Memoir | Raging Biblio-holism

Black Wave

February 14, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s the late 1990s and the world is ending. Literally. But Michelle rambles through her days like any other days, drinking and fucking and doing drugs, all with a gently gnawing sense of needing (wanting? believing?) something else. She uproots from San Francisco and heads to LA, where the apocalypse really kicks in – but so too does her sense of being. The Review: Sometimes a book strikes unexpectedly, stopping you in your tracks – or, in my […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: 1990s, Amethyst Editions, Apocalypse, Autofiction, Black Wave, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Feminist Press, Fiction, LA, Los Angeles, Memoir, Metafiction, Michelle Tea, Queer, Queer Fiction, review, Reviews, The Tournament of Books 2017

Moonglow

January 23, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: A young man named Michael Chabon sits with his grandfather in the weeks before his death, hearing stories about his life. He takes these stories, in turn, and creates a narrative out of them – but, as he expresses at the beginning, the reader might do well to question how much is true and how much is fiction… The Review: The trickery begins before you’ve even started reading the book. Open it, flip page by page – […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Autofiction, Biography, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Indiespensable, Literature, Memoir, Metafiction, Michael Chabon, Moonglow, Non-Fiction, Reviews, Space, The Tournament of Books 2017

Sirens

January 6, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: Novelist Joshua Mohr turns his attentions to non-fiction, specifically an account of both his years of substance abuse – and his discovery, after getting sober and having a daughter, that he has a literal hole in his heart. All before he turns 40. It’s complicated, complex, funny, and brimming with life – just like Josh. The Review: I started this book in a warm tub with a Glencairn glass of single malt scotch, my second of that particular night. […]

Categories: Memoir, Non-Fiction • Tags: Advance Review, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Joshua Mohr, Memoir, Non-Fiction, review, Reviews, Sirens, Two Dollar Radio

Slaughterhouse-Five

January 4, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time – and as he bounces between the decades of his life (a young man, an optometrist, a prisoner of war in Dresden, a prisoner of aliens on Tralfamadore), the novelist creating him considers his own time in Dresden and how best to write about it. The Review: It feels fitting to me that the first review I’m publishing in 2017 is of a book that needs no review. Slaughterhouse-Five is the […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature, Sci-Fi • Tags: Autofiction, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Dresden, Fiction, Kurt Vonnegut, Literature, Memoir, Re-Reads, review, Reviews, Science Fiction, Semi-Fiction, Slaughterhouse-Five, The Ten Year Catch-Up, Vonnegut 201x, World War Two

The Argonauts

December 14, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Part memoir, part theory exploration, part prose-poem, part theory creation – The Argonauts is the story of Maggie Nelson’s courtship with and marriage to Harry Dodge, her pregnancy, a country’s evolving mind on gender and sexuality, and a look at the theory that has created a single human’s worldview. The Review: There is such a joy in discovering something to be not only worthy of the hype, but worthy of continued generation of that hype. So it is with […]

Categories: Essays, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Poetry • Tags: 6, Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, BookClub, Books, Essays, Favorites, Feminism, Gender Theory, Maggie Nelson, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Philosophy, Queer Theory, review, Reviews, The Argonauts, Theory

Will & I

June 17, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: After a car accident and a botched surgical procedure, Clay Byars is told he may be paralyzed from the eyes down for the rest of his life. He fights back, making an unexpected recovery, but his life is forever altered. As his life and his twin brother’s diverge, Clay must find what it means to live anew in the face of overwhelming adversity. The Review: Most recovery memoirs, particularly those that deal with a catastrophic injury, often conclude with […]

Categories: Memoir, Non-Fiction • Tags: Advance Reviews, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Clay Byars, FSG Originals, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Reviews, Will & I, Will and I

Palm Sunday

April 29, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: A ‘collage’, as the man himself puts it, of essays and speeches and thoughts and even a short story and a play – all of which add up to a charmingly odd portrait of a literary life. The Review: There is something about Kurt Vonnegut that runs the risk of coming off as too self-assured, almost cocky, sometimes. It is, perhaps, only his relentlessly Midwestern sense of self-deprecation that saves him – but I have to admit […]

Categories: Essays, Memoir, Non-Fiction • Tags: Autobiography, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Essays, Kurt Vonnegut, Memoir, Non-Fiction, Palm Sunday, Reviews, Short Stories, The Ten Year Catch-Up, Vonnegut 201x

M Train

December 18, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Over the course of a year and a half or so, Patti Smith reflects on the roads she has traveled to come to this point as well and also recounts some of the roads she continues to travel down. The Review: Just Kids is, I think you’ll have to agree, one of the best memoirs ever written. Patti Smith gave us a glimpse into a world that transfixes us even still – the 60s & 70s in New York, a […]

Categories: Essays, Memoir, Non-Fiction • Tags: Book Review, Book Reviews, BookClub, Books, Essays, M Train, Memoir, New York City, Patti Smith, Reviews, Travel, Writing

US(a.)

December 14, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: A new collection of poetry, essays, and script excerpts from one of our most fiery and passionate artists on the general theme of America, both now and then. The Review: I discovered Saul Williams in 2007 when Trent Reznor helped produce his phenomenal The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust and they gave it away as a pay-what-you-can sort of deal – this was immediately post-In Rainbows – and I had my mind blown the first time the needle dropped. This is […]

Categories: Non-Fiction, Poetry • Tags: America, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Current Events, Essays, Fiction, France, Memoir, Miles Davis, Non-Fiction, Paris, Poetry, Politics, Racism, Reviews, Saul Williams, Scripts, US (a.), USA

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Memoir