I just learned Terry Pratchett died today. I’m trying to process that grief and it feels like I’ve lost an old friend. The world is a worse place without him there is no doubt. I wrote this review a couple of weeks ago but hadn’t posted it yet. Now is as good as time as any. Thank you, sir. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Not an autobiography, but still pretty close to it, A Slip of the Keyboard is a collection […]
Faces are scenes. People are films.
I like Patton Oswalt. I appreciate his appreciation of things. He is a nerd; he knows how to be a fan. His standup can be biting, but is not devoid of wonder, awe, of fully investing in something. He loves good standup, he loves funny people, he loves cinema. In Silver Silver Screen Fiend, Oswalt relives the mid-90s in a memoir that ties together his early creative career and his concurrent obsession with film. He divides segments of his early years as different Night Cafes, […]
When the Child Becomes the Parent
Several of my students had read The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls and hearing them talk about it made me curious. They were flabbergasted at the life the author led. Then, for my book club, the pick for March was none other than The Glass Castle. This is a memoir that takes the reader from Ms. Walls’s childhood up through her early adult years. It’s full of crazy adventures, selfish parents, and overcoming the odds. Sometimes what keeps me from liking nonfiction especially autobiographies and […]
In which I am about to make Fox News suuuuper angry.
This is probably the hardest book review I’m going to write all year, because it’s complicated by several factors. The first is that I recognize that I am not Kyle’s demographic that he’s writing to. I mean, a proud Texan who likes chewing tobacco, guns, and the military? Yeah, this white Yankee liberal feminist is not exactly gung-ho about guns. So that complicates my response. And then there’s the fact that Chris Kyle killed a lot of people over in Iraq–was he right to kill […]
Hauntingly lyrical account of madness
I don’t even know how to begin to write about this book and I’m still having trouble shaking this story from my mind. Dr. Perry Baird was by all accounts a brilliant doctor and was doing some ground breaking experiments trying to discover a biochemical root in manic depression. He had a thriving practice as a dermatologist, a wife and two young daughters and scores of friends. He also was manic depressive himself and had endured some stays in mental hospitals. Much of this book is […]
If you like dick jokes, this is the book for you
“Writing a book is a fantastical exercise in manic depression” Apparently Jason Mulgrew was/is a wildly popular blogger, internet figure and one of People Magazine’s 50 Hottest Bachelors (2005). I had no idea. Thanks to BookBub, I got the e-book free and it lived in my Kindle for a few months before I finally gave it a try during a recent bout of insomnia. This memoir of growing up in South Philly in the 80’s and 90’s is often profane (with chapter titles like “Guns. Fucking […]
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