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1.The Glass Castle: A Memoir by: Jeannette Walls January 09, 2006
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $1.92
This memoir got book deals for several dozen marginal writers with bad childhoods, but those books have been awful compared to this one. Jeannette Walls has enough experience as a writer to tell a story. We have the typical bad dad -- the Angela's Ashes model where he may be a drunk and a gambler who doesn't take care of his family, but when he shows up, he's a Peter Pan figure who makes everything so much fun and magical for the children, they can't help but love him anyway. At first, the reader sort of loves him, too, but then the irresponsibility escalates. Unfortunately, he is married to and having children with a self-centered artist (and she's not particularly a good artist, you can see her work on YouTube; she's ordinary)who is mentally unhinged. Most of the time she is ... Read More

2.Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by: Mildred Armstrong Kalish April 29, 2008
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $12.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $9.60 You Save: $2.40 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $6.33
It would be a mistake to read this book through the lens of nostalgia. Certainly the childhood Kalish describes is very appealing, particularly her commentaries on how her family fostered thrift and independence. It's always tempting to think that the past is somehow a better place. However few of us, I suspect, would wish to return to a time when a failed marriage could mark a woman for life (and Kalish is clear about the effect of this on her mother) or when one measure of a woman's worth was the degree of shine on her windowpanes (and Kalish is clear about her disdain for that particular preoccupation). It's also important to remember that this memoir is just one view of the Depression years; Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath" (1939), which is based on his firsthand observations of California ... Read More

3.The Lost Boy: A Foster Child's Search for the Love of a Family by: Dave Pelzer August 01, 1997
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $12.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.36 You Save: $2.59 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.01
Some of the writing is uneven, the plot a little bit disjointed, but in fairness to the author, he is writing from the perspective of a twelve-year-old boy. This book is vitally important, because there still isn't much in the way of non-fiction written by grown men who were abused as children. Their needs are completely different from those of girls. Pelzer's reaction to being placed into his first foster home - literally bouncing off the walls, jumping on all the beds, is perfectly normal behavior for a boy who has been abused. At times, boys taken into foster care are doubly abused, by well-meaning caretakers who don't understand the unique temperament of the abused male child. In my view, the system very nearly failed Pelzer by shifting him from one placement to ... Read More

4.Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by: Marjane Satrapi June 01, 2004
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $12.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.36 You Save: $2.59 (20%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $4.96
This book was needed for a college course I am taking and I never got it. I just hope the one I purchased for the second time gets to me before I need to read the book.

5.Running with Scissors: A Memoir by: Augusten Burroughs August 29, 2006
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $7.99 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.18
The movie got dozens of poor reviews at Amazon, where readers of the book insisted the book was so much better. I happened to like the movie so I figured the book would be great. It was good, but I liked the movie better. The book, an autobiographical work that describes Augusten Burroughs' bizarre adolescence, features a mother that is so dysfunctional, Joan Crawford seems like June Cleaver. Mom dumps Augusten at the home of her warped therapist whose family brings to mind a barely saner Addams family. Burroughs describes a series of incidents that colored his life, but the book also contains a definite understory of the boredom that comes from a life with no rules or obligations, including no school. The movie has the extra intensity of an excellent cast, including Annette ... Read More

6.The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by: Bill Bryson September 25, 2007
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $3.93
This is Bryson at his best, funny, fearless, and factual. He took me back to splendid promise of the 50's when we awaited "Better things through chemistry" and believed they would come.

7.The Invisible Wall: A Love Story That Broke Barriers by: Harry Bernstein June 07, 2007
Average Rating: >>More Details		Off The Bookshelf's Price: $31.95 Prices subject to change. Used Price: $29.99
My sister and mother raved about this book, so I finally decided to read it and boy, what a wonderful slice of life book that let's me get a real glimpse of poverty stricken family life in England in the early 1900's. I live close to Mr. Bernstein (down at the Jersey shore) and I hope that I will be able to meet him if he does a lecture locally. Please read this and also "The Dream". We think that THOSE were the "good old days", but really, for many people, they were tough times. Thank you Harry Bernstein for 2 wonderful books.

8.Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood by: Alexandra Fuller March 11, 2003
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $15.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $0.85
An amazing book that brings Africa to life. It is a vivid portrait of a family and a continent in a very particular period. Deserves rereading as there is so much to it.

9.The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir by: Bill Bryson October 17, 2006
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $25.00 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $16.50 You Save: $8.50 (34%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $2.89
What an enjoyable read. Brought back all the wonderful memories of childhood along with an adult slant about the world today. Every chapter a treat.

10.Rocket Boys: A Memoir by: Homer Hickam December 05, 2006
Average Rating: >>More Details		List Price: $14.95 Off The Bookshelf's Price: $10.17 You Save: $4.78 (32%) Prices subject to change. Used Price: $7.95
escape via rocket, October 6, 2008 By V. N. Dvornychenko (Rockville, MD) - See all my reviews Part "Angela's Ashes" (Frank McCourt) and part "I Aim for the Stars" (Werner von Braun), this book chronicles the efforts of a teenage boy to escape the confines of his West Virginia coal-mining milieu. Fourteen-year-old Homer/Sonny Hickam (the protagonist and author) is determined not to follow in the footsteps of his coalminer father - who is already showing signs of black-lung disease, a disease which will eventually kill him. Homer/Sonny has an older brother, of whom he is very resentful. Among his brother's "sins" are ease with the girls, success at high school football - and most of all - favor with the parents. Normally there are only two paths for escape from Coalwood: the ... Read More

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