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Category Archives: Nonfiction – Memoir/Biography
A Review of Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
Sarah Vowell has been a favorite of mine for a few years, ever since I read The Wordy Shipmates. If I could stomach NPR, I probably would have known of her sooner. Sarah Vowell does for American history what I … Continue reading
Thoughts on Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal (by Jill)
I don’t even know how to begin talking about this book. Atul Gawande is a surgeon who has written several books before this one. Being Mortal is, essentially, about dying in a time in human history when more can … Continue reading
For Copy Editors Everywhere
I read a fantastic book of short stories this weekend – Thom Jones’ The Pugilist at Rest – and I really want to review it for you, but I don’t quite have the wherewithal for that now. I’ve been copy-editing … Continue reading
Well, I made it before PAT CONROY MONTH!!!! was over…. A Review of Pat Conroy’s The Water is Wide (by Jill)
I started a progress report on The Water is Wide a little over a week ago, and shortly thereafter I actually started making solid progress on it and didn’t want to stop to write about it. I’ve been having my … Continue reading
A Review of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face (by Bethany)
Once again I’ve violated my rule about not reading books about dying children. In Lucy Grealy’s extremely well-written memoir Autobiography of a Face, the part that actually involves a dying child isn’t even the bleakest part of Grealy’s story. This … Continue reading
A Review of Emmanuel Guibert’s How the World Was: A California Childhood (by Bethany)
Emmanuel Guibert’s How the World Was: A California Childhood is only the second graphic novel I have ever read. The first was Marjane Satrapi’s The Complete Persepolis. I loved it, and I remember that I was sort of shell-shocked when … Continue reading
A Review of Richard Rodriguez’s Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father (by Bethany)
Richard Rodriguez’s memoir Hunger of Memory has been a favorite of mine ever since I first read it as a freshman in college. The American-born son of Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez wrote in that book about juggling two cultures: the close-knit, … Continue reading
A Review of Susanna Kaysen’s Cambridge (by Bethany)
Through no conscious design of my own, I appear to have been reading a lot of books lately that walk the shifting line between memoir and autobiographical fiction. I am aware, of course, that to a writer of either of … Continue reading
Thoughts on Richard Wright’s Black Boy (by Bethany)
Over the last month or so I have sent myself back to school, thanks to the wonders of the internet and the Yale Open Courses program. If you’re the type (like me) who sometimes misses the academic atmosphere of college … Continue reading
A Review of Benjamin Lorr’s Hell-Bent: Obsession, Pain, and the Search for Something Like Transcendence in Competitive Yoga (by Bethany)
I was the kid who watched Annie and wished I was an orphan. Even now, reading a book about Scientology makes me itch to sign a billion-year contract, and a documentary about the FLDS will send me off to … Continue reading
Postcards From Purgatory 