Tolstoy and the Purple Chair by Nina Sankovitch

Crystal's comments: 


If, as Mark Twain once said, a person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t, then surely a person who remains unchanged by what they read is just as disadvantaged. In her memoir, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair, author Nina Sankovitch proves how much a thoughtful reader can milk out of a good book, sharing her experience of reading one book a day for a whole year.

After the devastating loss of her oldest sister, Sankovitch reads her way out of grief, fear and depression back to hope and promise. I know it sounds like a heavy theme, but her shared experience is must reading that will delight all bibliophiles. For reluctant readers who say they don’t have time to read, Sankovitch’s memoir is like a baited hook, demonstrating that a well-read life is a well-lived life, especially when we think about what we read.

This isn’t a work of literary snobbery; Sankovitch finds wisdom in popular mysteries and contemporary authors as well as classics. As you follow her year of reading, you’ll experience her steady recovery, not in psychobabble, but in earnest and profound descriptions of how stories and characters connect with real life.

If you’ve ever felt the loss of a loved one, don’t be surprised to find the pangs of your own heartbreak mingled with the author’s as you read. Her words are a sweet balm for one of life’s most universal experiences. By the end of the book, Sankovitch feels like an intimate friend, having shared in glittering detail what all readers love about books—their ability to transport, comfort, elevate, encourage, befriend, and finally, to chasten us into better people who can deal with all that life has to throw at us.

This one is worth reading again and again, especially as a motivating kick-start for anyone who isn’t setting aside enough time to read. In our achievement-driven world, no one is going to reward us for making time to read and think. But we’ll pay a price for not having done so. 

Adult Nonfiction, 028.8 SAN

Blood, Bones, and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton

Crystal's comments: 


A prissy reader might be tempted to rename this memoir within the first 50 pages. Something like Food, Drugs and Cusswords would do. Or, buoyed by a highly-developed moral code, one might set it aside in favor of something sweeter on the palette. But that would be like foregoing a spectacular feast of honest food prepared by a famous chef like…well, like Gabrielle Hamilton herself.

Hamilton’s memoir is a delicious account of her arduous journey from adolescence to adulthood, hurdling obstacles and carrying baggage that might have put a lot of us on the sidelines of life. Instead, the author matures into talented writer and chef/restaurant owner, who starts her own unconventional family and begins the balancing act known to legions of hard-working women.

Thinking of glamour? Well, forget that. Her journey to chefdom didn’t include a lofty chef’s school. It was made on an itinerant apprenticeship of inauspicious greasy spoons, summer camps, catering gigs, and a hungry, sometimes harrowing traipse through Europe as a young adult. None of it paid well, but it did form an unpretentious chef who can simultaneously write and cook the glory and complexity of unfussy, unadulterated food and of life itself.

Keep your dictionary handy. All but the very most sophisticated of foodies will need it to figure out what’s in the oven or on the stovetop and table. Read to the end and take turns shuddering, gasping, salivating and aching your way through a gritty memoir filled with tenderness, honesty, self-reliance and hope.

Adult Nonfiction, 641.5 HAM

Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

Taryn's comments:

In graphic novel format, author David Small shares the story of his troubled childhood in Detroit. Small’s parents were cold and distant, especially his mother. Small had respiratory problems from a young age, and his father, a radiologist, believed that repeated X-rays would help improve his son’s health. Unfortunately, the repeated exposure to heavy doses of radiation may have caused Small’s cancer, which he developed years later. His parents kept the fact that he had been diagnosed with cancer from him, and they lied to him about the reasons that he needed throat surgery.  Small woke up from surgery with a vocal cord removed which made him lose the ability to speak above a whisper. In haunting images that convey the intense pain and suffering Small endured, we watch his tragic childhood experiences unfold as if we are watching a movie. The story ends on a hopeful note as Small triumphs over the adversity he has faced. In this memoir, Small has taken his horrible childhood experiences and turned them into a beautiful work of art. 

Graphic/Illustrated Novels, SMA

Travel Memoirs

The roads are often slick and dangerous at this time of year - why not stay home and read a travel memoir? Then you can live vicariously through the adventures of others while staying warm and safe at home.

Why read a travel memoir? 

1. No luggage! Let someone else do the packing. Just sit back and enjoy. 

2. No lines! Visit beautiful historical landmarks without waiting in line. 

3. No hotels! Enjoy exploring far off locations from the comfort of your favorite reading chair. 

4. No awkward moments! Let the author have those awkward moments tourists experience in foreign lands. 

5. No stress! Avoid listening to the kids scream in the backseat and arguing with stubborn drivers who don't ask for directions. 

Here are just a few of the travel memoirs GPL has for you to check out. You can find them as well as others on the display near the Adult Reference desk on the second floor. 

Corked: A Memoir by Kathryn Borel

Mustn't Grumble: An Accidental Return to England by Joe Bennett

No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo by Redmond O'Hanlan

A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by Bill Bryson

Cheryl's comments:
Bill Bryson is a master storyteller. This time he is telling the tale of his youth, growing up in Iowa in the 50's. He manages to be laugh-out-loud funny, poignant, and brutally honest all at the same time. Even if you didn't grow up in the 50's, Bryson will make you feel as if you did. The Thunderbolt Kid is of course Bryson himself, referring to his boyhood superpowers, which in his mind allowed him to instantly vaporize those who annoyed him. And a very hand power it was to have, too. These moments of childish imagination immediately take you back to the days when superheroes could save the day and the bad guys always got it in the end, and a little childhood innocence lasted beyond third grade.

Bryson gives a child's perspective to the cold war days including duck and cover drills, the Bomb, and looming communism. While parents and teachers worried about the big stuff, Bill was more concerned about comic books, Saturday movie matinées, baseball, and of course finding out everything he could about sex (which was remarkably difficult). The memoir extends into Bryson's teen years and the pranks he and his friends got away with. Readers of Bryson's Walk in the Woods will appreciate getting to meet the young Stephen Katz, his partner in crime.

This book made me remember all the unsupervised time I had growing up in the 60's and I found myself amazed all over again that my friends and I survived. And just when I start to mourn the loss of that perfect childhood where kids could roam at will, regularly pull the wool over their parents' eyes, and still somehow turn into respectable adults--I begin to wonder if it isn't completely lost. Only maybe now we're the ones with wool over our eyes.

One slight word of warning--this is probably a PG-13 title. For all its sweetness, it is still the memoir of a boy growing up.


Check status at GPL.

Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir by Tony Hillerman

Ellen's comments:
I have read all or nearly all of Hillerman's Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee mysteries set in the Indian culture of the American Southwest. In fact, I have visited the Four Corners area to see Teec Nos Pos Trading Post, the Tribal Police Station at Shiprock, and other locations from the books. I guess I had assumed that Hillerman grew up in the area and among the people there, so I was surprised to learn that he was an Oklahoma boy and did not move to New Mexico until his job took him there at mid-life. He was, however, familiar with the Indians in his part of Oklahoma.

A sizeable portion of the memoir recounts experiences as an Army "grunt" in World War II. He shows life from the perspective of the ordinary foot soldier (and war IS hell) and cites numerous incidents that helped to make "Army intelligence" an oxymoron. While in the Army he meets several people who later become inspirations for characters in his novels.

Home at the end of the war, with injuries that left him with imperfect vision and a limp, he went to college on the G.I. Bill and entered a career as a newsman, spending many years with UPI. He met "the love of his life," married her, and together he and his wife raised six children, five of them adopted.

Acting on a long-time dream of writing, he sold short pieces and finally found an agent, an editor, and a publisher willing to work with him and his ideas. And, as they say, "The rest is history."

Check status at GPL.