Leigh Stein’s “Dispatch from the Future”
by,
August 28, 2012

“Have you ever been in love? Have you ever dreamed of revenge? Have you ever felt like no one knows who or where you are, and so your body may never be discovered? Have you ever wanted for a night to never end? Have you ever wanted to run away? Have you ever gone outside and seen the sky?” In an interview with girlslikegiants.wordpress.com, Leigh… [Read More]

The Cost of Hope
by,
August 25, 2012

Amanda Bennett’s memoir, The Cost of Hope: The Story of A Marriage, A Family and a Quest for Life, is one of the most intelligent memoirs I’ve read in years. Bennett takes her own personal experience fighting to save her husband’s life in his struggle against a rare form of kidney cancer and as an investigative reporter she uses his story to illustrate what all… [Read More]

Reimagining Life after Loss: Jai Pausch’s Dream New Dreams
by,
July 31, 2012

Dream New Dreams: Reimagining My Life After Loss by Jai Pausch (Crown 2012) is one of the first memoirs to address the experiences of those who become full time caregivers to their terminally ill spouse. Imagine dealing with complicated medical care and even more complicated emotions. And then imagine having to tell your young children that their father is dead. You may have heard of… [Read More]

Strayed from expectations: Wild
by,
July 10, 2012

The buzz about Cheryl Strayed’s new memoir, Wild, couldn’t be ignored. If Oprah Winfrey brought back her Book Club just because of this manuscript, I knew I had to read it. Most everything Oprah recommended I’d read before she announced the selection. But Wild was a wild card thrown in my direction. The jacket described this book about the rough experiences on the Pacific Crest… [Read More]

The Beginner’s Goodbye by Anne Tyler is a delightful apparition
by,
July 3, 2012

Anne Tyler’s novels are punctuation marks in my own lifeline. Her first novels I discovered in college — If Morning Ever Comes and The Tin Can Tree — but by the time I got to graduate school, Celestial Navigation, Searching for Caleb, and Earthly Possessions captured my fancy as a reader. As each of her novels came out, I found myself compelled to purchase the… [Read More]

Is it cool to be carnivore? New non-fiction and memoirs about meat
by,
May 15, 2012

Passion for good, simple, healthy food is something farmers and hunters share with chefs, urban homesteaders and metropolitan diners in these new books about meat and so much more.  It’s become cool to be carnivore. Farmer and evangelist for the grass-fed movement, Joel Salatin’s new book, Folks This Ain’t Normal: A Farmer’s Advice for Happier Hens, Healthier People, and a Better World (Hatchette 2011) points… [Read More]

Mamas, don’t let your girls grow up to be professors
by,
March 13, 2012

A decade ago I kissed the golden handcuffs of tenure goodbye. I walked away from teaching journalism and media studies at Ithaca College in May 2002. No one bothered to ask me why. The conditions and experiences haven’t gotten much better for female faculty and in some ways worse. In 1980, 49 percent of full-time female faculty had tenure, compared to 70 percent of men…. [Read More]

Spring memoirs: Slices of small farm life
by,
February 28, 2012

While some folks like to read about the lives of celebrities, athletes, and politicians, and how they put their pants on just like you and me. I don’t. Apparently I am not alone. The new trend in small farm memoirs began in earnest when Storey Publishing, known for its how-to guidebooks for small animal farmers, released its first memoir in 2008. Jenna Woginrich began as… [Read More]

Visual Storytelling: from film to books and the possibilities in between
by,
February 21, 2012

Last month, I reviewed a graphic novel/interactive documentary called KENK: A Graphic Portrait. This journalistic comic was the first release for Toronto-based multimedia production and publishing company Pop Sandbox, and it was met with a hoard of accolades and reviews within its first three months of release. I was lucky enough to snag an interview with Alex Jansen, the owner and operator of Pop Sandbox,… [Read More]

The Man in the Empty Boat by Mark Salzman
by,
February 14, 2012

If a man in a boat is crossing a river and an empty boat drifts along and bumps into his, he won’t get angry. But if there is someone in the other boat, then the man will shout out directions to move. …If a man could make himself empty, and pass like that through the world, then who could harm him? Mark Salzman’s ebook The… [Read More]