nomadreader

The backstory:   Sea State  is the debut by Scottish journalist Tabitha Lasley My thoughts:  This gorgeous book, part memoir and part journalism, is difficult to describe. It is both deeply personal, raw, and honest about life, love, and the passion and reality of an affair. It's also a fascinating exploration of the work and home lives of the men who work on oil rigs off the coast of Northern Scotland. How do men, Lasley wonders, act when there are no women around? The writing is extraordinary. Favorite passage: "I couldn't say  what I wanted, because what I wanted resided deep down, in a place under language, a register that lost everything in translation." Rating: 4.5/5 Length: 220 pages Publication date: December 7, 2021 Source: my local public library Want to read for yourself? Buy Sea State from an independent bookstore , Bookshop.org or Amazon (if you must), or find a copy at your local library .   As an affiliate, I receive a small commission whe...

The backstory: Stephanie Danler's debut novel, Sweetbitter , is one of my all-time favorites . The basics: Stray  is a memoir "of growing up in a family shattered by lies and addiction, and of one woman’s attempts to find a life beyond the limits of her past." My thoughts: One of the reasons I loved  Sweetbitter  so much is that it's the rare trifecta of a novel that has a great plot/characters, great writing, and great wisdom. Stray  is filled with great writing and great wisdom, but those looking for a traditional memoir may find the book's construction a bit confusing. It's broken into three thematic sections: Mother, Father, and The Monster (the married man with whom she has an affair), but the three characters overlap across all three sections. The vignettes also move across geography and time. Stray  is a writer's memoir. I'm grateful I had the time and space to read it in twenty-four (non-consecutive) hours. Many of the vignettes or essa...

Dear Ariel Levy, Many years ago, I read and enjoyed your first book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture . For some reason, I didn't make the connection between the your books until I was listening to you read your memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply.  Granted, the books are very different, and I read them thirteen years apart. I wasn't even tracking my reading in 2005. Still: knowing you wrote both of these very different, thought-provoking books makes it clear I will be in line to read any book you write. I'm so glad you narrated The Rules Do Not Apply . It's such a personal story, and I can't imagine anyone else capturing the emotion, insight and thoughtfulness. Listening to this audiobook made me feel so close to you. When I decided The Rules Do Not Apply  would be my next audiobook, I didn't know one of the themes of the book would be your international travel. It was such a happy accident for me, as I listened to it while I'm tr...

Books are one of my favorite ways of exploring new places and revisiting familiar places. When I travel, I've always loved to read books set in the place I'm visiting. This year, I'm leading a J-term travel seminar to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The course is the culmination of almost two years of work, and I'm spent a lot of time learning about Thailand. When our flights were finalized, I learned we're flying through Beijing both ways. I began seeking out books about China, and I was intrigued by Susan Conley's memoir about the two years she and her family spent living in Beijing. Conley is a novelist, and I'm drawn to memoirs written by fiction writers. Moreover, I wasn't necessarily interested in immersing myself in China; I wanted to see it through the eyes of a western woman so I could anticipate my own experience with culture shock. I sought answers to the questions I didn't even know to ask. I wanted insight into Chinese culture and the difficulty o...

The backstory: Between the World and Me  won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction. The basics: Written in the form of a letter to his teenage son, Between the World and Me  attempts to answer these questions: "What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?" My thoughts: Between the World and Me  is a deeply personal, and deeply moving, book. Reading it while Hawthorne napped was such an experience I felt like when he woke up I was changed. My reaction to this book is incredibly personal. I cannot know what it is like to live in a black body or a male body. I will never stop wrestling with what it means to live in a white body at this time and place, and with certain privileges not afforded to all white women, let alone men and women of other races. But my reaction to Between the World and Me was more of a parental reaction than a pers...

The basics:  "In the fall of 2009, the food world was rocked when Gourmet magazine was abruptly shuttered by its parent company. No one was more stunned by this unexpected turn of events than its beloved editor in chief, Ruth Reichl, who suddenly faced an uncertain professional future. As she struggled to process what had seemed unthinkable, Reichl turned to the one place that had always provided sanctuary. “I did what I always do when I’m confused, lonely, or frightened,” she writes. “I disappeared into the kitchen.”"--publisher My thoughts: I am not typically someone who reads cookbooks. I may skim through and read recipes, but I have never before read a cookbook cover to cover. Admittedly, My Kitchen Year  is not a typical cookbook. It is filled with recipes, but there are also lots of other things in it: breathtaking photographs (of food, nature and city), memoir vignettes, and Tweets (yes, Reich's actual tweets.) It feels like more of a memoir than a cookbook, ...

narrated by Debra Winger The basics:  "Gloria Steinem had an itinerant childhood. When she was a young girl, her father would pack the family in the car every fall and drive across country searching for adventure and trying to make a living. The seeds were planted: Gloria realized that growing up didn’t have to mean settling down. And so began a lifetime of travel, of activism and leadership, of listening to people whose voices and ideas would inspire change and revolution."--publisher My thoughts: I've been fascinated by Gloria Steinem for a long time, as she was one of those public figures I just always seemed to know about. Yet I remember when I discovered she was born in 1934 and couldn't believe it. Not only did she seem younger, but it made her achievements that much more impressive; she was that much more ahead of her time. For someone I feel like I know so well, for the sheer number of years she's spent in the spotlight, when I heard about this mem...

narrated by Carrie Brownstein The basics: Carrie Brownstein, a writer, musician, and actress, tells the story of how she got into music, her early experiences with bands, and her time with her best known band, Sleater-Kinney. My thoughts: I used to own more than one Sleater-Kinney album. They were band I desperately wanted to like. I pretended I liked them because I thought they were so cool, but I'm older and wiser than I was in the 1990's as a teenager, so I'll confess: despite many attempts, I do not really like Sleater-Kinney's music. But I still like the three of them and would love to just hang out and chat. All this is to say, my interest in this memoir is not the music, so I was somewhat disappointed that it's mostly about the music. Despite this knowledge, I still really liked this memoir. Brownstein is a wonderful writer. This isn't a revelation, of course. She's been writing songs for many, many years. She co-created and writes Portlandia ...

narrated by Madeleine Maby The basics: Wednesday Martin is an anthropologist, originally from Michigan, who moves from the West Village of New York City to the Upper East Side and turns her anthropological training on Upper East Side mommies. My thoughts: Since having a baby, I find myself drawn to narratives I might not have been before. I'm fascinated by how people raise their children, in this country, throughout different times in history, and around the world. (See also: How Eskimos Keep Their Babies Warm , How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane   and Bringing Up Bebe . ) As a mom, I find myself remarking, "these people are crazy!" as often as I do "I can't believe I think this is normal now!" So much of parenthood seems to be finding people with whom you agree and finding people whose choices make you feel better about your own. To that end, Primates of Park Avenue  is both. It's entertaining,  at times alarming, and informative. A few chapters...

narrated by Alan Cumming The basics: Not My Father's Son  is actor Alan Cumming's memoir of his childhood and his experience learning about his family's history on the genealogy reality television show Who Do You Think You Are? My thoughts: I've enjoyed Alan Cumming's performances in various things over the years, but it wasn't my enjoyment of his craft that made me pick up this audiobook from the library. Instead, I was fascinated by the genealogy and the insight into his experience on Who Do You Think You Are?, a show I've thoroughly enjoyed in the past. The show allows librarians, archivists, historians, and museums to show their value by helping celebrities research their family histories. It's a far more fascinating glimpse into how alike we all really are. I had not, however, seen Cumming's episode. If you have, some of the reveals won't be a surprise, but there is still enough intrigue to make this book worth your while. I think it...

narrated by Mindy Kaling The backstory: I thoroughly enjoyed Mindy Kaling's first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) , so I was eager to listen to her new memoir too. The basics: Why Not Me?  is a memoir in essay form. My thoughts: I picked up Kaling's first book on a whim while I was pregnant and mostly in the mood for something not depressing to listen to. I loved it and immediately started watching The Mindy Project  (we still watch it.) This time, I had expectations and also fears. Would Why Not Me? be as good (it is.) The two books are obviously similar, but they felt different to me. Why Not Me? feels less like a memoir and more like a collection of essays, many of which are memoir-like. Perhaps what I liked best about this book is how surprising it is. I find Mindy Kaling to be laugh out loud funny. We have similar senses of humor, and this book definitely made me laugh out loud. What surprised me were the moments of deep contempl...

The basics: Bill Clegg was a successful literary agent who spiraled downward with a devastating crack addiction.  Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man  is a glimpse into what crack addiction looks like for a privileged white man in New York City. My thoughts: I have an odd fascination with drug memoirs. I appreciate them for providing a window into a world I don't want to visit in real life, but I'm critical of them for attempting to recall facts and events that may not be clearly remembered. In Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man , Bill Clegg intertwines two stories: his childhood and his crack addiction. He writes about his childhood in the third person, which I found awkward. While I came to understand the importance these childhood scenes played in his life, they were my least favorite part of the book. The first half (approximately) is sensationalist reading. Clegg still has a leg in his normal life, even as he seems to be slipping into the phase of only cari...

The backstory: I've been reading Sarah Hepola's work for years on the Internet, thanks to one of my oldest and best friends, Kathleen , who introduced me to her writing on The Morning News in the (very) early 2000's. I greeted the publication of her first memoir with delight. The basics: Blackout  chronicles Sarah Hepola's complicated relationship with alcohol from childhood to the present, when she is happily sober. My thoughts: I've been saying Sarah Hepola is one of my favorite writers for more than ten years, and I had just about stopped saying it because I was starting to dread the typical follow-up question about what books she's written when the asker has no desire to read a slew of Internet links. Now I can hand them a book. Blackout  is one of those books that makes me pause when I try to describe it. It is absolutely about drinking heavily, blacking out, and Hepola's road to sobriety. That description wouldn't have made me pick it up, and...

The basics: Modern Romance  is a hilarious and informative book about modern romance. It's part comedy, part sociology and part memoir that discovers what and how we love, date, have sex, and marry today. My thoughts:  I did not watch  The Office , so I did not discover my love for Aziz Ansari until his Netflix stand-up special, which I thought was hilarious, and I enjoy stand-up less than the average person. So when I heard the premise of this book was a take on one of the funnier bits from that stand-up routine, I jumped at the chance to read it. Modern Romance  isn't what I expected. It is not a typical celebrity comedian memoir, but there are still fascinating (and hilarious) insights into Ansari's life. He frankly discusses his own love life and pontificates on his happily married parents, who have an arranged marriage. Mr. Nomadreader and I have been together almost ten years, so I have never dated in the age of Tinder. I didn't even have Facebook when...

The backstory: Slow Dancing with a Stranger: Lost and Found in the Age of Alzheimer's  was one of my book club's picks in March. The basics: Veteran journalist Meryl Comer tells the story of her husband and mother dealing with Alzheimer's and advocates for change in how we care for those afflicted with Alzheimer's. My thoughts: I was really excited to read this memoir, as Alzheimer's runs in my family, even though I was sure it would depress me as it's such a horrible disease. Instead, I soon found myself hating this book and rolled my eyes through most of it. I like memoirs. I often call the memoirists I most enjoy brave because they bare their souls and show their weaknesses. They tell truths that aren't always told. They are honest about their faults. They share the moments of which they're proud and of those they aren't. Unfortunately, Meryl Comer does not do any of those things in this book. It's hard to even call it a memoir, as it ...

narrated by Tanya Eby The basics: After completing a residency in pathology, Dr. Judy Melinek began a two-year rotation as a forensic pathologist in New York City in July 2001. Working Stiff  is the story of those two years, and also the story of Judy's life and work. My thoughts: The timing of Dr. Melinek's story certainly piqued my curiosity in a macabre way. It's such a big part of the book's description, that I was surprised it wasn't addressed earlier. Instead, Melinek (and her husband and co-writer T.J. Mitchell) tells her story more thematically than chronologically, which proves to be a very wise narrative choice. Working Stiff  begins with much insight into Melinek's life and choices than I expected. She talks about why she chooses pathology and how she and T.J. chose to get married. She speaks candidly about her father's suicide when she was a teenager. This personal narrative only serves to add to her insight, particularly as no one could...

narrated by George Newbern The basics: As the title indicates, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace  is the story of Robert DeShaun Peace's life, as written by his college roommate Jeff Hobbs, a novelist who relies on the memories of Rob's friends and family members to construct this biography of sorts. My thoughts: As if the title itself isn't descriptive and sad, the subtitle, "a brilliant young man who left Newark for the Ivy League," underscores the sadness of Robert Peace's death. Even though I knew this story ends with his death, I compulsively listened to this book. It begins as a story of success. The tale of Robert Peace's childhood is remarkable and inspiring. It's a story too astonishing to be fiction. Although I knew the ending of this book when I began it, Hobbs writing infuses so many mysteries into this book. I became obsessed with the hows  and whys  of Robert's life. There are so many wow moments, both happy and sad on...

The basics: Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line  is Michael Gibney's memoir of sorts. It's a window into the world as a sous chef in a high-end Manhattan restaurant kitchen. As the title indicates, Gibney tells the story as though it's a single twenty-four hours. My thoughts: I spent many years working in restaurants, as a server and a bartender. I worked at chain restaurants and midscale local restaurants. Mr. Nomadreader and I met when we were both servers at Murphy's , a fabulous Atlanta neighborhood wine bar. Part of me still misses the restaurant life. I learned so much about food, wine, beer, and booze working in restaurants. I learned about cooking. I met fabulous people, both customers and my fellow workers. So while I'm always intrigued by books about the restaurant business, I've read enough clunkers to know I'm not the desired audience for books that shine a light on the business. Sous Chef  does shine a light on the restaurant business, particu...

The basics: Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina  is Misty Copeland's memoir about her surprising journey to the American Ballet Theater, where she is the first African-American soloist is twenty years (and only the third over all.) My thoughts: Despite having no dancing ability, I am a big fan of dance. Arguably the most famous current ballet dancer, and I was eager to read her memoir. Her life story is an inspiring one, but if I read it in a novel I'd dismiss it as unbelievable and hokey. Copeland famously took her first ballet class when she was thirteen, which is really late in ballet years. She discovered ballet in an unlikely place: the Boys and Girls Club. I knew those details, but I didn't realize how many other improbabilities Copeland faced. Life in Motion  is inspiring, but it's also a very sad book. Copeland doesn't shy away from the lingering racism in ballet. She opens up about the complications, financially and otherwise, of her childhood. I kn...

The basics: Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion  is a collection of essays, all written for this specific collection, that explores life and our reactions to its events. From the introduction: "I wanted to look at why we so often feel guilty or even ashamed when we don’t feel the way we’re “supposed to feel” about the big (and sometimes even small) events of our lives. I wanted to examine the ways in which so many aspects of contemporary American life—where we live, who we love, when or if we choose to settle down with a partner, what we eat, why we appreciate the art and music and literature that we do, how we expect to die and what we expect of the dying—seem to come shrink-wrapped in a layer of bathos." My thoughts:  2014 is the year I realized how much I love personal essays. Meghan Daum is an author I've followed for years, and I've always enjoyed the essays I've read in collections and periodicals. Why in the world did it take me so long to di...