Here are the non-fiction works I read in 2014, listed in order read. I have rated them with one to five stars and made brief comments. Normally I do not finish or even go very far in a book I don't like so most of my non-fiction reviews are favorable. Life is too short to finish a bad book just so you can review it.
1. Out Witting History - Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books by Aaron Lansky. **. A very interesting combination of culture history and book collecting. Must read for those into Yiddish culture.
2. How Paris Became Paris The Invention of the Modern City by Joan DeJean. * good history
3. Twilight of the Belle Epoch - Paris Between 1901 to 1918. *. By Mary - lots of interesting cultural information
4. Collecting Shakespeare - The Story of Henry and Emily Folger by Stephen Grant ** fact rich and interesting bibliophiles work.
5. Penelope Fitzgerald - A Life by Hermione Lee ** a good literary biography, for fans of the subject.
6. Four Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Dutchesses by Helen Rappaport
** for those into late Czarist history
7. The Impossible Exile - Stefan Zweig at the End of The World by George Prochnik
**** must reading for those into Stefan Zweig and between the wars European literary history.
8. Out of Dublin - A Memoir by Ethel Rohan. Very moving work ***
9. The Edge of the City - A Scrapbook 1976 to 1991 by Desmond Hogan. *** a very interesting selection of essays by one of Ireland's greatest contemporary writers.
10. The Magic Lantern of Marcel Proust by Howard Moss *** a very rewarding highly literate commentary.
11. The Snows of Yesterday by Gregory von Rezzori **** a beautiful memoir
12. Marcel Proust - A Life by William C. Carter ***** the best secondary work on Proust
13. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses by Kevin Birmingham **. For those very into the subject matter
14. Vera (Mrs Vladimir Nabokov) by Stacey Sciff *** a book for those very into Nabakov
15. The Wandering Jews by Joseph Roth ***** Must read book for those interested in the subject.
16. Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C. K. Scott Moncrieff by Jean Findlay ***** I loved this book.
17. The Last Jews of Berlin by Leonard Gross **** must reading for anyone into Holocaust history and literature.
18. Lewis Carroll: The Man and his Circles by Edward Wakeling ** only for those very into Lewis Carroll
19. From Holocaust to Harvard by John Stoessinger ** an interesting memoir
20. Marcel Proust's Library by Anka Muhlstein *** a very interesting and illuminating book
21. Balzac's Omlette: A Delicious Tour of French Food by Anka Muhlstein *** - helped me understand Balzac a bit better and made me very hungry.
22. Alive Inside the Wreck: A Biography of Nathanael West by Joe Woodward *** - a wonderful biography of West and his era. Lots of data on Hollywood in the 1930s.
23. In The Garden of the Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin by Erik Larson. *** very well done popular history.
24. Art of a Jewish Woman by Henry Massie ** good edition to Holocaust literature
What were your favorite nonfiction reads of 2014?
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