Wade Rouse headed for the woods with a copy of Walden and a vision of remaking himself in rural life. Things didn’t go quite according to plan. Read an interview with Rouse about his new memoir.

Kelly McMasters’ first memoir, Welcome to Shirley, is more than an account of her childhood—it’s a portrait of the town in which she was raised. Kelly, a journalist and writing professor at Columbia University, traveled back to Shirley, New York, a working class Long Island town that has been repeatedly touched by tragedy. She slowly [...]

On the surface, Kelly McMasters had a perfect American childhood: A kind family, supportive neighbors, sparklers on the Fourth of July, sledding expeditions in the woods, popsicles made in ice cube trays. But as she grew older, she started to notice that things in Shirley, a working class Long Island town, were not what she’d [...]