I love a good memoir! I tend not to enjoy celebrity memoirs as much as I do those books written by relatively ordinary folks who have lived really interesting lives. I’ve reviewed a number of them over the last few years, but The Bucolic Plague: How Two Manhattanites Became Gentlemen Farmers is by far the funniest — from the title,… Read more

Paul Rudnick is one of those names that I was complete unfamiliar with, until I read his book. As he told his stories, I kept thinking “oh! I remember Sister Act!” “I’ve heard of Allan Carr!” “He wrote The Addams Family? I never knew that!” It was part discovery, part reunion, full of funny bits, a little gossip, and some… Read more

Finally, someone who comes from an even smaller hometown than mine! Michael Perry tells the story of coming back to his hometown (New Auburn, WI) and working as an EMT and volunteer fireman in Population: 485, Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time. As a small town girl myself, I could relate to a lot of the stories Perry… Read more

I live in a college town and we have our fair share of tattoo parlors. There are 2 shops almost next door to each other on the main drag through town and a tattoo and body piercing place down at the end of a row of bars, near where I turn onto my street. That one has an interesting crew… Read more

I really wanted to like this book. After all, “A Scotsman’s Tale of World Travel, Whiskey and Crime” sounds right up my alley. I love colorful memoirs, adventure stories, all that, and I thought I would really enjoy this one. I didn’t even make it through 100 pages. There are a lot of reasons I was disappointed in the book.… Read more

Five years ago, Amy Dickinson was tapped to replace the late Ann Landers as advice columnist for the Chicago Tribune. (Ann Landers had taken over the job from Chicago nurse Ruth Crowley.) Her syndicated column appears daily in more than 150 newspaper and is read by more than 22 million people. You would expect a woman who gives advice to… Read more

A comfy corner of a good friend’s couch, the other party guests are long gone but a few of you are lingering with vodka tonics and party snacks, dishing gossip, telling old stories and laughing your arses off. That’s exactly the atmosphere of Anything Goes, John Barrowman’s autobiography. Dr. Who fans will recognize John from his role as Captain Jack… Read more