LeliaApr 307 minEdmund White, Memoir & Astro ReadingAbout halfway through reading My Lives by Edmund White, I expected to give it a two-star rating. White spends so much time narrating his...
LeliaMar 124 minDesire in Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My NameIn Zami: A New Spelling of My Name, Audre Lorde uses the erotic, or what Mary Karr might call the carnal, to deeply embed herself in her...
LeliaFeb 284 minBernardine Evaristo, Elaine Dundy, Patti Smith & ResilienceThere’s a great passage in Manifesto: On Never Giving Up where Bernardine Evaristo declares “In spite of what my father endured, he never...
LeliaFeb 186 minAn Imaginary Astrology Reading for Joyce Carol Oates: Part IImagine that Joyce Carol Oates*—who does not seem the type to sit with an astrologer, but let’s pretend—came to see me for a New Year’s...
LeliaFeb 92 minBarbara Pym's Full and Quiet LifeA Very Private Eye, Barbara Pym’s autobiography in diaries and letters, is lovely in just the way Barbara Pym’s novels are lovely: quiet...
LeliaJan 24 minMy Best-of Book List for 2021I like year-end best-of lists. Reading others’ lists is a fun way to learn about things I’ve missed. And thinking about my own best-of...
LeliaDec 24, 20212 minAlter Ego as Creative Muse To my delight, I fell down a Maxine Hong Kingston rabbit hole and discovered this gem from an interview in The Guardian. Describing a...
LeliaDec 20, 20213 minEudora Welty + Aries + GuiltI’m entranced by Eudora Welty right now. Reading her short story "Livvie," I’m awed by how much Welty does in just ten pages. In One...
LeliaDec 16, 20215 minMemoir, Elderhood & SaturnHaving read Angela’s Ashes and The Liar’s Club in quick succession, I was beginning to think that the only enjoyable memoirs overflow...
LeliaDec 8, 20213 minMemoir and the MoonI used to pay a lot of attention to the first lines in books. I had a notebook where I wrote them down and classified them according to...
LeliaDec 5, 20213 minDickens, Frank McCourt and CompassionIn Sally Ledger’s Introduction to Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Books, she writes, “Redemption through suffering is a significant...
LeliaDec 4, 20212 minMary Karr, Memoir and the South NodeOoph.I was relishing Mary Karr’s delicious language, but didn’t realize that this line I so admired - “Maybe it's wrong to blame the...
LeliaDec 1, 20212 minSavoring LanguageI’m learning to slow down and savor Mary Karr’s The Liar’s Club. It’s a good story that gallops along and then arrests my attention with...
LeliaSep 29, 20215 minI Finally Read Eat, Pray, LoveAnd the most disappointing thing about the book is the way Liz Gilbert seems to suggest that in finding Felipe she’s completed her...