one book leads to another
I was listening to NPR's 1A when I heard part of an interview with A Place Called Home author David Ambroz. The show that day was about adults who grew up in the foster system and as Ambroz told his story I stopped what I was doing to listen. He said that once when he … Continue reading A Place Called Home: A Memoir
Do you like to read memoirs? How about autobiographies? What's the difference, anyway? I think a memoir is more personal, a self-examination but not necessarily a life story whereas an autobiography is a retelling of a life, start to finish. Let's see what google says: A memoir is a nonfiction narrative in which the author … Continue reading Joy Enough: A Memoir
New! Listen to me read this review here - https://open.spotify.com/episode/21Ri7o9hKABqfP7ublI0Kr News flash - Colson Whitehead can write! I know we know this, he's won not one but two Pulitzer Prizes (for The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys). Harlem Shuffle is completely different from those books but just as extraordinary. Ray Carney is a good … Continue reading Harlem Shuffle
Hindsight is everything and Lawrence Wright knows it. Wright is the author of The Looming Tower, a methodical and sweeping history that's so engaging and interesting you feel guilty for enjoying it. He published it in 2006, won the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction for it in 2007, and it was made into a mini-series … Continue reading The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11
James McBride is a national treasure. I savored his 2020 book Deacon King Kong over the last month or so, stretching out the pleasure by only reading it on my lunch breaks at work. So worth it. McBride isn't just a talented writer, he has a gift for bridging the humorous, the heartfelt, and the … Continue reading Deacon King Kong
I'm reading two books at once. This isn't my usual preference, but I have one at the office and the other at home and so far it's working out. I've been back at work full time for a few weeks and that means forced one hour lunch breaks again. I know the value of breaks … Continue reading Two books plus one
"You should have known" - is there a more irritating phrase for someone to tell you, or worse, to tell yourself? Jean Hanff Korelitz is the author of the 2014 book You Should Have Known, and if she sounds familiar she wrote of one of this summer's hottest books, The Plot. I saw an ad … Continue reading Should’ve Known Better
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