ayun halliday
It took me over half the book to realize why halliday’s voice was so familiar. I realized, with a start, that I regularly read her column in Bust magazine about her life in NY with small, mouthy children. Job Hopper is definitely pre Inky and Milo (her kids). …
Chuck Klosterman
Klosterman was an excellent recommendation from Mike H. Both titles are semi-autobiographical books about Klosterman’s love of rock and roll/metal, his job as a writer with Spin, his childhood in North Dakota and various and sundry famous and infamous bands. Fargo Rock City is, if anything, a manifesto …
Carl Honorè
Honorè starts this book by recounting how he came to be interested in writing about time and the Slow movement. While waiting for a plane, he read an article in the paper about a series of new one minute bedtime stories. He gleefully thought to himself how he …
Jayne Williams
Williams describes herself as “nearly asteroid sized and shaped” when she decided to start running. Within two years she was competing in her first triathlon. She freely admits that yes, she is fat and yes, she is slow. But she also competes and has a great time. She …
Anne Thomas Soffee
For anyone harboring a soft spot in their heart for 80s hair metal bands, replete with spandex pants and girly faces, this is the book for you. Soffee chronicles her years of being the only rivethead at a prestigious and very preppie college. She describes her decision …
Sidney Rothman
When Sidney Rothman, head writer for Letterman, is fired he decides to take some time off. After 10 years of frantically being “on” in the hyper-alert city of L.A., Rothman decides to go to the only place he ever remembers feeling relaxed in his life – Florida. So, …
Cash Peters
Peters’ travelogue is by far the oddest I have ever read. Peters is best known for doing short segments on wacky roadside attractions for public radio shows like The Savvy Traveler. Within a few pages, Peters makes clear how much he loathes this lifestyle. Fourteen years of being …
Martha Beck
I’m not sure really what to classify this book as. After deciding to have a Downs Syndrome baby, Beck describes her decision to leave grad school and Harvard to return to her hometown of Provo Utah and her Mormon family. Through a winding path she describes the friendliness …
