2025 book 188

 Skip Hollandsworth's She Kills: The Murderous Socialite, the Cross-Dressing Bank Robber, and Other True Crime Tales

Back when Longform and Longreads were websites on the ol' internet, I read a lot of Hollandsworth's essays in Texas Monthly, so even though I rarely read non-fiction books, I wanted to check out his collection. It's good! I read a couple a day so it wouldn't get overwhelming (both in terms of reading a bunch of essays in a row and the theme of the thing, mostly desperate women). I had read a couple of these before, but each essay has a little postscript update, which is nice. I don't really have anything in particular to say about this--I guess I recommend it to ppl who like thoughtful writing about true crime. A-.

2025 book 155

 Mimi Pond’s Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me

Look, I’ll read any bio of the Mitford sisters, but one that is ALSO a graphic novel? *Chef’s kiss* Anyway, this isn’t breaking new ground if you’ve read any of the other bios, but it is much FUNNIER than the other bios. There are also some autobiographical interludes that I’m not sure were necessary but I enjoyed nonetheless. My only complaint is that the book is a lovely blue monochromatic work, but sometimes there was white text on a light blue background that was very hard to read—this may work better in print, and I do have a print copy pre-ordered because this needs to live on my shelves! A/A-.

__

A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on September 16th.

2022 book 223

 Alan Sepinwall's Welcome to the OC: The Oral History

If there are three things I love, it’s oral histories, behind the scenes gossip, and DRAMA, and this has all three out the wazoo. It’s also very funny and surprisingly candid about the OC, a tv show I stopped watching during season two (but even after I stopped watching, I still read the recaps on Television Without Pity, which also comes up in here!) but enjoyed reading a whole book about anyway. Lots of cool nitty gritty on how a tv show gets made (I was especially into the chapter on the music), lots of interesting comments from people looking back twenty years later. Perfect read if you’re into pop culture. A.

2020 book 48

Shirley Jackson's Life Among the Savages
I think this memoir would come as a surprise to ppl only familiar with Jackson's fiction, because it is lighthearted and HILARIOUS. It focuses on moving from NYC to Vermont with her young children and husband, adapting to small-town life, dealing with motherhood, etc. There are some GREAT scenes with the cats, too. I know this is kind of a glossy take on Jackson's actual life--in real life her husband was horrible, and these stories were written for women's magazines. I will say that reading this straight through felt sort of same-y after a while, but that just might be me and my general issues with reading non-fiction. Definitely an interesting companion to Jackson's fiction. B+.

2019 book 18

Sarah Perry's After the Eclipse
Perry's memoir is a devastating love letter to her mother, who was murdered when the author was twelve--a murder that went unsolved for years. As an adult, Perry is re-examining the crime, while talking about her own childhood and the life of her mother. I don't want to make this sound tawdry, because it really isn't at all (though parts of it are brutal). Just really compelling stuff. Side note, Perry lived in Durham for a while! A-.

2018 book 164

Nicole Chung's All You Can Ever Know
I feel like I have been waiting foreverrrrrrr to read this, but it was undoubtedly worth the wait! Chung's memoir is beautifully written, intensely personal, and extremely compelling, discussing her childhood as a Korean-American adopted by a white family (in a very white area of Oregon), and then her journey to find her birth family as she was on the verge of having her first child. A quick and moving read. A/A-.

2018 book 118

Busy Philipps' This Will Only Hurt a Little
I have read a lot of memoir/essay books by funny ladies, and often they do have very funny parts, but others fall flat on the page (I imagine the audiobooks are better). This one, however, was GREAT. I am a long-time fan of Philipps (and have been rewatching Cougar Town lately to boot) and her narrative voice here comes across as a very honest conversation (and is also very funny). It gets super real at times—I cried at least twice when she was talking about her very relatable and awful teen years. And all her showbiz stories are great and hilarious. Unsurprisingly, James Franco IS an asshole, and Michelle Williams is a sweetheart. I still have never seen Dawson's Creek but I loved hearing her talk about North Carolina! AND did you know she co-wrote Blades of Glory? Anyway. All those stories were great, but her writing style draws you in so much that you are viscerally angry when she is angry, and devastated when things don’t work out for her, and cheering when they do, even the smaller things. It’s really well done and I can’t wait to see her upcoming talk show. A/A-.

__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in October.

2018 book 55

Andrea Buchanan's The Beginning of Everything: The Year I Lost My Mind and Found Myself
FULL DISCLOSURE: I am friends with the author and love her dearly. That said, this is still an amazing and engaging memoir about the author's struggle to deal with—and be treated for—a brain leak. It is also about divorce, motherhood, family, medicine, biology, history, chronic illness, memory, and the stories we tell—not to mention, a super incredible woman. I rarely read nonfiction but this had me totally gripped, and not just because it was about someone I know. It's well written, moving, and deeply honest. And some parts are very funny, too. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. A.

2017 book 152

Jaya Saxena and Jess Zimmerman's Basic Witches
I LOVED THIS BOOK! It is just the book I needed to give me strength in these troubled times. It is both empowering and funny, AND it's beautifully designed--the illustrations are perfect. I am gonna go out and get some candles for sure so I can ritualistically improve my life. ;)

2016 book 139

Nadja Spiegelman's I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This
With this outstanding work, Spiegelman--daughter of Art Spiegelman--enters the family business of writing about family. But instead of rehashing the stories told by her father, she's focused on her mother, and her mother's family, and in fact four generations of complicated mother-daughter relationships. There is so much good stuff here, particularly on the nature of memory, and the writing itself is beautiful and evocative. I did wish she didn't go quite so easy on her grandmother toward the end, but I suppose I can see why. This made me very thoughtful about the way we tell our stories and writer, and rewrite, our own histories. Very engaging. Content warning for mentions of sexual violence and emotional abuse. A/A-.

2016 book 131

Laura Thompson's The Six: The Lives of the Mitford Sisters
OOOHHHH y'all it is a new bio of the Mitford Sisters--the first since the last sister, Deborah, passed away in 2014, so I was hoping it would be more no-holds-barred than some of the others. Thompson takes her task seriously, though--I mean, of course there is plenty of gossip here, but there are also extensive footnotes and literary analysis. ANYWAY: MITFORDS!!! [If you are sort of going "who?" right now, read this right away! The Mitfords were the daughters of an English Lord and they all came of age in the 1930s and Nancy was a novelist and Jessica was a Communist and Debo became a Duchess and was sisters-in-law with Kick Kennedy and Diana was married to the head Fascist in England and Unity hung out with HITLER. And the sixth, Pam, was like, I'm living on a farm, peace out.]

Thompson focuses primarily on Nancy and Diana--her thesis seems to be that their relationship and personalities dominated and shaped the other sisters--but is less nakedly sympathetic to Diana than Mary Lovell was, while clearly finding her fascinating (Thompson, to my relief, talks about what a freaking bigot Oswald Mosley was and doesn't attempt to make excuses for Diana). I also loved how much attention was paid to Nancy's life and works (if I had to guess, I would say that Thompson liked Debo and Nancy best). As usual, there is little about Pam (surely there is more information on her apparently late-in-life lesbianism) and not too much more about Unity, and some fairly critical remarks on Jessica (perhaps fairly), but of course I completely devoured this! I also appreciated that Thompson tries to come at things from a psychological and feminist point of view, to varying degrees of success, in my opinion. Her discussions of the Mitfords' mother and her relationships with her daughters was spot on, though. Oh, MITFORDS. You really did exemplify an era.  (Thompson also does a good job of explaining why me, and endless other people, being excited about MITFORDS! is a thing.) RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS. A/A-.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.

2016 book 128

Mara Wilson's Where Am I Now
Wilson--best known for her work a child actress and (at least to me) a popular Twitter account--has written a nice little memoir/essay collection about her time working in movies, her mother's death, her family, her teenage and college years, and how she's now started to really find herself. Parts of this made me cry and parts made me laugh out loud, though a couple parts made me think like, why is someone still in her 20s acting like a wise ol' owl. Like, she is not far enough removed from like, toxic friendships to reflect on those, maybe. BUT most of this is really well-written and entertaining and uplifting and stuff. I like her narrative voice a lot. B+.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in September.

2016 book 91

Jeffrey Toobin's American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst
Look, if Jeffrey Toobin--who mainly writes books about legal stuff, including the one The People vs OJ Simpson was based on--is gonna write a book on Patty Hearst, I am THERE, ok? And this was freaking RIVETING. Hearst apparently did not cooperate with the book, but it is still fairly sympathetic toward her--I mean, I have no idea how accurate this portrayal is--it seems well-researched but who knows how it's spun--but it /feels/ accurate. And like I said, totally riveting presentation. I thought the depiction of how COMPLETELY INSANE the 1970s were, especially in California, was very well-done (this was a great followup to the Charles Manson's Hollywood eps of You Must Remember This, not to mention Emma Cline's excellent The Girls). And Toobin really TRIES not to let being a white man interfere with his story--my main quibble here is that he offhandedly mentions Nancy Ling's boyfriend forcing her to turn tricks, and several times thereafter Toobin calls her "the sex worker"--which maybe she was? But he never really says so otherwise? And it's not really a flattering characterization the way he presents it? That lack of information on a lot of the players was where this struck me as weak--I could have used a lot more backstory on Hearst and her sisters, for instance--though I guess that is not really the story Toobin is trying to tell. Still, I sometimes struggle with nonfiction and had no problem sitting down and plowing right through this, so it's definitely entertaining. And insane. I love it. A-.


__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released in August.

2016 book 71

Maggie Nelson's The Red Parts: Autobiography of a Trial
I've never read any of Nelson's other books (though The Argonauts was a majorly critically acclaimed work last year), but Graywolf recently reissued this 2005 memoir and it sounded so compelling that I went for it! It centers on what happens when Nelson is about to publish a work of poetry about the long-ago murder of her aunt, presumably by a serial killer--and then finds out that the cold case has been reactivated, and a new suspect is about to be arrested. It's not a true crime book, but instead centers on Nelson and her family, their inter-relationships, and their grief, loss, and confusion as they face the murder trial. Nelson imbues her story with some really resonant themes, making this a quick, but moving, read. Very well-done. A.

2015 book 265

Mindy Kaling's Why Not Me?
My sister picked this for Thanksgiving Sister Book Club, and I was pleased b/c I like Mindy Kaling and her first book was pretty good. This one is also pretty good--more personal stories, lots of pics, etc. I mean, if you like Mindy Kaling, you'll like this book, presumably? Actually, my favorite part was the chapter where she imagined her life as a high school Latin teacher, and it was a very sweet romantic comedy! I was all like, I wish she would write a novel! And then realized I should probably just give her tv show another chance, haha. I did think it was interesting that she mentions a lot of men she works with or has worked with--but only once mentioned a woman coworker by name. Give your lady writers some props, Mindy! B+.

2015 book 262

Sarah Vowell's Lafayette in the Somewhat United States
It seems like Vowell has been working on this book for a few years, but I'm sure that she's happy it was published during Hamilton-mania, when everyone is extra interested in America's Favorite Fighting Frenchman! Of course, this book isn't really a biography of Lafayette; being a Sarah Vowell book, it's also about the Revolutionary War, French-American relations, and the fact that the United States have never really been "united," per se. It jumps around a lot. I wonder if this would work better as an audiobook, since it reads like having a very long conversation with a very chatty friend who is prone to digressions (I liked the one on the Touro synagogue!). With an audiobook, though, you'd be missing the adorable illustrations (I am particularly partial to the one of Franklin in a fur hat). B/B+.

2015 book 159

Jen Chaney's As If! : The Oral History of Clueless
If any movie deserves to have a 300+ page oral history, it's Clueless. (I freaking love Clueless.) Chaney manages to keep things interesting and flowing for all those 300+ pages too, and makes an effort to five some cultural context by not talking to just the cast and crew, but to a bunch of Jane Austen scholars, the fug girls, and even Ta-nehisi Coates! Anyway, if you love Clueless like I do, or at least find oral histories of movie-making interesting, you should check this out, because it's really well-done. And thank goodness Clueless is on Netflix, because I need to go watch it right now! A/A-.

__
A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.

2015 book 155

Mary Anna King's Bastards
King has been making the rounds of blogs I like to promote this memoir (cf this piece on The Toast), and though I don't read a lot of non-fiction, her writing and the description of this book were both pretty intriguing. King grew up in a poor and complicated family, where she was the second oldest of seven (the younger ones also all girls), and where her four youngest sisters were all given up for adoption, not knowing the older siblings existed. But King knew they would come looking eventually, and wanted to be ready for them. The writing here is just excellent--the story moves along really quickly, and I loved King's descriptions of the various reunions, even if a lot of questions go unanswered. But it's almost like everything else besides the siblings is extraneous--this works fine just as it is. Really tender and also, at times, really funny. A/A-.

2015 book 83

Amy Butcher's Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder
Several years ago, when Butcher was a senior at Gettysburg College, one of her good friends walked her home from a bar, and then apparently suffered a psychotic break and brutally murdered his girlfriend. She's been publishing excerpts from this online for years now, and it's now here in its final form--her meditation on this event and the effect it had on her, as well as her subsequent investigation into what happened that night. In some ways, this is a profoundly selfish work, but on the other hand--who wouldn't dwell on something like this? How could it not shatter your worldview and make you afraid? (It also feels a little selfish because she doesn't really talk about Emily, the victim, until more than halfway through.) Butcher's writing is evocative, for sure, to the point where I can't imagine her having another story to tell, because she's been so consumed with this one. But of course, I hope she does. B+.

2015 book 51

Mike Thomas' You Might Remember Me
I've been putting off reading the Phil Hartman biography for a while, because I really loved him and just didn't want to know all the details about his death. But Thomas really makes an effort not to sensationalize things, and writes an actual biography, starting from his childhood (his siblings clearly contributed a lot to this--his brothers particularly had interesting things to say). Now, the writing is occasionally repetitive, and there are some minor typos (particularly missing quotation marks), but in general, things flow well and I thought it was very readable. And it made me really love Jon Lovitz. PLUS, I now know that Phil Hartman designed a bunch of album covers, including the one for America's Greatest Hits, one of the first two CDs I ever bought (I hoped there'd be something from the Last Unicorn soundtrack on there, and of course there wasn't, but Sister Golden Hair made it all worthwhile). Things are a little maudlin toward the end, but I don't know how that could have been avoided. I will be sad about Phil Hartman's untimely death forever. B/B+.