Flying Home, David Nicholson’s resonant volume of short fiction, will appeal to fans of Edward P. Jones and George Pelecanos but can stand without the easy comparisons. Nicholson captures the tension in a gentrifying neighborhood inspired by Bloomingdale, where he grew up. In one story, an African-American dad and his daughter, a private-school student, revisit his street. They run into an old friend of his whose life has cratered, and he wonders “how to teach his daughter she doesn’t have to want that world, but doesn’t have to fear or despise it either?”
In Applied Minds, local biomedical engineer and policy adviser Guru Madhavan offers accessible stories to explain how the engineer’s approach to the world affects us—whether via disposable diapers, ATMs, or a movie like The Birds, directed by a onetime engineer named Alfred Hitchcock: “He was a master of montage—the epitome of the modular systems approach in cinematic editing. . . . [His] target was his viewers’ nerve endings; he wanted them to feel as though they were ‘dipping their toes in the cold waters of fear.’ ”
This article appears in our August 2015 issue of Washingtonian.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
Bill O’Sullivan is senior managing editor; from 1999 to 2007, he was a features editor. In another lifetime, he was assistant managing editor. Somewhere in the middle, he was managing editor of Common Boundary magazine and senior editor at the Center for Public Integrity. His personal essays have been cited three times among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays. He teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda.
2 Books You Must Read in August
Flying Home, David Nicholson’s resonant volume of short fiction, will appeal to fans of Edward P. Jones and George Pelecanos but can stand without the easy comparisons. Nicholson captures the tension in a gentrifying neighborhood inspired by Bloomingdale, where he grew up. In one story, an African-American dad and his daughter, a private-school student, revisit his street. They run into an old friend of his whose life has cratered, and he wonders “how to teach his daughter she doesn’t have to want that world, but doesn’t have to fear or despise it either?”
In Applied Minds, local biomedical engineer and policy adviser Guru Madhavan offers accessible stories to explain how the engineer’s approach to the world affects us—whether via disposable diapers, ATMs, or a movie like The Birds, directed by a onetime engineer named Alfred Hitchcock: “He was a master of montage—the epitome of the modular systems approach in cinematic editing. . . . [His] target was his viewers’ nerve endings; he wanted them to feel as though they were ‘dipping their toes in the cold waters of fear.’ ”
This article appears in our August 2015 issue of Washingtonian.
Don’t Miss Another Big Story—Get Our Weekend Newsletter
Our most popular stories of the week, sent every Saturday.
Bill O’Sullivan is senior managing editor; from 1999 to 2007, he was a features editor. In another lifetime, he was assistant managing editor. Somewhere in the middle, he was managing editor of Common Boundary magazine and senior editor at the Center for Public Integrity. His personal essays have been cited three times among the notable essays of the year in The Best American Essays. He teaches at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda.
Most Popular in News & Politics
Trump Hotel Employees Reveal What It Was Really Like Catering to the Right Wing Elite
Washington’s Most Influential People
The Bulwark Was Founded to Oppose Trump. Now What?
Check Out This Huge Crochet Mural of Kamala Harris at the Wharf
DC Is Replacing Its Current Vaccine Sign-Up System
Washingtonian Magazine
March 2021: The Influencers
View IssueSubscribe
Get Us on Social
Get Us on Social
Related
These Were the DC Public Library’s Most Popular Books in 2020
Two Teams of Post Reporters, Including Bob Woodward, Are Doing Rival Books—About Very Similar Subjects
Jason Reynolds Bought Up All His Novels From Indie Bookstores—to Give Them Away
The New York Times 100 Notable Books List Just Came Out and DC Got a Lot of Love
More from News & Politics
Glenstone Will Host Its First Touring Exhibit When It Reopens This Spring
Check Out This Huge Crochet Mural of Kamala Harris at the Wharf
DC Is Replacing Its Current Vaccine Sign-Up System
Howard Is Renaming Its Law Library After Alumnus and Civil Rights Figure Vernon Jordan
There’s a New Mural of Amanda Gorman in Dupont Circle
The Week Covid Changed Washington
A New DC Program Lets Housebound Seniors Sign Up for Zoom Sessions With Rescue Animals
Axios Political Reporter Alexi McCammond Is Teen Vogue’s New Editor