Memoir Book Reviews

Review: Infinite Book 3: My Truest Fiction By D. C. L.

‘Infinite Book 3: My Truest Fiction’ is a memoir of author David Christopher Lawrence, a sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia, and his life surrounding his experiences with it, episodically. The book is part of the ‘Infinite Book’ series and is implied to have a later follow-up that details more aspects of the author’s experiences and recovery, completing his memoirs.

The author views his ‘illness’ as a part of him that cannot, and should not be silenced (“cured is the wrong word, integrated is the right one”), instead embracing the “truths” that are revealed to him by his voices and inner revelations, […]

2014-05-05T21:47:30+02:00August 5th, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: |

Review: Breakfast with the Dirt Cult by Samuel Finlay

Breakfast with the Dirt Cult is a vivid and raw look into a young man’s term serving in the U.S. Army. It takes place over the span of his arrival into the army and his time spent serving in the war in Afghanistan. Reading from a non-military perspective, having never served before, I was very eager to dive into this book and see from what perspective of the war it would be written. The story is Samuel Finlay’s writing debut and it follows the life of Tom Walton, an American around the age of 20 who recently graduated from college. […]

2014-05-05T21:48:53+02:00July 31st, 2013|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: Travels With A Road Dog: Hitchhiking the Roads of the Americas By R.K.

Rajam, named after a distant Indian friend, decides, on a whim of teenage wanderlust to leave it all behind in her small Alabama town and take to the road to follow the hippy festival trail across the country and beyond. Giving away all her “stuff” she takes off to the famous Rainbow gathering and falls in love with the vagabond lifestyle as she hitches with truck drivers, do-gooders and other drivers of questionable motive with only a pan and a tarp to get by and becomes a “road dog”: a hitchhiker living free on the open highways with only her […]

2014-05-09T21:17:07+02:00December 17th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: From Particles and Disputations: Writings for Jeff by Philip D. Luing

Since the 80s when AIDS became rampant, its face has not changed.  Its name, though not as raging in the headlines these days, has not been forgotten.  What is different is each individual life it claims and the story of that life.

Philip Luing’s book, From Particles and Disputations, is the story of one of those lives lost – a celebration of Jeffrey Francis John Lalonde who succumbed to AIDS in 1994, twelve years after he met Philip.  During their relationship, Philip liked to write down his thoughts and record their memories in brief passages and verse. This book is […]

2014-05-09T21:44:01+02:00September 21st, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: Clips & Consequences by Beth Myrle Rice

Imagine being invited to lunch by your ex-husband and his wife to discuss what to do with the hard-to-manage teenager you all have in common. Imagine that, instead of actually going to lunch, they simply stay in the car, turn to you as you sit in the back seat, and accuse you of providing drugs to said teenager. “They were looking for a confession,” writes Beth Myrle Rice of that day in 1995 when the incident happened to her.

Ironically, Clips & Consequences is in part what is known, by definition, as a confessional memoir. In other words, the book […]

2014-05-19T21:46:53+02:00April 5th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: Somewhere Over the Rainbow, I’ve Lost My Damn Mind by Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a confident young man. “The reason I enjoy making lists so much,” he writes, “is that it is almost impossible to screw up. I mean it’s your list.” So it is with memoir: personal experience is something owned.

Although this book is primarily made with blog posts, this is definitely a memoir. While I’m certain Derek would be first in line to acknowledge he’s not a writer of fine literature, his blog posts aren’t “random thought” or diary-type entries; this is a collection of essays, each containing a narrative arc, a thought process, if you will, that […]

2014-05-19T21:55:28+02:00March 15th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: Black Flies in the Backyard with Snowshoes by Kevin Brian Carroll

I read through the opening pages, called “Before We Get Started” and I had the feeling I was going to be reading a book about a Blues Band from Albany. I wanted to research the material, but the link given to the band was wrong… http://WAlbanyStBlues.com should be https://WAlbanStBluesBand.com. And I am thinking, oh, boy, we need an editor here, stat.

I then started getting into the book itself; the first chapter. I thought, oh my, Hunter S. Thompson’s final work? Or maybe this is his protégé? This is soooo Gonzo Journalism; but the author is no journalist. The author […]

2013-06-19T10:21:32+02:00January 26th, 2012|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , |

Review: Chasing the Runner’s High by Ray Charbonneau

If there’s one thing Ray Charbonneau understands, it is runners. In Chasing the Runner’s High he may claim that he isn’t sure what a typical runner is, but if the proof is in the pudding, not only is Charbonneau a true blue, died in the wool, run in the sun, rain or snow runner, but he talks the runner’s language. And it sounds like heaven.

At least it does until you remember how hard it is to get yourself out the door after bout of laziness during the holidays.

I picked up Charbonneau’s “Chasing the Runner’s High” sometime before the […]

2011-12-28T14:01:46+02:00December 28th, 2011|Categories: Book Reviews|Tags: , , |
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