(June 2023) This is such a powerful book. It’s not just the individual journey of Brandon P. Fleming, which is an odyssey of Homeric proportions; it’s how he challenged accepted beliefs about education and changed the lives of Black children by creating opportunities. It’s about the nexus of scholarship and culture. The first part of…
(Nov 2022) I love this book! I told the author, David Toscano, that I wanted to crawl between the pages and curl myself up in it. I started reading Bellwether: Virginia’s Political Transformation, 2006-2020 on November 12, 2022, tucked up in a chair in a mountain cabin in Greene County, VA. Four days earlier, on November…
(Sept 25, 2022) Catherine Read talks with author P. O’Connell Pearson about her newest book We Are Your Children Too: Black Students, White Supremacists, and the Battle for America’s Schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, to be published in January 2023. This is Patty Pearson’s third non-fiction history designed for young readers. Her 25…
(Sept 5, 2022) Catherine Read talks with Dale Brumfield, author, and former Field Director for Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (VADP). Virginia became the first southern state to abolish the death penalty when Governor Ralph Northam signed HB2263 into law on March 24, 2021, at the Greenville Correctional Center. Closing the Slaughterhouse: The Inside…
(May 23, 2022) As business books go, this is a standout. The personality of the author David Siegel shines through and it’s an enjoyable read. He’s had an interesting career and writing this book is meant to be a gift to others. Even before I read his “Gratitude” in lieu of Acknowledgements at the end…
(March 2022) I read this book in anticipation of interviewing the author Silvia Foti for the show Inside Scoop on Fairfax Public Access which broadcast on Monday, March 21st. This interview was prompted by a virtual event hosted by the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond, Virginia, on May 5, 2022. One of the founders of…
(Oct 2021) This book landed on my radar because it’s written by historian William G. Thomas III, brother of my husband’s law partner Sandy Thomas, who is the global managing partner for Reed Smith LLP. It’s a tremendous work of scholarship. It is also a story well told with plenty of plot twists. The meticulous…
(July 2021) Dr. James A. Grymes, a professor of Music History at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, has brought forth such a well researched and well told story of violins that survived the Holocaust, even when many of their owners did not. It is fascinating and horrifying, an emotional retelling of what happened…
(Feb. 2021) What a wonderful book! Anna Malaika Tubbs has chosen to profile three incredibly important women and she has done it well. Researching women who did not leave behind nearly the body of work, personal history and accomplishments of their three famous sons was a challenge. It was as challenge well met, and stories…
(March 2020) This book was captivating. A real page turner. I love the writing and following Melanie McCabe through her journey as a novice researcher. I’m delighted to know that she is a local English teacher in Arlington, Virginia, and that a writer of such talent teaches creative writing in a public high school. How…
(Jan 2020) This book is a must read. For everyone. From dinner parties and staff meetings to holiday gatherings and funerals, we all spend so much time at “gatherings” that are organized by someone. Priya Parker points out that surprisingly little thought is given to the structure of gatherings. Because of that, many of us…
(July 2019) I love this book so much! I was led to it from a footnote in Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordsrom which was published in 1998. Maurice Sendak dedicated Caldecott & Co: Notes on Books & Pictures to his beloved editor Ursula Nordstrom, who died in 1988, the year this book was…
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