Category: Memoir

#BookBeginnings The Tony Hillerman Memoir, Seldom Disappointed

02/27/2020 / Roberta / 3 Comments

I’m reading a book a friend gave me last week, Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir by Tony Hillerman for Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Book Beginnings is a fun meme hosted by Rose City Reader blog. To participate, share the first sentence or so of a novel you are reading and your thoughts about it. When you are finished, add your URL to the Book Beginnings page linked above. Hope to see you there!

Seldom Disappointed: A Memoir* by Tony Hillerman

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

My husband and I are both fans of Tony Hillerman. However, because I started this blog after we had read his books, I’ve never featured them here. I’m looking forward to reading this because always curious about the lives of my favorite authors.

Summary blurb: Tony Hillerman looks at seventy-six years spent getting from hard-times farm boy to bestselling author.

First Sentence:

Outside on this New Mexico morning the dandelions add festive color to our yard while I sit inside casting back in my memory for autobiographically useful material. I intend this to be a recitation of good luck and happy outcomes but my mind turns up only fiascos and misfortunes.

56

I’ve been meaning to join The Friday 56 hosted by Freda’s Voice forever. Perhaps it is time to catch up.

The premise is simple. Turn to page 56 in the book and pick a quote.

I had learned in my first tenure on the A&M campus that starved-out civilian freshman boys were simply invisible to coeds looking for more promising males. Now we were visible, but were looked upon with scorn.

He seems to be channeling his younger self pretty well, but I’m not sure this was quite what I expected. I’ll be interested to see how his voice and perspective changes as he writes about his older self.

What do you think? Would you keep reading? Would you read a memoir by one of your favorite authors?

#BookBeginnings A Yummy Memoir: Save Me the Plums

08/15/2019 / Roberta / 8 Comments

Today I used my birthday month discount at Changing Hands Bookstore to snag a signed copy of Ruth Reichl’s delicious memoir Save Me the Plums for Book Beginnings on Fridays.

Save Me the Plums* by by Ruth Reichl

(*Amazon Affiliate link)

Summary: Ruth Reichl had started reading Gourmet magazine at eight years old, so when the management called many years later (1998) to offer her the position of editor in chief, of course she turned it down. But like re-connecting with a childhood sweetheart, once she accepted the magazine job, it transformed her life.

First Sentence:

I was eight years old when I first found the magazine, sitting on the dusty floor of a used-book store. My father was a book designer who enjoyed the company of ancient volumes and he often took me on book-hunting expeditions around New York, leaving me with a pile of vintage magazines while he went off to prowl among the dark and crowded shelves.

Discussion:

Who wants to go to New York and visit this bookstore right now? What a fun upbringing for a writer/editor!

This is a yummy memoir. I started devouring it this afternoon and couldn’t stop. The sensory descriptions of food are incredible. Plus Reichl knows how to capture the reader as only a master storyteller can.

What do you think? Would you keep reading?

Do you like to read memoirs?