Everyone once in awhile you come across a book that so exquisitely explains your life experience it makes you feel less alone in the world. For me, these books include The Giant’s House by Elizabeth…
Posts tagged Memoir
Get ‘Mean’
Myriam Gurba’s memoir Mean opens with the chase-torture-rape-death of Sophia Torres, a young woman described by some media as “transient.” Gurba and Torres are linked by more than a shared culture: Torres was raped by the…
Boys in the Trees
I have a strange compulsion to read all the memoirs written by women in music. I’m not exactly sure when it started. Maybe as a sort of research for my own book-in-progress. Maybe it’s because…
It Ain’t No Big Thing
In her memoir Living Like a Runaway Lita Ford, writes about how unimportant high school was to her and how she skipped out on her graduation to play a show with The Runaways. This apathy…
Unsatisfied
I feel as though admitting that Carrie Brownstein’s memoir Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl left me a little ho-hum feeling is going to get my something card revoked. Indie cred? Rock & Roll lover?…
Love-hate letter to a diary
Here are the circumstances of reading Sarah Manguso’s Ongoingness: I am in a mega-reading rut. Nothing looks good. Everything takes too long. I’m tired of buying new books, but I’ve already read at least half…
These Foolish Games
I have zero doubt that I spent large swaths of time in 1995 driving around in my 1979 Chrysler Newport singing along to “Who Will Save Your Soul” with as much sincerity and passion as…
Review Stew: Midwest kitchens, New York rockers and things to quit
Wherein I dump a bunch of reviews into a single post in order to declutter the Unreviewed Lit Nook of my brain. M Train by Patti Smith This ain’t no Just Kids, Smith’s award-winner about…
The Great Rock & Roll Bummer
It would be impossible to measure how excited I was when I first hear that Chrissie Hynde was going to publish a memoir. After all, in their memoirs both Linda Ronstadt and Pat Benatar named…
Scott on Scott
I’m going through a bit of a Scott Jurek phase right now that started with reading Born to Run and was helped along when he recently distance-ran the shit out of the Appalachian Trail. It helps…
Hot Off the Grill
A few blocks away from the 1950s-style diner where our hero has drawn every coffee pot and customer butt-crack is a place she assumes is an abandoned Chinese restaurant. Margaret, an art student has scrounged…
All the Things I Love in a Music Memoir
I’ve read a lot of music memoirs. A lot. From Jen Trynin to Linda Ronstadt and Jacob Slichter to Pete Townshend. If you ask me, I will tell you my all-time favorite musical memoir is…