I absolutely fell in love with Jenny Lawson’s first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir. Detailing her unconventional childhood out in the West Texas boonies, Lawson seemed to be the obvious heir to David Sedaris. While her book tackled serious issues like her difficulty being “normal” and her miscarriage, it seemed like she was more interested in being funny than insightful. Hew newest book, Furiously Happy flips that ratio. It’s one part funny, three parts an uncomfortable discussion of mental issues. […]
The Sisterhood of the Travelling Feminists
Gloria Steinem’s first book in more than two decades is classified as a memoir, but I don’t think that’s accurate. Although this first chapter starts like a traditional autobiography, documenting her unconventional childhood as the daughter of a travelling antique salesman and a mentally ill mother, the rest of the book is about the people she’s met. Her book is about the mothers and stewardesses and cabdrivers she’s talked to, the colleges where she’s spoken and the other feminist workers she’s worked with. At 81, […]
Bon Appétit
More like 3.5, but since that isn’t an option, let’s go with three. This is a lovely little book; I just had a challenging time really getting into it. It has everything I love: food, France, humor, even liberal political leanings, Surprisingly though, I had to force myself to finish it, but I am definitely happy that I did. I believe this book served as the basis for the “Julia” part of the film “Julie and Julia,” where a blogger takes on the recipes of […]
Not As Expected
How do you review books that are basically someone else’s life narrative? Fat Girl Walking is Brittany Gibbon’s story, and her owning her story. I respect that, and feel no desire to take it to task. In fact, the writing is crisp and the humor sarcastic. There is little I can point to as flawed other than a few instances of casual ableism. I just didn’t like it. And since I rate by the Goodreads system, that means this book gets a single star. Perhaps […]
A Kafkaesque Nightmare
“Being in a minority, even in a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad.”– George Orwell, 1984 Ben Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” It’s a sentiment this country has been at odds with since its inception, from the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, […]
To All the Men I’ve Loved Before
When my local paper reviewed “Dear Mr. You” by Mary-Louise Parker, the reviewer compared Parker’s writing to Anne Lamott. Since Lamott is possibly my favorite writer I thought “Dear Mr. You” would be a good place to start my Cannonball Read. From what I understand, a friend of Parker’s submitted the book to various publishers without disclosing Parker as the author so I would assume it was published on its own merits. And it is an interesting book. Written as a series of letters to 34 men […]
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