I
teach memoir writing for a living, so I read a lot of memoirs. Abigail Thomas’s
memoirs are the best of the best.
What I love about her writing is her humor, attention to detail, and lack of pretentiousness. And, in this book,
I’m reminded of something else I love about her work, which is her ability to
turn life’s most mundane moments into art.
Though she is specifically examining
life at the age of eighty, this is a book with acute wisdom for readers of any
age.
In her new memoir, Abigail Thomas ruminates on aging during the confines of COVID-19 with her trademark mix of humor and wisdom, including valuable, contemplative writing tips along the way.
As she approaches eighty, what she herself calls old age, Abigail Thomas accepts her new life, quieter than before, no driving, no dancing, mostly sitting in her chair in a sunny corner with three dogs for company-three dogs, vivid memories, bugs and birds and critters that she watches out her window. No one but this beloved, best-selling memoirist, could make so much over what might seem so little.
I’ve
been wanting to dive more deeply into Ted Chiang’s fiction since seeing the
movie Arrival and reading his essays in The New Yorker. This
collection did not disappoint.
I happened to be reading it in the hours and
days after the birth of my second child, stealing minutes to do so while breast pumping.
I kept remarking to my husband, “This man’s mind…his mind!” Dazzling. And
when, a few days after birth, our baby had a serious health scare, the message
of “The Story of Your Life”—that if given the chance to see a horrible future
in which you outlive your child, you’d make that baby anyway—gave me the
strangest, most profound comfort.
'A science fiction genius . . . Ted Chiang is a superstar.' - Guardian
With Stories of Your Life and Others, his masterful first collection, multiple-award-winning author Ted Chiang deftly blends human emotion and scientific rationalism in eight remarkably diverse stories, all told in his trademark precise and evocative prose.
From a soaring Babylonian tower that connects a flat Earth with the firmament above, to a world where angelic visitations are a wondrous and terrifying part of everyday life; from a neural modification that eliminates the appeal of physical beauty, to an alien language that challenges our very perception of…
Many of us think of Roe vs. Wade in political terms:
pro-choice or pro-life. But this beautifully written book provides the stories
of the people behind the landmark Supreme Court case.
The book is exhaustively
researched, and Prager is a magnificent storyteller. I came away with an
entirely new understanding of the complex contradictions our culture embodies
when it comes to reproductive healthcare, as well as the history behind the
current battle for abortion rights.
Despite her famous pseudonym, "Jane Roe," no one knows the truth about Norma McCorvey (1947-2017), whose unwanted pregnancy in 1969 opened a great fracture in American life. Journalist Joshua Prager spent hundreds of hours with Norma, discovered her personal papers-a previously unseen trove-and witnessed her final moments. The Family Roe presents her life in full. Propelled by the crosscurrents of sex and religion, gender and class, it is a life that tells the story of abortion in America.
Prager begins that story on the banks of Louisiana's Atchafalaya River where Norma was born, and where unplanned pregnancies upended generations of…
When aspiring violinist Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman lands a job with a professional ensemble in New York City, she imagines she has achieved her lifelong dream. But the ensemble proves to be a sham.
When the group "performs," the microphones are never on. Instead, the music blares from a CD. The mastermind behind this scheme is a peculiar and mysterious figure known as The Composer, who is gaslighting his audiences with music that sounds suspiciously like the Titanic movie soundtrack.
On tour with his chaotic ensemble, Hindman spirals into crises of identity and disillusionment as she "plays" for audiences genuinely moved by the performance, unable to differentiate real from fake.
A
beautiful, brilliant story about the ways in which the same cat looks different
depending on your point of view.
We see the cat from the perspective of a dog,
a fish, a snake, etc. In a time when children’s books can be overly didactic,
this book offers a sharp corrective of “show, don’t tell.” My two-year-old loves
the book, and I love reading it to her.
They All Saw A Cat by Brendan Wenzel - New York Times bestseller and 2017 Caldecott Medal and Honor Book
"An ingenious idea, gorgeously realized." -Shelf Awareness, starred review "Both simple and ingenious in concept, Wenzel's book feels like a game changer." -The Huffington Post
The cat walked through the world, with its whiskers, ears, and paws . . . In this glorious celebration of observation, curiosity, and imagination, Brendan Wenzel shows us the many lives of one cat, and how perspective shapes what we see. When you see a cat, what do you see?
