Reader's Link - September 2011 Staff Picks Archive

The Glass Castle
September 21, 2011

Title: The Glass Castle
By: Jeannette Walls

At once heartbreaking and heartening, Walls describes her peripatetic childhood taking on adult responsibilities at an extremely young age because her parents, though physically present, lived mostly in their own worlds. They obviously loved their children but felt no need to parent them in the conventional sense. At the age of three, Jeanette was routinely cooking meals on a gas stove. The family moved from small town to small town often one step ahead of the law and/or the debt collector. Jeanette's mother was an artist and sometime teacher, but when she had a job, her three older children were the ones who kept her organized, wrote lesson plans, and got her off to work each morning. Her father Rex was a charming drunk, inventor, and self made scholar who rarely held a job for more than a few months.
The family finally settled in West Virginia near the paternal grandparents where Jeannette and her older sister and younger brother worked hard in and out of school to support the family and gradually all of them moved on to New York, higher education, and careers.
I listened to the audiobook version of The Glass Castle and highly recommend it, but the library also has regular and large print versions of the book.

View similarly tagged posts: biography,audiobook
Posted by ogradyj on Sept. 21, 2011 at 11:02 a.m.
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But Wait! There's More!
September 14, 2011

Title: Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1.
By: Harriet Elinor Smith, Editor.

Dear Mr. Clemens,

So nice to hear from you! As always, I enjoyed reading your recollections of work as a cub pilot on the Mississippi, and the amusing stories of life on the never ending lecture circuit. I’m so sorry about your daughter Suzy passing away; she sounds like such a wonderful person, loving charades and plays as she did, and so “full of intuitions and ponderings”. I remember visiting your house in West Hartford a few years ago, and when gazing at your personal desk, I could have sworn I saw some papers moving about, was that you still working there? I recently read that it was a couple of professors from Cal who finally deciphered the order of arrangement of the entries in this diary of yours, and that there will be two more volumes published in the future! You must be very glad about that. Why, just the other day I was telling a colleague I wish the great actor Hal Holbrook would narrate these “new” books! He does such a swell job of impersonating your mannerisms and voice, and it would be a fine audio book for listening to in the car. Certainly it would save my wrists; you would laugh at me propping this big heavy book upon a pillow! Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts and insights. That’s all for now.

I remain, Your Most Sincere Friend

P. S. Would you please tell Nathaniel, Herman, Emily, Scottie, and Ernest that I said hello?

View similarly tagged posts: fiction,non-fiction,history,biography,travel
Posted by pollockl on Sept. 14, 2011 at 1:27 p.m.
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