Magical Memoir Moments
A Walker in the City: Inspiring and Daunting
November 20, 2011. Brooklyn, New York It’s nearly midnight. I’ve just closed the book A Walker in the City by Alfred Kazin. Outside Flatbush Ave. pulses with movement and light in the rain. The wet streets glisten and double the images of white headlights approaching, red taillights receding, and green traffic light swaying above. The…
The Sound of Rain on a Corrugated Iron Roof: Another Lanie Tankard Review
Our popular guest blogger Lanie Tankard has reviewed a pre-publication copy of One Day I Will Write About This Place: A Memoir by Binyavanga Wainaina Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press (July 19, 2011) Reviewed by Lanie Tankard Binyavanga Wainaina busts clichés about Africa in his memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place, due…
Julie and Julia Aren't Enough: They Both Needed Judith!
Did you see the summer’s best memoir movie, Julie & Julia? If not, hurry to a theater near you and catch it before it leaves. If you missed the trailer, you can find it here: I read and relished My Life in France a few months ago and then gave the book to one of…
The Year of Magical Thinking: A Memoir to Read and Reread
When Joan Didion’s husband John Gregory Dunne dropped dead on December 30, 2003, he was in the middle of a speaking a sentence in their living room. She was mixing a salad for their dinner. As I write these words, Stuart and I are about to sit down to eat the dinner the two of…
Ava's Man: A Review And A Question for You
The top 100 memoirs list we are constructing here is not a scientific one. At the rate we are going, 81 posts in 9 months, and only 18 reviews so far, it will take five years to get to 100 memoirs! I’ve read many more than I have reviewed and have an entire bookcase of…
Coming Home to Roost
In a previous post called Blogging and the Memoir Community I promised to review DeWitt Henry’s memoir called Safe Suicide because he was the first published author who found me through this blog. Here goes, DeWitt. Hope you come back to read this little review. Safe Suicide has an internal subtitle which describes its structure…