Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 071

Twenty short nonfiction works chosen by the readers. “Suffrage for women will not usher in a millennium of peace and leisure” was the editorial opinion of the Boston Cooking School Magazine in May, 1914. [Woman’s Problems]. Disillusionment with easy answers is the theme of several Vol. 071 readings [On Thinking for Oneself; Limitations of Truth-Telling; On Demagogues]. Rebellion and war, heroics and aftermath, are treated in Alexander at Gordium; Before Grant Won His Stars; Draft Riots in Wisconsin; The Truth About Greece; and Sophie Treadwell Interviews Pancho Villa. Humor provides relief in a lighthearted look at home heating [The Furnace]; bicycling [A Despicable Trick; Healthy But Not Social], grammar [The Woman’s Press Club] and The Beauty of Unpunctuality. Exploration then and now is contrasted in Tasman Explores Australia and A California Motor Tour. The arts–literature, drawing, and the cinema–are celebrated in Mary Pickford’s Beginnings, Rendering Reflections in Window Glass, and On the Tomb of Keats. Lastly, a biography of British fossil finder Mary Anning (1795-1847) throws light not only on ichthyosaurs, but on the remarkable life of a self-taught woman scientist. – Summary by Sue Anderson