WWW.PUBLISHERSWEEKLY.COM 67Review_NONFICTION
also sometimes adds illustrations,
including of her famous hippo-like
creations, the Moomins. Jansson’s fans
will particularly enjoy discovering
which characters had real-life inspira-
tions. However, all readers should find her
a delight to spend time with. (Mar.)American Animals:
A True Crime Memoir
Eric Borsuk. Turner, $15.99 trade paper
(180p) ISBN 978-1-68442450-4
As a child, Borsuk wanted to be an FBI
agent. He wound up becoming a crim-
inal instead, as shown in this diverting
novelistic memoir. One day in 2004 at
Kentucky’s Transylvania University,
Warren, a childhood friend of Borsuk
who’s an avid birder and, like Borsuk, into
drugs, persuades Borsuk to join him and
another drug-using friend, Spencer, in
stealing Audubon’s multivolume Birds of
America and some other rarities from the
university’s rare book room. Warren says
he has a dealer in Amsterdam willing to
pay $10 million for the Audubon set.
The three teens
bail on their
first attempt,
which includes
laughable dis-
guises, but on
the second try,
sans disguises,
they tase the
librarian, grab
the oversize
volumes, and
stuff some rare prints into their backpacks.
When they’re spotted fleeing, they drop
the large Audubon books and hightail it.
They later take the prints to Christie’s in
New York City for an appraisal, but that
deal is aborted after Spencer foolishly leaves
his real cell phone number with a Christie’s
representative. More drug-fueled
crimes—car surfing and shoplifting—
ensue before federal agents burst into
their house, arrest the boys, and reclaim
the artwork from a marijuana-filled base-
ment. That’s where the book ends, but
later they each spent seven years in prison.
Borsuk smoothly combines humor with
the ennui of being a truly lost boy. This is
a must for fans of the 2018 movie of the
same name based on this story. (Mar.)Age tendency to blame the victim. Though
this medical saga is disturbing in the many
miscalculations her doctors made, Ramey’s
hilarious and upbeat sense of humor
lightens even the direst of circumstances (a
surgeon who performed the wrong surgery
on her is dubbed Dr. Oops, and others merit
such glib monikers as Dr. Vulva, Dr. Paxil,
and Dr. Bowels). As Ramey relentlessly
researched her own ailment, she learned
that millions of women with such condi-
tions as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia,
chronic Lyme disease, and other illnesses
had also been ignored, mistreated, or
belittled by conventional medicine. Ramey
was eventually diagnosed with complex
regional pain syndrome, and here she
argues for more compassion among doctors
and better treatment, and highlights
reasons why some research has trouble
securing funding (vaginal diseases, for
example, are “too unpalatable for any
awareness campaign, too unsexy to start a
blog”). Ramey’s uncanny grit and fortitude
will deeply inspire the multitudes facing
similar issues. (Mar.)
Letters from Tove
Edited by Boel Westin and Helen Svensson,
trans. from the Swedish by Sarah Death.
Univ. of Minnesota, $25.95 (496p) ISBN 978-
1-5179-0957-4
This spirited collection of letters by
Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson
(1914–2001), best known for the
“Moomin” children’s books and comics,
brims with affection, humor, and artistry.
Recognizing that for Jansson, letter writing
was primarily a way of remaining con-
nected to loved ones, Boel, Jansson’s
biographer, and Svensson, her last book
editor, organize the letters, which go from
1932 to 1988, by correspondent, rather
than chronologically. The first letters,
written in Jansson’s teens, are to her parents
as she studies art in Stockholm. Later
addressees include her best friend, pho-
tographer Eva Konikoff, and several
romantic partners, among them her first
serious female partner, Vivica Bandler,
whom she tells in 1946, “Never in the
world have I felt as natural and genuine as
I do now!” and her life companion,
Tuulikki Pietilä, whom she met in 1956.
In one message to the latter, Jansson
writes, “Thank you for your letter, which
felt like a happy hug.” Delightfully, she
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