House of Cards

by Cindy | Nov 9, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  House of Cards: Love, Faith and Other Social Expressions, by David Ellis Dickerson.  Riverhead Books (2009), 369 pages. Sadly, I must begin this review with a tirade against the cover art.  There are other things to say, much of them positive, but...

A Wolf at the Table

by Donna | Sep 16, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father, by Augusten Burroughs.  St. Martin’s Press (2008), 256 pages. I was wrong about Augusten. He has proven beyond a doubt that he did have another award-winning book in him after all. I had declared him...

My Lobotomy

by Donna | Sep 9, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  My Lobotomy, by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming.  Three Rivers Press (2008), 284 pages It’s hard to beat a title like this! Happily, My Lobotomy does not disappoint. In 1960, at the age of twelve, the author was given a transorbital lobotomy,...

The Invisible Wall

by Cindy | Sep 8, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  The Invisible Wall, by Harry Bernstein.  Ballantine Books (2007), 320 pages. Bernstein was 93 years old when he wrote this memoir (his first book) of his childhood in an English mill town. For those readers who require that their books be firmly...

Tales of Wonder

by Cindy | Aug 31, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  Tales of Wonder, by Huston Smith.  HarperOne (2009), 209 pages. Huston Smith’s bestseller, The World’s Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions, was published in 1958 and remains (with over 2.5 million copies sold) one of the best-loved...

Cartwheels in a Sari

by Cindy | Aug 29, 2009 | Memoir

Rating:  Cartwheels in a Sari: A Memoir of Growing Up Cult, by Jayanti Tamm.  Harmony Books (2009), 288 pages. In the memoir category, stories of being brought up in a cult are hard to beat.  The craziness surpasses anything one would find in a really good,...