Memoir Book Reviews

In Hardbarned!: One Man’s Quest for Meaningful Work in the American South, an amusing and insightful memoir by Christopher J. Driver, readers are invited to commiserate with a hardworking American in a tough world, trying to pursue the happiness of writing over potential riches doing anything else.

Before this book was born, Driver spent years staring down some of the hardest questions of the last generation, namely: What am I supposed to do with this degree? What do I want to do with my life? Am I ever going to find a job that makes me happy? While these […]

Homelessness is often the result of a long series of mishaps and misfortunes; M. D. Carter, author of The Little Green Wagon:  A Book of Journeys, chose homelessness as a way of encountering the verities of life.

Struggling with addiction in his early twenties, alienated and alone, Carter thought of suicide as his only solution. In an intoxicated state he attempted to end his life by carbon monoxide poisoning; when that proved slow and unpleasant, he slashed his wrists and drove his car into a guardrail. He woke up, he recalls, wracked with pain, frustration and regret.

After problems […]

Designer, entrepreneur, survivor – all these characterize fashion maven Marlene P. Naicker, author of the emotive memoir, Muldooneys and Me.

Naicker’s fascinating autobiography begins with her defeat, in high school, in a significant track meet, effectively ending her hopes of an athletic career, but she adapted a family trait to “push the limits.”

Never intending to become a designer, her now-famous brand, Muldooneys, became “airborne” when she saw, at a London fashion show, that there was a need for a brand of accessible luxury leather accessories. She quickly learned that the complex, competitive fashion business begins with the essential […]