It’s difficult to think critically about a book like This Star Won’t Go Out, because it was clearly put together with lots of love by the grieving friends and family of a charming, precocious, and kind sixteen-year-old girl who died from complications with thyroid cancer. So instead I’ll try to give you an idea what it’s like. The book revolves around Ester Earl, who was about as lovely as any fictional book heroine you could imagine. She was funny, thoughtful, self-depricating, creative, kind, friendly, uncomplaining, […]
The Harm in Asking
I read Sara Barron’s previous memoir, People are Unappealing, and don’t remember much about it but when I saw this is my “recommended reads” on Amazon I figured I would give her a try. In The Harm in Asking Sara Barron focuses on “everyday life,” pulling from her childhood up to present day with varied results. The first section of the book isn’t great, there are a lot of bowel movement references… Once Sara begins fixating on whether or not she could be come a […]
Notes from the Underwire
Quinn Cummings was nominated for an Oscar for her role in The Goodbye Girl and then floated around Hollywood in a few other roles before she and Hollywood took a permanent break from one another. “I cannot say that being a child actor was detrimental to me, but I could have done without being a former child actor. To be a child is a temporary condition. To be a former child actor is a permanent state.” She touches base on when she was acting and […]
Maya Angelou memoir on political awakening
This is the fourth of seven memoirs written by Maya Angelou, and it covers the period from 1957 and 1962, shortly before her departure from California with her young son Guy in tow. Maya ends up in New York City, where she enters the society of black musicians, actors, artists, writers, political activists, and discovers new depths within herself as she joins the Harlem Writers Guild along such luminaries as James Baldwin, writes for and performs on stage, becomes northern coordinator for Martin Luther King’s […]
Where’s my Wand?
Eric Poole shares his pre-adolecent adventures about his OCD mother, his “Mr. Mom” father and his rebellious older sister, Val. When his parent’s have a fight that ends with his dad walking out one night Eric finds an old blanket and transforms himself into Endora from Bewitched to conjure up some magic to bring him back. The next day, Eric’s father returns and sets the stage for an impressionable young boy to believe he has powers. Each essay is about a time when Eric used […]
I’ll Definitely Forget This Soon
This is my second Nora Ephron essay collection (again an audio version read by the author). Unfortunately I didn’t not enjoy it as much as her previous effort (I Feel Bad About My Neck), mostly because the essays tended to be shorter, a bit more random, and honestly not as well-written. I recall it starting out fairly strongly, and I was definitely into it for a bit. But in the end, I think my favorite part was how short it was. My biggest problem really […]
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