The White Album and Notes to John
I appreciate that her work seems to be suddenly available and back in print. I often find it on shelves and see it arriving at my local independent bookstore.
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Memoirs and creative non-fiction.
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I appreciate that her work seems to be suddenly available and back in print. I often find it on shelves and see it arriving at my local independent bookstore.
This collection of essays is written with the air of Indiana looking back at his life and taking an inventory of sorts as he acknowledges that he is living in a time that is closer to the end than to the beginning.
Girl, Interrupted features one of my favourite structures — it is a memoir constructed via vignettes. There are lots of margins here.
While it might sound like a difficult read, it isn’t. Guibert’s voice remains strong even as his body is starting to weaken and more fear dominates his days.
Penguin Vitae editions are easy to love and to gush over. The colours! The foil text! The hardcover, in a comfortable size!
Wojnarowicz is asking us to listen to him crying from his deathbed and the reader cannot turn away.
These essays are talks over coffee and catching up after a long week. They are close friends talking about the issues that matter to them and the parts of the past still stuck to the hem of their clothes.
If you don’t know who Barbara Payton was, you are forgiven. I was actually introduced to her and her book through Eddie Muller’s Noir Alley on TCM, and a screening of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, a 1950 James Cagney film.
I came to William Goldman’s Adventures in the Screen Trade via last week’s book, Julie Salamon’s The Devil’s Candy. It was actually mentioned in the puffery on the back of that essential book as being another essential book.
Salamon is exhaustive in her recounting of the movie-making process, from casting all the way to the final agonizing returns. I learned a lot about what it takes to produce a film, and the processes of people far removed from the actors and the cameras.