Biographies & Memoirs Books - Page 23

Running with Scissors: A Memoir

Augusten Burroughs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 822 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor’s bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year-round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull, an electroshock therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing, and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances…

 

Running with Scissors Acknowledgments
Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe it: Jennifer Enderlin, Christopher Schelling, John Murphy, Gregg Sullivan, Kim Cardascia, Michael Storrings, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press. Thank you: Lawrence David, Suzanne Finnamore, Robert Rodi, Bret Easton Ellis, Jon Pepoon, Lee Lodes, Jeff Soares, Kevin Weidenbacher, Lynda Pearson, Lona Walburn, Lori Greenburg, John DePretis, and Sheila Cobb. I would also like to express my appreciation to my mother and father for, no matter how inadvertently, giving me such a memorable childhood. Additionally, I would like to thank the real-life members of the family portrayed in this book for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own. I recognize that their memories of the events described in this book are different than my own. They are each fine, decent, and hard-working people. The book was not intended to hurt the family. Both my publisher and I regret any unintentional harm resulting from the publishing and marketing of Running with Scissors. Most of all, I would like to thank my brother for demonstrating, by example, the importance of being wholly unique.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

Dave Eggers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 917 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A.H.B.W.O.S.G. Review 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

At age 21, Dave Eggers's mother and father die of unrelated cancers within just 5 weeks of each other. The memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, follows Dave's journey as both a young adult in search of love and freedom, and as a "single mother" to his newly-inherited little brother, Toph.
The memoir opens with a witty list of "Rules and Suggestions for Enjoyment of this Book", where in a borderline-sarcastic manner, Eggers dismisses the importance and relevance of half the book. Even in the preface, (which was read, despite his suggestions), his clever and ferocious voice bursts through the pages, and straight into the imagination of the reader.
In A.H.W.O.S.G., Eggers doesn't just sketch general ideas of what he experiences, he vividly paints a picture of specific life events; all his thoughts are splayed out on the pages, as if nothing was cut back. The reader can then enter his head, and hear his inner-thoughts, feel his raw emotions. "We wash our hands and come over... -maybe we forgot to wash our hands- and lean over in the usual way, holding her arm, all while her eyes are following us, at least on eye is following us..." (342). His brutally honest story-telling, yet maybe not-so-honest dialogue, will astonish and entertain any reader.
The beginning sections of the book describe Dave's mother's slow passing: both in-depth and disturbing, the reader automatically feels uncomfortable yet captured by the twisted, almost overly-descriptive imagery, "The tumor is rotten fruit, graying at the edges. Or the insects' hive, something festering and black and alive, fuzzy on its sides..." (32).
Eggers weaves different writing styles in and out of the book, "spicing up" the already expansive and intense work. Often out of cynicism, flowcharts, script, and sketches are added, including those of staplers and house space to slide in socks. Dialogue varies from long, deep conversations, (often accusations), to simple greeting exchanges amongst friends.
Also, Eggers provides breaks from intense, "heartbreaking", often rant-like passages. His choice of events may seem random, but always add further entry into his mind. Painful and depressing events are easier to cope with with Eggers' comedic easiness and sarcasm. But he becomes sullen by injecting feelings like paranoia and caution into what would otherwise be considered "simple" choices.
When Eggers leaves his brother with a babysitter, (something not normally seeming so terrifying), a reader is overflowed with shared feelings with Eggers. "This is stupid. We don't need this kind of risk...But I have to do this. There is no risk. But there is risk. But the risk is worth it. I'm so, so evil." (126) Without telling the reader he is distressed, the reader knows, especially after frantically following his train of thought.
As made obvious after completion of this book, Eggers used all events he viewed as important to his life. Even ones that put him in a bad light were used, "You have been determined, then and since, to get this down, to render this time, to take that terrible winter and write with it what you hope will be some heartbreaking thing" (119).
The voice, writing style, and expanded incidents in this memoir truly makes it a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.

Editorial Review:

The literary sensation of the year, a book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read in paperback for decades to come. The Vintage edition includes a new appendix by the author.

Chosen by a Horse

Susan Richards

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Chosen by a Horse 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Anyone who loves horses will also love this book! The author perfectly describes the personalities of her horses, and she weaves a lesson of personal growth into a moving story about an abused horse. It's great!

Simply beautiful 5 out of 5 stars.
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This book is so well-written, and so compelling, that you need to be prepared to read it in one session. Last night I fully intended to watch election returns all night and savor every moment, but I could not tear myself away from this book.

It is a given that paeans to the great animals that changed our lives will end sadly, so I am not giving away any plot points. Animals do not live forever, and neither do people. It was crushing that the health problem that led to Lay Me Down's demise came on so early. Certainly we would have preferred that she live a long and happy life. But the main thing is that she lived a happy life after she came to Susan Richards.

Susan Richards is a great writer with an interesting life and a clear-eyed perspective. I was about to call her "unsentimental," and I think she is unsentimental - about people. Where her horses are concerned, she's a pile of mush. I felt privileged to be let into her life. I am looking forward to reading her next book.

Editorial Review:

The horse Susan Richards chose for rescue wouldn’t be corralled into her waiting trailer. Instead Lay Me Down, a former racehorse with a foal close on her heels, walked right up that ramp and into Susan’s life. This gentle creature—malnourished, plagued by pneumonia and an eye infection—had endured a rough road, but somehow her heart was still open and generous. It seemed fated that she would come into Susan’s paddock and teach her how to embrace the joys of life despite the dangers of living.

An elegant and often heartbreaking tale filled with animal characters as complicated and lively as their human counterparts, this is an inspiring story of courage and hope and the ways in which all love—even an animal’s—has the power to heal.

The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit: A Jewish Family's Exodus from Old Cairo to the New World (P.S.)

Lucette Lagnado

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Total reviews: 52 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Lucette Lagnado's father, Leon, is a successful Egyptian businessman and boulevardier who, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit, makes deals and trades at Shepherd's Hotel and at the dark bar of the Nile Hilton. After the fall of King Farouk and the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, Leon loses everything and his family is forced to flee, abandoning a life once marked by beauty and luxury to plunge into hardship and poverty, as they take flight for any country that would have them.

A vivid, heartbreaking, and powerful inversion of the American dream, Lucette Lagnado's unforgettable memoir is a sweeping story of family, faith, tradition, tragedy, and triumph set against the stunning backdrop of Cairo, Paris, and New York.

Winner of the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a "brilliant, crushing book" and the New Yorker as a memoir of ruin "told without melodrama by its youngest survivor," The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit recounts the exile of the author's Jewish Egyptian family from Cairo in 1963 and her father's heroic and tragic struggle to survive his "riches to rags" trajectory.

The Reagan Diaries

Ronald Reagan

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Editorial Review:

During his two terms as the fortieth president of the United States, Ronald Reagan kept a daily diary in which he recorded, by hand, his innermost thoughts and observations on the extraordinary, the historic, and the routine day-to-day occurrences of his presidency. Now, nearly two decades after he left office, this remarkable record—the only daily presidential diary in American history—is available for the first time.

Brought together in one volume and edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, The Reagan Diaries provides a striking insight into one of this nation's most important presidencies and sheds new light on the character of a true American leader. Whether he was in his White House residence study or aboard Air Force One, each night Reagan wrote about the events of his day, which often included his relationships with other world leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Pope John Paul II, Mohammar al-Qaddafi, and Margaret Thatcher, among others, and the unforgettable moments that defined the era—from his first inauguration to the end of the Cold War, the Iran hostage crisis to John Hinckley Jr.'s assassination attempt.

The Reagan Diaries reveals more than just Reagan's political experiences: many entries are concerned with the president's private thoughts and feelings—his love and devotion for Nancy Reagan and their family, his belief in God and the power of prayer. Seldom before has the American public been given access to the unfiltered experiences and opinions of a president in his own words, from Reagan's description of near-drowning at the home of Hollywood friend Claudette Colbert to his determination to fight Fidel Castro at every turn and keep the Caribbean Sea from becoming a "Red Lake."

To read these diaries—filled with Reagan's trademark wit, sharp intelligence, and humor—is to gain a unique understanding of one of the most beloved occupants of the Oval Office in our nation's history.

The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren

Jonathan Lopez

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Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's a story that made Dutch painter Han van Meegeren famous worldwide when it broke at the end of World War II: A lifetime of disappointment drove him to forge Vermeers, one of which he sold to Hermann Goering, making a mockery of the Nazis. And it's a story that's been believed ever since. Too bad it isn't true.

Jonathan Lopez has drawn on never-before-seen documents from dozens of archives to write a revelatory new biography of the world’s most famous forger. Neither unappreciated artist nor antifascist hero, Van Meegeren emerges as an ingenious, dyed-in-the-wool crook who plied the forger's trade far longer than he ever admitted—a talented Mr. Ripley armed with a paintbrush. Lopez also explores a network of illicit commerce that operated across Europe: Not only was Van Meegeren a key player in that high-stakes game in the 1920s and '30s, landing fakes with powerful dealers and famous collectors such as Andrew Mellon, but he and his associates later offered a case study in wartime opportunism as they cashed in on the Nazi occupation.

The Man Who Made Vermeers is a long-overdue unvarnishing of Van Meegeren’s legend and a deliciously detailed story of deceit in the art world.

Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics

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Editorial Review:

“Nearly forty years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. In fact, I believe that my chosen profession is a noble calling. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it.”
–Joe Biden

As a United States senator from Delaware since 1973, Joe Biden has been an intimate witness to the major events of the past four decades and a relentless actor in trying to shape recent American history. He has seen up close the tragic mistake of the Vietnam War, the Watergate and Iran-contra scandals, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Germany, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, a presidential impeachment, a presidential resignation, and a presidential election decided by the Supreme Court. He’s observed Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, and two Bushes wrestling with the presidency; he’s traveled to war zones in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa and seen firsthand the devastation of genocide. He played a vital role by standing up to Ronald Reagan’s effort to seat Judge Robert Bork on the Supreme Court, fighting for legislation that protects women against domestic violence, and galvanizing America’s response (and the world’s) to Slobodan Milosevic’s genocidal march in the Balkans. In Promises to Keep, Biden reveals what these experiences taught him about himself, his colleagues, and the institutions of government.

With his customary candor, Biden movingly recounts growing up in a staunchly Catholic multigenerational household in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware; overcoming a demoralizing stutter; marriage, fatherhood, and the tragic death of his wife Neilia and infant daughter Naomi; remarriage and re-forming a family with his second wife, Jill; success and failure in the Senate and on the campaign trail; two life-threatening aneurysms; his relations with fellow lawmakers on both sides of the aisle; and his leadership of powerful Senate committees.

Through these and other recollections, Biden shows us how the guiding principles he learned early in life–the obligation to work to make people’s lives better, to honor family and faith, to get up and do the right thing no matter how hard you’ve been knocked down, to be honest and straightforward, and, above all, to keep your promises–are the foundations on which he has based his life’s work as husband, father, and public servant.

Promises to Keep is the story of a man who faced down personal challenges and tragedy to become one of our most effective leaders. It is also an intimate series of reflections from a public servant who refuses to be cynical about political leadership, and a testament to the promise of the United States.


From the Hardcover edition.

Make It Plain: Standing Up and Speaking Out

Jr., Vernon Jordan

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Editorial Review:

Black Americans have always relied on the oral tradition—storytelling, preaching, and speechmaking—to assert their rights and preserve and pass on their history and culture. In the pulpit, courtroom, or cotton field, they have understood the power of words, distinctively delivered, to educate and inspire.

Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., one of the nation’s finest speakers, imbibed this tradition as a young man and has given it his own unique inflection from his work on the civil rights front lines, to the National Urban League, to positions of influence at the highest level of business and politics. A friend and confidant to presidents, Jordan has never forgotten the men and women—from Ruby Hurley to Wiley Branton to Gardner C. Taylor to Martin Luther King, Jr.—whose oratorical skill in service to social justice deeply influenced him. Their examples and voices, reflected in Vernon’s own, make this book both a history and an embodiment of black speech at its finest: Full of emotion, controlled force, righteous indignation, love of country, and awe in front of the God-given challenges ahead.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science

Atul Gawande

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 156 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great book on surgery 4 out of 5 stars.
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Atul Gawande gratefully takes the reader to the back of the OR, a place open for a few, yet intriguing for many. Dr. Gawande is extremely frank and poignant, as he describes actual cases from his own surgical practice. He admits that cutting someone open for the first time is hell, praises surgery which gives chance to obese people, wonders about doctor's intuition, and remains human in every case.

As always, Atul Gawande is not just writing about medicine; this book reaches far beyond the realm of the operating room. He touches on the most complicated ethical questions of medicine and society as a whole. Gawande speaks of mistakes and our imperfect judgment; tackling the questions of good doctors gone bad along with malpractice claims and punishments. He makes the case for autopsy as a means of learning. He admits that medical students must practice on cadavers or animals in order to cut people open; all ethical questions are answered by means of vivid examples.

For instance, in the 1980s the death rate from a particular surgery would be about 10%. When the new surgical treatment of heart pathology arose, surgeons started trying the novice. At that training period, the rate of children death from this particular intervention increased to 25% of cases. Sounds horrible? Yes, but after surgeons learned, the rate fell down to just a couple percent. Was it worth it? Sure, granted the number of lives saved in the long run. Never, granted now many kids died just due to surgeons' learning. Would any doctor let anyone practice on his own kid? Never. At the same time, learning is a necessary part of medical progress.

Those questions dominate the book; Gawande ponders at the patient's right to choose, reminds us that doctors are human and prone to mistakes, reveals mysteries of complications, which are usually open only during the M&M - Mortality and Morbidity Conference behind the closed door. Gawande is not afraid to open the doors. Moreover, he is confident that openness is the only way to reduce the complications.

I almost wanted to say the book is too idealistic, except it's written by a person whose profession is to think realistically. Great book!

Editorial Review:

In vivid accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel’s edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is—uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human.

The Jazz Ear: Conversations over Music

Ben Ratliff

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

An intimate exploration into the musical genius of fifteen living jazz legends, from the longtime New York Times jazz critic

Jazz is conducted almost wordlessly: John Coltrane rarely told his quartet what to do, and Miles Davis famously gave his group only the barest instructions before recording his masterpiece “Kind of Blue.” Musicians are often loath to discuss their craft for fear of destroying its improvisational essence, rendering jazz among the most ephemeral and least transparent of the performing arts.

In The Jazz Ear, the acclaimed music critic Ben Ratliff sits down with jazz greats to discuss recordings by the musicians who most influenced them. In the process, he skillfully coaxes out a profound understanding of the men and women themselves, the context of their work, and how jazz—from horn blare to drum riff—is created conceptually. Expanding on his popular interviews for The New York Times, Ratliff speaks with Sonny Rollins, Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Dianne Reeves, Wayne Shorter, Joshua Redman, and others about the subtle variations in generation, training, and attitude that define their music.

Playful and keenly insightful, The Jazz Ear is a revelatory exploration of a unique way of making and hearing music.