The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead by David Shields
David Shields’ The thing about life is that one day you’ll be dead manages to be simultaneously heart-breakingly depressing whilstContinue Reading
Tag: life writing
Father and Son by Edmund Gosse
Hurray! I read a book at an adult speed for the first time in weeks, and this one I thoughtContinue Reading
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
This is a book I’ve read a lot about. It is referred to repeatedly in both Ben Yagoda’s Memoir: AContinue Reading
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is an engaging and somewhat strange book. It is, actually, the autobiography of GertrudeContinue Reading
Love’s Work by Gillian Rose
A few weeks ago, I was recommended this short memoir by a customer in the bar I work in. Obnoxiously,Continue Reading
If This Is A Man and The Truce by Primo Levi
Primo Levi was a chemist, young (younger than I am now), when he was rounded up by the anti-Semitic ItalianContinue Reading
A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again by David Foster Wallace
As I’ve mentioned on here many, many, many, many, many times, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace* is one of theContinue Reading
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
I haven’t read a huge amount of Vladimir Nabokov’s novels, only the very obvious one and probably the second mostContinue Reading
Another Great Day At Sea by Geoff Dyer
Geoff Dyer is one of my favourite writers, despite two of the books of his I’ve read being pretty mediocre. TheContinue Reading
Boyhood Island: My Struggle Book Three by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Karl Ove Knausgaard is one of my favourite writers. It would probably be fair to say that he is one of (inContinue Reading
Memoir: A History by Ben Yagoda
This will probably be my last blog for a while, as I have a couple of essays to write over theContinue Reading
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas de Quincey
Thomas de Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium-Eater is basically a mediocre 19th century Trainspotting, but without the funny, sad or exciting bitsContinue Reading
Giving Up The Ghost by Hilary Mantel
Hilary Mantel’s 2003 memoir, Giving Up The Ghost, far preceded her arrival as the “Best Writer in Britain”, but it isContinue Reading
Take Me Home by Jonathan Taylor
So I’ve read another memoir by a British academic, but this one isn’t the “Books Conquers All” disappointment of LornaContinue Reading
Journalism by Joe Sacco
Joe Sacco’s Journalism collects several short pieces (ranging from two to fifty pages in length) drawn and written in the decadeContinue Reading
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
I really really liked this. That’s what I’m going to open with, because everything of any wit or interest IContinue Reading
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
This is the third memoir about “growing up” in the second half of the 20th-century I’ve read in a rowContinue Reading
Bad Blood by Lorna Sage
This is a set text for my MA twice over, so this has been touted as a book that isContinue Reading
Sectioned: A Life Interrupted by John O’Donoghue
Sectioned: A Life Interrupted is a recent memoir by John O’Donoghue, a man who spent his teens and twentiesContinue Reading
Autobiography by Morrissey
It is a key belief of my that it is important to, occasionally, read bad books. Otherwise, how is oneContinue Reading
Like a Fiery Elephant by Jonathan Coe
I first read B. S. Johnson years after first learning of him. His (somewhat infamous) “book in a box”, The Unfortunates,Continue Reading
On Janis Joplin
I discovered the music of Janis Joplin in the late Spring of my first year of university. I’d just spentContinue Reading
Triumph Of The Now 