FacebookXInstagramPinterestTumblrLinkedInRss

Memoir Book Reviews

Review: Travels With My Hat by Christine Osborne

Christine Osborne is a travel photographer who has dedicated her entire life to capturing on film what it is to live on Planet Earth. Tracing a line through the Middle East and Africa, into countries that might be thought of by most to be “scary” destinations for a slim, blonde woman, Christine jumped in feet first with her Australian roots to help her along,  in her trusty blue hat and a camera her constant companion.

This book is written so well because Christine has lived these details, these colors, these characters. There is no substitute for writing what you know, […]

2019-01-23T12:48:16+02:00May 5th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews, Lead Story|Tags: , , |
Read More

Review: Showdown at Shinagawa by Bill Zarchy

ShowdownAs sardonic as it is poignant, hilarious as much as touching, Showdown at Shinagawa: Tales of Filming from Bombay to Brazil by Bill Zarchy is a truly interesting collection of anecdotes and expositions by a man who has been there, eaten that, and even gotten the Corregidor T-shirt.

His long and illustrious career as a freelance director of photography, as well as a teacher, a writer, and occasional bowler, has taken him across both America and the world over the past 40 years. Zarchy, who can boast being a blogger before “blogger” was even a word, has kept his on-the-road

[…]
2014-06-13T11:50:43+02:00February 19th, 2014|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More

Review: Infinite Book 3: My Truest Fiction By D. C. L.

‘Infinite Book 3: My Truest Fiction’ is a memoir of author David Christopher Lawrence, a sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia, and his life surrounding his experiences with it, episodically. The book is part of the ‘Infinite Book’ series and is implied to have a later follow-up that details more aspects of the author’s experiences and recovery, completing his memoirs.

The author views his ‘illness’ as a part of him that cannot, and should not be silenced (“cured is the wrong word, integrated is the right one”), instead embracing the “truths” that are revealed to him by his voices and inner revelations, […]

2014-05-05T21:47:30+02:00August 5th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: |
Read More

Review: Breakfast with the Dirt Cult by Samuel Finlay

Breakfast with the Dirt Cult is a vivid and raw look into a young man’s term serving in the U.S. Army. It takes place over the span of his arrival into the army and his time spent serving in the war in Afghanistan. Reading from a non-military perspective, having never served before, I was very eager to dive into this book and see from what perspective of the war it would be written. The story is Samuel Finlay’s writing debut and it follows the life of Tom Walton, an American around the age of 20 who recently graduated from college. […]

2014-05-05T21:48:53+02:00July 31st, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More

Review: Travels With A Road Dog: Hitchhiking the Roads of the Americas By R.K.

Rajam, named after a distant Indian friend, decides, on a whim of teenage wanderlust to leave it all behind in her small Alabama town and take to the road to follow the hippy festival trail across the country and beyond. Giving away all her “stuff” she takes off to the famous Rainbow gathering and falls in love with the vagabond lifestyle as she hitches with truck drivers, do-gooders and other drivers of questionable motive with only a pan and a tarp to get by and becomes a “road dog”: a hitchhiker living free on the open highways with only her […]

2014-05-09T21:17:07+02:00December 17th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More

Review: From Particles and Disputations: Writings for Jeff by Philip D. Luing

Since the 80s when AIDS became rampant, its face has not changed.  Its name, though not as raging in the headlines these days, has not been forgotten.  What is different is each individual life it claims and the story of that life.

Philip Luing’s book, From Particles and Disputations, is the story of one of those lives lost – a celebration of Jeffrey Francis John Lalonde who succumbed to AIDS in 1994, twelve years after he met Philip.  During their relationship, Philip liked to write down his thoughts and record their memories in brief passages and verse. This book is […]

2014-05-09T21:44:01+02:00September 21st, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More

Review: Clips & Consequences by Beth Myrle Rice

Imagine being invited to lunch by your ex-husband and his wife to discuss what to do with the hard-to-manage teenager you all have in common. Imagine that, instead of actually going to lunch, they simply stay in the car, turn to you as you sit in the back seat, and accuse you of providing drugs to said teenager. “They were looking for a confession,” writes Beth Myrle Rice of that day in 1995 when the incident happened to her.

Ironically, Clips & Consequences is in part what is known, by definition, as a confessional memoir. In other words, the book […]

2014-05-19T21:46:53+02:00April 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More

Review: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I’ve Lost My Damn Mind by Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a confident young man. “The reason I enjoy making lists so much,” he writes, “is that it is almost impossible to screw up. I mean it’s your list.” So it is with memoir: personal experience is something owned.

Although this book is primarily made with blog posts, this is definitely a memoir. While I’m certain Derek would be first in line to acknowledge he’s not a writer of fine literature, his blog posts aren’t “random thought” or diary-type entries; this is a collection of essays, each containing a narrative arc, a thought process, if you will, that […]

2014-05-19T21:55:28+02:00March 15th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |
Read More
This site uses cookies. Read our Privacy Policy. ACCEPT
Go to Top