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Part I: Memoirs"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"From Daniel Nester's\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3085626\"\u003EShader: 99 notes on car washes, making out in church, grief, and other unlearnable subjects\u003C\/a\u003E:\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;May 2010. My mother handed me a manila folder with a sticky note that said 'For Danny,' written in her immaculate cursive.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp; \u0026nbsp;\"Maybe these will help with, you know, your \u003Ci\u003Ememoir\u003C\/i\u003E.\" She pronounced \"memoir\" like \"mem-wah,\" in exaggerated French, accompanied by a hand motion and a cigarette waved in the air.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMrs. Nester, and everyone else out there, I totally get how talking about a memoir could sound affected, and how the annoyance would be quadrupled by a son correcting your New Jersey pronunciation, as Daniel Nester confesses he had been enough of a jerk to do.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut memoir is actually a good English word. Only its origin is French:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003Emémoire\u003C\/i\u003E, a memorandum, a note, just like in Daniel Nester's book title. And this is why it's different from autobiography, from the Greek for recounting your life. A memorandum records something not just for the record, but for future use. In the case of a good memoir, I see the future uses as things like making sense of something, or dealing with it, and especially, finding the story.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne of the best memoirs of recent times (in my opinion), Carrie Brownstein's\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3033495\"\u003EHunger makes me a modern girl: a memoir\u003C\/a\u003E, \u003C\/i\u003Eopens like this:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\"\u003Ci\u003EI've always felt unclaimed\u003C\/i\u003E. This is a story of the ways I created a territory, something more than just an archipelago of identities, something that could steady me, somewhere that I belonged.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd here she is on her and her band's contribution to rock'n'roll (I can't help but notice that the adjectives apply to her book as well): \"Sometimes the works were smart or pithy, profound, poetic, and often they were really messy. But they formed a boundary and a foundation for a lot of the girls who had been undone by invisibility, including myself.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781594486630\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781594486630\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"320\" width=\"211\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ERock'n'roll is of course a classic genre in the body of memoir literature, along with misery (\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2347075\"\u003EAngela's ashes\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Ebeing the mother of all misery memoirs and also an undeniably good read, unlike many of the children it spawned), celebrity, addiction, canine, mean-mother\u003Ci\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eeccentric-mother, bad dad, outlaw, redemption, sexuality, mental illness, and apparently one called Shtick-lit, from the Yiddish-derived term for a gimmick, which is when someone goes off and does something for a year just to be able to write about it. Fake, however, is not a memoir genre.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI've been exploring a contemporary genre which as far as I'm aware has not yet been given a name, but I'd suggest \u0026nbsp;\"Funny books about horrible things\", from Jenny Lawson's\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3000180\"\u003EFuriously happy: a funny book about horrible things\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. One could argue this book belongs in the mental illness memoir genre, but I think it needs a different category, to respect the author's creed that you should be defined not by your life's \"imperfect moments\", but by your reaction to them. I enjoyed it, though it was a bit exhausting.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EJeanne Darst's very funny\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2641894\"\u003EFiction ruined my family\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;was instead an energising read which I'd also place in this genre, where I expected Jennifer Weiner's \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3276382\"\u003EHungry heart\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Ewould also go, though after reading it (most of it), I'm not sure.\u0026nbsp;I hadn't read her novels and picked it for its title and because she'd had a feud with Jonathan Franzen. I wanted someone excavating the humour in horrible experiences, but her style is more about playing it for laughs from the start. My intuition is that with personal memoirs you should look for an author you're compatible with and not at what everybody's reading -- pretty basic for anyone who's been in a relationship!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003ERead by the author\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EDid you know you can get an\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3079603\"\u003EeAudiobook of Furiously happy\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eread by Jenny Lawson herself? Here are some other popular eAudiobook memoirs read by their authors:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3014349\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe lady in the van\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E by Alan Bennett \u0026nbsp;(you can also see the \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3170678\"\u003Emovie version\u003C\/a\u003E for Challenge 8!)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3063024\"\u003EBetween the world and me\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby\u0026nbsp;Ta-Nehisi Coates\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3155964\"\u003EFear of fifty: a midlife memoir\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Erica Jong\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3038747\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EUnsinkable: a memoir\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E by Debbie Reynolds\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3038968\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EMoab is my washpot\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E by Stephen Fry\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3038744\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EInstant Mom\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E by Nia Vardalos (of 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' fame)\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2643813\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EAn improvised life\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E by Alan Arkin\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3294566\"\u003EWhere am I now? True stories of girlhood and accidental fame\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Mara Wilson\u0026nbsp;(star of \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2838296\"\u003Ethe movie version of \u0026nbsp;Roald Dahl's Matilda\u003C\/a\u003E)\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003Eand many more which you can find on the 'Read by the author' list curated by our Collections team on the\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/auckland.overdrive.com\/\"\u003EOverdrive home page\u003C\/a\u003E in our Digital Library.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf you like perusing recommendations, here are some of my\u0026nbsp;favourite memoir genres and writers:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003EObsession (possibly my favourite memoir genre)\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2319771\"\u003EMy Judy Garland Life\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2008) by Susie Boyt. \"Speaks to anyone who has ever nursed an obsession\" says the cover blurb. Non-obsessives will find it over the top. I loved it.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2524352\"\u003EWhat to look for in winter: a memoir of blindness\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2010) by Candia McWilliam. If you haven't ever suffered from self-doubt, we probably couldn't be friends. Candia McWilliam's self-doubt was crippling, or more correctly, blinding.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1319010\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EDouble down: reflections on gambling and loss\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(1999) by Frederick and Steven Barthelme. The addictive land of possibility. \"We would have been willing to win, but we were content to lose.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2286191\"\u003ENothing to be frightened of\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Julian Barnes (2008). A portrait of a family and a philosophical, intellectually curious, and often funny exploration of our obsession with death.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781844084111\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=0395954290\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=0395954290\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"200\" width=\"130\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781844084111\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"200\" width=\"157\" \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003ENostalgia\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2480811\"\u003EJust Kids\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;by\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003EPatti Smith (2009). Patti and Robert, on their way to becoming legendary. The book is already legendary itself, and rightly so.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3253420\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003ESlow days, fast company: the world, the flesh, and L.A.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2016) by Eve Babitz. A look back at the 60s-70s L.A. scene by one of its protagonists.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003ESadness and grief\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2244051\"\u003EDog Years\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E(2007)\u0026nbsp;by the American poet Mark Doty was recommended to me as one of the saddest books ever written. (If you wonder why that would be a recommendation, just skip this!). In a time of despair and depression, his long-term partner dying of AIDS, Doty's dogs convey something essential. \"It isn't that one wants to live for the sake of a dog, exactly, but that dogs show you why you might want to.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3093388\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Year of Magical Thinking\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Joan Didion (2012). An idiosyncratic book about grief after sudden loss, from an author at the top of her game.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2628318\"\u003ENox\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2010) by Anne Carson. I found this attempt (half book, half artwork) by a poet to come to terms with the loss of her brother, taking as her departure point an elegy by Catullus, incredibly affecting.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003EDads:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3235234\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003EIn the darkroom\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Susan Faludi (2016). Faludi describes her book as a pursuit of her father, a man who exited her life as a tyrant and bully, and who gets in touch almost 30 years later to announce that he has undergone sex-reassignment surgery. No happy endings, but some precious understandings.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2173107\"\u003EThe Bill from my Father\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E(2006) Art critic Bernard Cooper's father once sent him an itemised bill for his upbringing. One of the best books I read last year. Is articulate an anagram of art critic? Not quite but it should be. Needs an anagram for witty, too, though!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1518170\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe Duke of Deception\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Geoffrey Woolf (1979). You may be, or then again you might not be, surprised at how many deceptive dad memoirs there are; for me, this one, from way back in 1979, is unsurpassed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003EBoyhood, girlhood, families:\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1647911\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EToast: the story of a boy's hunger\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Nigel Slater (2003). I have long championed a ban on the phrase 'achingly beautiful' - whew, this book isn't achingly beautiful, but it is beautiful in its description of an achingly hungry, above all for love, boy.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1652562\"\u003ESkating to Antartica\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Jenny Diski (2005)- Another deceptive dad, here matched with an eccentric mother, but it's not really \"Families\". Probably more \"Unclassifiable\". I plucked it off a travel books display at the Leys Institute Library, didn't find a travel book, but did find a great memoir writer. Practically everything Jenny Diski wrote was a memoir, up to and including the book she wrote while dying of cancer -\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3163725\"\u003EIn gratitude\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E(2016).\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2188835\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003EFun home: a family tragicomic\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E(2006) by Alison Bechdel. \u003Ci\u003EFun home\u003C\/i\u003E is a memoir in comic format, and that's about as far as the comic in 'tragicomic' goes. Growing up in a funeral home can be funny, a closeted father moves us into irony, and with suicide, we're at tragic. I note that on our catalogue record the publisher is down as calling the ending 'redemptive'. My word of choice would have been 'unforgettable'.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFun home\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eis actually only one of a large number of memoirs in comic format. \u0026nbsp;Here are a few more I recommend:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003EGraphic memoirs\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2570263\"\u003EPersepolis\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Marjane Satrapi\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2468333\"\u003EStitches: a memoir\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby David Small\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1074958\"\u003EOur cancer year\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2780382\"\u003EHyperbole and a half: unfortunate situations, flawed coping mechanisms, mayhem, and other things that happened\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby Allie Brosh\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb1166775\"\u003EEpileptic\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby David B.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2939222\"\u003ETomboy\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Liz Prince\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003EMusic\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2520757\"\u003EStraight life\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003Eby Art Pepper (1979, updated 1994). \u0026nbsp;Living the jazz life, with boundless talent, beauty and self-destructiveness.\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2480268\"\u003EPoison heart: surviving the Ramones\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Dee Dee Ramone (2009) A music journalist I know recommended this one!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd closer to home -- and new:\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3299416\"\u003EGoneville\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Nick Bollinger (2016). \"Goneville is at once a coming-of-age memoir and an intimate look at the evolving music scene in 1970s New Zealand. It show how this music intersected - sometimes violently - with the prevailing culture, in which real men played rugby, not rock. Nick Bollinger draws on his own experiences and also seeks out key figures and unsung heroes to reflect on the hard, often thankless and occasionally joyous life of the career musician\"-- Cover blurb\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E \u003Cb\u003EArt \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb2153192\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EGrayson Perry: portrait of the artist as a young girl\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;as \"caught by\" Wendy Jones (2006). Self-deprecating, irreverent and insightful thoughts about growing up by the rebellious artist and transvestite. I'm waiting for my copy of his new book,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3298602\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThe descent of man\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, \"exploring everything from sex, seriousness and intimidation to clothing, childhood and power.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3020590\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EStrangeland\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2005) by Tracey Emin. Only for people who find a sentence like this appealing: \"Here I am, a fucked, crazy, anorexic-alcoholic-childless, beautiful woman. I never dreamt it would be like this.'\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/record\/C__Rb3173189\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EMy avant-garde education\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;(2015) by Bernard Cooper. The same entertaining Bernard Cooper cited above, this time looking back at his salad days in the pop art and then conceptual art years.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780099485162\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780099485162\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"200\" width=\"130\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780393240719\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780393240719\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"200\" width=\"131\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/b\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMemoirs have never been as popular as now, in our age of Reality Hunger, and all these are just to make you aware of the range. I'm sure you will find a good one which suits your taste, your mood, your time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHappy reading!\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/8475984440442685648\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/01\/great-summer-read-read-memoir-or.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/8475984440442685648"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/8475984440442685648"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2017\/01\/great-summer-read-read-memoir-or.html","title":"Great Summer Read: Read a memoir or a biography. Part I: Memoirs"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-1095479153168307239"},"published":{"$t":"2015-10-18T13:52:00.001+13:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-03-29T14:31:24.548+13:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Karen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"M Train"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"memoirs"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Patti Smith"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Patti Smith on the childhood pleasure of reading books too old for you"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ctable align=\"center\" cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cimg src=\"http:\/\/www.bookshopsantacruz.com\/sites\/bookshopsantacruz.com\/files\/author_photo\/patti_smith_w_cover.jpg\" style=\"margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" \/\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E(Photo Jesse Dittmar) \u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFrom Patti Smith's new memoir \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/discover.elgar.govt.nz\/iii\/encore\/search\/C__S%09%20M%20train%20Lw%3D%3D%20Patti%20Smith.__Orightresult__U?lang=eng\u0026amp;suite=def\"\u003EM Train\u003C\/a\u003E:\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThere were red rosebuds in a small vase in the bathroom at 'Ino. I draped my coat over the empty chair across from me, and then spent much of the next hour drinking coffee and filling pages of my notebook with drawings of single-celled animals and various species of plankton. It was strangely comforting, for I remembered copying such things from a heavy textbook that sat on the shelf above my father's desk. He had all kinds of books rescued from dustbins and deserted houses and bought for pennies at church bazaars. The range of subjects from ufology to Plato to the Planarian reflected his ever-curious mind. I would pore over this particular book for hours, contemplating its mysterious world. The dense text was impossible to penetrate but somehow the monochromic renderings of living organisms suggested many colors, like flashing minnows in a fluorescent pond. This obscure and nameless book, with its paramecia, algae, and amoebas, floats alive in memory. Such things that disappear in time that we find ourselves longing to see again. We search for them in close-up, as we search for our hands in a dream.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy father claimed that he never remembered his dreams, but I could easily recount mine. He also told me that seeing one's own hands within a dream was exceedingly rare. I was sure I could if I set my mind to it, a notion that resulted in a plethora of failed experiments. My father questioned the usefulness of such a pursuit, but nevertheless invading my own dreams topped my list of impossible things one must one day accomplish.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn grade school I was often scolded for not paying attention. I suppose I was busy thinking about such things or attempting to untangle the mystery of an expanding network of seemingly unanswerable questions. The hill-of-beans equation, for example, occupied a fair portion of second grade. I was contemplating a problematic phrase in \u003Ci\u003EThe Story of Davy Crockett \u003C\/i\u003Eby Enid Meadowcroft. I wasn't supposed to be reading it as it was in the bookcase for third graders, but drawn to it I slipped it into my schoolbag and read it in secret. I instantly identified with young Davy, who was tall and gangly, telling equally tall tales, getting into scrapes, and forgetting his chores. His pa reckoned that Davy wouldn't amount to a hill of beans. I was only seven and these words stopped me in my tracks. What could his pa have meant by that? I lay awake at night thinking about it. What was a hill of beans worth? Would a hill of anything be worth a boy like Davy Crockett?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI followed my mother around the A\u0026amp;P pushing the shopping cart.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--Mommy, how much would a hill of beans cost?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--Oh, Patricia, I don't know. Ask your father. I'll take the cart and you go pick out your cereal and don't lag behind.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI quickly did as I was told, grabbing a box of shredded wheat. Then I was off to the dry-goods aisle to check the price of beans, confronted with a new dilemma. What kind of beans? Black beans kidney beans fava beans lima beans green beans navy beans all kinds of beans. To say nothing of baked beans, magic beans, and coffee beans.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIn the end I figured Davy Crockett was far beyond measuring, even by his pa. Despite any shortcomings he labored hard to be of use and paid off all of his father's debts. I read and reread the forbidden book, following him down paths that set my mind in unanticipated directions. If I got lost along the way I had a compass that I had found embedded in a pile of wet leaves I was kicking my way through. The compass was old and rusted but it still worked, connecting the earth and the stars. It told me where I was standing and which way was west but not where I was going and nothing of my worth.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E-- \u003C\/i\u003EExcerpt from \u003Ci\u003EM Train\u003C\/i\u003E by Patti Smith, published by Alfred A. Knopf\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003EPatti Smith on reading books too old for her-- and a lot more, I should have said.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003EI've been reading 'M Train' all weekend. It's as singular and as moving as her earlier memoir 'Just kids'.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003EBut if 'Just kids' had something of the 'One thousand and one nights' about it, with its magic talismans, enchanted trips to Coney Island, even a young prince in the person of Robert Mapplethorpe, 'M train' would be more akin to the classical era narrative\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E'Anabasis'\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003Eby the Greek historian Xenophon. \u0026nbsp;The term a\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003Enabasis means an expedition from a coastline into the interior of a country. \u0026nbsp;Although Patti Smith is of course at least a continent.\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/1095479153168307239\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2015\/10\/patti-smith-on-childhood-pleasure-of.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/1095479153168307239"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/1095479153168307239"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2015\/10\/patti-smith-on-childhood-pleasure-of.html","title":"Patti Smith on the childhood pleasure of reading books too old for you"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-820031747370721386"},"published":{"$t":"2015-01-31T23:57:00.001+13:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2016-12-05T23:42:56.145+13:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"autobiographies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"David Shields"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Deborah Levy"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Edmund White"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Floyd Skoot"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"George Orwell"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"James Ellroy"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Karen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"memoirs"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Reality Hunger"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Terry Castle"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Why I Write"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"On the joys of the writerly memoir"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ch4\u003E\"Reality, as Nabokov never got tired of reminding us, is the one word that is meaningless without quotation marks.\"\u003C\/h4\u003EWas Pippa Middleton the beginning of the end?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2014\/12\/20\/0218F5AF00000514-2881571-image-m-11_1419080003264.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2014\/12\/20\/0218F5AF00000514-2881571-image-m-11_1419080003264.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"133\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EPenguin would have thought it a sure-fire win. An in-law of the royals (and not just any in-law, but the one the\u0026nbsp;press nicknamed \"Her Hotness\" when she burst onto the scene at her sister's wedding to the second in line) imparts the secret of -- not curing the King's Evil, no, something much more 'of our time': brilliant parties year round.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThey handed Pippa a £400,000 advance, and she handed them \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2696196\"\u003ECelebrate: a year of British festivities for family and friends\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003C\/i\u003EAnd it flopped! Only 2000 copies sold in its first week. In a nation of 65 million people! Plus the Commonwealth!\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt wasn't the first celebrity title to flop -- earlier, a book by Alec Baldwin on fatherhood failed even more spectacularly, not surprisingly, I think you'll agree -- but maybe because of the personality in question, it was the first time I noticed the word \"bubble\" being used. When was the bubble going to burst on celebrity titles (most often memoirs, naturally, followed by -- you guessed it -- cookbooks)?\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWell, it looks as if the answer may be 'Now'. With the 2014 sales figures totted up, and various biggies in the book industry weighing in, including the editor of The Bookseller, whose impeccable adjective they used in their headline, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2014\/dec\/20\/sales-celebrity-memoirs-on-the-wane\"\u003EThe\u0026nbsp;Guardian\u003C\/a\u003E reported \u003Cb\u003E‘Exhausted’ readers shun celebrity memoirs as autobiography sales fall.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI, for one, am not disturbed at the idea that the self-indulgent celebrity memoir (which I once saw described as being either the ghostwritten account of 'How I got to be what I am', or ghostwritten advice on 'How you can get to be what I am') may be going into a tailspin.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThe great memoir, on the other hand, is my working week and Sunday rest in this moment of my life. What makes a great memoir? I like what the American writer and memoirist Ta-Nehisi Coates said: \"Great memoir requires great courage and an appetite for sincere self-skepticism. To do this, you cannot fucking lie.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMy appetite for memoir has become such that I'm even reading a book about the appetite for memoir, David Shields's \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2484041\"\u003EReality Hunger\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/i\u003E Shields maintains that we are living in the Age of Memoir. \"Urgency attaches itself now more to the tale taken directly from life than one fashioned by the imagination out of life\", says Shields. \"Novel qua novel is a form of nostalgia.\" I am not sure it is The age of the memoir - but it surely is My age of the memoir. In the sense of, my age. This was the theory also of Geoff Dyer, who was the first writer who drew my attention to this phenomenon -- he called it \"Reader's block\", though I learned in this book that he didn't invent the term, David Markson did -- of realising, after many years of gorging on them, that you're having a hard time getting excited any more over invented plots and invented characters.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ENever say never (and I'm always still up for classics, maybe because characters like Becky Sharp -- \u003Ci\u003EVanity Fair \u003C\/i\u003Ebeing the next I plan to read -- have by now become real, with quotation marks, pace Nabokov, and I'll be forever grateful to David Shields for his paraphrase quoted above) but right now, I'll take a good memoir over any other book.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAnd if you are looking for a good memoir, you can't do better than a writerly memoir. Writers do it better! They know how to write, above all. But also, I am a big fan of how often they write a whole book on an aspect of their lives, rather than attempt to set down the whole shebang.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EHere are the writerly memoirs I've got on my table right now:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003C\/div\u003EOriginal, dreamlike, feminist:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2809091\"\u003E\u003Ci\u003EThings I don't want to know : a response to George Orwell's 1946 essay 'Why I write'\u003C\/i\u003E \u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;by Deborah Levy, which ends\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EI rearranged the chair and sat at the desk. And then I looked at the walls to check out the power points so I could plug in my laptop. The hole in the wall nearest to the desk was placed above the basin, a precarious socket for a gentleman's electric razor. That spring in Majorca, when life was very hard and I simply could not see where there was to get to, it occurred to me that where I had to get to was that socket. Even more useful to a writer than a room of her own is an extension lead and a variety of adaptors for Europe, Asia and Africa.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780299299507\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780299299507\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"320\" width=\"212\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOdd, intimate, witty:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2857927\"\u003ERevertigo : an off-kilter memoir \u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003Eby Floyd Skloot\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI'm actually not sure if the whole book is odd, intimate and witty, as I haven't read it yet, but the last part, which I have read, is. Also touching and heart-breaking. It's about mothers, and about memory, intense and intertwining subjects for anyone over a certain age. A family friend, leafing through an old \"East End Temple Young Family Set\" recipe book from the 1950s discovers that Skloot's mother, who had never cooked a day in her life, had contributed a recipe for Veal Italienne \"Sklootini\" to it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EFrom the moment I saw the recipe, I felt I had to cook it. As avid about cooking as my mother was about not cooking, I saw this as a chance to complete something for her. It would be a tribute to her intention, as I understood it, in submitting the recipe, in presenting herself as the kind of person who cooked such a dish.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003EHypnotic, disquieting, hard-boiled:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2569905\"\u003EMy dark places: an LA crime memoir\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;by James Ellroy, in which \"America's greatest crime writer investigates his mother's murder\" -- and his obsession with it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EMy father put me in a cab at the El Monte depot. He paid the driver and told him to drop me at Bryant and Maple. I didn't want to go back. I didn't want to leave my father. I wanted to blow off El Monte forever. It was hot--maybe ten degrees more than L.A. The driver took Tyler north to Bryant and cut east. He turned on Maple and stopped the cab. I saw police cars and official-type sedans parked at the curb. I saw uniformed men and men in suits standing in my front yard. I knew she was dead. This is not a revised memory or a retrospective hunch. I knew it in the moment--at age ten--on Sunday, June 22nd, 1958. I walked into the yard. Somebody said, \"There's the boy.\" I saw Mr. and Mrs. Krycki standing by their back door. A man took me aside and kneeled down to my level. He said, \"Son, your mother's been killed.\" I knew he meant \"murdered.\"\u003C\/i\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780061670909\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9780061670909\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"320\" width=\"209\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EFierce, hilarious, astute:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2580259\" style=\"font-style: italic;\"\u003EThe Professor and Other Writings\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ci\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby Terry Castle\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EA whole 300+ pages of \"autobiographical writings\" which I'm reading for the second time, there's so much to enjoy: the hilarious \"Desperately seeking Susan\" recollection of Susan Sontag, \"Travels with my mother\" about taking her mother (who takes mournful pleasure in noting that Castle is beginning to resemble David Hockney) to see a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibition, and \"My heroin Christmas\", about a holiday spent under the spell of Art Pepper's \u003Ci\u003EStraight Life\u003C\/i\u003E, a book whose Reality Hunger credentials I vouched for in a \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.co.nz\/2010\/12\/last-great-reads-of-2010.html\"\u003E\"What I'm Reading\"\u003C\/a\u003E from 2010.\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWarm, frank, virtuosic: \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2817606\"\u003EInside a pearl\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby Edmund White\u0026nbsp;  \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf you read lots of Edmund White, you may think you've already read this -- a book on Paris, love, sex, and, in general, being \"the kind of guy who always wants to be elsewhere\". I did. But no, it's new, and he's still in form, as in:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EWhen I broke up with him (I found the rancid smell of menthol cigarettes daunting), all he did was warn me that I was getting old and should settle down before it was too late. \"Tu viellies, Edmond,\" he hissed. If only he'd known how many more decades of gallantry lay before me. Which didn't stop a reporter from the London Times from calling me and asking me politely, with a nice Oxford stutter, what I thought of \"intergenerational sex\". I answered him sincerely and described my relationship with Michael, who's twenty-five years younger than me. A few days later, as we were about to board a plane to London, Michael opened a newspaper and found an article about ourselves headlined \"The Frisky Old Goat Is Still At It\".\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781555973698\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/www.syndetics.com\/index.php?isbn=9781555973698\/lc.jpg\u0026amp;client=elgar\" height=\"320\" width=\"193\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EObsessive, personal, loving:\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2615065\"\u003EFamous builder\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby Paul Lisicky\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI've just noticed the first quote on the back is from none other than the Frisky Old Goat. \"This book shows all the vital signs of genius. In \u003Ci\u003EFamous builder \u003C\/i\u003EPaul Lisicky asks the tragic American question: who are you if you've recreated yourself? And he answers it: you are alone, vulnerable and fully loaded.\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\"Lisicky.\" What? I try to project my name toward the ridged roof of my mouth. I try to keep my jaw loose, my eyes animated, secure. I think: Smith, Stevens, Bishop. \"Li-sick-y,\" I say again. \"Paul Lisicky.\" How do you spell that? I note the hushed quality of the bank teller's voice, the tender, quizzical lift of her penciled-in brow. She leans in closer to me, palms flattened against the counter as if I've just told her my condition is terminal. \u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003EAnd for those of you who like the classics:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2506189\"\u003EDown and Out in Paris and London\u003C\/a\u003E \u003C\/i\u003Eby George Orwell \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003EI can point to one or two things I have definitely learned by being hard up. I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003ETHE END\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E--Karen\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/820031747370721386\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2015\/01\/reality-as-nabokov-never-got-tired-of.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/820031747370721386"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/820031747370721386"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2015\/01\/reality-as-nabokov-never-got-tired-of.html","title":"On the joys of the writerly memoir"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-3650797691840870067"},"published":{"$t":"2013-05-21T17:30:00.000+12:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2014-08-24T23:36:02.022+12:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Ana"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Aorewa McLeod"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Auckland Writers and Readers Festival"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"AWRF 2013"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Jacqueline Fahey"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Meme Churton"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"memoirs"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Remarkable Women at AWRF: Aorewa McLeod, Memé Churton, Jacqueline Fahey."},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-size: small;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003EAna from Readers Services\u0026nbsp;was enthralled by a trio of \"Remarkable Women\"\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EThree feisty women who have made their own destiny and have had very eventful lives.\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E \u003C\/span\u003ESome\u0026nbsp;things they have in common, but they are also very different. The three came together for a fascinating and entertaining presentation at the Auckland Readers \u0026amp; Writers Festival.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Ctable cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-OlSOs_BNvhY\/UZnF3NSP8JI\/AAAAAAAAAK4\/kE94feS3tYE\/s1600\/McLeod+A.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-OlSOs_BNvhY\/UZnF3NSP8JI\/AAAAAAAAAK4\/kE94feS3tYE\/s200\/McLeod+A.jpg\" height=\"200\" pua=\"true\" width=\"148\" \/\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EAorewa McLeod\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EAorewa McLeod is a lesbian academic and poet.\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E \u003C\/span\u003EShe taught for forty years at the \u003Cst1:placetype w:st=\"on\"\u003E\u003Cst1:place w:st=\"on\"\u003EUniversity\u003C\/st1:place\u003E of \u003Cst1:placename w:st=\"on\"\u003EAuckland\u003C\/st1:placename\u003E\u003C\/st1:placetype\u003E.\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/span\u003EAlthough she doesn’t look the shy type, she says she was very much so and had a bad case of nerves (she didn’t put it quite like that) before each of her lectures for 10 years. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EMemé Churton’s memoirs read like a novel, although it’s all true.\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/span\u003EHalf-Italian, half-Chinese, she grew up in \u003Cst1:city w:st=\"on\"\u003ETrieste\u003C\/st1:city\u003E and came to \u003Cst1:country-region w:st=\"on\"\u003E\u003Cst1:place w:st=\"on\"\u003ENew Zealand\u003C\/st1:place\u003E\u003C\/st1:country-region\u003E in 1950 when there wasn’t anybody here: “The streets were deserted”. She believes in “destiny”, and married a \u003Cst1:place w:st=\"on\"\u003E\u003Cst1:country-region w:st=\"on\"\u003ENew Zealand\u003C\/st1:country-region\u003E\u003C\/st1:place\u003E soldier. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Ctable cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/--Cz-GbohbEM\/UZnGb-gKRWI\/AAAAAAAAALI\/IvxoBTNl8sw\/s1600\/Fahey-Jacqueline_cJacqui-Blanchard_2012.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/--Cz-GbohbEM\/UZnGb-gKRWI\/AAAAAAAAALI\/IvxoBTNl8sw\/s200\/Fahey-Jacqueline_cJacqui-Blanchard_2012.jpg\" height=\"200\" pua=\"true\" width=\"161\" \/\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EJacqueline Fahey\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EJacqueline Fahey is a painter, who inspires us through her work. She married Fraser McDonald and has written two memoirs, but she paints constantly. She doesn’t like to talk about “destiny”, thinks that’s a romantic idea. She “made her own destiny”.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EAorewa went to live in \u003Cst1:country-region w:st=\"on\"\u003EEngland\u003C\/st1:country-region\u003E and worked there as a nurse\u0026nbsp;-\u0026nbsp;aid, but returned to \u003Cst1:place w:st=\"on\"\u003E\u003Cst1:country-region w:st=\"on\"\u003ENew Zealand\u003C\/st1:country-region\u003E\u003C\/st1:place\u003E to take care of her elderly mother. Her “destiny” would have been completely different if she hadn’t.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EMemé had a lot of men friends constantly pursuing her; Jacqueline says she was the girl that boys took to parties when they wanted to give their mother a fright, but that, as was “very typical” in\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E \u003C\/span\u003Ethose days, she was a virgin for a long time. Aorewa, on the other hand, notes she was “constantly having sex” through the 1960’s. \u003C\/span\u003E \u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Ctable cellpadding=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" class=\"tr-caption-container\" style=\"float: right; text-align: right;\"\u003E\u003Ctbody\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-vAwL--m4Xcg\/UZnGB4DCmJI\/AAAAAAAAALA\/z3pVKQPEMuw\/s1600\/Churton+v1.jpeg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-vAwL--m4Xcg\/UZnGB4DCmJI\/AAAAAAAAALA\/z3pVKQPEMuw\/s200\/Churton+v1.jpeg\" height=\"132\" pua=\"true\" width=\"200\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003Ctr\u003E\u003Ctd class=\"tr-caption\" style=\"text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: Calibri;\"\u003EMemé Churton\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/td\u003E\u003C\/tr\u003E\u003C\/tbody\u003E\u003C\/table\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EAt one stage, the talk turned to dress and food. Memé dressed in Christian Dior, while Jacqueline claimed to spend 80 per cent of her time in gumboots. Aorewa was in England,and being colonial, had the advantage that nobody knew where she came from so she wasn’t cold-shouldered for her clothes. She was independent and washed her “smalls” regularly. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EMemé's likings: coffee, smokes, and prosciutto, and when you are around her, these are always on hand.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E\u0026nbsp; Jacqueline once worked in a coffee shop, was put in charge of the espresso machine and not being a practical person, wrecked it. While Meme smoked, Jacqueline drank. Aorewa drank too, because she says there was nowhere to meet but in the pubs.\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"mso-tab-count: 1;\"\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EThree remarkable women who entertained us for one hour with their stories. They are all very different but what they have in common is their individuality and love for life. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;\"\u003E\u003Cspan lang=\"EN-SG\" style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003EWhen you read their books: \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2706825\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003EMemé\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2706825\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003E : the three worlds of an Italian-Chinese New Zealander\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E by Memé Churton,\u003Cspan style=\"mso-spacerun: yes;\"\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003Cb\u003E \u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/span\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2158652\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003ESomething for the birds\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2653255\"\u003E\u003Cb\u003EBefore you forget\u003C\/b\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E both by Jacqueline Fahey and \u003Cb\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2742319\"\u003EWho was that woman anyway?: snapshots of a lesbian life\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E \u003C\/b\u003Eby Aorewa McLeod\u003Cb\u003E \u003C\/b\u003Eyou’ll learn more fascinating things about them. \u003C\/span\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cspan style=\"font-family: inherit;\"\u003E-- Ana Worner\u003C\/span\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/3650797691840870067\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/remarkable-women-at-awrf-2013-aorewa.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/3650797691840870067"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/3650797691840870067"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2013\/05\/remarkable-women-at-awrf-2013-aorewa.html","title":"Remarkable Women at AWRF: Aorewa McLeod, Memé Churton, Jacqueline Fahey."}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"Karen Craig"},"uri":{"$t":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/profile\/18310967522076681423"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"23","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-WaLn2rFYxqE\/UNvHlimMvBI\/AAAAAAAAABY\/ceYnAw1lZEk\/s220\/The%2BLibrarian.jpg"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-OlSOs_BNvhY\/UZnF3NSP8JI\/AAAAAAAAAK4\/kE94feS3tYE\/s72-c\/McLeod+A.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-6363061162948515569"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-31T04:00:00.000+13:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2015-04-12T22:29:10.835+12:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"autobiographies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Brian Boyd"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Karen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Lou Tellegen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"memoirs"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Sarah Bernhardt"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Violet Trefusis"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Vladimir Nabokov"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Speak, Memoir title!"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ch4\u003EConsiderations on those of Nabokov, Violet Trefusis, and Sarah Bernhardt's leading man\u003C\/h4\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\"It has been rated the greatest of autobiographies, but since such judgements depend so much on the criteria we bring to them, I will call it only the most artistic of autobiographies... it fuses truth to detail with perfection of form, the exact with the evocative, an acute awareness of time with intimations of timelessness.\"\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-5mc6D-gifko\/UFRQqWsO--I\/AAAAAAAAInY\/E3UKJJ0F4Lg\/s1600\/stalking_nabokov.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-5mc6D-gifko\/UFRQqWsO--I\/AAAAAAAAInY\/E3UKJJ0F4Lg\/s200\/stalking_nabokov.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"132\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E I encountered this heady description of Vladimir Nabokov's autobiography in\u003Ci\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2631943\"\u003EStalking Nabokov\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E, Brian Boyd's new book about the forty years he has spent pursuing, as a passionate reader and as the world's foremost Nabokov scholar, the great lepidopterist and author of \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1020779\"\u003ELolita\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E, \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1065874\"\u003EPale Fire\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1174385\"\u003EAda\u003C\/a\u003E.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/i\u003EWhy did I never read this book, I was immediately asking myself. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI ordered myself in a copy -- it turned out to be the Everyman's Library centenary edition of 1999 with Brian Boyd's\u0026nbsp;introduction\u0026nbsp;-- and as I picked it up, I remembered. It was the title which had put me off! \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1859147\"\u003ESpeak,\u0026nbsp;Memory\u003C\/a\u003E. \u003C\/i\u003ESo stilted, so bloodless.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cdiv class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-xVEMO38uhsk\/UOgXHfXQ4iI\/AAAAAAAAADU\/0yao-E6dr4o\/s1600\/Speak_Memory.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-xVEMO38uhsk\/UOgXHfXQ4iI\/AAAAAAAAADU\/0yao-E6dr4o\/s200\/Speak_Memory.jpg\" height=\"200\" width=\"116\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/div\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EBut look at that! There was Nabokov in his foreword telling us that \u003Ci\u003ESpeak, Memory\u003C\/i\u003E was not the title he had chosen. He had wanted \u003Ci\u003ESpeak, Mnemosyne\u003C\/i\u003E, an invocation to the goddess of memory and inventor of language and words. Now this is a phrase which resonates. I loved it! But the publishers did not, on the grounds, Nabokov says, that 'little old ladies would not want to ask for a book whose title they could not pronounce.'\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat? Little old ladies? On the authority of having inherited the Classical Greek textbook which my great-grandmother (who would have been in her seventies during the period in question) had used during her grammar school days, I figure that in the 1950s little old ladies were probably one of the very few population-types who would have known to pronounce Mnemosyne.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EComing up with a good memoir title is evidently not as easy as it looks. Humourists do well: I love Jules Feiffer's \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2496977\"\u003EBacking into Forward\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E, and SJ Perelman's \u003Ci\u003EThe Hindsight Saga\u003C\/i\u003E, which I'm not sure if he used or just quipped that he ought to, is up there too. Actually all Perelman's books have great titles, another favourite of mine being \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1791646\"\u003EUnder the Spreading Atrophy\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. The painter Jacqueline Fahey told me that this American humourist, whom Bill Maher called \"the greatest wordsmith America ever produced\", will play a key role in the upcoming Part Two of her memoirs. Part One, by the way, was \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2158652\"\u003ESomething for the birds\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E, quite a good title as well, especially if you have ever seen her thickly-forested Hansel and Gretel home in Grey Lynn.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMemoir titles have also been the inspiration for some memorable wisecracks after the fact. Here are two of my favourites, from a couple of famously witty women.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E1.  Women have been kind ... of dumb\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhen the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt left for her second “farewell tour” of America, aged sixty-six, she took with her a new leading man, who was also her new lover, twenty-seven-year-old Lou Tellegen. The son of a Dutch general and a Greek dancer, Tellegen had left home at 15, supposedly with his father's mistress in tow, and subsequently been a prize fighter, trapeze artist, champion fencer, murderer (so he said), gambler and gigolo, before trying acting -- or at any rate leading-manship -- with Bernhardt, after a brief apprenticeship with the great Italian actress Eleanora Duse. He was famed for having the body of a Greek god, and had posed for a number of sculptors, including Rodin, who used him for his statue Eternel printemps. \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ETellegen arrived on the scene in time to star opposite Bernhardt in her two silent films, \u003Ci\u003ECamille\u003C\/i\u003E and \u003Ci\u003EQueen Elizabeth\u003C\/i\u003E, in which he played Essex to her Elizabeth (the age difference was just about the same as the real-life love story). Here's a clip of the film from youtube, in which Bernhardt emotes fantastically as Tellegen, as her executed lover, lies perfectly still, Greek profile well on view. Keep in mind that the film was made one hundred years ago (1912) and you can love it.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ciframe allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RbYnGJQ-ku0\" width=\"420\"\u003E\u003C\/iframe\u003E \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EAfter a taste of the roar of the crowd in America, Tellegen left Bernhardt in order to follow his own star to Hollywood, where he became a silent film actor with the nickname \"The Great Lover\". He also became the lover, and then husband, of the great opera diva Geraldine Ferrar, and when that story ended, of a movie actress or two. Not uncoincidentally, things began to falter for him. The arrival of sound ruined his career as a film star, and age, drink and drugs his personal career as a lover. He wrote a memoir and called it \u003Ci\u003EWomen have been kind\u003C\/i\u003E. In her review of it in \u003Ci\u003EVanity Fair\u003C\/i\u003E, Dorothy Parker said the title should have been \u003Ci\u003EWomen have been kind... of dumb\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EOne day shortly before his 50th birthday, he shaved, touched up his face with a bit of powder, and put an end to it all by stabbing himself seven times with a pair of golden scissors (engraved with his name, yet), surrounded by newspaper clippings of his career. I’m not sure if any of the tabloids which reported these details saw fit to note Lou Tellegen's prescient star turn, years before in London, in a theatrical version of \u003Ci\u003EThe Portrait of Dorian Gray\u003C\/i\u003E he produced himself.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u0026nbsp; \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E2. Here lies Mrs. Trefusis\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cb\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/b\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EI spent many years in Florence as a member by marriage of a large Italian, sorry, Florentine, family, most particularly large in there being a great number of uncles. One of them, my husband's favourite, was a handsome and witty man who had earned himself a place in high society through these attributes, as well as from being a good hand at cards and a passable tennis player. He married an American heiress who had previously been married to a Neapolitan aristocrat, if I remember correctly a Count, and I used to love looking through the pages of their old guest book, where names like Cyrus Sulzberger and Hamish Hamilton rubbed shoulders with the names of various posh Florentine families.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-yHbDWGvpcQA\/UFRTEwSERSI\/AAAAAAAAInw\/6xPPhDiWUh4\/s1600\/violet_trefusis.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-yHbDWGvpcQA\/UFRTEwSERSI\/AAAAAAAAInw\/6xPPhDiWUh4\/s320\/violet_trefusis.jpg\" height=\"226\" width=\"156\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E I don't remember ever seeing the name of Violet Trefusis, who lived out her old age in Florence as the chatelaine of Villa L'Ombrellino, but I do remember that there was a family saying which would be delivered with gusto when, for instance, you'd just agreed to a third helping of food, \"Like Mrs. Trefusis, who never refuses\".\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat Mrs Trefusis never refused was passion. You can read about her great love story with Vita Sackville-West (famed for having been immortalised by Virginia Woolf in \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2267295\"\u003EOrlando\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E) in the book Vita's son Nigel Nicolson wrote about his parents called \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1603161\"\u003EPortrait of a marriage\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. It lasted from 1918 to 1921, three exalted years during which the lovers had no scruples about exhibiting their affair, going dining and dancing in London and Paris, Vita dressed as a soldier named \"Julian\" and Violet as Julian's girlfriend \"Lushka\". Later there were other lovers, such as Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune and wife of the homosexual Prince Edmond de Polignac, who introduced Violet to the Parisian beau-monde.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EMrs. Trefusis called her memoirs, which were published in 1952, \u003Ci\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b1428528\"\u003EDon't look round\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/i\u003E. The \u003Ci\u003ETimes Literary Supplement\u003C\/i\u003E called the book \"unreliable\"; while on her part, Nancy Mitford, who had run with the same London-Paris-Florence crowd, suggested a better title would have been \u003Ci\u003EHere lies Mrs. Trefusis\u003C\/i\u003E.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E--\u003Ci\u003EKaren\u003C\/i\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ci\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003C\/i\u003EYou can read\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/www.randomhouse.com\/features\/nabokov\/speak.html\"\u003EBrian Boyd's introduction\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;to\u0026nbsp;\u003Ci\u003ESpeak, Memory\u003C\/i\u003E\u0026nbsp;on the Random House website"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/6363061162948515569\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/speak-memoir-title.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/6363061162948515569"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/6363061162948515569"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/speak-memoir-title.html","title":"Speak, Memoir title!"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"tosca"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"28","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-DKeaBNqmKUo\/VBStvJvL4cI\/AAAAAAAAR4M\/ZsfOjoSDymI\/s1600\/*"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-5mc6D-gifko\/UFRQqWsO--I\/AAAAAAAAInY\/E3UKJJ0F4Lg\/s72-c\/stalking_nabokov.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}},{"id":{"$t":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2501884760724421053.post-2945357602822731361"},"published":{"$t":"2012-03-16T04:00:00.000+13:00"},"updated":{"$t":"2013-04-23T23:57:22.643+12:00"},"category":[{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"autobiographies"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Karen"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"memoirs"},{"scheme":"http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#","term":"Roger Ebert"}],"title":{"type":"text","$t":"Roger Ebert on going gently"},"content":{"type":"html","$t":"\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-gf-sQUYKUjA\/UFRThVL9PEI\/AAAAAAAAIn8\/MoYHmENNqog\/s1600\/roger_ebert_life_itself.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;\"\u003E\u003Cimg border=\"0\" height=\"200\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-gf-sQUYKUjA\/UFRThVL9PEI\/AAAAAAAAIn8\/MoYHmENNqog\/s320\/roger_ebert_life_itself.jpg\" width=\"132\" \/\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E The memoir which came out at the end of last year from Roger Ebert, the American film critic who was half of the classic Siskel-Ebert \"Two thumbs up!\" TV duo, and which I've just recently read, is full of humourous (but never simplistic) and intelligent (but always just discursive enough) stories about his life and, you know, about Life itself. I wouldn't have expected less; no one could not be fond of Roger Ebert, either back when he was \"the fat one\" of the famous duo, or now, when he pours his gift for communication into his \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/blogs.suntimes.com\/ebert\/\"\u003Eblog\u003C\/a\u003E, having lost his ability to speak after a series of operations for cancer of the thyroid, and then of the salivary glands.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIf you're not interested in movies, or American life of the last half-century or so, or don't like memoirs, it might not be the book you want to pick up. But there are a number of passages which would speak to any human heart, and none more directly or wondrously than the one I am about to let you read.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EIt comes in a chapter at the end of the book called \"Going gently\". Ebert is sixty-nine and has had cancer; as he says, he doesn't expect to die anytime soon, but knowing that he could, and in fact is more likely to than most of the readers of his book, has led him to the contemplation of death, \"the distinguished thing\", as he quotes Henry James calling it on his deathbed.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EWhat follows is one of the most affecting takes on death, and early death in particular, I've ever encountered. I've read it several times now, including once out loud to someone close to me who was recently brought by illness to a contemplation of death, as Ebert was, and the mix of feelings is as electrifying every time.\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EEbert writes:\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E***\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E...  I correspond with a dear friend, the wise and gentle Australian director Paul Cox. Our subject sometimes turns to death. in 2010 he came very close to dying before receiving a liver transplant. In 1988 he made a documentary named \"Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh\". Paul wrote me that in his Arles days, van Gogh called himself \"a simple worshiper of the external Buddha.\" Paul told me that in those days, Vincent wrote:  \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cblockquote\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; Why, I ask myself, shouldn't the shining dots of the sky be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?       Just as we take a train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star. We cannot get to a star while we are alive any more than we can take the train when we are dead. So to me it seems possible that cholera, tuberculosis and cancer are the celestial means of locomotion. Just as steamboats, buses and railways are the terrestrial means. \u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp;\u0026nbsp; To die quietly of old age would be to go there on foot. \u003C\/blockquote\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EThat is a lovely thing to read, and a relief to find I will probably take the celestial locomotive. Or, as his little dog, Milou, says whenever Tintin proposes a journey, \"Not by foot, I hope!\"\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E*** \u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/search.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/supercity-iii|b2620507\"\u003ELife itself: a memoir\u003C\/a\u003E  by Roger Ebert\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E"},"link":[{"rel":"replies","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/feeds\/2945357602822731361\/comments\/default","title":"Post Comments"},{"rel":"replies","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/roger-ebert-on-going-gently.html#comment-form","title":"0 Comments"},{"rel":"edit","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/2945357602822731361"},{"rel":"self","type":"application/atom+xml","href":"http:\/\/www.blogger.com\/feeds\/2501884760724421053\/posts\/default\/2945357602822731361"},{"rel":"alternate","type":"text/html","href":"http:\/\/albooksinthecity.blogspot.com\/2012\/03\/roger-ebert-on-going-gently.html","title":"Roger Ebert on going gently"}],"author":[{"name":{"$t":"tosca"},"email":{"$t":"noreply@blogger.com"},"gd$image":{"rel":"http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail","width":"28","height":"32","src":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-DKeaBNqmKUo\/VBStvJvL4cI\/AAAAAAAAR4M\/ZsfOjoSDymI\/s1600\/*"}}],"media$thumbnail":{"xmlns$media":"http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/","url":"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-gf-sQUYKUjA\/UFRThVL9PEI\/AAAAAAAAIn8\/MoYHmENNqog\/s72-c\/roger_ebert_life_itself.jpg","height":"72","width":"72"},"thr$total":{"$t":"0"}}]}});