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Better than Sliced Bread: Summer's Best Nonfiction

Maureen Corrigan offers three nonfiction recommendations — plus one work of fiction she couldn't resist.
Maureen Corrigan offers three nonfiction recommendations — plus one work of fiction she couldn't resist.

When I was a kid, family vacations took place in the dead of winter, not summer. My dad was a refrigeration mechanic: His job was to maintain those huge air-conditioning units that you see on the roofs of tall office buildings.

Naturally, summer was his busy time, so it was in that holiday week between Christmas and New Year's that he, my mom and I would pile into our Rambler Classic and go off on a road trip. Washington, D.C.; Williamsburg, Va.; Mystic, Conn.; Niagara Falls — I remember tramping around all those places on overcast, icy days.

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

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Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.