Book Reviews John K. Cox Jurij Koch / Courtesy of Domowina-Verlag In the 1950s, a girl whom Jurij Koch knew in high school moved away from their hometown of Cottbus in East Germany. It was a case, he says in his recent memoir, of “Weg von Ulbricht, hin zu Adenauer” (Away from Ulbricht, over to Adenauer). Her mother took the girl to the West, before the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. This is a familiar enough arc of events, but, as it turns out, the motivation behind the move is probably not something that most people outside of Germany would have considered. The reason was ethnic. Little Greta was growing up surrounded by Sorbs in the southeastern part of the country. The Sorbian language reminded her mother of Polish, and she had had quite enough of the Poles in her pre-1945 home farther east. In addition, Greta’s family was Protestant and they felt awash in a “Catholic sea.” So off they went, leaving the author of this autobiography—who, well, yes, had a crush on Greta—scratching his head. Like so many other scenes in this engaging book, this story blends the customary with the unexpected to stretch our understanding of what is “German.” Like so many other scenes in this engaging book, Koch’s memoir blends the customary with the unexpected to stretch our understanding of what is “German.” Windrad auf dem Dach (Domowina-Verlag, 2016) is the second volume of Koch’s memoirs to be published in German. Currently in his... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'
[ World Literature Today | 2020-01-27 20:47:13 UTC ]
Geoff Dyer's memoir about growing up in the U.K. during the '70s bursts with working-class pride. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2025-06-09 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir ‘The Salt Path,’ which has now been made into a film, explores a centuries-old tradition of healing along the southwest coast. Moth Winn was diagnosed with a terminal illness at the age of 53 and in the same week he and his wife, Raynor, lost their home. As the... Continue reading at Fast Company
[ Fast Company | 2025-06-07 08:30:00 UTC ]
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A sapphic opposites-attract romance, a memoir on grief, witches in the Orkney Islands, and more of today's best book deals Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-06-05 16:39:23 UTC ]
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Anelise Chen’s hybrid memoir starts with an ingenious typo: Clam down, Chen’s mother texts her as she copes with her divorce, and poof!, the protagonist becomes a clam, determined to learn everything about her species and kin. Though its namesake is a sedentary bottom feeder, Clam Down... Continue reading at Electric Literature
[ Electric Literature | 2025-06-05 11:00:00 UTC ]
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Even the First Lady wanted to party. In her memoir Becoming, Michelle Obama describes the night in June 2015 following the announcement of the opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court case legalizing same-sex marriage across the United States. Increasingly “desperate to join the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-06-05 08:58:08 UTC ]
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Toni Morrison's time as an editor at Random House, modern Indian recipes, a new memoir by a Palestinian poet, and more. Continue reading at Book Riot
[ Book Riot | 2025-06-04 11:00:00 UTC ]
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The former prime minister, who led New Zealand through the pandemic, has published a memoir arguing for more empathy in politics. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-06-03 14:35:35 UTC ]
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Memoir Nation: Weekly Inspiration for Writers is an extension of the Memoir Nation community hosted by Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, two friends and colleagues who bring a community-minded sensibility to the writing journey. Originally launched as Write-minded in 2018, this is a weekly... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-06-02 08:00:53 UTC ]
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Author Christine Kalafus shares her thoughts on writing with immediacy in memoir, including the three-step blueprint she used for hers. The post Writing With Immediacy in Memoir appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2025-06-01 19:00:00 UTC ]
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'Daisy Jones and the Six' author Taylor Jenkins Reid's new novel and Molly Jong-Fast's memoir about her famous mother are among the notable books hitting shelves this month. Continue reading at Los Angeles Times
[ Los Angeles Times | 2025-06-01 10:00:00 UTC ]
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In the memoir “How to Lose Your Mother,” Molly Jong-Fast recalls a tumultuous upbringing as the only child of the feminist writer Erica Jong. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-05-31 12:18:33 UTC ]
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As a small press launches dedicated to new male fiction, authors including Anne Enright and Nikesh Shukla ask if men are really being pushed out of publishingJude Cook, author and publisher of Conduit BooksIn Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, the languid Lord Henry announces: “There is... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-31 08:00:39 UTC ]
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A giant of African literature whose best works existed between the political and the personal, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was warm, funny and friendly – and liked to bet on my pool gamesAmong the African writers who emerged in the middle of the 20th century, the most political undoubtedly was Ngũgĩ wa... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-30 16:36:34 UTC ]
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Paris Lees has turned her hit memoir of growing up as a working-class trans kid into a vivid, joyful drama. Its team talks teenage sex work, nostalgia for Tony Blair, and why TV drama is so posh it’s like Jane AustenWhen the BBC was casting its adaptation of Paris Lees’s autobiography, What It... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-30 12:00:14 UTC ]
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Zooming in on the rocker’s interior life, the Apple TV+ film “Bono: Stories of Surrender” documents the musical stage presentation of the singer’s 2022 book. Continue reading at The Washington Post
[ The Washington Post | 2025-05-30 10:00:00 UTC ]
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Charlie Mackesy sells a sequel to The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse to Penguin Life, Cory Booker brings a memoir of his historic 25-hour speech on the Senate floor to St. Martin’s, and more in this week’s book deals. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2025-05-30 04:00:00 UTC ]
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When I was seventeen, my friend—the kind of person who always finds hidden gems in used bookstores—leant me Every Secret Thing, Patricia Hearst’s memoir about being kidnapped and forcibly radicalized by an urban guerrilla group. Hearst spent nearly all of 1974 on the run with the Symbionese... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2025-05-29 07:28:27 UTC ]
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Fiction by Taylor Jenkins Reid and V.E. Schwab; a memoir of a year without sex; new thrillers from James Patterson and S.A. Cosby; and more. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2025-05-28 09:00:44 UTC ]
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Author Sally McQuillen shares the costs and rewards of writing and publishing a memoir of loving and losing a child. The post Why I Wrote and Published My Memoir appeared first on Writer's Digest. Continue reading at Writer's Digest
[ Writer's Digest | 2025-05-25 00:00:00 UTC ]
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My habit is quaint, I know, and there are downsides – but for those who value literature, the focus will shift to this: how do we prove we didn’t use AI?When I was very young, three or four, before I learned to write, I’d search out empty pages in my father’s thin, hardbound ledgers and... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2025-05-23 03:29:59 UTC ]
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