Elevate Difference

Reviews of Little Brown and Company

Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms

Ralph Keyes’s Euphemania is so poorly written that, in spite of the rich and interesting subject matter, it is difficult to read. On the one hand, Keyes insists that euphemisms—circumlocutionary words and phrases—signal both the pliancy and richness possible in human languages and the creativity of the human mind.

When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present

Oh, Gail Collins, you had me at New York Times columnist. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived away from New York for so long now and have to read it online most of the year, but holding printed and bound words from a witty Times writer in a book that I can dip into for a few minutes, or a hour, whenever I like is brainy self-indulgence that I can say yes to. My mother grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and I’ve always had a thing for vintage and retro pop culture. If this is you, too, you’ll quickly find yourself on board as well, Times fetish or no.

Cleaving: A Story of Marriage, Meat, and Obsession

Julie Powell wrote a blog called the Julie/Julia Project, which was turned into a book entitled Julie and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously, and last summer Julie & Julia hit the big screen as a movie featuring Meryl Streep.

The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir

The disenchantment of our parents, when we realize they’re humans too, is an unpleasant event of growing up. We all handle it differently. For Laurie Sandell, she put it into a graphic novel, The Impostor’s Daughter: A True Memoir.

Girls in Trucks

Not many books have been able to capture the social chasm between northern and southern women quite as well as Katie Crouch’s new novel, Girls in Trucks, has. Meet Sarah Walters, a southern debutante born and raised in South Carolina. Upon entering college, Sarah flees north, separating herself from all that she has ever known. Sarah soon discovers how different people, men in particular, in the north are; they are harder, flightier, and often times quick to forget about another person. Thus begins Sarah Walter’s descent into self-discovery.

Skylight Confessions

After eighteen novels and eight children’s books one might think Alice Hoffman would run out of material in which to write, but her new book, Skylight Confessions, proves this theory wrong. She takes an everyday, dysfunctional family and breathes her own twist into it, coupled with a splash of supernatural. Skylight Confessions is set in a house appropriately named The Glass Slipper because it is constructed of metal and glass panes.