It may sound like fiction, but it’s fact: Beck Dorey-Stein answered a Craigslist ad and got a job working as a stenographer at the White House. She was there for Barack Obama’s second term as president and in her memoir From the Corner of the Oval she shares her experiences of being the least important person in the room, but the one who gets to hear everything. From ... Read More...
Heart Berries: A Memoir
It’s hard, as a reviewer, to say you loved a book or felt deeply touched by it, but that you’re not sure you understood a lot of it. And by understand, I mean, literally, the facts. This is the case for me regarding Terese Mailhot’s memoir, Heart Berries. The emotion of it gripped me. The symbolism of her words is a cold, clear stream—shocking and cleansing. For much of the ... Read More...
Educated: A Memoir
I’d always known my father believed in a different God. As a child, I’d been aware that although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. They believed in modesty; we practiced it. They believed in God’s power to heal; we left our injuries in God’s hands. They believed in preparing for the Second Coming; we were ... Read More...
When Breath Becomes Air
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving suffering, virtue. Paul Kalanithi knew he would split his life in two—the first half would be devoted to his passion for ... Read More...
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again. I have been a huge fan of Anna Quindlen’s fiction for decades, but had never read any of her nonfiction until this month, ... Read More...
The Time in Between
This is the final review from my recent mental health reading and it was easily the most difficult because it’s non-fiction. The Time in Between is Nancy Tucker’s memoir about her life from the time she was a little girl until present day, with the focus on her teen years. Her life changes at age eleven, while attending a private girls’ school, which makes her insecure ... Read More...
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