en-US Wed, 11 May 2016 15:48:41 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 25786935
Knockout is the unified collection of stories that create flawless portraits of deeply flawed figures on the edge of the American Dream. A recovering drug addict gets tricked into stealing a tiger. A man buys a used sex chair from his neighbor. A woman suffering from agoraphobia raises her son completely indoors. An alcoholic runs a bed and breakfast with the son from his deceased wife's first marriage. These people will admit that their chances have passed them by. These people know they were born on the wrong side of the tracks, and their dreams will remain unreachable, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming. Yet readers won’t be fooled by the funny premises —Jodzio steers these stories into deeper places, creating a brilliant examination of those on the fringes of modern life.

With its quirky humor, compelling characters, and unexpected sincerity, Knockout by John Jodzio is poised to become his breakout book, drawing a wide readership to this provocative and talented young writer.]]> 208 John Jodzio 1593766351 Jason 5 4.05 2016
author: John Jodzio
name: Jason
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 5
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date added: 2016/05/11
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]]> 23197524
Jason Good's book shows how an imperfect father can be perfection in all the ways that matter in the end, moving us to alternately hoot and become wet-eyed through his retelling of the friction points and lessons learned. Ultimately, this book inspires us to reconsider our own relationships and to appreciate the power of fatherhood.]]> 224 Jason Good 1452129223 Jason 0 3.91 2015
author: Jason Good
name: Jason
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/06/30
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]]> 20663702 A young mortician goes behind the scenes, unafraid of the gruesome (and fascinating) details of her curious profession.

Most people want to avoid thinking about death, but Caitlin Doughty—a twenty-something with a degree in medieval history and a flair for the macabre—took a job at a crematory, turning morbid curiosity into her life’s work. Thrown into a profession of gallows humor and vivid characters (both living and very dead), Doughty learned to navigate the secretive culture of those who care for the deceased.

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes tells an unusual coming-of-age story full of bizarre encounters and unforgettable scenes. Caring for dead bodies of every color, shape, and affliction, Doughty soon becomes an intrepid explorer in the world of the dead. She describes how she swept ashes from the machines (and sometimes onto her clothes) and reveals the strange history of cremation and undertaking, marveling at bizarre and wonderful funeral practices from different cultures.

Her eye-opening, candid, and often hilarious story is like going on a journey with your bravest friend to the cemetery at midnight. She demystifies death, leading us behind the black curtain of her unique profession. And she answers questions you didn’t know you had: Can you catch a disease from a corpse? How many dead bodies can you fit in a Dodge van? What exactly does a flaming skull look like?

Honest and heartfelt, self-deprecating and ironic, Doughty's engaging style makes this otherwise taboo topic both approachable and engrossing. Now a licensed mortician with an alternative funeral practice, Doughty argues that our fear of dying warps our culture and society, and she calls for better ways of dealing with death (and our dead).]]> 254 Caitlin Doughty 0393240231 Jason 0 to-read 3.98 2014
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Jason
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/03/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 335680
When Jill Soloway was just thirteen, she and her best friend donned the tightest satin pants they could find, poufed up their hair and squeezed into Candies heels, then headed to downtown Chicago in search of their one-and-only true loves the members of whichever rock band was touring through town. Never mind that both girls still had braces, coke-bottle-thick glasses and had only just bought their first bras—they were fabulous, they felt beautiful, they were tiny ladies in shiny pants .

Now that Jill is all grown up and a successful writer and producer, she can look back on her tiny self and share her shiny tales with fondness, absurdity, and obsessive-compulsive attention to even the most embarrassing details. From the highly personal (conflating her own loss of virginity and the Kobe Bryant accusations), to the political (what she has in common with Monica and Chandra), to the outrageously Los Angelean (why women wear huge diamonds and what they must do to get them), Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants is a genre-defying combination of personal essay and memoir, or a hilarious, unruly and unapologetic evaluation of society, religion, sex, love, and—best of all—Jill.]]> 272 Jill Soloway 0743272188 Jason 0 to-read 3.51 2005
author: Jill Soloway
name: Jason
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2015/03/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 7805
Nabokov's darkly witty, richly inventive masterpiece is a suspenseful whodunit, a story of one-upmanship and dubious penmanship, and a glorious literary conundrum.

Part of a major new series of the works of Vladimir Nabokov, author of Lolita and Pale Fire, in Penguin Classics.]]> 246 Vladimir Nabokov Jason 5 4.17 1962
author: Vladimir Nabokov
name: Jason
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1962
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/03/19
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]]> 7905092
But now, in the new millennium, the Berglunds have become a mystery. Why has their teenage son moved in with the aggressively Republican family next door? Why has Walter taken a job working with Big Coal? What exactly is Richard Katz—outré rocker and Walter's college best friend and rival—still doing in the picture? Most of all, what has happened to Patty? Why has the bright star of Barrier Street become "a very different kind of neighbor," an implacable Fury coming unhinged before the street's attentive eyes?

In his first novel since The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen has given us an epic of contemporary love and marriage. Freedom comically and tragically captures the temptations and burdens of liberty: the thrills of teenage lust, the shaken compromises of middle age, the wages of suburban sprawl, the heavy weight of empire. In charting the mistakes and joys of Freedom's characters as they struggle to learn how to live in an ever more confusing world, Franzen has produced an indelible and deeply moving portrait of our time.
(jacket)]]> 562 Jonathan Franzen 0374158460 Jason 5 3.78 2010
author: Jonathan Franzen
name: Jason
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 5
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]]> 1618 226 Mark Haddon 1400032717 Jason 5 3.89 2003
author: Mark Haddon
name: Jason
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2003
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/03/19
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]]> 7445 THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The Glass Castle is a remarkable memoir of resilience and redemption, and a revelatory look into a family at once deeply dysfunctional and uniquely vibrant. When sober, Jeannette's brilliant and charismatic father captured his children's imagination, teaching them physics, geology, and how to embrace life fearlessly. But when he drank, he was dishonest and destructive. Her mother was a free spirit who abhorred the idea of domesticity and didn't want the responsibility of raising a family.

The Walls children learned to take care of themselves. They fed, clothed, and protected one another, and eventually found their way to New York. Their parents followed them, choosing to be homeless even as their children prospered.

The Glass Castle is truly astonishing--a memoir permeated by the intense love of a peculiar but loyal family.]]> 288 Jeannette Walls 074324754X Jason 4 4.32 2005
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Jason
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 27397
After finding that her child is diagnosed with leukemia, Anne Anderson notices a high prevalence of leukemia, a relatively rare disease, in her city. Eventually she gathers other families and seeks a lawyer, Jan Schlichtmann, to consider their options.

Schlichtmann originally decides not to take the case due to both the lack of evidence and a clear defendant. Later picking up the case, Schlichtmann finds evidence suggesting trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination of the town's water supply by Riley Tannery, a subsidiary of Beatrice Foods; a chemical company, W. R. Grace; and another company named Unifirst.

In the course of the lawsuit Schlichtmann gets other attorneys to assist him. He spends lavishly as he had in his prior lawsuits, but the length of the discovery process and trial stretch all of their assets to their limit.]]> 502 Jonathan Harr 0679772677 Jason 5 3.99 1995
author: Jonathan Harr
name: Jason
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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date added: 2015/03/19
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]]> 13425393
Soon after Sh*t My Dad Says began to take off, comic writer Justin Halpern decided to propose to his then girlfriend. But before doing so, he asked his dad's advice, which was very, very simple (and surprisingly clean): "Just take a day to think about it." This book is that day. Crossing the warmth of The Wonder Years with the candour and observational humour of David Sedaris, this follow-up to the hottest comedy debut of last year is a hilarious, toe-curlingly true book about life, and love.]]> 4 Justin Halpern 0062123742 Jason 4 3.75 2012
author: Justin Halpern
name: Jason
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/03/19
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]]> 22313632 Are you sure you want to know?
Okay, here goes. . .

I want to put on Mommy's shoes.
Get Mommy's shoes off my feet NOW.
I'm starving!
I want to play with Daddy's phone!
I need to push some buttons!

In this high-energy, oh-so-true account of life with a toddler, readers are treated to the unique workings of little minds. Ready?]]> 32 Jason Good 1619630958 Jason 5 3.21 2015
author: Jason Good
name: Jason
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2015/02/18
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]]> 12262741 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State � and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.]]> 336 Cheryl Strayed 0307592731 Jason 4 4.06 2012
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Jason
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 4
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date added: 2015/01/22
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]]> 18668018 Late Night with David Letterman, has spent his entire life trying to avoid interaction with people. While courageously admitting to being "euphorically antisocial" and "sick in the head," he allows us to plunge even deeper into his troubled psyche in this unabashedly uproarious memoir-in-essays where we observe Resnick’s committed indifference to family, friends, strangers, and the world at large. His mind shaped by such touchstone events as a traumatic Easter egg hunt when he was six (which solidified his hatred of parties) and overwrought by obsessions, including one with a plastic shopping bag (which solidified his hatred for change), he refuses to be burdened by chores like basic social obligation and personal growth, living instead by his own steadfast rule: "I refuse to do anything I don’t want to do."

Cut from a similar (if somewhat stranger) cloth as Albert Brooks or Louis C.K., Resnick is the crazy, miserable bastard you can’t help rooting for, and the brilliant Will Not Attend showcases this seasoned comedy writer at his brazenly hilarious best.]]> 272 Adam Resnick 0399160388 Jason 5 3.74 2014
author: Adam Resnick
name: Jason
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/11/20
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]]> 19320553 144 Jason Good Jason 5 3.71 2014
author: Jason Good
name: Jason
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/11/12
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]]> 1966395
People Are Unappealing tells the strange, funny, and sometimes filthy stories of Sara Barron’s twisted suburban upbringing and deranged attempt at taking the Big Apple by storm–first as an actor (then a waiter), then a dancer (then a waiter), then a comic (then a waiter). It’s there that she meets the ex-boyfriend turned street clown. The silk pajama-clad poet. The OCD Xanax addict who refuses to have sex wearing any fewer than three condoms.

Barron has a knack for attracting the unattractive. People Are Unappealing is her wickedly funny look at the dark side of humanity.]]> 224 Sara Barron 0307382451 Jason 3 to-read 3.65 2008
author: Sara Barron
name: Jason
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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date added: 2014/11/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 18775417
When he was three years old, Brando Kelly Ulloa was abandoned by his Mexican father. His mother, Maria, dreaming of a more exciting life, saw no reason for her son to live his life as a Mexican just because he started out as one. The life of “Brando Skyhorse,� the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist, was about to begin.

Through a series of letters to Paul Skyhorse Johnson, a stranger in prison for armed robbery, Maria reinvents herself and her young son as American Indians in the colorful Mexican-American neighborhood of Echo Park, California. There Brando and his mother live with his acerbic grandmother and a rotating cast of surrogate fathers. It will be over thirty years before Brando begins to untangle the truth of his own past, when a surprise discovery online leads him to his biological father at last.

From an acclaimed, prize-winning novelist celebrated for his “indelible storytelling� (O, The Oprah Magazine), this extraordinary literary memoir captures a son’s single-minded search for a father wherever he can find one, and is destined to become a classic.]]> 272 Brando Skyhorse 1439170878 Jason 4 to-read 3.74 2014
author: Brando Skyhorse
name: Jason
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2014
rating: 4
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date added: 2014/11/11
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]]> 10746542 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here

By an acclaimed writer at the height of his powers, The Sense of an Ending extends a streak of extraordinary books that began with the best-selling Arthur & George and continued with Nothing to Be Frightened Of and, most recently, Pulse.

This intense novel follows a middle-aged man as he contends with a past he has never much thought about - until his closest childhood friends return with a vengeance, one of them from the grave, another maddeningly present. Tony Webster thought he'd left all this behind as he built a life for himself, and by now his marriage and family and career have fallen into an amicable divorce and retirement. But he is then presented with a mysterious legacy that obliges him to reconsider a variety of things he thought he'd understood all along, and to revise his estimation of his own nature and place in the world.

A novel so compelling that it begs to be read in a single sitting, with stunning psychological and emotional depth and sophistication, The Sense of an Ending is a brilliant new chapter in Julian Barnes's oeuvre.]]> 150 Julian Barnes 0224094157 Jason 5 3.73 2011
author: Julian Barnes
name: Jason
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/10/21
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]]> 26919 Continental Drift is a masterful novel of hope lost and gained, and a gripping, indelible story of fragile lives uprooted and transformed by injustice, disappointment, and the seductions and realities of the American dream.]]> 410 Russell Banks 0060854944 Jason 5 3.88 1985
author: Russell Banks
name: Jason
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/07/25
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]]> 10516883 In the insightful narrative tradition of Oliver Sacks, Monkey Mind is an uplifting, smart, and very funny memoir of life with anxiety—America’s most common psychological complaint.

Daniel Smith’s Monkey Mind is the stunning articulation of what it is like to live with anxiety. As he travels through anxiety’s demonic layers, Smith defangs the disorder with great humor and evocatively expresses its self-destructive absurdities and painful internal coherence. Aaron Beck, the most influential doctor in modern psychotherapy, says that �Monkey Mind does for anxiety what William Styron’s Darkness Visible did for depression.� Neurologist and bestselling writer Oliver Sacks says, “I read Monkey Mind with admiration for its bravery and clarity�.I broke out into explosive laughter again and again.� Here, finally, comes relief and recognition to all those who want someone to put what they feel, or what their loved ones feel, into words.]]> 212 Daniel B. Smith 1439177309 Jason 5 3.23 2012
author: Daniel B. Smith
name: Jason
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2012/01/01
date added: 2014/05/06
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This is very sharp. Very funny, and very well-written. You do not have to endure anxiety to find yourself in these stories Most of us stand on the ledge from which Daniel jumped, and then climbed back up, fell, climbed again, jumped once more, and then eventually found his comfort zone somewhere in the middle with a group of meditating pigeons.
]]> 18478544
From "one of the most real, honest, and still funny male voices to come around in a while" (YALSA) comes a brand-new cast of quirky characters, pitting fat boy Gabe against the high school cheerleading team in a battle over control of the school's soda machine.

The war is ON! Never have the stakes been so high. Never have the trenches been so deep. Never has one soda vending machine been so vital. When the high school cheerleading team takes over the machine's funds previously collected by the pep band, Gabe will not stand for it. Something must be done.]]> 320 Geoff Herbach 1402291418 Jason 5 3.66 2014
author: Geoff Herbach
name: Jason
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/02/11
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When a grown-ass man loves a young adult novel, it's destined to be a hit.
]]> 82970 243 Alice Sebold 033041836X Jason 4 3.77 1999
author: Alice Sebold
name: Jason
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2014/02/11
date added: 2014/02/11
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]]> 29044 559 Donna Tartt 1400031702 Jason 5 4.17 1992
author: Donna Tartt
name: Jason
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/01/21
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]]> 11989
It tells the story from the point of view of a narrator of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. The narrator remains unknown until the start of the last chapter, chapter 5 of part 5. The novel presents a snapshot of life in Oran as seen through the author's distinctive absurdist point of view.

The book tells a gripping tale of human unrelieved horror, of survival and resilience, and of the ways in which humankind confronts death, The Plague is at once a masterfully crafted novel, eloquently understated and epic in scope, and a parable of ageless moral resonance, profoundly relevant to our times. In Oran, a coastal town in North Africa, the plague begins as a series of portents, unheeded by the people. It gradually becomes an omnipresent reality, obliterating all traces of the past and driving its victims to almost unearthly extremes of suffering, madness, and compassion.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic despite Camus' objection to the label. The novel stresses the powerlessness of the individual characters to affect their destinies. The narrative tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple meanings; the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness and the human condition.]]> 308 Albert Camus Jason 5 4.05 1947
author: Albert Camus
name: Jason
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1947
rating: 5
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]]> 7572
Featuring Bonanza Jellybean and the smooth-riding cowgirls of Rubber Rose Ranch. Chink, lascivious guru of yams and yang. Julian, Mohawk by birth; asthmatic esthete and husband by disposition. Dr. Robbins, preventive psychiatrist and reality instructor...

Follow Sissy's amazing odyssey from Virginia to chic Manhattan to the Dakota Badlands, where FBI agents, cowgirls, and ecstatic whooping cranes explode in a deliciously drawn-out climax...

"This is one of those special novels--a piece of working magic, warm, funny, and san--that you just want to ride off into the sunset with."--Thomas Pynchon

"The best fiction, so far, to come out of the American counterculture."-- "Chicago Tribune Book World"]]> 366 Tom Robbins 1842430246 Jason 5 3.79 1976
author: Tom Robbins
name: Jason
average rating: 3.79
book published: 1976
rating: 5
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]]> 9570 Another Roadside Attraction answers those questions and a lot more. It tell us, for example, what the sixties were truly all about, not by reporting on the psychedelic decade but by recreating it, from the inside out. In the process, this stunningly original seriocomic thriller is fully capable of simultaneously eating a literary hot dog and eroding the borders of the mind.]]> 366 Tom Robbins 1842431293 Jason 5 4.00 1971
author: Tom Robbins
name: Jason
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1971
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/01/21
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]]> 13872 Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out � with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes � to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There's Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family's most precious � and dangerous � asset.

As the Binewskis take their act across the backwaters of the U.S., inspiring fanatical devotion and murderous revulsion; as its members conduct their own Machiavellian version of sibling rivalry, Geek Love throws its sulfurous light on our notions of the freakish and the normal, the beautiful and the ugly, the holy and the obscene. Family values will never be the same.]]> 348 Katherine Dunn 0375713344 Jason 5 3.96 1989
author: Katherine Dunn
name: Jason
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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date added: 2014/01/21
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]]> 16141924 Jim Gaffigan never imagined he would have his own kids.

Though he grew up in a large Irish-Catholic family, Jim was satisfied with the nomadic, nocturnal life of a standup comedian, and was content to be "that weird uncle who lives in an apartment by himself in New York that everyone in the family speculates about." But all that changed when he married and found out his wife, Jeannie "is someone who gets pregnant looking at babies."

Five kids later, the comedian whose riffs on everything from Hot Pockets to Jesus have scored millions of hits on YouTube, started to tweet about the mistakes and victories of his life as a dad. Those tweets struck such a chord that he soon passed the million followers mark. But it turns out 140 characters are not enough to express all the joys and horrors of life with five kids, so hes' now sharing it all in Dad Is Fat.

From new parents to empty nesters to Jim's twenty-something fans, everyone will recognize their own families in these hilarious takes on everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to growing up in a big family ("I always assumed my father had six children so he could have a sufficient lawn crew") to changing diapers in the middle of the night ("like The Hurt Locker but much more dangerous") to bedtime (aka "Negotiating with Terrorists").

Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.]]> 288 Jim Gaffigan 0385349068 Jason 4 3.77 2013
author: Jim Gaffigan
name: Jason
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2013
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/12/30
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]]> 17165884 304 David Stuart MacLean 0547519273 Jason 5 3.60 2014
author: David Stuart MacLean
name: Jason
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2014
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/12/29
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An intense story, deftly written.
]]> 10570 352 Frank Portman 0385732910 Jason 5 3.56 2006
author: Frank Portman
name: Jason
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/12/26
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]]> 9499320
O'Rourke's story is one of a life gone off the rails, of how watching her mother's illness-and separating from her husband-left her fundamentally altered. But it is also one of resilience, as she observes her family persevere even in the face of immeasurable loss.

With lyricism and unswerving candor, The Long Goodbye conveys the fleeting moments of joy that make up a life, and the way memory can lead us out of the jagged darkness of loss. Effortlessly blending research and reflection, the personal and the universal, it is not only an exceptional memoir, but a necessary one.]]> 306 Meghan O'Rourke 1594487987 Jason 5 3.96 2011
author: Meghan O'Rourke
name: Jason
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/12/21
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]]> 210805
In The Duke of Deception, Geoffrey Wolff unravels the enigma of this Gatsbyesque figure, a bad man who somehow was also a very good father, an inveterate liar who falsified everything but love.]]> 275 Geoffrey Wolff 0679727523 Jason 5 3.87 1979
author: Geoffrey Wolff
name: Jason
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1979
rating: 5
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date added: 2013/12/21
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]]> 6566887 A dazzling, searing, and inventive memoir about becoming a father in the age of terror.

In 2007, during the months before Nick Flynn’s daughter’s birth, his growing outrage and obsession with torture, exacerbated by the Abu Ghraib photographs, led him to Istanbul to meet some of the Iraqi men depicted in those photos. Haunted by a history of addiction, a relationship with his unsteady father, and a longing to connect with his mother who committed suicide, Flynn artfully interweaves in this memoir passages from his childhood, his relationships with women, and his growing obsession—a questioning of terror, torture, and the political crimes we can neither see nor understand in post-9/11 American life. The time bomb of the title becomes an unlikely metaphor and vehicle for exploring the fears and joys of becoming a father. Here is a memoir of profound self-discovery—of being lost and found, of painful family memories and losses, of the need to run from love, and of the ability to embrace it again.]]> 283 Nick Flynn 0393068161 Jason 4 3.91 2009
author: Nick Flynn
name: Jason
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2009
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/11/24
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]]> 177333
Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband. Next door lives Nettie, an attractive widow whose calculating sensuality appeals greatly to Vivian. These women with their opposing models of femininity continue, well into adulthood, to affect Gornick's struggle to find herself in love and in work.

As Gornick walks with her aged mother through the streets of New York, arguing and remembering the past, each wins the reader's admiration: the caustic and clear-thinking daughter, for her courage and tenacity in really talking to her mother about the most basic issues of their lives, and the still powerful and intuitively-wise old woman, who again and again proves herself her daughter's mother.

Unsparing, deeply courageous, Fierce Attachments is one of the most remarkable documents of family feeling that has been written, a classic that helped start the memoir boom and remains one of the most moving examples of the genre.]]> 224 Vivian Gornick 0374529965 Jason 4 4.08 1987
author: Vivian Gornick
name: Jason
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1987
rating: 4
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date added: 2013/11/24
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]]> 6534932 Official Book Club Selection is Kathy Griffin unplugged, uncensored, and unafraid to dish about what really happens on the road, away from the cameras, and at the star party after the show. (It's also her big chance to score that coveted book club endorsement she's always wanted. Are you there, Oprah? It's me, Kathy.)

Kathy Griffin has won Emmys for her reality show Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, been nominated for a Grammy, worked and walked every red carpet known to man, and rung in the New Year with Anderson Cooper. But the legions of fans who pack Kathy's sold-out comedy shows have heard only part of her remarkable story. Writing with her trademark wit, the feisty comic settles a few old scores, celebrates the friends and mentors who helped her claw her way to the top, and shares insider gossip about celebrity behavior–the good, the bad, and the very ugly. She recounts the crazy ups and downs of her own career and introduces us to some of the supertalented people she encountered before they got famous (or, in some cases, after fame went to their heads). Word to the wise: If you've ever crossed Kathy Griffin at some point in your life, check the index for your name.

Along the way, Kathy reveals intimate details about her life before and after she made the big time. She opens up about everything from growing up with a dysfunctional family in suburban Illinois to bombing as a young comedian in L.A., from her well-publicized plastic surgery disasters to her highly publicized divorce, and more. Only in this book will you learn how the dinner table is the best training ground for a career in stand-up, how speaking your mind can bite you on the ass and buy you a house, and which people in Kathy's life have taught her the most valuable lessons–both inside and outside the entertainment industry. And as if all that wasn't enough, there are also dozens of exclusive and somewhat embarrassing photos from Kathy's own collection–featuring the diva of the D List herself, with her old nose as well as her new one, plus celebrity friends, foes, frenemies, and hangers-on for you to gawk at.

Refreshingly candid, unflinchingly honest, and full of hilarious "Did she really say that?" moments, Official Book Club Selection will make you laugh until you cry, or just puke up a little bit.]]> 348 Kathy Griffin 0345518519 Jason 1 3.79 2009
author: Kathy Griffin
name: Jason
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2009
rating: 1
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]]> 234026
You probably think you already know me because you've seen one of my two thousand porn movies, or maybe you caught me on VH1's The Surreal Life, or rented my movie Pornstar, or heard me rapping in someone's music video. . . . Yeah, that's me. But believe it or not, that's not the real me. The real me is just an average guy trying to make it in the world like everyone else.

Well . . . sort of . . .

I always wanted to be a legitimate actor (that's right, don't laugh). But when the gigs didn't come I didn't let it get me down. Instead, I'd fall into the arms of beautiful women and let them heal my bruised soul. One of them insisted on taking nude pictures of me and sending them to Playgirl. For some reason I agreed, and when it was published, I got tons of phone calls. One of them was from a casting director who wanted me in his next picture. There was only one problem: it was a porno.

"What do you think?" I asked my dad.

He rubbed his chin and paused for a moment.

"I think you should do it," he said. "I mean, you're already halfway there, and . . . at least you'll be performing, right?"

That's exactly what I thought. From there, my life only got better. I traveled all over the world, made tons of money, and got more famous every year. But more than anything, I wanted to be legit, so I started doing stand-up comedy, moved to Hollywood, and kept my acting hopes alive by mingling with every major—Wait a minute, you don't care about any of this, do you? You just want to know about the celebrity orgies, the constant sex, and how I learned to blow myself. . . . All right, fine.

But keep reading. . . . I guarantee you'll get more than you bargained for. . . .

—Ron Jeremy]]> 343 Ron Jeremy 006084082X Jason 1 3.49 2007
author: Ron Jeremy
name: Jason
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2007
rating: 1
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]]> 61115 National Bestseller
Ěý
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection of true stories yet. From nicotine gum addiction to lesbian personal ads to incontinent dogs, Possible Side Effects mines Burroughs's life in a series of uproariously funny essays. These are stories that are uniquely Augusten, with all the over-the-top hilarity of Running with Scissors, the erudition of Dry, and the breadth of Magical Thinking. A collection that is universal in its appeal and unabashedly intimate, Possible Side Effects continues to explore that which is most personal, mirthful, disturbing, and cherished, with unmatched audacity. A cautionary tale in essay form. Be forewarned--hilarious, troubling, and shocking results might occur.]]> 291 Augusten Burroughs 031242681X Jason 3 3.99 2006
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Jason
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> 25079 In a time when much of the country sees red whenever the subject of gay marriage comes up, Dan Savage-outspoken author of the column "Savage Love"- makes it personal.

Dan Savage's mother wants him to get married. His boyfriend, Terry, says "no thanks" because he doesn't want to act like a straight person. Their six-year-old son DJ says his two dads aren't "allowed" to get married, but that he'd like to come to the reception and eat cake. Throw into the mix Dan's straight siblings, whose varied choices form a microcosm of how Americans are approaching marriage these days, and you get a rollicking family memoir that will have everyone-gay or straight, right or left, single or married-howling with laughter and rethinking their notions of marriage and all it entails. BACKCOVER: "Hilarious, heartfelt."
-Seattle Post-Intelligencer

"As funny as David Sedaris's essay collections, but bawdier and more thought-provoking."
-Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

"Most of all, a book about creating and appreciating family."
-Seattle Times

"I think America would be a better place if everyone on every side of the gay marriage debate would read this book."
-Ira Glass, host of the public radio show This American Life

"The strongest argument here, which [Savage] brilliantly plays down, is that family means everything to these people: married, not married, blended, gay, straight, whatever."
-The Washington Post]]> 304 Dan Savage 0452287634 Jason 2 3.93 2005
author: Dan Savage
name: Jason
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2005
rating: 2
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]]> 180066
David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3 A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? The police? The hospital?), the rehabs. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll, but as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on him. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional roller coaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.]]> 317 David Sheff 0618683356 Jason 4 4.04 2007
author: David Sheff
name: Jason
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 4
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]]> 12868761 318 Jenny Lawson 0399159010 Jason 0 to-read 3.89 2012
author: Jenny Lawson
name: Jason
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 11466 304 Tobias Wolff 0802136680 Jason 4 3.97 1989
author: Tobias Wolff
name: Jason
average rating: 3.97
book published: 1989
rating: 4
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]]> 1044355 When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about...

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right...

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law's leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author's attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.
(front flap)]]> 323 David Sedaris 0316143472 Jason 4 4.08 2005
author: David Sedaris
name: Jason
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 1845 Librarian's Note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

In April, 1992, a young man from a well-to-do family hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness north of Mt. McKinley. His name was Christopher Johnson McCandless. He had given $25,000 in savings to charity, abandoned his car and most of his possessions, burned all the cash in his wallet, and invented a new life for himself. Four months later, a party of moose hunters found his decomposed body. How McCandless came to die is the unforgettable story of Into the Wild.

Immediately after graduating from college in 1991, McCandless had roamed through the West and Southwest on a vision quest like those made by his heroes Jack London and John Muir. In the Mojave Desert he abandoned his car, stripped it of its license plates, and burned all of his cash. He would give himself a new name, Alexander Supertramp, and, unencumbered by money and belongings, he would be free to wallow in the raw, unfiltered experiences that nature presented. Craving a blank spot on the map, McCandless simply threw away the maps. Leaving behind his desperate parents and sister, he vanished into the wild.]]> 207 Jon Krakauer 0385486804 Jason 5 4.01 1996
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Jason
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> 2195289 From the author of the novel, The Clasp, hailed by Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavits, and J. Courtney Sullivan. Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays from Sloane Crosley is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory.

From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions -- or perhaps because of them. Together, these essays create a startlingly funny and revealing portrait of a complex and utterly recognizable character who aims for the stars but hits the ceiling, and the inimitable city that has helped shape who she is. I Was Told There'd Be Cake introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

The pony problem --
Christmas in July --
The ursula cookie --
Bring your machete to work day --
The good people of this dimension --
Bastard out of Westchester --
The beauty of strangers --
Fuck you, Columbus --
One-night bounce --
Sign language for infidels --
You on a stick --
Height of luxury --
Smell this --
Lay like broccoli --
Fever faker]]> 230 Sloane Crosley 159448306X Jason 3 3.47 2008
author: Sloane Crosley
name: Jason
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2008
rating: 3
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]]> 10252302 Ěý
Blue Nights opens on July 26, 2010, as Didion thinks back to Quintana’s wedding in New York seven years before. Today would be her wedding anniversary. This fact triggers vivid snapshots of Quintana’s childhood—in Malibu, in Brentwood, at school in Holmby Hills. Reflecting on her daughter but also on her role as a parent, Didion asks the candid questions any parent might about how she feels she failed either because cues were not taken or perhaps displaced. “How could I have missed what was clearly there to be seen?� Finally, perhaps we all remain unknown to each other. Seamlessly woven in are incidents Didion sees as underscoring her own age, something she finds hard to acknowledge, much less accept.
Ěý
Blue Nights—the long, light evening hours that signal the summer solstice, “the opposite of the dying of the brightness, but also its warning”—like The Year of Magical Thinking before it, is an iconic book of incisive and electric honesty, haunting and profoundly moving.]]> 208 Joan Didion 0307267679 Jason 4 3.92 2011
author: Joan Didion
name: Jason
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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]]> 4136 Us and Them); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French (Jesus Shaves); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm (Let It Snow); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations (Six to Eight Black Men); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like (The Monster Mash); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry (Cow and Turkey).]]> 176 David Sedaris 0316191299 Jason 5 3.92 1997
author: David Sedaris
name: Jason
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> 13525938
When Richard abandons his wife, it is up to the next generation to take control. Robin, their schoolteacher daughter, is determined that her father pay for leaving Edie. Benny, an easy-going, pot-smoking family man, just wants to smooth things over. And Rachelle-- a whippet thin perfectionist-- is intent on saving her mother-in-law's life, but this task proves even bigger than planning her twin children's spectacular b'nai mitzvah party. Through it all, they wonder: do Edie's devastating choices rest on her shoulders alone, or are others at fault, too?

With pitch-perfect prose, huge compassion, and sly humor, Jami Attenberg has given us an epic story of marriage, family, and obsession. The Middlesteins explores the hopes and heartbreaks of new and old love, the yearnings of Midwestern America, and our devastating, fascinating preoccupation with food.]]> 201 Jami Attenberg 1455507199 Jason 0 to-read 3.43 2012
author: Jami Attenberg
name: Jason
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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]]> 13414676
Mary Anne Schwalbe is waiting for her chemotherapy treatments when Will casually asks her what she's reading. The conversation they have grows into tradition: soon they are reading the same books so they can have something to talk about in the hospital waiting room. The ones they choose range from classic to popular, from fantastic to spiritual, and we hear their passion for reading and their love for each other in their intimate and searching discussions.

A profoundly moving testament to the power of love between a child and parent, and the power of reading in our lives.]]> 336 Will Schwalbe 0307594033 Jason 3 3.80 2012
author: Will Schwalbe
name: Jason
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2012
rating: 3
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]]> 13547180 New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.

When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?

In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Cahalan tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen.]]> 250 Susannah Cahalan 145162137X Jason 5 4.06 2012
author: Susannah Cahalan
name: Jason
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2012
rating: 5
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]]> 1898
Into Thin Air is the definitive account of the deadliest season in the history of Everest by the acclaimed journalist and author of the bestseller Into the Wild. On assignment for Outside Magazine to report on the growing commercialization of the mountain, Krakauer, an accomplished climber, went to the Himalayas as a client of Rob Hall, the most respected high-altitude guide in the world. A rangy, thirty-five-year-old New Zealander, Hall had summited Everest four times between 1990 and 1995 and had led thirty-nine climbers to the top. Ascending the mountain in close proximity to Hall's team was a guided expedition led by Scott Fischer, a forty-year-old American with legendary strength and drive who had climbed the peak without supplemental oxygen in 1994. But neither Hall nor Fischer survived the rogue storm that struck in May 1996.

Krakauer examines what it is about Everest that has compelled so many people -- including himself -- to throw caution to the wind, ignore the concerns of loved ones, and willingly subject themselves to such risk, hardship, and expense. Written with emotional clarity and supported by his unimpeachable reporting, Krakauer's eyewitness account of what happened on the roof of the world is a singular achievement.]]> 368 Jon Krakauer Jason 5 4.24 1997
author: Jon Krakauer
name: Jason
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> 144977
J.R. Moehringer grew up captivated by a voice. It was the voice of his father, a New York City disc jockey who vanished before J.R. spoke his first word. Sitting on the stoop, pressing an ear to the radio, J.R. would strain to hear in that plummy baritone the secrets of masculinity and identity. Though J.R.'s mother was his world, his rock, he craved something more, something faintly and hauntingly audible only in The Voice.

At eight years old, suddenly unable to find The Voice on the radio, J.R. turned in desperation to the bar on the corner, where he found a rousing chorus of new voices. Cops and poets, bookies and soldiers, movie stars and stumblebums, all sorts of men gathered in the bar to tell their stories and forget their cares. The alphas along the bar—including J.R.'s Uncle Charlie, a Humphrey Bogart look-alike; Colt, a Yogi Bear sound-alike; and Joey D, a softhearted brawler—took J.R. to the beach, to ballgames, and ultimately into their circle. They taught J.R., tended him, and provided a kind of fatherhood-by-committee.

Torn between the stirring example of his mother and the lurid romance of the bar, J.R. tried to forge a self somewhere in the center. But when it was time for J.R. to leave home, the bar became an increasingly seductive sanctuary, a place to return and regroup during his picaresque journeys—from his grandfather's tumbledown house to the hallowed towers and spires of Yale; from his absurd stint selling housewares at Lord & Taylor to his dream job at the New York Times, which became a nightmare when he found himself a faulty cog in a vast machine. Time and again the bar offered shelter from failure, rejection, heartbreak--and eventually from reality.

In the grand tradition of landmark memoirs, The Tender Bar is suspenseful, wrenching, and achingly funny. A classic American story of self-invention and escape, of the fierce love between a single mother and an only son, it's also a moving portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man, and an unforgettable depiction of how men remain, at heart, lost boys.]]> 416 J.R. Moehringer 0786888768 Jason 4 3.96 2005
author: J.R. Moehringer
name: Jason
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 14241 The Liars� Club took the world by storm and raised the art of the memoir to an entirely new level, bringing about a dramatic revival of the form. Karr’s comic childhood in an east Texas oil town brings us characters as darkly hilarious as any of J. D. Salinger’s—a hard-drinking daddy, a sister who can talk down the sheriff at age twelve, and an oft-married mother whose accumulated secrets threaten to destroy them all. This unsentimental and profoundly moving account of an apocalyptic childhood is as “funny, lively, and un-put-downable� (USA Today) today as it ever was.]]> 352 Mary Karr 0143035746 Jason 4 3.94 1995
author: Mary Karr
name: Jason
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1995
rating: 4
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]]> 1241 Before considering reading this book, please see the BookBrowse note on the book jacket/review page.

BookBrowse Note: January 9th 2006: An article in the Smoking Gun claimed that James Frey (author of A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard) fabricated key parts of his books. They cited police records, court documents and interviews with law enforcement agents which belie a number of Frey's claims regarding criminal charges against him, jail terms and his fugitive status.

In an interview with the Smoking Gun, Frey admitted that he had 'embellished central details' in A Million Little Pieces and backtracked on claims he made in the book.

January 26th 2006. Frey's publisher stated that while it initially stood by him, after further questioning of the author, the house has "sadly come to the realization that a number of facts have been altered and incidents embellished." It will be adding a a publisher's note and author's note to all future editions of A Million Little Pieces.]]> 515 James Frey 0307276902 Jason 4 3.69 2003
author: James Frey
name: Jason
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2003
rating: 4
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]]> 4138 Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its proverbial ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview—a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.]]> 304 David Sedaris Jason 5 4.10 1997
author: David Sedaris
name: Jason
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> 202372 The New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, & it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life -- from childhood to marriage & beyond -- & memorably captures the collision of youthful longing & the hard intransigences of time & fate.]]> 240 Jo Ann Beard 0316085251 Jason 4 4.12 1998
author: Jo Ann Beard
name: Jason
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1998
rating: 4
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]]> 386 Another Bullshit Night in Suck City tells the story of the trajectory that led Nick and his father onto the streets, into that shelter, and finally to each other. .]]> 347 Nick Flynn 0393329402 Jason 5 3.81 2004
author: Nick Flynn
name: Jason
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> 4953 A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is an instant classic that will be read for decades to come.]]> 530 Dave Eggers 0375725784 Jason 5 3.70 2000
author: Dave Eggers
name: Jason
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> 12528 255 Annie Dillard 0060915188 Jason 5 3.95 1987
author: Annie Dillard
name: Jason
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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]]> 7815
From one of America's iconic writers, a stunning book of electric honesty and passion. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year's Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma.

This powerful book is Didion's attempt to make sense of the "weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself."]]> 227 Joan Didion 1400078431 Jason 4 3.94 2005
author: Joan Didion
name: Jason
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 252577
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood."

So begins the Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and raised in the slums of Limerick, Ireland. Frank's mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank's father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy—exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling—does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father's tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies.

Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank's survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig's head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors—yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.

Angela's Ashes, imbued on every page with Frank McCourt's astounding humor and compassion, is a glorious book that bears all the marks of a classic.]]> 452 Frank McCourt 0007205236 Jason 4 4.15 1996
author: Frank McCourt
name: Jason
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1996
rating: 4
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]]> 4137 272 David Sedaris 0349113912 Jason 5 4.01 2000
author: David Sedaris
name: Jason
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> 6520 The New York Times bestselling follow-up to the #1 New York Times bestseller A Million Little Pieces-the heartrending story of a friendship between a newly-sober James and the charismatic, high-living mobster he met in rehab, Leonard.

A Million Little Pieces was the first Oprah Book Club pick by a living author in over two years. It instantly became a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 USA Today bestseller, and a #1 Publishers Weekly bestseller, with over 1.7 million copies in print.

My Friend Leonard picks up right where Pieces leaves off. A New York Times bestseller in its own right before the Oprah pick, My Friend Leonard is James Frey's story of his friendship with Leonard, the larger-than-life mobster who "adopted" James as he left rehab. Leonard, who offers James lucrative-if illegal, mysterious, and slightly dangerous-employment when he needs it. Leonard, of the secret deals, of the surprising passions that belie his violent career choice, of fantastic generosity and ferocious loyalty. Leonard, who has been holding on to some remarkable secrets, and who has invested in their friendship more than James could ever imagine.

My Friend Leonard is, at its core, about the responsibility that comes with loving someone and going out on any number of limbs to care for them. And it is a book that proves that one of the most provocative literary voices of his generation is also one of the most emphatically human.]]> 416 James Frey 1594481954 Jason 5 3.87 2005
author: James Frey
name: Jason
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> 242006 336 Augusten Burroughs 031242227X Jason 4 3.77 2002
author: Augusten Burroughs
name: Jason
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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]]> 773858
Emmy and Grammy Award winner, author of the acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shopgirl and The Pleasure of My Company, and a regular contributor to The New Yorker, Martin has always been a writer. His memoir of his years in stand-up is candid, spectacularly amusing, and beautifully written.

At age ten Martin started his career at Disneyland, selling guidebooks in the newly opened theme park. In the decade that followed, he worked in the Disney magic shop and the Bird Cage Theatre at Knott's Berry Farm, performing his first magic/comedy act a dozen times a week. The story of these years, during which he practiced and honed his craft, is moving and revelatory. The dedication to excellence and innovation is formed at an astonishingly early age and never wavers or wanes.

Martin illuminates the sacrifice, discipline, and originality that made him an icon and informs his work to this day. To be this good, to perform so frequently, was isolating and lonely. It took Martin decades to reconnect with his parents and sister, and he tells that story with great tenderness. Martin also paints a portrait of his times-the era of free love and protests against the war in Vietnam, the heady irreverence of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in the late sixties, and the transformative new voice of Saturday Night Live in the seventies.

Throughout the text, Martin has placed photographs, many never seen before. Born Standing Up is a superb testament to the sheer tenacity, focus, and daring of one of the greatest and most iconoclastic comedians of all time.]]> 207 Steve Martin 1416553649 Jason 5 3.87 2007
author: Steve Martin
name: Jason
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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"My tendency to make up stories and lie compulsively for the sake of my own amusement takes up a good portion of my day and provides me with a peace of mind not easily attainable in this economic climate." -- Chelsea Handler, from Chapter 10 of Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

It's no Chelsea Handler loves to smoke out "dumbassness," the condition people suffer from that allows them to fall prey to her brand of complete and utter nonsense. Friends, family, co-workers--they've all been tricked by Chelsea into believing stories of total foolishness and into behaving like total fools. Luckily, they've lived to tell the tales and, for the very first time, write about them.]]> 8 Chelsea Handler 1609411153 Jason 2 3.76 2011
author: Chelsea Handler
name: Jason
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2011
rating: 2
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She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her youthful days as a vicious nerd to her tour of duty on Saturday Night Live; from her passionately halfhearted pursuit of physical beauty to her life as a mother eating things off the floor; from her one-sided college romance to her nearly fatal honeymoon—from the beginning of this paragraph to this final sentence.

Tina Fey reveals all, and proves what we've all suspected: you're no one until someone calls you bossy.]]> 283 Tina Fey Jason 4 3.97 2011
author: Tina Fey
name: Jason
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2011
rating: 4
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