Book Review: What Comes Next and How to Like It: A Memoir by Abigail Thomas
Abigail Thomas has been writing and publishing for most of her adult life, which has been long. In this memoir, What Comes Next and How to Like It (WCNAHTLI), she opens up about a variety of personal experiences. It’s about her dogs, her children, her best friend, her...Book Review: 32 Yolks: From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line by Eric Ripert
Eric Ripert and his book 32 Yolks made me think about my own knife skills. And how pathetic they are. This enticing memoir, subtitled From My Mother’s Table to Working the Line, tells the story of his early life and career beginnings. It’s an enjoyable read, even when...Book Review: The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clementine Wamariya
The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story Of War and What Came After from Clemantine Wamariya is the moving memoir of a Rwandan refugee. In truth, it’s the story of Wamariya, her sister Claire, and a variety of other family members. But it’s told by Wamariya, who was...Book Review: Joni: The Anthology by Barney Hoskyns
Joni: The Anthology is a variety of articles, interviews, and reviews collected by editor Barney Hoskyns. It is all Joni Mitchell, all the time. And, even if you aren’t a rabid Joni fan, it’s an interesting collection. The “chapters” are individual, previously...Book Review: Promise Me, Dad by Joe Biden
Before my ebook hit 25%, Joe Biden’s family stories in Promise Me, Dad had me crying. There’s plenty of other content in this heartfelt memoir, but the focus is on Beau Biden’s fight with cancer. Beau is Joe Biden’s oldest son, technically Joe III. His life story is...Book Review: The Skin Above My Knee by Marcia Butler
I was utterly captivated by Marcia Butler’s memoir, The Skin Above My Knee. As Butler says in a YouTube video, music saved her life. It was the one constant in a world full of discouragement and outright destruction. Butler discovered music at a young age, and really...Book Review: American Yellow by George Omi
George (Minoru) Omi’s memoir about growing up second-generation (Nisei) Japanese in 1930s and 40s America is an important story. Everyone should hear more about the tragedy of incarcerating American citizens of Japanese descent after Pearl Harbor. My mother-in-law was...Book Review: The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
In her vulnerable and raw memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking (TYMT), Joan Didion tells the story of her husband’s fatal coronary and her only child’s severe illness. Just the thing for reading around the holidays, right? Truthfully, I chose it because of a reading...Book Review: Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming
In Not My Father’s Son, Alan Cumming writes a moving tale of intersecting lives. One of them is his own. He tells how his father and grandfather affected him, in vastly different ways. I listened on audio, and I’d recommend hearing Cumming tell his own story. His...Book Review: Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
Patricia Lockwood’s memoir Priestdaddy is laugh-out-loud funny, quirky, and poignant. Growing up in a household where your parent is deeply involved in their religion is something I’m familiar with from my own life, yet Lockwood elevates the storytelling to hilarious...Book Review: Funny in Farsi: A Memoir about Growing Up Iranian in America by Firoozeh Dumas
Firoozeh Dumas’ memoir about growing up Iranian in California, Funny in Farsi, is a lighthearted look at her 1970s and 80s immigrant experience. Imagine moving to a country where you don’t speak the language, and everyone is geographically challenged with...Book Review: I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
I picked up I feel Bad About my Neck by Nora Ephrata on a Sunday afternoon when I needed a little levity. Having loved her movies but never read her books, this was a happy find at a library book sale. And it did make me laugh some, and groan quite a lot. Sometimes a...Book Review: The Glass Eye: A Memoir by Jeannie Vanasco
Jeannie Vanasco bares her soul in The Glass Eye: A Memoir. There were times it made me squirm with discomfort. But it also touched my heart and made me appreciate her willingness to be vulnerable. The narrative thread is more of a spaghetti-like jumble of disparate...Book Review: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? By Alyssa Mastromonaco
Alyssa Mastromonaco’s memoir of her political career, including her time in the Obama White House, is funny, inspiring, and vulnerable. When I bought it, I was wishing for a reminder of what made Obama’s presidency exemplary. I really had no idea tampon...Book Review: Tracks: One Woman’s Journey of 1,700 Miles Across the Australian Outback by Robyn Davidson
Originally published in 1982, Robyn Davidson’s travel memoir, Tracks: One Woman’s Journey of 1,700 Miles Across the Australian Outback, is a unique picture of life in the bush. To call it a travel memoir doesn’t do it justice. It’s really an...
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