Gorokhova writes about growing up in 1960s and 70s Leningrad. I'd been curious about life in the USSR, and this memoir was exactly what I was looking for. She's a good writer, especially in her non-native but just as good English.
I have one serious complaint about Bossypants, and that is that its Cataloging-in-Publication data completely misses that its a book about feminism. I’d like to see one or more of the following:
Sex role on television
Sex discrimination against women
Feminists
Women on television
Women comedians
Women television producers and directors
Feminism and television (doesn’t exist, pattern Feminism and motion pictures)
Feminism and comedy (doesn’t exist)
Content-wise, Bossypants is a kick-ass book that I was sorry to see end. And I laughed out loud while reading it. On a New Jersey Transit train. Ask Eric if you don’t believe me. I made him read passages at least three times.
MariNaomi’s graphic memoir tells the story of each of her romantic and sexual partners up to the age of 22. It’s 330 pages long, which may give you some idea of what kind of kid she was. And I mean “kid.” Ages 12-14 take up more than 100 pages and reference 15 boys and 1 girl, though she didn’t have intercourse until the 11th or so boy. There are also drugs. Though I am a bit of a prude, I’m not judging. I love Mari’s clean drawing style. Many of the cels are white on black, without a lot of extraneous detail. Even when they are occasionally more intricate, you don’t feel unsettled looking at them.
Saffian’s birth parents made contact with her via telephone a month before her 24th birthday. She wasn’t prepared for that. What follows is the three year journey to her becoming prepared to meet with them, and her three biological siblings.
Thanks Kate Haas for telling me to read this graphic memoir about infertility. The comics are detailed and funny, and frequently feature the author’s cat Reuben.
Cantwell’s writing in American Girl is just as good as Manhattan, When I Was Young, though it’s a little more impressionistic. Perhaps that’s I found it less satisfying than its sequel. I still recommend it. Should I bother with the third of the Trilogy, Speaking with Strangers?
Anne’s stories of making zines with women college students in Cambodia (“women college students in Cambodia” is a really big deal), are mixed in with Cambodian history and information about the current state of the country, and etiquette lessons for foreign travelers, e.g., don’t haggle.
Female French Resistance memoir: that’s all you need to know, right? Nancy Wake was high-spirited and strong-willed. She wasn’t the best writer you’ll ever read, but her memoir does give you some sense of her personality and adventures in Europe during World War II. It leaves you hungry for more, so like me, you’ll probably want to dig up a copy of Nancy Wake: a Biography of Our Greatest War Heroine or Nancy Wake: SOE’s Greatest Heroine.
Don’t you hate when young (like 21), middle-class, heterosexual white guys write smart, funny, sensitive books that you can’t help but kind of love? I know I do. Kevin Roose’s story of doing a semester “abroad” from Brown at Liberty University (founded by Jerry Falwell) is a total page-turner, and like a responsible ethnographer, he does not condescend to his native population (except perhaps by occasionally referring to his underground research with evangelical Christians as ethnography).
I did want to see what Christian college was like, with as little prejudgment as possible. I knew that wouldn’t be easy--you can’t neutralize a lifetime of bias overnight--but I wanted to try my best. So my second decision was: no cheap shots. If I went to Liberty, it would be to learn with an open mind, not to mock Liberty students or the evangelical world in toto.
Cantwell’s memoir begins after she graduates from Connecticut College 1953 and moves to New York City to be a writer. She is a Catholic from a WASPy town in Rhode Island, but passes well enough. Her mother is not impressed when she marries a Jew fairly soon after graduating. But she’d slept with him, what could she do? I don’t mean to mock. On the outside Cantwell isn’t someone I can relate to, but the quality of her writing voice really got me, both its competence and its appeal, if that makes sense. It seems like the better the writing I’m reviewing the worse my own gets.
