A Written Life
because the alphabet's personal
writer | reader | freelancer | laugher jesakalong.com
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“Would I have carried myself with the same swagger, or faced adversity with such feminine resolve, without Albertine as my...
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Wise words from Dolly Parton
Source: www.facebook.com/netaporter
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“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as an escape.”
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Tag Results
35 posts tagged books
Finally…mmm books feed my soul #bookstore #knowledge #peace (Taken with Instagram at Powell’s Bookstore)
(via literatureismyutopia)
Bookmans (an independent bookstore) does a banned books virtual read-out. Brilliant and moving.
Designed to resemble a library turned on its side, this espresso bar near Grand Central Station was inspired by the Bryant Park Library.
Book review: RUNAWAY GIRL by Carissa Phelps with Larkin Warren
“No one ever said, ‘We love you, and it matters to us that you’re safe. Please stay home.’” This line from Carissa Phelps book RUNAWAY GIRL (with Larkin Warren) is heartbreaking for many reasons, most specifically because 1) it’s true and 2) its aftermath is devastating throughout Carissa’s young life.
RUNAWAY GIRL is a memoir of young girl who tried to escape her crowded, hungry household and her stepfather’s wrath through sleepovers with friends, which grew into stays that extended until she was told to go home. Desperate, she began to run away, avoiding her home for as long as she possibly could. Then her mother left her at Fresno’s Juvenile Hall. Carissa was only 12.
By the time she was 14, Carissa was a juvenile hall escapee who found herself sold for sex and drugs by a violent pimp and his girlfriend. Life starts to look up for her when enters a last-chance rehab facility for young people and meets a counselor who was patient and determined enough to reach Carissa through her pain.
As she discovers her love—and gift—for math and begins to reconnect with the world around her, it seems as though she’s on her way to a safer, less tumultuous life.
But it’s not that easy for her. In several searing, heartbreaking scenes, Carissa is invited by caring adults to live with them. Even though it’s clear she longs for the comfortable, giving homes they can provide, she can’t bring herself to say yes. The fear of being trapped by rules sends her running again and again. Her only “home” is the house with her mother and stepfather—and it’s clear that’s not an option for Carissa.
The book’s jacket copy informs readers that Carissa obtained her law degree and an MBA. Her journey from the street to the UCLA classroom is hard-fought and gut wrenching. But it’s her discovery of how her story can help other people that is so compelling—not because she realizes she can help people but because it never occurred to her.
“Looking for sympathy is ‘poor me,’” she writes. “Learning empathy is ‘We’re all in this together.’” She also writes, “As I realize the value of my suffering, I see that others feel pain and that they have found ways to muddle through it. The suffering we have in common makes me feel less alone, less singled out.”
Carissa shares her struggle with forgiving her mother as well and her approach to it as “putting out her own fire” is mind opening. So many memoirs end with a tearful reunion scene, a daughter forgiving a mother and forging a new relationship. Carissa’s is not so straightforward, which makes it all the more relatable.
RUNAWAY GIRL should be required reading for anyone with kids, especially girls, in their lives. In addition to sharing her story of strength and survival, she also educates with statistics such as this one: “One in seven American children will run away from home, and within forty-eight hours, one out of three will be asked, as I was, to ‘take care’ of someone.” Carissa’s book is not easy to get through, but it is a must read.
The book trailer that started it all for me: “Have You Found Her” by Janice Erlbaum. What makes this so brilliant is that the author herself portrays the various characters from her memoir. I fell in love with its tone and originality. When I saw the trailer, I’d already read the book (and thought it was extremely well written) and thought the video captured the story.
So refreshing: an increase in bookstore sales.
Bookstore sales had their strongest month of 2012 in May, rising 5.7%, to $1.09 billion, according to preliminary estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The increase followed a 4% gain in April and pulled bookstore sales in 2012 even with sales in 2011 for the first five months of the year. Sales in the period were $5.94 billion.
Retail sales in general were up 7% in May and 7% for the first five months of the year.Hooray!
(Source: Publishers Weekly)
What’s on Rory Gilmore’s book shelf? A long list to keep this bookworm’s nose in a book for a very long time. Here’s a (tiny) sample:
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
• The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
• Old School by Tobias Wolff
• The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
• The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duff
• Brick Lane by Monica Ali
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi
See Bust Magazine for the whole list.
15 Summer Reads Handpicked By Indie Booksellers
Booksellers know how important a good story is — one that reaches out, pulls you in and keeps you reading late into the warm summer night. As readers seek out recommendations for their summer travels, booksellers are scouring their shelves for the stories that shine.
For some suggestions, we turn again to our go-to independent booksellers: Lucia Silva, the book buyer at Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City, Calif; Daniel Goldin of Boswell Book Co. in Milwaukee; and Rona Brinlee of The BookMarkin Neptune Beach, Fla. They’ve selected stories about con artists, grade-school spies, refugees and ranchers. Also: an inquiry into what makes a book a best-seller, and an exploration of why stories make us human.
The Graduate as a Little Golden Book
(via Ten Classic Movies Drawn as Little Golden Books - Page 3 | Nerve.com)
Book trailers fascinate me and I love to see how authors (and, most likely, their editors and publishers) capture a story with a 90-second video. This one for The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth does a fantastic job of capturing the voice and feel of the novel—and it highlights the book’s gripping first sentence. (Disclosure: I love this book. I couldn’t put it down and I was sad to reach the end of the 480-page story.)
Eight new reads: best mother memoirs
Flavorwire lists 10 of the best memoirs about mothers and I was surprised that I’ve only read two of the eight. I thought I’d read every mother-related memoir I could find. With that, I have to point out a few memoirs Flavorwire should have listed: 
Her Last Death by Susanna Sonnenberg. This one is a favorite because it doesn’t build up to a cathartic scene of forgiveness. It’s far more complicated than that.
The Mother Knot by Kathryn Harrison. The author wants to exhume her mother’s grave and cremate her in hopes of achieving a final good-bye. I didn’t think I could understand something so extreme until I read this book.
Swallow the Ocean by Laura M. Flynn. Although there are many memoirs about a parent with mental illness, Laura M. Flynn does an exquisite job of describing her mother through a child’s eyes. It reads like a novel.
What’s your favorite memoir about a mother?
Here’s a taste of this delicious post on the things author Erin Blakemore has waited on: So…the thing people tell you that you never, ever believe about the world of publishing is “prepare to wait.”
