04 Saturday Nov 2023
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction
Tags
19th century, African American women, Ashley (Enslaved person in South Carolina), family relationships, memory, mothers and daughters, South Carolina, Southern states, women slaves
27 Friday Oct 2023
Posted in Biography, History, United States
This memoir tells the story of the millennial feminist meeting toxic patriarchal culture at American Apparel. Hilariously funny – I was cheering for Kate the whole way!
“A racy, thoughtful memoir of [Flannery’s] tenure during the rise and fall of the controversial company…Flannery’s conversion from credulous retail recruit to company woman doesn’t trade in hyper-intellectual #MeToo-era analysis or retrospective scolding. Instead, its currency is the prickly panic of realizing your life doesn’t match your principles, spiked with salacious specifics that evoke the highly sexed environment of American Apparel’s cultural and commercial peak.”
―New York Times Book Review
“[A] bold debut memoir…Flannery succeeds in illustrating the fashion industry’s blurred lines in the decade prior to #MeToo, and the tough choices women faced between professional success and personal safety. This is an authentic portrait of the battle to remain true to oneself.―Publishers Weekly
“Begins like a classic Hollywood noir…Strip Tees goes down as easy as a rum and Diet Coke, breezily written and punctuated at its intermission by a few pages of glossy photos…[it’s] as if Flannery were recounting the saga of her ill-fated years at American Apparel directly to you ― not in a suburban basement, but perhaps over frozen rosé outside a hotel bar, where we can smell the pool water and swimsuit Lycra.”―Washington Post
04 Wednesday Oct 2023
Posted in 20th century, Biography, History, Non-fiction
Tags
Auschwitz (Concentration camp)|, biography, Escaped prisoners, Holocaust survivors, Jewish Holocaust, Jews, Nazi concentration camp escapes, Rudolf Vrba, Slovakia, World War 1939-45
18 Friday Aug 2023
Posted in adventure, Biography, meaning of life, Travel
Tags
biography, families, fathers and sons, Luke Russert, parenting, television journalists, Tim Russert 1950-2008, travel
‘This starts as the story of one father and one son, and soon grows into something much deeper and more profound: a meditation on loss, and grief, a search for home, a journey to find a missing hero that leads the author finally back to himself. It is Luke Russert’s story but in the end, the main character is you, the reader.’ — Wright Thompson, senior ESPN writer and bestselling author of Pappyland and The Cost of These Dreams
‘A rich and compelling account of family, grief and coming of age. Luke Russert turns tragedy into rich lessons of life.’ — Tom Brokaw, legendary journalist and author of The Greatest Generation
‘In Look For Me There, Luke Russert traverses terrain both physical and deeply personal. On his journey to some of the world’s most stunning destinations, he visits the internal places of grief, family, faith, ambition and purpose–with intense self-reflection, honesty and courage.’ — Savannah Guthrie, co-anchor Today
24 Saturday Jun 2023
Posted in Biography
Tags
actresses, African American women, African-American actresses, autobiography, biography, self-realization in women, Viola Davis 1965-
I highly recommend the audio version because it is read by the author. Heartbreaking and sad in many places, it is also funny at times too. I loved when she spoke as a friend or family member using their accent and voice.
“Davis’s grit and determination are moving, and her unflinching reckoning with the “racism and misogyny” she faced in Hollywood makes her story of overcoming all the more effective. Fans will be utterly enthralled.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Reading her memoir, Finding Me. . . you understand where her ability comes from: Only someone who has already been dragged into the depths of emotion readily knows how to get back there.” — New York Times Magazine
“An unvarnished chronicle of hard-won, well-earned success.” — Kirkus Reviews
26 Friday May 2023
Posted in Biography, Non-fiction
Tags
19th century, abolitionists, antislavery movements, biographies, Ellen Craft, England, fugitive slaves, Georgia, racially mixed women, slaves, United States, William Craft
This book presents the remarkable true story of Ellen and William Craft, who escaped slavery through daring, determination, and disguise, with Ellen passing as a wealthy, disabled white man and William posing as “his” slave.
“Master Slave Husband Wife, like all of the truly great American stories, spent over a century lying in wait, desperate to be told. Enter Ilyon Woo. Ellen and WIlliam Craft loved each other, but also loved freedom, and knew one was impossible without the other. And so they embarked on one of the most daring feats ever attempted in American history, a breathless story captured with breathless prose, and we readers gasp in amazement and wonder at the tragedy and triumph.” — Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Booker Prize
“A gripping adventure. . . . suspenseful and wonderfully told. A captivating tale that ably captures the determination and courage of a remarkable couple.” ― Kirkus Reviews (starred review
“For those of us who already were familiar with Ellen and William Craft, we’re so grateful for this reconsideration of this courageous couple’s story. Ilyon Woo has accomplished a phenomenal feat, presenting previously unpublished archival excavations. Certainly, this is an essential addition to early African American studies—but more than research, Woo offers the Crafts’ travels with such grace, such tenderness. Here is a necessary rendering of Black love, Black resilience, and Black humanity during one of our nation’s most fraught times.” — Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois)
“A narrative of such courage and resourcefulness it seems too dashing to be true. But it is. . . . The story is so richly dramatic, and Ms. Woo so skilled at spinning it out, that at times it’s a genuine nail-biter.” — Priscilla M. Jensen ― The Wall Street Journal
13 Saturday May 2023
Posted in Biography, memoir, Non-fiction
The author will talk IN-PERSON at the Weston Public Library May 25, 2023 7 pm.
“Kwan Kew and I trained together in infectious disease in Boston, and although I knew she was an extraordinary physician I had no idea how far she had come from her impoverished and incredibly difficulty childhood in Malaysia. This poignant memoir, beautifully written and filled with humor and pathos, portrays a world few of us can imagine. That such an incredible doctor and writer could emerge from such challenging beginnings is a testament to the human spirit, or perhaps to her unique spirit. I could not put this memoir down.” Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
“A graphic testimony to Malaysian colonial/postcolonial communal differences, resistance to Chinese gender inequities, and U.S. immigrant opportunities-Kwan Kew Lai offers us a triumphalist survivor’s memoir.” Shirley Geok-lin Lim, author of Among the White Moon Faces, recipient of the American Book Award
“An evocative story of Kwan Kew Lai’s childhood in post-World War II Penang. She so beautifully shows how her background gave her the drive to soar to new heights and gain entry into one of the most prestigious colleges in the US. A must-read!” Susan Blumberg-Kason, author of Good Chinese Wife, co-editor of Hong Kong Noir
12 Wednesday Apr 2023
Posted in Biography
Tags
art museums, biography, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, officials and employees, Patrick Bringley
A beautifully written memoir about a man who goes to work as a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after the death of his brother to help deal with his grief. The book is also full of his observations on the museum’s amazing art collection, and the interesting people he meets and works with.
“Exquisite… A beautiful tale about beauty. It is also a tale about grief, balancing solitude and comradeship, and finding joy in both the exalted and the mundane.” —The Washington Post
“An empathic chronicle of one museum, the works collected there and the people who keep it running — all recounted by an especially patient observer.” —The New York Times Book Review
“As rich in moving insights as the Met is in treasures, All the Beauty in the World reminds us of the importance of learning not “about art, but from it.” This is art appreciation at a profound level.”—NPR
“This absorbing memoir is also a beautifully written manual on how to appreciate art, and life. It’s a must-read for art lovers” —Tracy Chevalier, author of Girl with a Pearl Earring
01 Wednesday Feb 2023
Posted in Biography, History, Non-fiction, Uncategorized, United States
Tags
19th century, biography, child slaves, free African Americans, fugitive slaves, history, kidnapping victims., Legal status laws etc., race relations, slavery
“A well-told story… A deep dive into the extraordinary risks faced by free blacks in the antebellum era.”–Kirkus Reviews
“Opening an unknown world from an unsung tragedy that started in early national Philadelphia and stretched grimly South, Stolen offers a worm’s eye view of the leviathan of American slavery, and of some of its most dastardly perpetrators and its most remarkable survivors. Richard Bell has researched inventively and mastered a vast body of scholarship, as we would expect from so distinguished a historian. But he also imbues his tale with the deep humanity of a great novelist. Both riveting and heartrending, Stolen joins the great literature of America’s founding tragedy, earning a place alongside the work of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Edward P. Jones, and Toni Morrison.” – Jane Kamensky, Jonathan Trumbull Professor of American History, Harvard University
“Stolen is historical storytelling at its best. Bell makes brilliant detective work come alive with vivid, powerful writing. The saga of these five boys, kidnapped and smuggled from Philadelphia to Mississippi in the 1820s, captures both the powerful undertow of slavery in the free black communities of the North and the urgent dawning of the abolitionist movement. There’s been nothing like it since Northup.” –Adam Rothman, author of Beyond Freedom’s Reach: A Kidnapping in the Twilight of Slavery
“Rigorously researched, heartfelt, and dramatically concise, Bell’s investigation illuminates the role slavery played in the systemic inequalities that still confront Black Americans” (Booklist)
07 Wednesday Dec 2022
Posted in Biography, History, memoir, United States
Tags
African American painters, autobiography, Georgia, outsider artists, United States, Winfred Rembert
WINNER OF THE 2022 PULITZER PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY
On January 18, 2023 at 7 PM, the author Erin Kelly and Lillian Rembert one of Mr Rembert’s daughters, will come to Weston for a program celebrating Winfred Rembert’s life and art.
This memoir describes the incredible life and art of Winfred Rembert, an African American man who survived a lynching attempt in Georgia during the civil rights movement. He later became an artist who created stories of his youth using leather tooling skills. While the memoir does include chapters describing the violence he survived, the book is also full of love, laughter, stories, art, and humanity.
“This is a book like no other, from Winfred Rembert’s unique and uniquely powerful autobiographical paintings to his disturbing and courageous life story . . . Rembert recounts diabolical abuse and violence with rare candor and precision . . . By using carved, tooled, and dyed leather as the medium for vibrantly patterned scenes from his life, Rembert turned the scars on his body and soul into artworks of clarion witness and reckoning. With a foreword by Bryan Stevenson and superb color reproductions, Rembert’s self-portrait in word and image belongs in every library.” – Donna Seaman, Booklist, starred review, “Best Books of the Year”
“Frank and compelling . . . An ultimately uplifting journey from the ugliness of virulent racism to the beauty of art.” – Kirkus, starred review
“Visually and narratively stunning . . . Rembert’s artistic talent was a gift; his use of that talent to create memorable images―of an era before modern cameras were ubiquitous―is a gift to history.” – Library Journal
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