Review: What My Bones Know, by Stephanie Foo

 

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma, by Stephanie Foo. Memoir. Published 2022 by Ballantine Books.

What My Bones Know came highly recommended from several sources, mostly people in the writing community concerned with writing memoir and reading memoirs about trauma and survival. It's a really great book.

Stephanie Foo grew up in California in a highly dysfunctional family and discovered that her myriad of symptoms and difficulties added up to a diagnosis of Complex PTSD; having reached that point, she started on the search for treatment options. This book documents that search, with memoir weaving through a narrative about what C-PTSD is, what's out there, and how she found a path to healing. Her background is in journalism and she puts her investigative skills to good use to create a compelling, moving story.

She does her weaving so seamlessly you barely notice as a reader; her journey and the way she expands beyond herself to talk about the larger issues around stigma, suffering and ultimately getting better are really one and the same. Foo is a skilled writer and charismatic too- honest and raw and real. I never felt like she was trying to portray herself in any particular way more than just tell her story, with all of her conflicts and confusion on display, her vulnerability and her successes, too. 

The book succeeds on all these levels and Foo creates a really satisfying and page-turning story about some pretty dark topics and times in her life. I think what pulled me along was the sense of optimism she has the whole time, the way she communicates to the reader that every step is a step forward. She celebrates the victories and treats the setbacks as just another bump on the road- but she's still on that road. I think anyone recovering from trauma or interested in the topic will find something good here, and memoir fans will appreciate her story which is both unique and universal.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

 

Review: The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron

 

The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron. Tarcher, 1992. Nonfiction.

So I've known about The Artist's Way for a long time; it's a perennial bestseller on creativity and getting over or through creative blocks. I had a copy on my shelf for years. I picked it up at one of the bookstores I worked at and it just kind of sat there. I thought about reading it but  when I opened it up it quickly became clear that rather than your average craft book, full of advice and maybe a handful of prompts, this book is a course you do, not just a thing you read.

I was totally intimidated by the rules, the 3 pages of daily journal-writing, the tasks. The multitude of tasks. At least I was, until I needed to get unblocked vis-a-vis my own creativity earlier this year, and a trusted acquaintance suggested it to me. (Okay it was my therapist.) 

So I started to dig in. I was probably four weeks into it (so roughly in chapter two) before I got started on my own writing. And I haven't been able to stop since. The idea is that you do one chapter a week but the first chapter took me about 3 weeks between this and that.  Life gets in the way; just keep at it. Once I got going I got into a rhythm. Daily pages were no problem; I'm used to keeping a diary and honestly I liked "having" to do them. The tasks were also no big deal. They are basically little journal prompts and I used them as warm-ups before I worked on my own writing.

I kind of love this book and feel a lot of gratitude towards it. Some of the activities are a little dated (who does magazine collages? who even has magazines?) but I swear by its effectiveness. I finished weeks ago and still do daily pages religiously. It's my new "me time" in the morning. It's great. And I have more ideas than I know what to do with and more energy than I ever thought I would have.

This isn't a book to read; it's a book to use, and for me it was really helpful. I love all the positive self-talk, the affirmations, the opportunities for introspection. I just really enjoyed the whole process and recommend it heartily. If you're thinking about it, go get it.

 

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy for review.

Review: Unprotected, by Billy Porter

 

Unprotected, by Billy Porter. Memoir. Abrams Press, 2021. Audiobook narrated by Billy Porter.

It's hard to know where to begin with this amazing book. Billy Porter is the star of the hit TV show Pose and a Tony-winning Broadway performer best known for "Kinky Boots," a musical about a shoe factory based on the 2005 movie of the same name. And he's a good writer, too.

The book is a life's-story style memoir detailing his life from childhood through his historic Emmy win for the role of Pray Tell in Pose. It's mostly about his evolution as an artist and a person living his truth in the world. He grew up in the Philadelphia area, went to Carnegie Mellon and then made the move to New York and Broadway. The memoir details his family, both biological and chosen, and the way both have shaped him over the years.

If When you read Unprotected, I strongly recommend the audiobook version narrated by Porter himself. His voice certainly comes through in the print version but there is nothing like hearing the story in his literal voice. A gifted performer, he brings so much passion and feeling to his story and listening to him tell it is unforgettable.

The message: Love wins. His love for performing won; his love for his husband won; his love for his family won; and his love for himself won, too. And by the end, you'll be convinced that you can win, too.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: One Hundred Saturdays, by Michael Frank

 

One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World, by Michael Frank. Memoir. Avid Reader Press, 2022.

One Hundred Saturdays is composed of 100 chapters representing a series of interviews writer Michael Frank conducted with Stella Levi, a nonagenarian New Yorker, formerly of a Jewish community based in Rhodes, Greece. Through the 100 chapters Michael lets Stella tell the story of her life- the community she grew up in, how it was impacted by World War 2, German occupation and its dissolution as the Jewish residents were deported en masse to Auschwitz. He follows her through the camps and finally to the United States, where she makes a life first in California and then in New York.

The book is peppered with illustrations by the great Maira Kalman which give the story an otherworldly feel. Frank extracts Levi's story piece by piece and succeeds in bringing it to life beautifully. We learn about the culture, traditions, languages and food of this varied and vibrant community. It proceeds more or less chronologically and we are treated to a really colorful story of a community lost to history. Her time in the camps is haunting, and her road to a new life in the United States is fascinating. The book is also a testament to the friendship and trust that Levi and Frank built. It reminds me a little of Lucette Lagnado's The Man in White Sharkskin Suit, a first-person memoir of growing up in Cairo around the same time, but this book has the added nuance of the interview-interviewee relationship and rapport.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in Jewish history, particularly Sephardic history, or in any of the many ways that World War 2 impacted people all over the world. It's a fascinating and moving portrait of a life and a lost world.

FTC Disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.

Review: Draft No. 4, by John McPhee

 

Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, by John McPhee. Essays. 2018, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

If you are interested in writing, particularly nonfiction, I think Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process, by John McPhee, is probably essential reading.

It's divided into chapters by stage, more or less; he covers structure, revision, other things. Along the way he mixed in quite a bit of memoir of time spent writing for The New Yorker alongside legendary editor William Shawn. One of the most entertaining chapters covers fact-checking and the dogged professionals who do the meticulous work of checking his work. The most useful for me, from a craft perspective, was the chapter on structure; it had me drawing pictures in my notebook of the way my own writing might unfold.

I took my time reading it a bit at a time in between other things. I don't read craft books all at once. I have lots of page numbers scribbled at the end, things to refer back to, lines I liked, and a fair bit of underlining here and there. Not too much- I don't underline everything. But there are some gems. Sometimes he veers off into tangents, this or that story, background on something he wrote, an adventure somewhere, but it's all there to illustrate his points about effective writing.

It's definitely a book I'll keep in my library. I don't get rid of books on writing anymore; when I started writing again earlier this year I had to go replace a few that I'd discarded when I thought I wouldn't write again. Having Natalie Goldberg staring down at me from a shelf when I hadn't written anything in years was more than I could take. Draft No. 4 was the first book I read when I started writing again and it won't be the last, but it will the first to be added to my permanent collection.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: Tasting History, by Max Miller with Ann Volkwein

 

Tasting History, by Max Miller with Ann Volkwein. Published 2023 by S&S. Cooking.

Do you watch the YouTube channel Tasting History? You really should, because it's awesome. A couple of times per week,  host Max Miller cooks up some dish or other from the past. Could be anything. He peppers his demo with historical background and stories; it's super fun and Max is adorable.

He's been running the channel since 2020 and now he has his first cookbook. The book sorts recipes geographically rather than the more traditional way, by course, and that's fun. Most if not all of the recipes appeared on the channel and the book includes some helpful information about sourcing some of the more specialized ingredients and elements. There's a lot to enjoy here.

My husband wanted to dive right in when the book arrived shortly after its publication date and he made the gingerbread recipe.

Not traditional a traditional or modern gingerbread cookie, this is really ginger bread, made with stale bread crumbs and a lot of honey. The finished product is more like a weird candy or unusual dessert, best eaten bite-sized as the flavor is really strong and sweet. 

Glancing over the book, most of the recipes are pretty approachable but I would definitely read ahead of time if you plan to make something and keep an open mind about the results.

I can't wait to make more recipes from this unusual and delightful cookbook.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review. I purchased it from Bookshop.org.

Review: How America Changed Yiddish, and How Yiddish Changed America, by Ilan Stavans

 

How Yiddish Changed America, and How America Changed Yiddish,  edited by Ilan Stavans and Josh Lambert. Restless Books, 2020. Nonfiction.

If you are at all interested in the history of the Yiddish language this book is required reading.

We begin with the language as it originated in Europe- its origins and components, and then how it traveled to the Americas with the waves of immigrants and spread across the continents. The book covers its evolutions and uses in media, theater, literature and everyday life, including the ways it's still growing and changing. The book also covers the various efforts to document, preserve and standardize the language and literature in the modern era. Readers will learn about playwrights, musicians, actors, activists, labor movements, writers, linguists, book collectors, preservationists and ordinary people who keep the language alive. Communities from Brooklyn to Havana to Argentina get covered. It's really just chock full of information.

The book is full of excerpts from various works to illustrate the history, growth and ongoing power of the language and the culture around it. I read the book on audio and I would recommend you do it in print unless you must do books in audio (which is fine, it's still reading) only because it's basically an anthology peppered with narration and exposition, and the excerpts, which are plentiful and fascinating, would probably work better in print for most readers. But if you're an audio person knock yourself out.

I'm planning to buy a print copy for my own library and I really recommend it highly to anyone interested in the subject at all.

 

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy of this book for review.

Review: Jersey Breaks, by Robert Pinsky

 

Jersey Breaks: Becoming an American Poet, by Robert Pinsky. Published 2022 by W.W. Norton & Company. Memoir.

For those of you who don't know Robert Pinsky he is a former U.S. Poet Laureate and taught at Harvard and Wellesley, among other places. I sort of got to know about him in the 1990s and 2000s as a public figure around Cambridge, Mass. And now I live in New Jersey so it's fun to read about his life here and get a sense of history.

He grew up in New Jersey in a colorful, diverse community and the book covers his life in non-chronological form, mostly about his growth as a writer and poet and his career in academia. I actually forgot that he taught at Wellesley at one point (where I went to college) so it was fun to rediscover that and hear about the community of writers in and around Cambridge in the 1970s-1990s or so. 

The book is a relatively quick read; I was reading two chapters a night but after about the middle of the book I slowed down because I was enjoying his voice so much. It feels like he is chatting to you. He is such a good writer and the book is immersive and pulls the reader along with its current. I felt like I got a good sense of the things pushing and pulling him in different directions, his influences both literary and familial. His personal life takes a back seat here at least after his childhood, which he narrates vividly.

Over all it was a really satisfying read and I could even see re-reading it at some point which I seldom if ever do with nonfiction. It does also make me want to seek out his poetry. Highly recommended.

Review: A Girl's Story, by Annie Ernaux

 

A Girl's Story, by Annie Ernaux. Seven Stories Press, 2020. Translated from the French by Alison L. Strayer.

A Girl's Story is a memoir about Ernaux's late teen years including her first sexual experience and its fallout. It's a dense and moving piece, made more so by the device of telling her story as though it's happening to someone else, as if the "girl of '58" is someone else. Ernaux refers to this self as "her" and "she" rarely breaking into the first person except to narrate her own efforts to tell the story of her younger self. The effect of this is profound alienation.

I found myself underlining so many passages. The last page of my copy is a list of page numbers. At the beginning she talks about what is was like for her when it was over, this romance:

"Everything you do is for the Master you have secretly chosen for yourself. But as you work to improve your self-worth, imperceptibly, inexorably, you leave him behind. You realize where folly has taken you, and never want to see him again. You swear to forget the whole thing and speak of it to no one."

But this is impossible as evinced by the existence of this book. "Both these periods of time are at once lived and imagined." An important line for the memoirist.

I loved this book deeply. I want to find a French copy so I can re-read it and get the quotes I liked in the original, not that I'm sure the translator hasn't done a wonderful job but still. Since I can read it in the original I really want to. I have so much to say about this but I don't feel like this is the right place for those thoughts though they may end up somewhere else.

Anyway another fine entry in Ernaux's piecemeal autofictional series.

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: A Woman's Story, by Annie Ernaux

 

A Woman's Story, by Annie Ernaux. Seven Stories Press (2003). Translated from the French by Tanya Leslie.

I should really just try reading her in the original. Anyway this is my first time reading Ernaux and will not be my last. A Woman's Story is a spare, elliptical memoir about the narrator's mother, a brief biography and series of remembrances on the occasion of her mother's death.

It's very short and you can read it in about an hour or so. Ernaux details her mother's early life and her later years, the times they spent together and the time that Ernaux spent caring for her toward the end of her life. It's not all shiny. 

There is a lot (relative to the fact that it is a short book) about both women's girlhoods.  It could be any woman's story; Ernaux succeeds in making it specific and universal. It might make you want to write your own story too.

Ernaux won the Nobel Prize recently and her books are available abundantly, at least at good bookstores. (I got mine at The Bookstore in Lenox, Mass.) I don't want to write too much because I want you to go pick up one of her books and have the experience of dipping into her world. I know I'll be back soon.

I'm off to read A Girl's Story next. 

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this copy for review.

Review: Jewish Literature: A Very Short Introduction, by Ilan Stavans

Jewish Literature: A Very Short Introduction, by Ilan Stavans. Published 2021 by Oxford University Press.

This is a book that does what it says on the label. It provides a very short introduction to Jewish literature. The book, pocket sized and clocking in at about 116 pages of text, is broken up into chapters covering various areas of Jewish fiction and nonfiction, more or less chronologically starting with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Stavans is a professor at Amherst and a scholar with deep knowledge of his subject; I encountered this book as a part of a course I'm taking with him on early Jewish literature but this book covers pretty much everything. (He also wrote the book I've been listening to for a while, How Yiddish Changed America and How America Changed Yiddish, which goes into much much more depth on Yiddish literature.)

His voice is engaging and while the book feels like a big checklist, it's never dull or dry. He provides pencil sketches of the lives and works of everyone from Fernando de Rojas through Susan Sontag and I found myself taking notes for things to check out or look for and even though I am not new to the subject I still learned quite a bit. I was particularly drawn to the chapters on translation and criticism as these were not things I expected to read about and found them very interest-piqueing.

The only issue I had is that I felt like there could have been an entire chapter devoted to Russian writers. But maybe you need a whole book for that subject and there are Russians sprinkled throughout in particular in the chapter on people who wrote in Yiddish.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in the subject and I think even if you already know a lot, Stavans provides a pretty broad and wide-ranging panorama and you'll probably find something new and interesting to investigate in your own reading.  It has definitely earned a permanent place on my reference shelf.

Review: People Who Eat Darkness, by Richard Lloyd Parry

People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo- and the Evil that Swallowed Her Up, by Richard Lloyd Parry. 2012. Farrar Straus and Giroux.

Lucie Blackman was a young Englishwoman in her early 20s when she and a friend decided to travel and work in Japan to have fun and earn some money. They each took a job in a "hostess club," where young women chatted up and entertained (mostly) Japanese men and thereby encouraged them to buy expensive drinks. Part of their job also involved going on dates (dōhan) with the club's customers, to encourage further visits and patronage of the bar. Then one day Lucie disappeared. 

When Lucie's story starts, it's so ordinary. Parry describes her normal family, predictable path through school and early career, regular friends and boyfriends. Going abroad should have been just another fun chapter in her life- not something everyone does, but not that unusual. I went to Ireland for a summer after college, not to pay off debts but just to travel, have an adventure, get away from home and be independent for the first time. Lucie had traveled as an airline hostess but this was her first time living in another country and everything should have been fairly straightforward. And it was, until she crossed paths with a predator.

When Lucie disappeared, her family sprang into action to find her. What follows is frustrating and drawn out, made more complicated by a slow-lurching Japanese justice system along with other factors. Parry describes the action in page-turning terms and he brings everyone to life on the page, from Lucie to her father to the alleged killer. I really wanted to see how this story would turn out even when it felt like disappointment was looming.

As true crime goes it's gripping and intense and filled with detail about the Japanese police, court system and hostess bar scene. I felt like I learned a lot. There's a lot of weird stuff that happens, but Parry's writing is immersive and will keep you reading well into the night. I've had this book on my radar for a long time and enjoyed it, insofar as you can enjoy a story like this.

Review: El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord, by Noah Hurowitz

El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord, by Noah Hurowitz (2021) Atria Books.

I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to pick up El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord, by Noah Hurowitz. I bought it earlier this year from Greenlight Bookstore, where I used to work; it was kind of a big-deal book at the store and it piqued my curiosity as a true-crime reader. I think he's local to one of the stores and did some signing. It's a pretty good read.

The first half or so centers on the various players in the Mexican drug scene, their relationships, their fights, the incredible amounts of violence they generate that affect each other and innocent bystanders. This part of the book is page-turning but also incredibly depressing. Awful people being awful to each other and others. We also learn about El Chapo's big escape from prison in Mexico and how truly unbelievably corrupt the whole system is, from the very top all the way on down.

Then we get into what was for me the more interesting part of the book, about the operation to take El Chapo down, which starts with the most unlikely of players- El Chapo's IT guy. The story of this guy, how and why he was persuaded to cooperate with the FBI and the details of the efforts to take El Chapo down are fascinating and compelling. This part of the story also gets more into El Chapo's personality and his personal relationships because these details figure prominently in El Chapo's online life and how he managed the technology that ran his empire. Soap-opera-worthy doesn't even begin to describe it.

And I learned a lot of (depressing) things along the way about the drug trade, the gun trade and governments of both Mexico and the United States. 

Anyway I would definitely recommend El Chapo to the true crime reader or anyone interested in any of the topics I mentioned above. Hurowitz's reporting will keep you tied to and turning the pages. It's a book I stayed up past my bedtime to keep reading more than once!

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: Making a Scene, by Constance Wu

 

Making a Scene, by Constance Wu. Scribner, 2022. Memoir.

You may know Constance Wu from the show Fresh Off the Boat or the movie Crazy Rich Asians (2018) where she played appealing heroine Rachel Chu. Her memoir-in-essays covers her childhood, acting career and romantic relationships. Chatty and approachable, she talks about her personal and professional life in tones that manage to be breezy, direct and vulnerable. 

She grew up in Virginia and moved to New York and Los Angeles to pursue acting; a theater kid from day one or so it seems, the stage was where she could have her big feelings, where she didn't have to hold back or play nice. When she starting acting on television she became embroiled in behind the scenes politics and relationships and navigating those alongside her personal life forms the basis for most of the book. At the beginning and then at the end we hear more about her family- her sisters, especially the sister closest in age to herself, and her parents, especially her mother. 

I enjoyed Making a Scene and found it to be both a quick read and a pretty immersive one. The chapters are short and the book covers a lot of ground, making it a good choice for the coffeeshop or the beach bag. I bet it would be great on audio as well. She talks about difficult subjects, including rape and sexual harassment and the various compromises women make to be people in the world as well as her own delusions and failings, with a tone that is both accessible and relatable. As celebrity memoirs go this is one to enjoy on several levels and worth your time.

FTC: I received an advance copy from the publisher for Indie Next consideration.

Review: Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk

Every Good Boy Does Fine, by Jeremy Denk. 2022. Link is to my Bookshop.org store. I receive a small commission on sales.

What a delight this memoir is. 

I picked this up at Three Lives & Company bookstore in Greenwich Village on impulse, because it's about piano and I am a beginner piano student, and it looked like it might be a fun read. And it is.

Jeremy Denk started piano as a small child and this book is like a love letter to music and to his teachers. He takes us from childhood to early adulthood, roughly ending the book when he finished his formal schooling ending with a doctorate from Julliard. He talks about growing up and studying piano in New Mexico, Ohio, Indiana and finally New York- his teachers, pieces that he loves, thoughts on music and performance. It's just a terrific book.

Some of the material on music or music theory (okay, most of it) is way above my pay grade as someone who has been learning music for less than two years, but a lot more than I would have expected was actually very accessible and fun to read. I remember in particular a passage about a piece where at one point there is a staccato notation above a note and a pedal notation below it, and I understood both why that was absurd and how lovely it probably sounds when you figure out how to resolve it, for example. There are also extensive lists of recommended pieces to listen to with the chapters, which is fun. 

Much of the memoir centers on his lessons, on the learning process and his relationship with various teachers. Denk is always working working, taking on new repertoire and performance challenges, and one thing I'm loving about learning music is that you're never done- there's always something new to keep you excited and interested and moving forward. I love that feeling of always wanting to know and do more even as your skills and aptitude continue to develop. It's one of the most motivating things for me, and I love that Denk really shows us the joy that he finds in always continuing to learn and grow.

If you decide to read Every Good Boy, or even if you don't, I definitely suggest going to your favorite streaming service and listening to his recordings. Either way you should read the book and enjoy Denk's voice and writing, which are delightful. 

I did not receive this book for review.

Review: Catherine The Great: Portrait of a Woman, by Robert K. Massie

 

I don't know if you are a fan of the Hulu series The Great, but I am, and I definitely got the idea to read Robert K. Massie's amazing biography of Catherine II of Russia after seeing the show and wondering about the relationship of fact to TV show; a quick glance at Wikipedia told me that Catherine's real story was just the jumping off point for the show, but I wanted to know more.

If you are interested in Catherine, this book is a great place to start and linger for a while over her amazing story. Beautifully written in nice bite-sized chapters, filled with anecdotes and narrative both personal and public, I learned so much from reading this book. The most compelling parts of the book for me were the most personal; her early years, her love life, the relationships she had with Empress Elizabeth, her husband Peter and her son Paul were really interesting and not always what I expected.  Massie details her many accomplishments as empress as well as the many challenges she faced, from the belief that she was a usurper to her struggle just to fit in in Russia, along with things like rebellions, an imposter who tried to take power and sowed chaos all over the country, her struggle to reform Russia on various levels, on and on. 

Massie gives us lots of vivid supporting characters like Peter and Elizabeth but also the Orlov brothers, Gregory Potemkin and more. The court shenanigans were fascinating and tragi-comical at times. The relationships of all of these people are so clearly laid out and supported with stories and anecdotes; the only time I felt the book started to drag was towards the end when Massie's emphasis shifted to her political machinations especially around Poland. He does show how her actions set the stage for centuries of subsequent history and how her legacy can still be felt today in places like Ukraine. 

What shines through so much for me was her love of Russia and her wish to leave her mark on it- on its art, culture, politics, borders, and its intellectual life. He takes pains to portray her as intelligent, hardworking and very down to earth- someone you could run into, dressed simply, in one of her gardens. And then she would shift into the magnificent empress we all think of when we think of her.

Catherine the Great is a long book, detailed and brimming with her long story. It's well worth your time. You can buy a copy at Bookshop.org if you are curious.

 

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive a copy for review. I am a Bookshop.org affiliate and receive a small commission on sales.

Review: Happy-Go-Lucky, by David Sedaris

Happy-Go-Lucky (2022), by David Sedaris. Little, Brown. Audiobook narrated by David Sedaris.

You can find this and other favorites for sale in my Bookshop.org shop. I receive a small commission on sales.

David Sedaris's latest memoir/collection, Happy-Go-Lucky, is often anything but. The funniest essays are at the beginning and the collection slowly darkens from there, from a wry graduation speech given at Oberlin College to an essay on guns and school shootings and several pieces meditating on the death and complicated legacy of his father Lou, this collection covers a lot of ground, different moods and even some family secrets. 

If you have been following Sedaris's work through the years as I have you have probably noticed this trajectory as he's (as all of us have) been getting older. There is something I've enjoyed about growing up with him. He's about a decade older than I am and I read his books sometimes as glimpses into the future; his preoccupations aren't quite mine but they will be someday. In this book he wrestles over and over with his father's death and I can see why he may have waited for his father to die to publish some of these pieces. They are complicated, layered and incredibly moving. They must have been very difficult to write.

Sedaris also spends time on the Covid-19 pandemic and its various impacts on his life, from the ups and downs of living in New York City during its height (I can relate from my perch in north Jersey) to his frustrations with Covid culture and experiences in different parts of the country. It's often illuminating seeing things from his point of view, with his humor and irony. I don't agree with him on everything but I like how he makes his points.

This definitely isn't the laugh-out-loud Sedaris of Me Talk Pretty One Day; he deals with a lot of serious stuff but there are still chuckles to be had here and there. His now 30+ year relationship with his partner Hugh still provides fuel and there are smiles tucked into the corners, maybe not the darkest corners, but most of them. I do audio for Sedaris exclusively now because I so enjoy listening to him tell his stories but I pick up the print editions too, for completeness, and because he often does signed preorders which is nice and I do like my signed editions.

He never disappoints and I loved Happy-Go-Lucky as much as any of his books. I'm not sure it's the best first Sedaris and if you are already a fan you don't need my recommendation to read it, so if you're wondering, what I'll say is, check out one of his earlier books and get a feel for his story and his style, and see if that's something you want to pursue into later volumes. I don't think you'll regret getting on board.

I did not receive this book for review.

Review: CODE GIRLS, by Liza Mundy

Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World War II, by Liza Mundy. Published 2017 by Hachette. Audiobook narrated by Erin Bennett.

I was attracted to Code Girls because I've been reading a lot of memoirs and history by and about women, and I've really been enjoying them. And at the outset I learned that many of these women came from the Seven Sisters including my own Wellesley College. Having this connection to the story really piqued my interest.

But the women who populated the code-breaking ranks didn't just come from elite east-coast schools. They came from all over the country, from community colleges and teachers' colleges and institutions of all kinds- although mostly from all-womens' institutions, since many four-year colleges didn't admit women in the first half of the 20th century (and some, well into the second half).

Mundy tells this fascinating story of women who broke codes, built encryption machines and worked in both military and civilian jobs to aide the war effort behind the scenes, in an energetic, page-turning fashion. She focuses on the lives and accomplishments of several women in particular who made important contributions, but I won't tell you too much about them here. You should read Mundy's thorough and engaging narrative which also covers their living conditions, personal lives and stories before and after the war.

Mundy's copious research including many hours of interviews with surviving codebreakers paid off in the form of an illuminating read. I had heard of the women codebreakers at Bletchley Park in England but had no idea that U.S. women made similar, and sometimes surpassing, contributions; I had heard of Alan Turing but not of Agnes Meyer Driscoll or Genevieve Grotjan. Mundy also lays bare the sexism that kept these women and their accomplishments from popular recognition. Even Driscoll, possibly the greatest of America's World War 2 cryptanalysts, never got the chance her male peers did to tell her own story via oral history. Mundy tells her story, and others, in this essential book, and Erin Bennett's lively narration made it all the more riveting.

So yes please read Code Girls if you're interested in World War 2 history or womens' history or any history. Many of the women key to the war effort went on to help guide agencies like the NSA after the war, shaping America's codebreaking and national-security efforts well into the 20th century, a subject I'd love to read more about. In the mean time I'm glad this book is out there.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a promotional copy of the audio book via Libro.fm.

Review: THE ROMANOV SISTERS, by Helen Rappaport

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra. Published 2015 by St. Martin's Griffin. Nonfiction. History.

It might seem like a depressing topic for a book- the doomed lives of the four daughters of Russia's last tsar- and while it does get gloomy towards the end, for the most part I really enjoyed Helen Rappaport's biography of Anastasia, Maria, Tatiana and Olga Romanova, along with the stories of their parents and brother. Rappaport gives the reader an engaging and detailed portrait of a time, a place and seven lives that just weren't what they should have been.

Princess Alix of Hesse, granddaughter of Queen Victoria, married Nicholas of Russia as much for love as for dynastic reasons and together they had five children, all of whom they adored, even as they longed for that crucial son needed to continue the royal line. Rappaport talks about the mixture of joy and disappointment that greeted the birth of each of their four daughters and the subsequent mixture of trepidation and joy when their son Alexei was born with hemophilia. Rappaport portrays the tsar and tsarina as devoted parents and a loving couple and makes it clear that the survival of the line is Alexandra's primary goal. Thus her relief at Alexei's birth coupled with her growing and deepening anxiety around his delicate health. Rappaport also makes it clear that the Russian people never quite took to their German empress and that giving birth to daughter after daughter didn't help matters. Nor did her friendship with Rasputin, a controversial figure to say the least, and Alexandra's dependence on him was in no small way connected to her concern for Alexei, whom Rasputin seemed to be able to help. Meanwhile, she and other Russian royals tried to arrange marriages for the two older girls, and when that ship sailed, everyone did the best they could to protect them and each other. Sadly those efforts failed.

The book gives the reader a detailed and intimate look at the family and only really hints at the political strife swirling around them. We get to know each girl a little- Anastasia the tomboy and jokester, sweet Maria and lovelorn Olga and Tatiana. They love sailing; they love their parents, and they try to be good at the job of being grand duchesses. But they are also ordinary girls trying to make their way in a narrow version of the world. We see their constrained and isolated lives become more and more so as revolution brewed in Russia and some knowledge of the political history of the revolution would aide the reader in getting a deeper appreciation of why their lives changed from those of beloved princesses in a gilded palace to prisoners and finally to murder victims. That said, it is a remarkable and unforgettable story, sad to the end though it is.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I did not receive this book for review.

Review: THEFT BY FINDING, by David Sedaris

Theft by Finding, by David Sedaris. Published 2017 by Little, Brown. Nonfiction. Memoir. Humor. Audiobook.

Oh how I love David Sedaris's memoirs. Way back when I remember splurging on a hardcover edition of Holidays on Ice, because I just had a feeling it would speak to me. And it did.

Anyway after reading his books steadily for the past 18-odd years I've decided the best way to enjoy him is on audio- he is a great narrator of his own work and really adds a whole new dimension with his expressions and voice. Thus even though I did run out and buy a hardcover of Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002 as soon as it came out, I also jumped on a free audio version that Libro.fm offered to booksellers. What a treat.

At the very beginning Sedaris informs, or warns, us that this book is a very selective and incomplete edition of his diaries, which are far more voluminous than even this weighty tome would suggest. But what remains is vastly entertaining, bittersweet at times, at times obscene, crazy, or just plain silly and weird. It's also mundane, tender, jumpy, and intimate, and all these contradictory things at once. The narrative feels disconnected at times, since there is no real narrative, just a selection of events over time that give the reader some insight into Sedaris's priorities when it comes to observation, as well as his creative process and eye for detail. Some characters stand out; his relationship with his siblings always sits front and center, as well as his parents and his partner Hugh, who comes on to the scene about midway through this volume. Sedaris is cagey and economical about what he includes about the relationship; they meet, meet again, and the next we hear they are moving in together. It's not a lot but the particulars he chooses are enough to give a sense. I don't know why I'm particularly fascinated with this aspect of his life, but there you go.

Sedaris's voice joined me for a couple of weeks of bus rides and walks and he is a great companion. He says in the introduction that he doesn't expect readers to listen all at once, but "dip in and out" and this is just about what I did, listening for a few minutes here and there as I did errands, traveled around the city or relaxed at home or worked on crafts. I listened to quite a bit of it in the car, as my husband and I drove to and from Washington, D.C., two weekends ago. But for the most part I consumed the book in stolen moments.

And this approach worked well for a diary, written as it is in fits and spurts and crystallizing individual moments in time. Readers will travel with Sedaris all over the United States, to England, France and elsewhere, and from his early days of housecleaning and fruit picking through to his success as a writer. You'll get to know his family, especially his sisters and parents, and of course Hugh. You'll listen to experience his first successes and occasional struggles, like learning French or losing his cat Neil. Poor Neil.

Theft by Finding isn't laugh-out-loud funny like his polished memoir writing but it's so very enjoyable in a more low-key way. I could listen to him all day.

Rating: BUY

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary audio copy from Libro.fm.