In this excruciatingly honest autobiographical work, author Mehta conducts an exquisite exploration of his love life as a young man, attempting to focus an objective lens on the most subjective of Continue reading »
Imagine: you're a middle-aged adult and your elderly parent offers you a packet of love letters ("red letters") from an adulterous relationship that took place just before you were Continue reading »
Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker: The Invisible Art of Editing
Ved Mehta
A poignant tribute from a flawed but well-placed Boswell, Mehta's book revisits (through memories, letters and interviews) the career of William Shawn, who edited the New Yorker from 1951 to 1987. Continue reading »
In 1949, at age 15, Mehta left his native India to spend three years at the Arkansas School for the Blind. In this vivid memoir, written with great sensitivity and without self-pity, he describes the Continue reading »
This sixth volume of Mehta's lively, affecting autobiography covers his experiences at Pomona College, Calif., in the 1950s, when, despite his blindness, he tried to carry on the normal life of an Continue reading »
Mehta, the well-known Indian-born writer, affectionately relives his undergraduate years at Oxford's Balliol College in an amusing, wonderfully observant, self-deprecating memoir. Despite his Continue reading »
In a quietly devastating, gripping political chronicle based on his frequent trips to India between 1982 and 1994, Indian-born Mehta, a New Yorker staff writer, ruefully portrays a nation mired in Continue reading »
The Battle of Gettysburg was a dramatic combination of pathos and absurdity, according to this remarkable selection of primary sources from historian Chadwick (The Cannons Continue reading »
Warbody: A Marine Sniper and the Hidden Violence of Modern Warfare
Joshua Howe, Alexander Lemons
Howe (Behind the Curve), a professor of environmental history at Reed College, and U.S. Marine veteran Lemons team up for a searing mix of wartime memoir and scientific Continue reading »
Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History
Rich Benjamin
Benjamin (Searching for Whitopia) delivers a devastating memoir about the ripple effects of the coup that ousted his grandfather, Haitian president Daniel Fignolé, in 1957. Continue reading »
The First and Last King of Haiti: The Rise and Fall of Henry Christophe
Marlene L Daut
Historian Daut (Awakening the Ashes) offers a powerful biography of Henry Christophe (1767-1820), who fought for, defected from, and ultimately ruled over Haiti. She first Continue reading »