-
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s Book Picks: Books About Health
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm SezEvery little sniffle. $28 – $30
Various page countsIt feels like you’ve caught them all, no matter how hard you try to avoid getting sick. You wash your hands, you cover your mouth and nose and wash some more. So now try these new health-related books and see if they don’t help.
They say that getting your steps in helps you live longer, and reading “Life After Cars” by Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon and Aaron Naparstek (Thesis, $28) will make you eager to do so, rather than drive. In this book, you’ll see what more than a century’s worth of automobile use has done to the air you breathe, the environment, wildlife, human health and safety, the economy, and to lost productivity. It’s a book that calls for change or, at the very least, more mindfulness.
The bad news is that it’ll be allergy season soon.
The good news is that “All About Allergies” by Zachary Rubin, MD (Plume, $30) exists to help you make sense of them. You’re sneezing, your eyes are scratchy, your nose can’t stop running, and breathing normally ain’t happening. Rubin offers cutting-edge information about various allergies including food allergies, asthma, hay fever, and other reasons you feel a mess during certain seasons. (Out 2/24).
-
Book Review: Are You There Spirit? It’s Me, Travis: Life Lessons from the Other Side, by Travis Holp
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“Are You There Spirit? It’s Me, Travis: Life Lessons from the Other Side” by Travis Holp
c.2025, Spiegel and Grau $28.00 240 pagesYour dad sent you a penny the other day, minted in his birth year.
They say pennies from heaven are a sign of some sort, and that makes sense: you’ve been thinking about him a lot lately. Some might scoff, but the idea that a lost loved one is trying to tell you he’s okay is comforting. So read the new book “Are You There, Spirit? It’s Me, Travis” by Travis Holp, and keep your eyes open.
Ever since he was a young boy growing up just outside Dayton, Ohio, Travis Holp wanted to be a writer. He also wanted to say that he was gay but his conservative parents believed his gayness was some sort of phase. That, and bullying made him hide who he was.
He also had to hide his nascent ability to communicate with people who had died, through an entity he calls “Spirit.” Eventually, though it left him with psychological scars and a drinking problem he’s since overcome, Holp was finally able to talk about his gayness and reveal his otherworldly ability.
-
Terri Schlichenmeyer’s The Bookworm Sez: 10 Best Books of 2025 – Fiction and Nonfiction
By Terri Schlichenmer
The Bookworm SezThis past year, you’ve often had to make do.
Saving money here, resources there, being inventive and innovative. It’s a talent you’ve honed, but isn’t it time to have the best? Yep, so grab these Ten Best of 2025 books for your new year pleasures…
Nonfiction
Health care is on everyone’s mind now, and “A Living: Working-Class Americans Talk to Their Doctor” by Michael D. Stein, M.D. (Melville House, $26.99) lets you peek into health care from the point of view of a doctor who treats “front-line workers” and those who experience poverty and homelessness. It’s shocking, an eye-opening book, a skinny, quick-to-read one that needs to be read now.
If you’ve been doing eldercare or caring for any loved one, then “How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir” by Molly Jong-Fast (Viking, $28.00) needs to be in your plans for the coming year. It’s a memoir, but also a biography of Jong-Fast’s mother, Erica Jong, and the story of love, illness, and living through the chaos of serious disease with humor and grace. You’ll like this book especially if you were a fan of the author’s late mother.
-
Book Review: The Grave Robber: The Biggest Stolen Artifacts Case in FBI History and the Bureau’s Quest to Set Things Right, by Tim Carpenter
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“The Grave Robber: The Biggest Stolen Artifacts Case in FBI History and the Bureau’s Quest to Set Things Right” by Tim Carpenter
c.2025, Harper Horizon $29.99 299 pagesYou wouldn’t call yourself a perfectionist.
Still, if something is amiss, you feel a need to make it right. Something’s broken, you fix it. If it’s off, you make it right. That goes for minor issues or, as in the new book “The Grave Robber” by Tim Carpenter, matters of grave importance.
The tipsters were adamant. Don Carlin Miller had “Indian bones.”
And so, on a cool, cloudy fall afternoon, FBI bomb tech coordinator and sometime art crime expert Tim Carpenter and one of his associates headed to a remote property near Indianapolis., in search of the truth.
-
Book Your Holidays: A Holiday Gift Guide (Part 3) – Trivia Gift Books
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm SezTrivia Gift Books by various authors
c.2025, various authors $12.99 – $35.00 various page countsYour mind is on the holidays.
There’s so much to do, so much to remember, so many people to think about that your brain is packed. So why not slip into a book that’s browse-able and easy to slip out of? Try one of these great (and oh-so-fun!) books to enjoy…
If you’re an animal lover, you’re also going to love reading “Trash Animals: The Animal Weirdos We Secretly Love” by Rachel Federman, illustrated by Clare Faulkner (Harper Collins, $12.99).
You’ve seen them on social media. You may have even seen them in person, so what do you know about the annoying, but admittedly cute, animals that live in our world? Creatures like bats, badgers, squirrels, skunks, snakes, pigeons, and possums are profiled in this book and the articles about them are long and short. Take a quiz about them. Read about what they eat, so you know how to feed them, if you want to. Find out what movies have featured them, and join a fan club for your favorites. Dip in here, learn a little there, this is that kind of book.
-
Book Your Holidays Now: The Bookworm’s Reading Gift Guide Part I (Fiction, Mysteries, Memoirs)
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm SezSanta will be very relieved.
You’ve taken most of the burden off him by making a list and checking it twice on his behalf. The gift-buying in your house is almost done – except for those few people who are just so darn hard to buy for. So what do you give to the person who has (almost) everything? You give them a good book, like maybe one of these….
GENERAL FICTION
The giftee who loves multigenerational plots, “Kaplan’s Plot” by Jason Diamond (Flatiron Books) might be their favorite gift this year. It’s the story of a man who returns home to care for his dying mother, but mother and son have kept secrets for far too long. When the man learns a few surprising truths about his ancestry, it could change the relationship he has with his mother forever.
For the person on your list who loves a charming little novel, wrap up “The Peculiar Gift of July” by Ashley Ream (Dutton). It’s the story of an orphan who goes to live with a cousin who barely knows the girl and doesn’t really want her. But July, the child, has a little magic up her sleeve, and what happens will dazzle your giftee. Wrap it up with “The Irish Goodbye” by Heather Aimee O’Neill (Henry Holt & Company), the story of three sisters, a long holiday weekend, and secrets that need tending.
Here’s something for the historical novel lover you know: “This Here is Love” by Princess Joy L. Perry (W.W. Norton) is set in 1690 in Virginia. One of the characters is a slave. One is the child of a freeman. One is an indentured slave, and all somehow find love despite their bondage. How can anyone resist a tale like that?
The new mother on your gift list – the one who loves thrillers – will be so happy to unwrap “Her One Regret” by Donna Freitas (Soho Crime). It’s the story of a disappearance that may or may not have been criminal. Did Lucy Mendoza do the unthinkable?
-
Book Review: A True Crime Roundup
By Terri Schlichemeyer
The Bookworm SezTrue Crime Books by various authors
c.2025, various publishers
$28.00 – $32.00 various page countsWhodunit?
Sometimes, the answer is known before you even have a chance to hear the whole story. Other times, the story of a crime is more than just a murder or a B&E. Either way, most definitely, you need a good true-crime book, like maybe one of these…
What you’ll read inside “Shadow of the Bridge” by Aine Cain and Kevin Greenlee (Pegasus, $29.95) will chill you to your toenails, especially if you’re a parent. It’s the story of two teenage girls out on a hike, the man they accidentally met along a bridge in Indiana, and the crime that shocked a nation. Yes, you saw the search for the girls and the reports on the news; this book takes things further with excellent journalism. You’ll be riveted.
A true-crime book doesn’t have to be set in recent years; the crime can be decades old and still be of interest, as you’ll see in “Sisters in Death: The Black Dahlia, The Prairie Heiress, and Their Hunter” by Eli Frankel (Citadel Press, $28). Ever since Elizabeth Short was discovered nude and surgically bisected in an empty Los Angeles lot in 1947, sleuths both professional and amateur have tried to figure out who killed her. Here, Frankel offers another possibility to the solution, and it may reach farther back – more than eight decades ago, in fact. If the Black Dahlia death still confounds you, here’s your book.
-
Book Review: Joyride: A Memoir, by Susan Orlean
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“Joyride: A Memoir” by Susan Orlean
c.2025, Avid Reader Press $32.00 368 pagesYou’ve got the pedal to the metal.
Ninety miles an hour, that’s how you live your life. Zooming here, careening around corners, racing to the next deadline, the next milestone, the next goal. Once in awhile, you run out of fuel, but it’s back on the road tomorrow and you can’t imagine living any other way. As in the new memoir Joyride” by Susan Orlean, it’s been a wild journey.
For much of her life, Susan Orlean has been “lucky.”
She was born at a good time in history and had the benefit of privileges. Though her parents constantly sniped at one another, they were supportive of Orlean and encouraged her natural curiosity. Her father pressed her to become a lawyer, but Orlean knew early-on that she only wanted to be a writer.
-
Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions, by Arie Kaplan
Narration provided by Wondervox
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions” by Arie Kaplan
c.2025, Wellfleet Press $19.99 255 pagesYour next free weekend is going to be excellent, knock on wood.
The moon will be in the right phase and there’s no Friday the 13th on the horizon, so you’re good. Your lucky socks are clean, you found two pennies this week, and a money spider crawled across your arm yesterday, yay! The weekend will be epic but first, read “The Encyclopedia of Curious Rituals and Superstitions” by Arie Kaplan and good luck!
Baseball and football seasons are overlapping soon and if you’re not careful, your team might lose. Use your lucky cup, wear the same t-shirt each week, you can’t be too cautious – and bingo, you’ve just performed “a superstitious act.”
Sorry-not-sorry. Old wives’ tales, protective charms, talismans, obsessive actions, whatever you call them, superstitions and good-luck rituals are practiced in every society around the world, and it’s been that way for centuries – but why?
-
Book Review: Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM, by Scott Broga
Narration provided by Wondervox.
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM” by Scott Broga
c.2025, Lyons Press
$65.00 405 pagesThe monkeys used to scare you a lot.
The Wicked Witch was one thing but those flying simians with their booming voices? Ugh, they gave you nightmares for weeks. And despite that you knew how things would end – you’d seen the movie annually, for heaven’s sake – let’s just say you spent a lot of time covering your eyes. So now be like a Lion. Get uncowardly and find “Judy Garland: The Voice of MGM” by Scott Brogan.
When most people think about Judy Garland, two images come to mind: the teenager in pigtails or “The one-dimensional image of an always suffering and always tragic Garland…” Neither one, says Brogan, is totally correct. In reality, Garland was “positive, joyful, and funny.”
-
Book Reviews: What is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution, by John Birdsall, AND Dining Out, by Erik Piepenburg
Narration provided by Wondervox
“What is Queer Food? How We Served a Revolution” by John Birdsall
c.2025, W.W. Norton $29.99 304 pages
“Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America’s Gay Restaurants” by Erik Piepenburg
c.2025, Grand Central $30.00 352 pagesYou thought a long time about who sits where.
Compatibility is key for a good dinner party, so place cards were the first consideration; you have at least one left-hander on your guest list, and you figured his comfort into your seating chart. You want the conversation to flow, which is music to your ears. And you did a good job but, as you’ll see with these two great books on dining LGBTQIA-style, it’s sometimes not who sits where, but whose recipes were used…
When you first pick up “What is Queer Food?” by John Birdsall, you might miss the subtitle: “How We Served
-
Book Review: The Brain at Rest: How the Art and Science of Doing Nothing Can Improve Your Life, by Joseph Jebelli, PhD
Narration provided by Wondervox.
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Bookworm Sez“The Brain at Rest: How the Art and Science of Doing Nothing Can Improve Your Life” by Joseph Jebelli, PhD
c.2025, Dutton $32.00 288 pagesThe wall in front of you hasn’t moved in at least fifteen minutes.
You know because you’ve been staring at it this whole time, your mind lost in thought but not on the task at hand. In other words, you were daydreaming and you just wasted a quarter of an hour – or did you? As you’ll see in “The Brain at Rest” by Joseph Jebelli, PhD, you may’ve been doing exactly the right thing.
Joseph Jebelli remembers that his father was a man driven.
The elder Jebelli worked long hours, up early, desk-bound all day and apparently hating it, until one evening he came home, spent. Jebelli’s his mother took her husband to a doctor, where he received a diagnosis of severe depression.
Jebelli was ten years old. His father never worked again.
Despite all that, Jebelli was likewise driven to overachieve but as time passed, his life became a shambles and he knew he needed to step back. He started by retreating slowly and gently away from too much work, which took awhile. Eventually, things began to change and he reports now that his well-being has improved considerably.