Memoir Archive

This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness - Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear --- Laura Munson’s account of trouble in her marriage --- was the most forwarded, shared, discussed, debated column in the Style section of The New

Tina Brown: The Vanity Fair Diaries, 1983-1992 - In September of 1981, I was reporting The Art of Being Alex, a profile of Alexander Liberman. The title was a pun, for Alex had a double life. Weekdays, he

Tramps Like Us: Bruce Springsteen’s“Born to Run” and Howard Massey’s “Roadie” - “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative

Try Not to Hold It Against Me: A Producer’s Life - SUPPORTING BUTLER: You can become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is

Unorthodox: The Satmars v. Feldman & Kornbluth - You do not want the Satmars on your case. I learned this the hard way the other week, when I reviewed Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots, Deborah Feldman’s

Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots - Decades ago, when I was reporting a story on New York sex clubs for Playboy, the proprietor of one club showed me a special door that provided Hasidic rebbes a

Unremarried Widow - The trick to great movie acting is to let the camera do the work. Even in scenes of extreme emotion, the challenge for the actor is to do as little

Until I Say Good-Bye: My Year of Living with Joy - The sickest she’d ever been was “after I ate a bad chicken sandwich in South America.” And now her left hand doesn’t work. Susan Spencer-Wendel lives

Waiting for Daisy: A Tale of Two Continents, Three Religions, Five Infertility Doctors, an Oscar, an Atomic Bomb, a Romantic Night and One Woman’s Quest to Become a Mother - The subtitle could make you gag from the cuteness. But Peggy Orenstein is a Contributing Writer to The New York Times Magazine, a position not easy

Walking Through Walls - Ever read a book, love it, but come away shaking your head, not sure what to believe? That's a picture of me, after inhaling every word of Philip Smith's memoir. A

War Torn: Stories of War from the Women Reporters Who Covered Vietnam - I was the college kid who got the summer job as an editorial assistant at Look Magazine. In 1966, that was a big deal. I wasn't appropriately grateful. I wore

We Used to Own the Bronx: Memoirs of a Former Debutante - In 1654, when Thomas Pell bought land in what is now the Bronx and Westchester County, the British crown gave him a title: Lord of the Manor of Pelham. A

Wear and Tear: The Threads of My Life - IT'S NOT JUST ME: Here's Frank Rich: "Tracy Tynan has written a memoir I cannot recommend highly enough. Tynan looks back at a childhood lived among bold-faced names in London

What I Thought I Knew - For many readers the attraction of memoir is the chance to lose yourself in the life of another person --- to identify with her struggles, feel her pain, share her

When You Lie About Your Age, the Terrorists Win: Reflections on Looking in the Mirror - There are people who think Nora Ephron is funny. I am not among them, but taste is subjective --- my idea of a thigh slapper may be your

Yeah, No. Not Happening.: How I Found Happiness Swearing Off Self-Improvement and Saying F**k It All—and How You Can Too - Karen Karbo must be one of my favorite writers, because I review all of her books. For a very good reason. She writes well-researched biographies with an original point-of-view. And

You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness - I am not a dog person. Or a cat person. Or, for that matter, a fish, hamster or snake person. It’s not that I don’t like pets --- though I

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - This book was published in 1974. The author died in 2017. Does anyone remember his name? Or even, for that matter, the name of his book, which sold millions of