POWELLS.COM - Key Persons
Gritty and emotional, this travelogue/immigration tale had me transfixed. Pham skillfully narrates his family's story both settling in the US and in leaving war-torn Vietnam. His bicycle tour through 1990s Vietnam is a fantastic (and scary!) experience no tourist could have while he seeks a deeper understanding of "home."
Babe Ruth takes Manhattan, and the rest of the country, by storm in The Big Fella. Using the lens of a 21-day exhibition cash-grab, reporter Jane Leavy reveals Ruth as the man who created the celebrity/pitch-person persona that dominates modern culture. Forced from a dysfunctional home by an unfit set of parents, Ruth both bucked authority over his actions and looked for acceptance in the grandstands where his every at-bat was cherished.... (read more)
Curtis Chin's memoir of growing up in his family's Detroit Chinese restaurant is by turns moving and hilarious as he recounts the growing pains that come with being the third son in a large immigrant family amidst a time of national economic, racial, and health crises.
David Sedaris's second book - and his first to be composed entirely of autobiographical essays - Naked is the rare sophomore effort that is a truer reflection of the author than the debut. Sedaris was already known for "Santaland Diaries," his essay about working as a Macy's elf that he read aloud on NPR. His voice is so distinctive that it became inseparable from his writing before he published anything. Sedaris is now an icon of... (read more)
Hanff, a New York writer, chronicles her relationship with a London bookseller during WWII. It starts off as a request for books, but the friendship that blossoms over the years lasts a lifetime. Full of wonderful book talk, with Hanff's acerbic wit, and the charming - but struggling - booksellers at Mark's & Co., this is must-read for book lovers everywhere.
There is no book that I would rather be reading this fall than His Truth Is Marching On. Jon Meacham is a powerful writer and his portrait of Congressman Lewis is sure to be one of the most significant books of the year.
Karen Abbott provides a compelling account of the career of George Remus, a lawyer-turned-bootlegger, who has largely been forgotten despite the outrageous turns of his nearly unbelievable life. The twists in this story - including betrayal, insanity and murder - would be positively melodramatic, except that they are all true.
Maxwell King's The Good Neighbor is a comprehensive biography of Fred Rogers, the beloved host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. King paints a vivid portrait of a man who was dedicated to embodying and exemplifying the very ideals he strove to instill in others - especially children.
Michelle McNamara's devastating passing in 2016 was the first time I'd heard of her investigation into the criminal who would come to be known as the Golden State Killer. My curiosity was piqued when I learned that her manuscript would be published posthumously. McNamara's narrative deeply conveyed the palpable fear faced by the communities in which the GSK hunted. Paired with Chase Darkness With Me by Billy Jensen, I had an exciting and... (read more)
Memoirist and food writer Molly Wizenberg has been married to the same man for nearly a decade, and has always thought of herself as a straight person, when a chance encounter at jury duty (of all places) develops into a crush. Deeper feelings soon emerge - feelings she is unwilling to dismiss and unable to ignore. This insightful memoir follows Molly as she realizes that gender, sexuality, and love are much more fluid and expansive than she'd...
I've often thought that nonfiction can tell you about a person, place, or thing, while fiction is more about the relationships between persons, places, and things. This is the rare book that does both. What could be a rather off footnote of a bearded violin player stealing a piece of gum transforms into an incredible meditation on humanity, collecting things, memory, and so much more. Recommended by Fletcher O.
Reading Marshall's memoir reminded me of why I love this genre in the first place. You go into the book expecting one thing (a coming-of-age story alongside Marshall's coming-out story) and then you finish the book examining what it meant for him to have to come out twice: the second time as a gay man with cerebral palsy, which is something that his parents decided not to tell him about, instead telling him that his limp and other various... (read more)
You will be shocked by what you read about Steve Jobs in this beautifully rendered literary memoir by his daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. You will be equally stunned by the author's insight and honesty. I'm recommending Small Fry to everyone I know. Vivid, compelling, ambitious - it's the full package. Recommended by Renee P.
Thomas Edison was a colossus of American life, holding over a thousand patents when he died. The great inventor is a fitting subject for Edmund Morris's final work, for which he spent seven years working through Edison's voluminous archives.