I loved this book. I’ll say that right up front, in case you only see the tiny excerpt of this post. I adored it, I enjoyed every minute I spent reading it, and though I just finished it, I already want to read it again. I hadn’t ever read anything by Aminatta Forna before
-
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | WHEN BREATH BECOMES AIR – PAUL KALANITHI
This is probably one of the best-known memoirs to come out in the past decade. It’s written by a neural surgeon who was diagnosed with terminal cancer just as he was preparing to finish his training. So going into it, you know it’s going to be an intense read, and that you should probably
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | MY NAME IS WHY – LEMN SISSAY
I first heard of Lemn Sissay in a YouTube video. He is a poet, and I was very impressed with his eloquence and thoughtfulness. He briefly mentioned a bit about his childhood – the restrictions put on his reading by his parents, his relocation into state-run institutional homes at the age of twelve, and
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | NATIVES – AKALA
About once every five years I pick up a non-fiction book that leaves me speechless in wonder. I’ve been lucky this year, because I’ve had a few of these – some memoir, some topical. This book, however, is arguably the most deeply impactful book I have read or expect to read for a decade
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS – GERALD DURRELL
This is an interesting memoir in that it is part childhood recollection and family saga, part travel memoir, and part the origins of a budding naturalist. I didn’t expect to be overly interested in Durrell’s exploration of the natural world he discovered when his family packed up and moved to Corfu. But his own
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | LOVE, NINA: DESPATCHES FROM FAMILY LIFE – NINA STIBBE
After having this on my shelf since shortly after its release, I finally picked it up because I found out it had been adapted to a mini-series starring Helena Bonham Carter. As most of us do, I prefer to read the book before watching the adaptation, so I figured I might as well get
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | M TRAIN – PATTI SMITH
This book took me by surprise. I read Just Kids earlier this year after hearing a lot of buzz about it, but not really knowing much about Patti Smith herself. Perhaps because I didn’t come to her book as a fan of her as an artist, I didn’t have the same craving for celebrity
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | WHY NOT ME? – MINDY KALING
I’ve got a confession to make. Before reading this book, I’d never watched Mindy’s show The Mindy Project. I’d also meant to but never got around to reading her first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? despite having heard fantastic things. So when I had the chance to review her new book, I
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | WICKED AND WEIRD – RICH TERFRY
Rich Terfry is a Canadian public figure – I use that term because I can’t think of a better one for a man who has been an (almost pro) baseball player, a hip hop artist and a CBC radio presenter – and is now an author. He is better known by many as “Buck 65,”
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | HYPERBOLE AND A HALF – ALLIE BROSH
I’ve been a fan of Allie Brosh’s blog, also called Hyperbole and a Half, for quite some time now. So though I was given this book a while ago (thanks, Martha!), I’ve been saving it and saving it. Not only are Allie Brosh’s drawings fantastic, but the words she puts with them have been
-
BOOK REVIEW | ON THE MOVE – OLIVER SACKS
An impassioned, tender, and joyous memoir by the author of Musicophilia and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. When Oliver Sacks was twelve years old, a perceptive schoolmaster wrote in his report: “Sacks will go far, if he does not go too far.” It is now abundantly clear that Sacks has
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | SO ANYWAY… – JOHN CLEESE
Candid and brilliantly funny, this is the story of how a tall, shy youth from Weston-super-Mare went on to become a self-confessed legend. En route, John Cleese describes his nerve-racking first public appearance, at St Peter’s Preparatory School at the age of eight and five-sixths; his endlessly peripatetic home life with parents who seemed incapable
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | NOT THAT KIND OF GIRL – LENA DUNHAM
“There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told,” writes Lena Dunham, and it certainly takes guts to share the stories that make up her first book, Not That Kind of Girl. These are stories about getting your butt touched by your boss,
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | MY SALINGER YEAR – JOANNA RAKOFF
Poignant, keenly observed, and irresistibly funny: a memoir about literary New York in the late nineties, a pre-digital world on the cusp of vanishing, where a young woman finds herself entangled with one of the last great figures of the century. At twenty-three, after leaving graduate school to pursue her dreams of becoming a poet,
-
THE SUNDAY REVIEW | SELF-INFLICTED WOUNDS – AISHA TYLER
Comedian, actress, co-host of CBS’s daytime hit The Talk, and creator of the top-ranked podcast Girl on Guy, Aisha Tyler offers a collection of hysterical and unflinchingly personal essays about the spectacular mistakes she has made in her life and what those epic fails have taught her. A fun, revealing and savory read, Self-Inflicted Wounds
-
ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK: MY YEAR IN A WOMEN’S PRISON – Piper Kerman
“With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College
-
BOOK REVIEW | BOSSYPANTS – TINA FEY
Tina Fey is one funny lady. But more than that, she’s an incredibly smart one. It’s not easy to be as humorous, self-deprecating, inspirational and charismatic as this lady. (Trust me; I’ve tried.) So I was intrigued at the prospect of learning more about the lady behind the laughs. Though I’ve never been
-
BOOK REVIEW | IF YOU ASK ME (AND OF COURSE YOU WON’T) – BETTY WHITE
I have so much respect and admiration for Betty White. Let me just say that up front. Not only has she molded an ever-growing and -changing career during a time in life when many performers are withdrawing from the public eye and enjoying the fruits of their years and years of hard work, but she
