Although I am a somewhat recent convert into the world of strong female celebrity memoirs, I have recently read had 3 of them read to me by the authors through the fascinating experience that are audiobooks, and I must admit I have been converted. It’s always a breath of fresh air to have an intelligent woman talk to/at you for 4-6 hours about funny little anecdotes that may or may not carry some underlying lesson about the world. In the spirit of full disclosure, I have […]
Both Sides…or at least his side
Not Dead Yet is a memoir of my favorite musical artist. I will be honest that I am not much of a memoir/biography guy and have avoided reading them unless cornered into doing so. However, Not Dead Yet is actually a pretty entertaining read. Phil Collin’s delivery of his memories can be a little jarring at first. I would liken it to talking with an older relative who is both verbose and perhaps boiling over with memories to share. Often during the course of the memoir […]
90% great, 10% WHAT?!
Bedside Manners is a series of essays/vignettes about the encounters between doctors and patients, mostly. All but a couple are clearly intended to be true and from the perspective of Dr. Watts, who is a gastroenterologist. (The couple that seem to be about some other doctor are weird.) His writing is prosey and nice, and stories fly by, and the subject matter is surprisingly interesting. (Not that I’m surprised that the 6,049,284th medical memoir I’ve read was interesting. But he’s a gastroenterologist.) Are you hearing […]
Misleading title, decent book.
From the title you’re probably thinking this is some kind of gossipy expose on the lives of teachers, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say that was kinda what I wanted it to be. (I know, I know. Please don’t judge me.) It was totally not that. It’s basically a book of what the author calls interlocking essays, all of which are really either meditations or vignettes on teaching. If that’s what you’re looking for, it’s a worthy read. Fortunately, that’s also a […]
If Donald Trump was an alcoholic frat boy who wrote a book.
I am honestly embarrassed to have read this book. I guess I must just have some kind of Catholic self-flagellation problem, because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt within 10 pages that I would hate every minute of this book, yet I still finished it. Why? I will never, ever, ever get those hours of my life back. How can I even summarize this stupid book? I’m extremely late to the party with hating this book, it came out years ago and seems […]
The wrong time and medium for this book.
The Naked Truth is the memoir of Marvelyn Brown, a young HIV activist from Nashville, TN. She contracted HIV from a boyfriend at 19, was diagnosed extremely quickly, and shot to the top of HIV activism circles. This book started out okay. Marvelyn is funny and charismatic, and very matter of fact about the bad decisions and ways of thinking that led to her contracting HIV. But honestly, this book just did not need to be a book. It’s a pretty slim paperback as it […]