Going Into Town by Roz Chast (2017)

Subtitled: A Love Letter to New York and it couldn't be more so.

I adore Roz Chast and I love her New York. She created this guide for her daughter and expanded it into a quirky, funny, affectionate graphic memoir. I absolutely agree with her and her statement of how she "really likes density of visual information" and it's one of the reasons I love NYC.

Also, this:

“I feel about Manhattan the way I feel about a book, a TV series, a movie, a play, an artist, a song, a food, a whatever that I love. I want to tell you about it so that maybe you will love it, too. I'm not worried about it being 'ruined' by too many people 'discovering' it. Manhattan's been ruined since 1626 , when Peter Minuit bought it from Native Americans for $24.00.”

See also Chast's Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? 

For more NYC love, see Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff and Summer at Tiffany by Marjorie Hart. 

The Woman Who Wasn't There by Robin Fisher Gaby, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. (2012)

Subtitled: The True Story of an Incredible Deception

There a million stories that came out of the World Trade Center attacks--and not all are true. Tania Head's story of surviving the 9/11 attacks was gripping and horrifying and led to her becoming a celebrity in the survivors' rights movement. Only problem with her story? It wasn't true.

Gaby and Guglielmo tease out this compelling tale with fascinating inside detail. Intriguing, satisfying, and a very fast read. 

Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life by Amy Krouse Rosenthal (2005)

Jeepers, I loved this book.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal should get paid super extra for this book, because even the rights page has hilarious bits: "Not responsible for the weather, the moon, or scalding nature of soup." 

And the Reader's Agreement on the first page, which includes the line: "At the end of each page, you agree to thrust your arms upward and emit a loud, staccato Hey! Just like circus performers do at the end of each stunt." 

Then, we get to the book. Here's a tip: Skip the Orientation Almanac, which gives historical context for Rosenthal's entries. You can read it when you're done and she's endeared herself to you. Same with Evolution of This Moment. Skip right to the good stuff: The Alphabetized Existence, which includes so many true and hilarious entries that there's no way I could possibly put all my favorites here. 

The entries are hilarious as well as charts like the Good to Bad Mood flow chart; Anxious, Things That Make Me; and Childhood Memories: Chronology of Events, which includes What My Childhood Tasted Like.  

A few choice bits: 

Brother
My brother, who grew up with three sisters, was I won't say how many years old when he finally realized that he did not have to wrap the towel around his chest when he came out of the shower. 

Slow/Fast 
I am a slow reader and a fast eater; I wish it were the other way around. Even the back cover is fabulous, which includes 

Book, standing in the bookstore holding a: 
To get a true sense of the book, I have to spend a minute inside. I'll glance at the first couple pages, then flip to the middle, see if the language matches me somehow. It's like dating, only with sentences.

Fabulous, hilarious, true, poignant, wonderful.

Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident by Donnie Eichar (2013)

I was compelled to read this book after watching the fabulously undiscovered horror film Devil's Pass, (which fictionalizes the Dyatlov Pass Incident slightly). 

Here's the story: In 1959, nine experienced hikers went on a challenging mountain hike and were found dead outside their tents. Something made them run outside barely clothed, despite the fact that they had adequate heat and shelter in their tents. 

Many conspiracy theories resulted, from avalanche to aliens to government agents to weapons testing to yeti. Although I found Eichar's travels to Russia to the site far less than compelling, I like his conclusion that it was a combination of a Karman vortex (high wind resulting in unnervingly loud noises) and the emotional effect that infrasound can have on people -- only recently discovered. A bit on the skimmable side, but still interesting.

Dead End Gene Pool: A Memoir by Wendy Burden

I picked this up in a used bookstore based on the intriguing cover and it paid off in every way possible.  This is a memoir about the descendants of a very, very wealthy family (Vanderbilt), and how things went terribly wrong.

Wendy Burden writes unsparingly and hilariously about her very wealthy and very dysfunctional family.  From visiting her grandparents' estate on an island to only occasionally seeing her flighty, hippie mother, this is a fascinating look at the 1% and how things can go terribly wrong no matter how much money you have.  

But above all, it is utterly hilarious.  I didn't write much about it when I read it, but DANG, it's good.  You should read it.  I mean, look at that awesome cover!

Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly Corrigan (2014)

Kelly Corrigan begins this memoir, her second, with a discussion of her mother's cancer diagnosis. This triggers the memory of a trip she took in her youth to Australia, and the job that she took there to stay in the country.

She became a nanny for a widower with two children, who had recently lost their mother to cancer. As she struggles with becoming a caregiver, she hears her mother's voice in her head. A very subtle, poignant and sweet memoir that focuses on her realization of the impact that her mother (the "glue" of the title) had on her as she grew to adulthood.

Side note: I read it as an e-book from the library and placed 'notes' on a couple of pages I rather liked. However, as the book expired and disappeared from my 'bookshelves' so did the notes, darn it.

This is a lovely book about Corrigan's relationship with her mother, and when she began to stop taking her mother for granted. Here are a couple of quotes I just loved:

"The fact is, lately it seems like the only person who can lift the anvils that sit heaviest on me is my mother. It didn't happen all at once. Maybe it was inevitable, something that develops as daily life delivers its sucker punches, streaks of clarity, and slow-dawning wisdoms." (p. 8)

"The only mothers who never embarrass, harass, dismiss, discount, deceive, distort, neglect, baffle, appall, inhibit, incite, insult, or age poorly are dead mothers, perfectly contained in photographs, pressed into two dimensions like a golden autumn leaf." (p. 56)

Too Close to the Falls - Catherine Gildiner (1999)

Memoir of a young girl growing up in the 1950s in a New York town close to Niagara Falls. Being precocious and hyper, she started working at her dad's drugstore at age four, delivering prescriptions with Roy, one of the most memorable characters in a memoir I've ever encountered. Roy is black, illiterate, completely hilarious, wise and sweet. Interesting exploration of her kooky family (like her mom who never cooked a meal in her life) and her education in a Catholic school.  Unique and endearing.

The Circus Fire: A True Story - Stewart O'Nan (2000)

Stewart O'Nan is almost an author I adore, but he defies clear categorization as he writes beautifully in a number of genres.  This is the first book I read by him, and it sparked a abiding interest in well-written disaster books.  In 1944, a massive fire broke out at a circus in Hartford. Simply written and incredibly evocative, this book is a fascinating portrait of wartime America as well as of humanity and how we respond to disastrous events.

The Lost City of Z by David Grann (2009)

Subtitled A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon.  In 1925, Percy Fawcett went into the Amazon to find a lost civilization and never came out. Grann explores the mystery and the many who followed Fawcett over the years. Powerfully depicts the utter wildness of the jungle and the mystery of lost civilizations.

One Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose (2005)

A collection of columns by the New Orleans Times-Picayune writer about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in his adopted hometown. Highly personal and emotional and mesmerizing, and full of affection for his city. A little hard to read, because it's so overwhelming, but wonderful.

Under a Flaming Sky by Daniel James Brown (2006)

Subtitled The Great Hinckley Firestorm of 1894, this is a wonderfully written, researched and documented and deeply personal book on the Hinckley fires. Unbelievably absorbing and amazingly vividly told, it's one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read. I even wrote a fan letter to the author.  He also wrote The Indifferent Stars Above, which explores the Donner Party tragedy in full, glorious, horrifying detail.

The White Cascade by Gary Krist (2007)

Subtitled: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalache.  Well-told and incredibly well-documented book, which follows the disaster of the title, where a passenger train in February 1910 was going over the Cascade Mountains and got stopped by huge snowfalls, and eventually resulted in the disastrous avalanche of the title.