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Exit Interview: The Life and Death of my Ambitious Career

October 4, 2023

exit interview

I’ve been on a roll with amazing memoirs and am thrilled to be back with another one. In Exit Interview Kristi Coulter leaves a secure, but boring marketing job in Ann Arbor, packs up her husband and their dog, and heads to Seattle. It’s 2006 and she’s decided she’s ready for the Wild West of the corporate world: Amazon. She thinks she knows what lies ahead, but she has no ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, memoir, women

The Many Lives of Mama Love

July 24, 2023

mama love

It's a picture-perfect Saturday in Northern California with soccer parents lining the field and watching their kids play. As the game winds down most mothers go to retrieve their young, but Lara Love hangs back. And surreptitiously lifts cash out of a wallet in one of the handbags left behind in the stands. She moves onto the next before joining her friends and her children. ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, memoir, social issues, true crime

All the Beauty in the World

March 10, 2023

beauty

Patrick Bringley is in his 20s and working at his dream job at The New Yorker magazine when a tragedy strikes his family that leaves him unable to give the job what it requires. His grief is such that he quits, looking for a way to make money, but also to escape. All the Beauty in the World is his memoir about how his job as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art which was ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: art, memoir, New York City

I’m Glad My Mom Died

January 25, 2023

I'm glad

How to review a memoir with a title so jarring I felt bad for even looking at it? Especially as my mother has always been one of the biggest supporters of my writing and reads every review (Hi, Mom, I love you!). Here goes. Jennette McCurdy was a child actor on a popular Nickelodeon show called iCarly. Now in her mid-thirties she’s released her memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died. The ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, childhood, debut, Hollywood, memoir, pop culture

The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness

January 16, 2023

invisible

I don’t often discuss personal issues in this blog, but for those of you who have been around long enough, you know I have multiple sclerosis. Recently, I read a book that resonated so deeply with me I knew it could have the same impact on other readers. The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness by Meghan O’Rourke  is a memoir of sorts about the slippery, nasty nature ... Read More...

9 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, health, medical, memoir

The Year of the Horses: A Memoir

August 17, 2022

horses

Courtney Maum’s memoir opens with a scene of a young daughter refusing her mother’s help to put on her socks despite the fact that they’re going to be late for an appointment. Maum is the mother and her frustration, veering into internal rage and the immediate weight of guilt, is so well-written my jaw clenched reading it and I don’t even have children. The book is called The ... Read More...

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Filed Under: Book Reviews, Non-fiction Tagged: book clubs, marriage, memoir, motherhood, women, writers' lives

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