Articles tagged "memoir"

Books Review

Just a Phrase I’m Going Through: My Life in Language by David Crystal

by Rachel Balik

[29.Sep.09] :. Crystal's book is part memoir and part guide to the world of Linguistic study. But as it turns out for the author, life and language are one and the same.

Recent Book reviews

Column: Read Only Memory

She and I: A Fugue

by Michael Antman

[11.Sep.09] :. Slapping the word 'Fiction' on the cover of a book is not a "get out of jail free" card or, more accurately, a license to kill – just because memoirs have to be true, it doesn’t follow that novels should be allowed to be false.

Recent columns

Books Review

A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman by Wadad Makdisi Cortas

by Rachel Balik

[25.Aug.09] :. Wadad Makdisi Cortas understated but deeply nostalgic memoir of her childhood in Lebanon gives a revealing, appealing, and necessary glimpse into the Arab world of the past.

Recent Book reviews

Books Review

We Did Porn by Zak Smith

by Justin Dimos

[22.Jul.09] :. Unfortunately, as readers will find out, there are no excuses in porn, short of a plane crash on your way to another movie.

Recent Book reviews

Books Review

A Boy’s Own Story by Edmund White

by Kevin Shaw

[22.Jun.09] :. The narrator's voice -- by turns lyrical and brutal, expansive and introspective -- is White's greatest triumph, elevating what could have been a cliché into a fascinating study of sexual reckoning.

Recent Book reviews

My Booky Wook by Russell Brand

by Evan Sawdey

[22.May.09] :. Brand is witty, intelligent, and -- through all his debauchery and self-inflicted torment -- a remarkably likable chap, charismatic even through his writing.

Much to Our Relief: A Memoir Published Without Fear of Embarrassment

by Rachel Balik

[17.Apr.09] :. For a while it seemed that to write a successful memoir, you must have prevailed against some terrible adversity: rape, drugs, racism, war, or private school. David Sedaris tentatively introduced us...

My Kitchen Wars by Betty Fussell

by Carolyn W. Fanelli

[14.Apr.09] :. This book is as much about the choices, burdens, sexual mores, and societal expectations that faced women during the last century as it is about food.

Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro’s Cuba

by Olly Zanetti

[12.Jan.09] :. Moore’s first awareness of his body was an awareness of its difference, of the racialised signs it carried.

The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro

by Kevin Shaw

[9.Dec.08] :. The stories of our day we tell around the kitchen table, the amplified legends of previous generations, and the darker chapters we edit are all equally true.

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

by Lara Killian

[13.Nov.08] :. While I can't quite agree with McMurtry that even librarians don't want books to be in libraries, it certainly seems true that computers are taking up some of the space that used to belong to the books.

Things the Grandchildren Should Know by Mark Oliver Everett

by Diane Leach

[22.Oct.08] :. "To all the crazy girls I loved before: thank you, but I'm just too tired now."

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

by Erik Hinton

[25.Jul.08] :. Story after story is what you want and expect, jovially straddling the line between the devils of the formulaic and the angels of dependable consistency.

Celebrity Detox by Rosie ODonnell

by Leigh H. Edwards

[8.Feb.08] :. O'Donnell assesses the process whereby individual artists become celebrities, and what it's like when they and their audiences start to lose their sense of perspective in the midst of such intense, superficial media scrutiny.

(Not That You Asked) by Steve Almond

by Michael Keefe

[4.Sep.07] :. Steve Almond is a typical American guy (well, perhaps aside from caring about books and the fate of the human race, anyway).

Love Is a Mix-Tape

by Kembrew McLeod

[22.Jul.07] :. “I met Renée in Charlottesville, Va., when we were both 23,” Rob Sheffield writes. “When the bartender at the Eastern Standard put on a tape, Big Star’s “Radio...

China Ghosts: My Daughters Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood by Jeff Gammage

by Huntly Collins [The Philadelphia Inquirer (MCT)]

[27.Jun.07] :. Gammage's beautifully written memoir, which weaves together emotionally wrenching narrative with insightful social commentary, will resonate with any American who has taken the same journey.

The Mistresss Daughter by A.M. Homes

by Christopher Kelly [McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)]

[23.May.07] :. Adoptee finds she suddenly needs truth when past surfaces in The Mistress's Daughter by A.M. Homes.

Mississippi Sissy by Kevin Sessums

by Chauncey Mabe [South Florida Sun-Sentinel (MCT)]

[9.May.07] :. Too good to be true: Literary excellence pushes memoir of growing up gay into fictional realms.