Leave it to Michelle Obama, an untested writer, to achieve something that has never happened in my reading history. I finished her memoir, Becoming, on January 15th and had no hesitation in ranking it 5 stars. This makes it not only the first time I’ve found a 5-star book in January, but the only time my first 5-star rating of the year has been given to nonfiction. I just don’t ... Read More...
Daring to Drive
If I had to sum up Manal al-Sharif’s memoir Daring to Drive in one sentence it would be: Saudi Arabia is a country that despises women. I didn’t know this. Somehow, I thought it was one of the more enlightened Middle Eastern countries but after listening to Manal’s story of lifelong oppression for no other reason than being female, I realize how wrong I was. Ostensibly, the ... Read More...
From the Corner of the Oval: A Memoir
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...
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