Tag: essays

Indie Next: The Book of My Lives

Indie Next: The Book of My Lives

Posted on April 2, 2013 by Ali Fisher

It won't surprise you to hear I was immediately drawn to THE BOOK OF MY LIVES, Aleksander Hemon's memoir in essays, because of that charming blue alien fellow on the cover. Despite the harsh disappointment I experienced when I found out this was not, in fact, science fiction, I've come back to this book again and again because of the glowing praise it gets from readers with hearts both warmed and broken.

Here are a few quotes from reviews:

"Amuses, informs and inspires—then, finally, rips open the heart." —Kirkus Reviews

"The book culminates with 'The Aquarium,' 28 heart-wrenching pages of powerful prose originally published in the New Yorker, about his infant daughter’s battle with cancer that is nothing short of a tour de force; its terrible beauty demonstrates Hemon’s transformation as a writer and a man." —Publishers Weekly

Barbara Hoffert of Library Journal selected it for her March 2013 picks list and said, "Folded within this narrative, though, is a tale of two cities—Sarajevo and Chicago—and his love for them both, for his family, and for soccer."

indie next logoAnd we just found out it will be on the April Indie Next List!

FSG posted a vine of Hemon signing copies of THE BOOK OF MY LIVES in the office. Lookie.

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Starred Reviews for When Women Were Birds

Starred Reviews for When Women Were Birds

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Ali Fisher

 

 

Terry Tempest Williams' unconventional and curious collection of essays, WHEN WOMEN WERE BIRDS: Fifty-four Variations on Voice, has already earned two starred reviews!

"Each book by ecologist, activist, and writer Williams is an event, so lucid, caring, spirited, and incantatory is her approach to the matrix of nature, place, culture, family, and sense of self. [...] Williams is transcendent in her piercing, musical, elegiac, and loving reflections on women’s lives and wilderness, light and shadow, words expressed and words unspoken and invisible." -Booklist (starred review)

"Williams, the sensitive author of REFUGE, is shocked to discover her deceased mother’s unwritten memoirs—shelves worth of blank pages. Under such unpromising circumstances commences a kaleidoscopic celebration and palimpsest—all metaphorical clichés but apt—on finding a voice and woman’s identity beyond the silenced, selfless existence informed by children and a husband—even a family brimming with love." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Your patrons might also catch an excerpt of this one in O Magazine this May! 

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