fields. “You know the feeling of settling back at your desk and opening your email after a long vacation?” he writes. NFL coaches do—every summer when training camp starts. Belichick encourages us to view such workplace […]
After Sir Julian Marston-Lang’s shady family did their level best to see that he didn’t inherit Marston Hall, his stately ancestral home outside of London, in Heley’s last book, False Witness (2024), some of the locals are determined that his efforts to rehabilitate the neglected property come to naught. Egged on by Sir Julian’s own […]
For playwright Ruhl, life has been a history of teachers. From her parents, through her kindergarten and school years, through college and graduate school, to professional life, Ruhl learns from everyone. She shows us how even the smallest moment can instruct, how a child can teach a parent, and how true creativity demands a willingness […]