Amy Suto's Blog: Writing, Substack Growth & Travel Guides

Max Brooks writes the zombie apocalypse like a war historian, and it works. My honest World War Z review: the research that makes it frightening, and the flaw that cost it a star.

I read When during the last week of December 2019, which is either perfect or ridiculous timing for a book about timing. My honest review: 4 stars, and you only need the first half.

I’m publishing this one on Halloween on purpose, even though it’s the least frightened book about death I’ve ever read. Caitlin Doughty travels the world to find the good death — and finds it everywhere.

A note on timing: I read Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk in the spring of 2019, and the book came out in 2015. This review is about that book — the investigative biography that first mapped how the man behind Tesla and SpaceX got there.

Every crime writer has a research shelf. This is the book on mine I’d rescue first — 400 numbered observations from a veteran patrolman, full of heart and human interest, not just procedure.

Some books you pick up because of a review, and some because the title does all the work. A Burglar’s Guide to the City is the second kind — heists, architecture, and how burglars read buildings.

In 1959, The Sunday Times sent Ian Fleming around the world to write about the planet’s most thrilling cities. What came back is one of the silliest travel books ever printed — and I mean that as roughly 70% compliment.

I co-wrote an episode of a spy thriller back in my Hollywood days, so take it as a professional opinion: the best spy thriller I’ve ever read is a work of nonfiction.

My Goodreads review of Evicted opens with three words I don’t hand out casually: must-read for everyone. Matthew Desmond’s reporting on the machinery of eviction earns every one of its 5 stars.

The third book in my three-week Barbara Ehrenreich binge of April 2020. Had I Known collects four decades of her essays, and my Goodreads review still sums it up: some really great essays in here, highly highly recommend.

Bait and Switch was my first Barbara Ehrenreich book — I read it eight days before Nickel and Dimed. My review of her undercover tour of white-collar unemployment.

My Goodreads review of Nickel and Dimed is exactly one sentence long: this book should be required reading for every American. Six years later, I’m not softening it.

Jonathan Haidt's case about phones and childhood is important, a little academic, and worth the discourse. My review of The Anxious Generation.

I read Anna Wiener's memoir of 2010s San Francisco tech while a Waymo rolled past my window. My honest review of Uncanny Valley.

A Survivor fan and working memoir ghostwriter reviews Nice Girls Don't Win by Parvati Shallow: real drama, real charm, and the craft gap that kept it at three stars.

A memoir ghostwriter reviews the internet's most notorious self-published memoir. Scammer by Caroline Calloway is alive, messy, and flecked with real poetry.

I read the Yoga Sutras before my 200-hour yoga teacher training. Some of it went into my teaching, some of it I argued with. An honest 3-star review.

Joe Dispenza's mind-body deep end, read during my healing year: what earned five stars, what to hold loosely, and why mantras were the soundtrack and not the surgery.

Nobel-backed longevity science I read four months before my rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, which gave the whole book stakes. My review of The Telomere Effect.

The most readable, most heavily-cited nutrition book I own. My review of How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger, read deep in my healing year.

Brooke Goldner's raw-vegetable protocol brought serious hope to my autoimmune healing year. My honest review of Goodbye Autoimmune Disease, one production flaw included.