Biographies & Memoirs Books - Page 5

Me Talk Pretty One Day

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Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Essays

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 740 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

best sedaris book 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

i love this man and this is my favorite of his books (though i will admit i am just now reading Holidays on Ice). he makes me laugh out loud and has a way of putting words on paper that capture things in a way no one else can. even my sister, who is not a big reader and prefers more "chick lit" genre books was laughing out loud when she she picked this up out of desperation when we were on vacation. you will not be disappointed.

is there an option for ZERO stars?? 1 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Horrid just about covers it - not funny, very much a waste of time. I think the title is a good clue as to the content - complete drivel. I've given a couple of his other books a glance - everyone deserves a second chance, no? Unfortunately I have found the others similarly disappointing. His little stitched-together anecdotes are weak attempts at humor that don't come off funny and only make him seem more pathetic in the telling.

Editorial Review:

David Sedaris' move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious pieces, including the title essay, about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that "every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section". His family is another inspiration. "You Can't Kill the Rooster" is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible

A. J. Jacobs

Amazon Price: $21.27 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 32 new & used starting at $14.99

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 428 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The bestselling author of The Know-It-All takes on history's most influential book.

Raised in a secular family but increasingly interested in the relevance of faith in our modern world, A.J. Jacobs decides to dive in headfirst and attempt to obey the Bible as literally as possible for one full year. He vows to follow the Ten Commandments. To be fruitful and multiply. To love his neighbor. But also, to obey the hundreds of less-publicized rules: to avoid wearing clothes made of mixed fibers. To grow his beard. To stone adulterers.

The resulting spiritual journey is at once funny and profound, reverent and irreverent, personal and universal. Jacobs also embeds himself in a cross-section of communities that take the Bible literally, including the Amish and the Hasidim. He discovers ancient Biblical wisdom of startling relevance. And he wrestles with seemingly archaic rules that baffle the 21st-century brain.

Jacobs's extraordinary undertaking yields unexpected epiphanies and challenges. Sure to charm listeners both secular and religious, The Year of Living Biblically is part Cliffs-Notes to the Bible, part memoir, and part look into worlds unimaginable. Thou shalt not be able to stop listening.

Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

Amazon Price: $9.72 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 8 new & used starting at $8.71

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 43 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Profound 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I first heard about the StoryCorps Project a few years ago and was immediately charmed by the idea of it. Two people important to one another enter a soundproof booth and spend 40 minutes as interviewer and interviewee. The interview is recorded. They are provided with suggested questions, but more often than not it seems that once the conversation gets rolling, it becomes just that - a conversation, and not so much an interview after all. Their stories unfold, and what happens is almost magical. At the end of the session, a high-quality copy of the recording is given to the participants, and another copy is sent to the Library of Congress. The whole point is to give a voice to everyone willing to sound it. A collection of some of these recordings has been compiled by Dave Isay in the amazing book Listening Is an Act of Love.

The stories shared here are conversations between husbands and wives, aunts and nephews, coworkers, friends. The stories are funny, shocking, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. I am haunted by the stories of those closely impacted by 9/11. I cried when I read a story about a daughter asking her father to remember his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. Some of the "how we met and fell in love" stories made me chuckle. The stories included in this book are from such different people in such different walks of life, yet so many common themes arise. Everyone wants to love and be loved, everyone makes mistakes, everyone hurts.

I borrowed this book from the library and read it in one sitting. It was so moving, so profound, that I want my own copy to keep. I want to hear these voices again and again, to remind myself that we all - all of us - have a story to tell.

Editorial Review:

Drawn from the work of StoryCorps, the largest and most ambitious private oral history project in American history, comes this tapestry of the stories Americans have been sharing from their lives to leave behind to their loved ones.

A Long Way Gone

Ishmael Beah

Amazon Price: $13.57 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Macmillan Audio Amazon Marketplace: 28 new & used starting at $10.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 428 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

My new friends have begun to suspect I haven’t told them the full story of my life.
“Why did you leave Sierra Leone?”
“Because there is a war.”
“You mean, you saw people running around with guns and shooting each other?”
“Yes, all the time.”
“Cool.”
I smile a little.
“You should tell us about it sometime.”
“Yes, sometime.”

This is how wars are fought now: by children, hopped-up on drugs and wielding AK-47s. Children have become soldiers of choice. In the more than fifty conflicts going on worldwide, it is estimated that there are some 300,000 child soldiers. Ishmael Beah used to be one of them.

What is war like through the eyes of a child soldier? How does one become a killer? How does one stop? Child soldiers have been profiled by journalists, and novelists have struggled to imagine their lives. But until now, there has not been a first-person account from someone who came through this hell and survived.

In A Long Way Gone, Beah, now twenty-five years old, tells a riveting story: how at the age of twelve, he fled attacking rebels and wandered a land rendered unrecognizable by violence. By thirteen, he’d been picked up by the government army, and Beah, at heart a gentle boy, found that he was capable of truly terrible acts.

 

This is a rare and mesmerizing account, told with real literary force and heartbreaking honesty.

Hurry Down Sunshine

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Audio Amazon Marketplace: 39 new & used starting at $10.90

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 70 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Hurry Down Sunshine tells the story of the extraordinary summer when, at the age of fifteen, Michael Greenberg’s daughter was struck mad. It begins with Sally’s sudden visionary crack-up on the streets of Greenwich Village, and continues, among other places, in the out-of-time world of a Manhattan psychiatric ward during the city’s most sweltering months. “I feel like I’m traveling and traveling with nowhere to go back to,” Sally says in a burst of lucidity while hurtling away toward some place her father could not dream of or imagine. Hurry Down Sunshine is the chronicle of that journey, and its effect on Sally and those closest to her–her mother and stepmother, her brother and grandmother, and, not least of all, the author himself.

Among Greenberg’s unforgettable gallery of characters are an unconventional psychiatrist, an Orthodox Jewish patient, a manic Classics professor, a movie producer, and a landlord with literary aspirations. Unsentimental, nuanced, and deeply humane, Hurry Down Sunshine holds the listener in a mesmerizing state of suspension between the mundane and the transcendent.

Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices, and Priorities of a Winning Life

Tony Dungy, Nathan Whitaker

Amazon Price: $17.81 List Price: $26.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Tyndale Audio Amazon Marketplace: 36 new & used starting at $16.88

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 217 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

God Bok 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I study the Bible alot, but ever time I take the test, I get an F. Am I going to hell, Jeff Saturday?

Quiet Strength Tony Dungy 5 out of 5 stars.
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Excellent book - very heart-warming and inspiring! It was even more meaningful because it was read by Tony Dungy.

Great book, Classy guy! 5 out of 5 stars.
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A very insightful biography of coach Dungy and what makes him tick. There are a number of life lessons in this inspirational look at the man and his faith. Nice guys don't always finish last, and the character of this man is evident, not only in the book, but also in his popularity in the Tampa area and among Bucs fans years after his leaving, our winning the Superbowl without him, and his winning with his new team.

Editorial Review:

2008 Retailer's Choice Award winner!
Tony Dungy's words and example have intrigued millions of people, particularly following his victory in Super Bowl XLI, the first for an African American coach. How is it possible for a coach--especially a football coach--to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without the screaming histrionics, the profanities, the demand that the sport come before anything else? How is it possible for anyone to be successful without compromising faith and family? In this inspiring and reflective memoir, Coach Dungy tells the story of a life lived for God and family--and challenges us all to redefine our ideas of what it means to succeed. Includes a foreword by Denzel Washington and a 16-page color photo insert.

Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope

Don & Susie Van Ryn, Newell, Colleen & Whitney Cerak

Amazon Price: $29.70 List Price: $39.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $22.67

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 136 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The stunning true story of two families trading places from graveside to bedside.

Five lives were lost in a tragic accident involving a Taylor University van, and one young woman, severely injured and comatose, was rushed to the hospital. Families, faculty, students, and communities grieved their losses and joined in prayer and hope as the one young woman, Laura Van Ryn, fought for her life in a hospital bed. The national news spread the story, and people everywhere shared the grief and the hope.

Five weeks passed for the Cerak family. Believing they had buried their daughter, the Ceraks clung to their faith and worshipped God through their tears, learning to look forward with hope to an eternal reunion with their lovely daughter Whitney. They spent weeks in mourning and grief, slowly moving toward healing.

Five weeks passed for the Van Ryns. Keeping a constant bedside vigil over their precious daughter Laura, they sat and prayed and hoped. They rejoiced at each tiny advance toward recovery. They celebrated each sign of Laura's healing.

And then the shock! "Okay, Laura, I would like you to write your name for me," the occupationaltherapist said. W-H-I-T-N-E-Y.

An event that could be seen as pure tragedy becomes a celebration of life's unfathomable gifts and mysteries.

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, The Home Front in World War II

Doris Kearns Goodwin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 129 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the bestselling author of The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedysand Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream comes a compelling chronicle of a nation and its leaders during the period when modern America was created. Presenting an aspect of American history that has never been fully told, Doris Kearns Goodwin describes how the isolationist and divided United States of 1940 was unified under the extraordinary leadership of Franklin Roosevelt to become, only five years later, the preeminent economic and military power in the world.

Using diaries, interviews, and White House records of the president's and first lady's comings and goings, Goodwin paints a detailed, intimate portrait not only of the daily conduct of the presidency during wartime but of the Roosevelts themselves and their extraordinary constellation of friends, advisers, and family, many of whom lived with them in the White House.

Bringing to bear the tools of both history and biography, No Ordinary Time relates the unique story of how Franklin Roosevelt led the nation to victory against seemingly insurmountable odds and, with Eleanor's essential help, forever changed the fabric of American society.

Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life

Steve Martin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 210 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Emmy and Grammy Award-winner's candid, spectacularly amusing memoir of his years in stand-up

In the mid-seventies, Steve Martin exploded onto the comedy scene. By 1978 he was the biggest concert draw in the history of stand-up. In 1981 he quit forever. Born Standing Up is, in his own words, the story of "why I did stand-up and why I walked away."

At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times: the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game

Michael Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 150 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Fantastic Book, Fantastic Writer 5 out of 5 stars.
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I loved Michael Lewis' Moneyball, and per the suggestion of a friend I picked up The Blind Side. While Moneyball was excellent, The Blind Side may have just topped it.

Michael Lewis has a gift for being able to tell a story in a way that explains the basics of an idea and makes it fascinating to learn about. Prior to reading this book, I would have classified myself as a casual NFL football fan; However, after reading Lewis' account of the evolution of the left tackle, it completely changed both the way I think about and watch the game.

As if redefining the game of football wasn't enough, Lewis also has taken a character in Michael Oher and created one of the most interesting, unlikely, and moving stories I have read about. Oher's story gives a sense of hope that by being surrounded by special, caring people, there is no limit to what one can accomplish.

A great book, easily one of the best I've read all year.

Editorial Review:

In football, as in life, the value we place on people changes with the rules of the games they play.
When we first meet the young man at the center of this extraordinary and moving story, he is one of thirteen children by a mother addicted to crack; he does not know his real name, his father, his birthday, or any of the things a child might learn in school. And he has no serious experience playing organized football.
What changes? He takes up football, and school, after a rich, Evangelical, Republican family plucks him from the mean streets. Their love is the first great force that alters the world’s perception of the boy, whom they adopt. The second force is the evolution of professional football itself.
In The Blind Side, Lewis shows us a largely unanalyzed but inexorable trend in football working its way down from the pros to the high school game, where it collides with the life of a single young man to produce a narrative of great and surprising power.