Jennifer Bort Yacovissi
Jennifer Bort Yacovissi grew up in Bethesda, MD, just a bit farther up the hill from Washington, DC, where her debut novel, Up the Hill to Home, takes place. The novel is a fictionalized account of her mother's family in DC from the Civil War to the Great Depression. In addition to writing and reading historical and contemporary literary fiction, Jenny reviews for both the Independent and the Historical Novel Society. She owns a small project-management and engineering consulting firm, and enjoys gardening and being on the water. Jenny lives with her husband, Jim, in Crownsville, MD. Click here to learn more about the families in Up the Hill to Home and to see photos and artifacts from their lives.
158 entries by Jennifer Bort Yacovissi
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The Wren, the Wren: A Novel
By Anne Enright
A stirring tale of family bonds forged by absence.
Our new recurring feature joins the chorus decrying book bans.
The Hunt
By Kelly J. Ford
The bard of Ozark crime fiction delivers another tale of corrosive small-town secrets.
The Fifth Act
By Elliot Ackerman
A painful, essential read from perhaps the only author who could’ve written it.
Tom Lake: A Novel
By Ann Patchett
This story centers on a happy family but still the pages fly by.
Crook Manifesto: A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Harlem Shuffle’s Ray Carney is back, and this time, he brought friends.
The World: A Family History of Humanity
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
A staggering work of scholarship that also delights in the naughty bits.
The Real Work: On the Mystery of Mastery
By Adam Gopnik
A delightful, discursive discussion of what constitutes achievement.
The Sun Walks Down: A Novel
By Fiona McFarlane
A young boy, like the community around him, is swallowed by the outback.
If I Survive You
By Jonathan Escoffery
Men are haunted by their own poor decisions in this stellar collection of linked stories.
The House of Eve: A Novel
By Sadeqa Johnson
The parallel stories of two women highlight the contaminating effect of racism across generations.
Ushering in 2023 with a look back at 2022.
These Precious Days
By Ann Patchett
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A wry collection suffused with elegiac considerations of what brings meaning to our lives.
The literary world is shrinking. Help us push back.
The Big Fix: 7 Practical Steps to Save Our Planet
By Hal Harvey and Justin Gillis
An overwhelming subject is broken into doable, daunting components.
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An engaging natural (and enraging colonial) history from Down Under.
The Hero of This Book: A Novel
By Elizabeth McCracken
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Readers will be delighted co-conspirators in allowing this memoir to masquerade as fiction.
Fen, Bog & Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis
By Annie Proulx
A passionate chronicle of a key ecosystem’s demise.
Dinners with Ruth: A Memoir on the Power of Friendships
By Nina Totenberg
A poignant ode to RBG and the strength of female bonds.
The Marriage Portrait: A Novel
By Maggie O’Farrell
This engagingly dark fable reminds us how much we don’t wish to be a princess.
The Fifth Act: America’s End in Afghanistan
By Elliot Ackerman
A painful, essential read from perhaps the only author who could’ve written it.
Mercury Pictures Presents: A Novel
By Anthony Marra
Its uncharacteristic antic tenor aside, the author’s prose still breaks hearts with the lightest touch.
The novelist talks presidents, unconventional courtships, and the allure of Jackie O.
Avalon: A Novel
By Nell Zink
Ironic detachment keeps the emotional stakes low in the author’s latest comic tale.
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams
By Richard Flanagan
Australia’s most celebrated novelist demands that we stop ignoring climate change, but it’s a repetitive lecture.
French Braid: A Novel
By Anne Tyler
The literary patron saint of Baltimore serves up her signature affectionate take on family dysfunction.
Thank You, Mr. Nixon: Stories
By Gish Jen
Spanning the 1970s to today, these linked tales sing with insightful, arch observation.
The School for Good Mothers: A Novel
By Jessamine Chan
This chilling debut envisions our judgmental parenting culture run amok.
Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American
By Wajahat Ali
A funny, poignant appeal to our better angels.
I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home
By Jami Attenberg
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A now-successful author’s witty reflection on decades of struggle.
Yonder: A Novel
By Jabari Asim
The Thieves may control the plantation, but the Stolen control their own destiny.
These Precious Days: Essays
By Ann Patchett
A wry collection suffused with elegiac considerations of what brings meaning to our lives.
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Five Tuesdays in Winter: Stories
By Lily King
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The satisfying tales in this collection leave the reader wanting more.
Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller
By Nadia Wassef
The author packs an entire library’s worth of subjects into this captivating memoir.
Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane
By Paul Auster
This weighty homage seeks to spark a renaissance in the 19th-century author’s readership.
The Lincoln Highway: A Novel
By Amor Towles
The master storyteller is back with a rollicking road trip that nonetheless wrestles with thorny moral questions.
What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction
By Alice McDermott
A master of understated storytelling offers her insights on the craft.
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams: A Novel
By Richard Flanagan
Australia’s most celebrated novelist demands that we stop ignoring climate change, but it’s a repetitive lecture.
Notes on Grief
By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Both of-the-moment and timeless, this slim volume captures the essence of mourning.
The virtual 2021 Washington Writers Conference Zooms into the history books.
Why Didn’t You Just Do What You Were Told?
By Jenny Diski
These selected works showcase the late author’s wit, insight, and never-boring exploration of how she fit into everything.
The Souvenir Museum: Stories
By Elizabeth McCracken
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Family lies at the center of these insightful, acerbic, witty tales told by a master of the form.
First Person Singular: Stories
By Haruki Murakami
For better or worse, the author’s latest collection is stamped with his trademark surrealism, musical taste, and go-to point of view.
Unmaking the Presidency
By Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes
America’s current “I dare you” commander-in-chief underscores how completely the position hinges on the noble intent of its holder.
Ordinary Girls
By Jaquira Díaz
A scalding, extraordinary debut by a talented young author.
On the Plain of Snakes
By Paul Theroux
The legendary travel writer takes a harrowing trip deep into the mysteries and miseries of Spanish-speaking North America.
What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era
By Carlos Lozada
The author has been doing a LOT of reading.
Transcendent Kingdom: A Novel
By Yaa Gyasi
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In her sophomore effort, the author tells a deeply humane tale of love and faith.
Make It Scream, Make It Burn
By Leslie Jamison
Another collection of fearless, closely observed, and — yes — empathetic essays from a master of the form.
The Boy in the Field: A Novel
By Margot Livesey
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Grace and decency suffuse this quiet mystery, offering balm to the battered reader.
OMG WTF Does the Constitution Actually Say?: A Non-Boring Guide to How Our Democracy Is Supposed to Work
By Ben Sheehan
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The thoroughly accessible civics guide America could use right about now.
It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump
By Stuart Stevens
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A GOP strategist who helped create the monster now admits the error of his ways.
Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why: Essays
By Alexandra Petri
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Follow along as the political satirist draws her zany cast of characters from the world’s worst reality show.
Humankind: A Hopeful History
By Rutger Bregman
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This book makes a compelling and much-needed argument for the innate decency of humans.
Red Dress in Black & White: A Novel
By Elliot Ackerman
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The author’s signature intimate portraits are drawn against eerily familiar national protests.
Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings
By Valerie Trouet
This fact-packed look at the study of dendrochronology is a rollicking good read.
Galileo and the Science Deniers
By Mario Livio
A fresh reminder of the wrongheaded outcomes that result when science is thwarted by politics.
What happens when you can no longer find them?
A wide-ranging search for meaning in the face of an uncaring universe.
Too Much: How Victorian Constraints Still Bind Women Today
By Rachel Vorona Cote
This part-scholarship, part-memoir debut explores the many charges leveled at unruly ladies through the ages.
Well, 2020 is a wash. Let’s support each other until we can all try again next year.
Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir
By Rebecca Solnit
An affecting reflection from the writer who made herself heard above the cacophony of men explaining things.
Sick in bed, the author curls up with some disquieting reading.
Little Constructions: A Novel
By Anna Burns
The author deploys savage wit but neglects to bring her warm, humane voice to this oh-so-dark comedy.
Unmaking the Presidency: Donald Trump’s War on the World’s Most Powerful Office
By Susan Hennessey and Benjamin Wittes
America’s current “I dare you” commander-in-chief underscores how completely the position hinges on the noble intent of its holder.
Coventry: Essays
By Rachel Cusk
Autobiographical pieces form the captivating, frustrating heart of this collection.
Ordinary Girls: A Memoir
By Jaquira Díaz
A scalding, extraordinary debut by a talented young author.
Listening through my TBR pile.
On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey
By Paul Theroux
The legendary travel writer takes a harrowing trip deep into the mysteries and miseries of Spanish-speaking North America.
Grand Union: Stories
By Zadie Smith
From post-sea-rise humanity to the mind of God stuck in a creative slump, this sharp-eyed collection offers no easy answers.
Celebrating DC sports while missing their biggest fan.
Make It Scream, Make It Burn: Essays
By Leslie Jamison
Another collection of fearless, closely observed, and — yes — empathetic essays from a master of the form.
Encountering raptors and royalty on a recent Scottish sojourn.
The Catholic School: A Novel
By Edoardo Albinati; translated by Antony Shugaar
What might have been an engaging “fictionalized memoir" is buried under reams of self-indulgent, misogynistic lecturing.
Our author gets a bit lost in her memories of vacations gone by...
Words and Worlds: From Autobiography to Zippers
By Alison Lurie
The longtime novelist tackles a range of topics in this insightful essay collection.
A looming one-year anniversary that no one will celebrate
Laughing Shall I Die
By Tom Shippey
Being fearless in battle was important, but shuffling bravely off the mortal coil mattered more.
The Restless Wave
By John McCain and Mark Salter
The senator reminds us how our political system is supposed to work, and that compromise is not, in fact, a dirty word.
The House of the Pain of Others: Chronicle of a Small Genocide
By Julián Herbert; translated by Christina MacSweeney
Recounting a little-known massacre of Chinese immigrants in Mexico.
The author considers her path out of the workaday world.
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
By Jennifer L. Eberhardt, Ph.D.
No need to fear being scolded in this understanding, revealing look into the insidiousness of partiality.
Enlightenment Now
By Steven Pinker
Don’t buy into the gloom and doom, the author argues. Things are better than they’ve ever been.
Sure, it’s a thing. I’m just not very good at it.
Landfall: A Novel
By Thomas Mallon
This fictional tale of the Bush administration lacks many things — chief among them, a point.
The Book of Delights: Essays
By Ross Gay
A poet finds endless enchantment in the everyday.
Judging for the NBCC Leonard Prize often makes for the year’s best reading.
Island of the Blue Foxes
By Stephen R. Bown
The curious tale of an ambitious sea voyage spent mostly on dry land.
A look back at the pages I’ve perused these past 12 months.
The Tangled Tree: A Radical New History of Life
By David Quammen
It wasn’t Darwin’s fault that he didn’t have access to fully sequenced genomes.
Where Did You Get This Number?: A Pollster’s Guide to Making Sense of the World
By Anthony Salvanto
A timely reminder that saying you’re going to vote isn’t the same as voting.
Will readers follow when a writer veers too far off course?
Enemy of the People: Trump’s War on the Press, the New McCarthyism, and the Threat to American Democracy
By Marvin Kalb
An elder statesmen of the news media issues a call to arms, reminding journalists they truly can make a difference.
What to read when it’s time to get away
The New Inheritors: A Novel
By Kent Wascom
The author delivers his third gorgeous and savage story, a native son’s continuing critique of the American myth.
After a friend is murdered, the author glares at her novel-in-progress and thinks, “What’s the point?”
Night-Gaunts and Other Tales of Suspense
By Joyce Carol Oates
These stories work better separately than in the aggregate, but they’re still appropriately disturbing.