Subtitled: A Mother's Wisdom to Her Daughter
This is a slight but lovely graphic novel memoir by a mother and daughter and the step-to-step, day-to-day instructions for the daughter in the event of the mother's death. Sigh.
Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nonfiction. Show all posts
Can't Help Myself by Meredith Goldstein (2018)
I was listening to Goldstein's podcast called Love Letters, and decided to check out her book. Despite being a single woman unlucky in love, Goldstein began writing an advice column at the Boston Globe, which took off. Two things I love: romance and giving advice.
A nice blend of advice letters and her answers, combined with a memoir about her unluckiness in love and her mother's death from cancer. A bit slight but well-done.
I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (2018)
Subtitled: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer.
McNamara, who passed away a few years ago at age 46 and was married to Patton Oswalt, was obsessed with her DIY search to find the identity of the East Area Rapist in California. Very absorbing until the very end, where her assistants tried to piece together the remainder of her search after her death. She was a terrific writer, and it's a chilling story. Perfect for the myriad fans of true crime podcasts and amateur sleuthing.
The Stars In Our Eyes by Julie Klam (2017)
Subtitled: The Famous, the Infamous and Why We Care Too Much About Them.
Pretty fun look at our obsession with celebrities. I think I've read an embarrassing number of books about celebrity culture, but Klam's stories about her own personal celebrity worship are relatable and enjoyable. Although this book gets a bit name-droppy, with celebrity friends describing their own brushes with fame. Dishy, fun, and light vacation reading.
See also: But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn (2006)
The Woman Who Wasn't There by Robin Fisher Gaby, Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. (2012)
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.
You'll Grow Out of It by Jessi Klein (2016)
Memoir in short essay form by comedy writer and comedian Jessi Klein. Very funny essays on a range of topics from getting older, dating, Anthropologie, The Bachelor, infertility and becoming a stand-up comedian.
This list makes it sound a bit vapid, but it's quite funny and truthy and clear-eyed. Delightful, really!
From the (Dating) Types essay:
"Noses are of key importance. I need a large nose. Something with a bump. I cannot abide a small nose on anyone, really--men or women. I need the kind of nose that suggests some sort of Jewish/Italian/Greek/African influence. The kind of nose that says, 'At some point in the history of my people, we were forced to flee.'" (p. 94)
LOVE it.
The Real Thing by Ellen McCarthy (2015)
Subtitled: Lessons on Love and Life from a Wedding Reporter's Notebook.
McCarthy had the wedding beat at the Washington Post, and shares what she's learned from heaps and heaps of couples over the years. Divided into Dating, Commitment and Breakups, and including stories from her own life, this is a charming collection that includes gentle dating and love advice with tons of real-world examples (and a few schadenfreudeish examples too--which are the best!) This is a very sweet, sensible, and a little inspirational addition to the love and marriage section.
Shrill by Lindy West (2016)
Subtitled Notes from a Loud Woman, this collection of essays is about West's public life as a journalist, her coming into her own, her fight to get people to realize that rape jokes can be hurtful, and her coming to terms with her struggles with her weight and her realization that she is not her size--and her fight with internet trolls who disagree with her on all of these points.
Some bits I loved:
"Please don't forget: I am my body. When my body gets smaller, it is still me. When my body gets bigger, it is still me. There is not a thin woman inside me, awaiting excavation. I am one piece. I am also not a uterus riding around in a meat incubator. There is not substantive difference between the repulsive campaign to separate women's bodies from their reproductive systems--perpetuating that lie that abortion and birth control are not healthcare--and the repulsive campaign to convince women that they and their body size are separate, alienated entities. Both say, 'Your body is not yours.' Both demand, 'Beg for your humanity.' Both insist, 'Your autonomy is conditional.' This is why fat is a feminist issue." (p. 15)And:
"Whale is the weakest insult ever, by the way. Oh, I have a giant brain and rule the sea with my majesty? What have you accomplished lately, Steve?" (p. 254)
STEVE.
Evicted by Matthew Desmond (2016)
Subtitled "Poverty and Profit in the American City", this nonfiction book explores the stories of those struggling with their housing in the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
As Desmond says in his prologue:
"Fewer and fewer families can afford a roof over their head. This is among the most urgent and pressing issues facing America today, and acknowledging the breadth and depth of the problem changes the way we look at poverty. For decades, we've focused mainly on jobs, public assistance, parenting and mass incarceration. No one can deny the importance of these issues, but something fundamental is missing. We have failed to full appreciate how deeply housing is implicated in the creation of poverty. Not everyone living in a distressed neighborhood is associated with gang members, parole officers, employers, social workers, or pastors. But nearly all of them have a landlord."
Although researched beautifully (and you should read the end notes as you go along--they're amazingly informative), this book is incredibly readable and accessible. The people that Desmond focuses on are real, richly depicted characters and their situations are gripping and heart-rending. This book is transformative--it gave me insight into an issue that is too easy to overlook in everyday life. I will never view housing, poverty, my work and daily life in the city in the same way again.
Anyone who is interested in issues of social justice and poverty would do well to read this book.
And now all of the quotes that I loved:
"If incarceration had come to define the lives of men from impoverished neighborhoods, eviction was shaping the lives of women. Poor black men were locked up. Poor black women were locked out." (p. 98)
"Plus, Patrice would have to set foot in that grand old courthouse. The nicest building in Patrice's life was Lena's Food Market off Fond Du Lac Avenue. ....Her white friends called it the ghetto grocery store, but it was one of the better markets on the North Side. And at Lena's, Patrice never felt her existence questioned. She tried not to go to parts of the city where she did." (p. 99)
"Psychologists might agree with him, citing research showing that under conditions of scarcity people prioritize the now and lose sight of the future, often at great cost." (p. 115)
"Efforts to establish local cohesion and community investment are thwarted in neighborhoods with high turnover rates. in this way, eviction can unravel the fabric of a community, helping to ensure that neighbors remain strangers and that their collective capacity to combat crime and promote civic engagement remains untapped. (p 298)
"Establishing publicly funded legal services for low-income families in housing court would be a cost-effective measure that would prevent homelessness, decrease evictions, and give poor families a fair shake."(p 303)
"If it weren't so easy to evict someone, tenants like Doreen and Patrice could report dangerous or illegal conditions without fearing retaliation. If tenants had lawyers, they wouldn't need to go to court." (p. 304)
"Every family below a certain income level would be eligible for a housing voucher. They could use that voucher to live anywhere they wanted, just as families can use food stamps to buy groceries virtually anywhere, as long as their housing was neither too expensive, big, and luxurious, not too shabby and run-down." (more on this on 308)
"I learned that behavior that looks lazy or withdrawn to someone perched far above the poverty line can actually be a pacing technique. People like Crystal or Larraine cannot afford to give all their energy to today's emergency only to have none left over for tomorrow's." (p. 328)
(on ethnography in "about this project")
"But first-person narration is not the only technique available to us. In fact, it may be the least well-suited vehicle for capturing the essence of a social world because the "I" filters all. With first-person narration, the subjects and the author are each always held in view, resulting in every observation being trailed by a reaction to the observer. No matter how much care the author takes, the first-person ethnography becomes just as much about the fieldworker as about anything she or he saw." (p. 334)More:
"Humans act brutally under brutal conditions…(Maslow) Ideas about aggression in low-income communities that do not account for the hard squeeze of poverty, the sheer emotional and cognitive burden that accompanies severe deprivation, do not come close to capturing the lived experience of people like Arleen and Crystal." (p 376)
"Resource-poor schools in low-income neighborhoods often leave children with subpar language and critical-thinking skills. Those deficits will remain even if those children relocate to safe and prosperous neighborhoods later in life." (p. 377)
"That fancy television in the ratty apartment? Those new shoes worn by the kid eating free school lunch? Their owners likely didn't pay full dollar for them. You can take a nice television off a hype for fifty bucks and find marked-down Nikes at the corner store. The price tags in inner-city clothing stores are for white suburban kids who don't know how to haggle. Next to that big-screen television too it is harder to see what is missing." (p. 378)
"Behavioral economists and psychologist have shown that 'poverty itself taxes the mind,' making people less intelligent and more impulsive." (p. 378)
"The poverty debate could do more to recognize the powerful effects of rejection on a person's self-confidence and stamina. Applying for an apartment or job and being turned down ten, twenty, forty times--it can wear you out." Also "exhausted settling" (p. 379)
"Another approach involves surveying a person's resources before trying to access them. Because in poor neighborhoods the most accepted way to say no is to say, "I can't", people sometimes try to take that option off the table. So, for example, instead of asking, "Can I get a ride?" you ask, "You got gas in your car?" Instead of asking, "Could you make me a plate?" you ask, "You eat?"... Knowing how to ask for help--and, in turn, when to extend or withhold aid--is an essential skill for managing poverty." (p. 390)See also:
Tally's Corner by Elliot Liebow (1967), All Our Kin by Carol Stack (1974), Sidewalk by Mitchell Duneier (1999), How the Other Half Lives by Jacob Riis (1997), Fringe Banking by John Caskey (2013), Broke, USA by Gary Rivlin (2010), Scarcity by Mullainathan and Shafir (2013), Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2004), Doing the Best I can by Kathryn Edin and Timothy Nelson (2013), Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrows by Jacqueline Jones (2010), Growing Up Jim Crow by Jennifer Ritterhouse (2006), Every Time I feel the Spirit by Timothy Nelson (2004), When Affirmative Action Was White by Ira Katznelson (2005), When a Heart Turns Rock Solid by Timothy Black (2009), Stuck in Place by Patrick Sharkey (2013), and so so so so so many more.
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:Fabulous, hilarious, true, poignant, wonderful.
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.
Asking for It by Kate Harding (2015)
Harding explores legal cases, pop culture, sports and every other aspect of our lives to show how incredibly yes, pervasive it is. And yet, she has such a hilarious, dry wit that it keeps you from throwing the book--and yourself--off of a cliff.
Available by Matteson Perry (2016)
Perry is a Moth storyteller, and his book is pretty funny. I like that it doesn't pretend to be anything more than it is. It doesn't pretend to be the last word in insight into relationships, but it does give pretty interesting insight into dating.
A few quotes I loved:
"Even buying condoms for the first time terrified me. I worried that Porcelain baby Matteson would go into the store and say, "One box of sexual condoms, please," and the clerk would laugh. "Oh no, I can't sell you those. Not only are you too young to have sex, but I can tell you're also not cool enough." (p. 24)
Perry on his first time:
"In real life, we couldn't even get started. I'd thought it would be kind of like two magnets, that once our equipment got close enough they'd automatically pull together. Nope. I was thrusting blindly, as if I were playing an easy-looking carnival game that is actually impossible. And neither of us knew we could use our hands down there. I guess we thought sex had the same rules as soccer." (p. 27)And something I identify with:
"Approximately 80% of my advice is unsolicited." (p. 191)
Tradition! by Barbara Isenberg (2014)
Subtitled: The Highly Improbably, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical.
Highly readable and light story of the making of Fiddler on the Roof, from conception to film to revivals all around the world.
Filled with lots of little gems about the theater world, from personalities like Jerome Robbins and Zero Mostel (always fascinating) to the fact that Chaim Topol was only in his 30s when he filmed the movie, Isenberg even mentions Lin-Manuel Miranda's using Fiddler as inspiration not only for In the Heights, but for his wedding dance.
Dishy and interesting, but still poignant and beautifully conveys the universality of the show.
Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self by Alex Tizon (2014)
Alex Tizon is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, formerly for the Los Angeles Times and Seattle Times. He and his family immigrated from the Phillipines when he was a young boy, when he quickly realized that American culture stereotyped Asian men in extremely negative ways.
At age fourteen, he started keeping files of whenever he ran across something related to Asians—mostly race and manhood and power and sex, he would make a note and file it away. It ended up being two file cabinets full of "evidence" that he had no idea what to do with until many years later, this book.
In this book, he explores the many depictions of Asians in popular culture, and how they affected his own identity. In addition to his own experiences, he travels across the world to rediscover Asian explorers, warriors and great leaders, Asian men throughout history who have been forgotten or ignored by American history books.
This is a candid, engaging and incredibly illuminating memoir that covers a subject that isn't covered much in popular culture: sex and the Asian male.
In this book, he explores the many depictions of Asians in popular culture, and how they affected his own identity. In addition to his own experiences, he travels across the world to rediscover Asian explorers, warriors and great leaders, Asian men throughout history who have been forgotten or ignored by American history books.
This is a candid, engaging and incredibly illuminating memoir that covers a subject that isn't covered much in popular culture: sex and the Asian male.
Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari and Eric Klinenberg (2015)
Charming nonfiction book where Aziz, with the help of nonfiction writer Eric Klinenberg (Going Solo, Heat Wave), explores modern romance, online dating, patterns of love and so on.
I love Aziz's distinctive, hilarious voice which comes through so vividly in the narrative. I totally also admire the effort he made to do something broader and more universal than the traditional comedian memoir.
Stand Up Straight and Sing! by Jessye Norman (2014)
Jessye Norman became famous in the world of opera, but now considers herself to be a singing artist. She has won Grammys, the National Medal of the Arts, and a Kennedy Center Honor.
She grew up in Augusta, George in the 1940s, a time when the deep South was still segregated. Her parents were active in civil rights issues and race was always at the forefront in her childhood. Her parents spoke of illustrious African American leaders as if they knew them personally, and they felt as close as family.
"I learned about race discrimination and America's system of apartheid long before my first day of school... Jim Crow was hard to miss in Augusta in the 1950s and 60s. It was written in bold block letters above the water fountains and the phone booths and the public restrooms. It was on signs above the waiting areas at the train station and the restaurants and convenience stories, too; WHITES ONLY. COLORED ONLY. The schools were segregated, as were the churches, and the neighborhoods of Augusta were defined clearly along racial lines. There was absolutely no way the message could be ignored, especially for a curious little girl who had learned to read rather early."Norman's writing is stately and majestic—even when describing the many incidents of racism that have affected her life. From Augusta, Georgia to the less-than-inclusive world of grand opera, this is a fascinating book.
Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debby Irving (2014)
Debby Irving grew up in a suburb of Boston, as WASPy as you can get and was totally clueless about race. As she began work on racial equity, she quickly found out she had much to learn. In her own words:
"Not so long ago, if someone had called me a racist, I would have kicked and screamed in protest. "But I'm a good person!" I would have insisted. "I don't see color! I don't have a racist bone in my body!" … I thought being a racist meant not liking people of color or being a name-calling bigot."Debby Irving is now a racial justice educator. Her hope is that by sharing her own sometimes cringe-worthy struggles, she can offer a fresh perspective on bias, stereotypes, and tolerance. It's a fascinating book and well worth reading for anyone who is interested in exploring issues of race, racism and white privilege.
"It turns out, stumbling block number 1 was that I didn't think I had a race, so I never thought to look within myself for answers. The way I understood it, race was for other people, brown and black-skinned people."
"Waking up white has been an unexpected journey that's required me to dig back into childhood memories to recall when, how and why I developed such distorted ideas about race, racism and the dominant culture in which I soaked."
The Prince of Los Cocuyos by Richard Blanco (2014)
Richard Blanco is best known as a poet. He was the fifth inaugural poet in the US, and the youngest, first Latino, immigrant and gay person to be chosen as an inaugural poet. His memoir is about growing up in a vibrant, Cuban-American extended family and community in Miami.
Much of his youth was spent divided between two almost imaginary worlds: The Cuba that his family left behind and idealize and the equally idealized America he saw on television shows like the Brady Bunch. He struggled between the two, not really belonging fully to either, despite his best efforts to teach his family American ways.
Here's a telling bit from a family road trip to Disneyland:
“Mama stepped inside slowly and cautiously scanned the crowd like a dumbfounded senorita Dorothy in the land of los americanos. No one looked Cuban, much less felt Cuban; none of the men smelled like cigars, none of the women had their hair up in rollers, and no one was kissing anyone on the cheek or yelling to each other across the room. There wasn’t a single word of Spanish in the air and all the signs were in English only. Mama and Papa were at our mercy.”Blanco writes of his childhood with humor and affection, and yet quite clear-eyed realism, particularly as he learns about himself and his sexuality.
Fire Shut in My Bones by Charles Blow (2014)
“I looked over at the rusting pistol on the passenger seat. It was a .22 with a long black barrel and a wooden grip. It was the gun my mother had insisted I take with me to college “just in case.” I had grabbed it from beneath my seat when I jumped into the car. I cast glances at it as I drove. I had to convince myself that I was indeed about to use it.”This memoir, by a columnist for the New York Times, is about growing up poor, African-American and sexually conflicted in a small, segregated town in Louisiana.
Blow shares his rich family history, the vibrant characters and vignettes from his childhood, which felt so out of time I had to keep reminding myself we were born the same year. This mesmerizing, gripping memoir follows him into college and interning for the New York Times, which brings us to the beginning of the book.
So does he use the gun? Read the book and find out.
So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson (2015)
An interesting look at the relatively recent phenomenon of public shaming via the internet. Ronson explores several recent stories in the news, including his own experiences, that of discredited journalist Jonah Lehrer, and people such as Justine Sacco and Lindsey Strong.
Although the topic really intrigued me--particularly the element of anonymity that seems to fuel this shaming--I was uneasy about how he dismissed the idea of a difference between shaming of women and men. The fact is that with public shaming of women there is often a sexually aggressive and violent aspect that is horrifying. His perspective felt a bit male privilegey to me. (Note to self: Find a good feminine perspective on this issue.)
It's a very quick read and interesting enough as a cultural study of modern shaming (despite a rather irrelevant digression into pornography). Ronson is most successful when he compares internet shamings to old-school, colonial ignominy (think stocks and pillories). An awfully scary analogy, if you ask me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)