Moomin
I was late when it comes to the world of Moomin, only encountering it in my mid-twenties when I was really delving into the world of independent and vintage comics.
Women Authors
Most old books are written by men. These books were written by women.
On Photography
Hers is one of those names that is constantly mentioned — especially if you read literary essays or are generally interested in the New York City art scene in the 1970s through the 1990s.
Overhead in a Balloon
Gallant clusters the stories like one is hearing about a circle of friends or acquaintances at a party.
Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted features one of my favourite structures — it is a memoir constructed via vignettes. There are lots of margins here.
Airless Spaces
Sometimes books constructed out of vignettes seem to be built on a faulty foundation and have frames that are not enough to withstand the weight of a message or a book. Firestone here has used the flexibility of very short vignettes to construct just what her title implies — an airless space.
Written on Water
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.
I Am Not Ashamed
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.
The Devil’s Candy
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.
Dorothy Parker in Hollywood
I came late to the work of Dorothy Parker and I came to it in a piecemeal way that I think many modern readers come to it. Honestly, I knew more about the saga of Parker’s mortal remains being stored in a filing cabinet for decades than I did about her.
The Lover
While the book is called The Lover, I would argue that it’s not much about the lover at all.