Born to Run
Bruce Springsteen, 2016
Simon & Schuster
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501141515
Summary
Writing about yourself is a funny business…But in a project like this, the writer has made one promise, to show the reader his mind. In these pages, I’ve tried to do this.
—Bruce Springsteen
In 2009, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performed at the Super Bowl’s halftime show. The experience was so exhilarating that Bruce decided to write about it. That’s how this extraordinary autobiography began.
Over the past seven years, Bruce Springsteen has privately devoted himself to writing the story of his life, bringing to these pages the same honesty, humor, and originality found in his songs.
He describes growing up Catholic in Freehold, New Jersey, amid the poetry, danger, and darkness that fueled his imagination, leading up to the moment he refers to as "The Big Bang": seeing Elvis Presley’s debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He vividly recounts his relentless drive to become a musician, his early days as a bar band king in Asbury Park, and the rise of the E Street Band.
With disarming candor, he also tells for the first time the story of the personal struggles that inspired his best work, and shows us why the song "Born to Run" reveals more than we previously realized.
Born to Run will be revelatory for anyone who has ever enjoyed Bruce Springsteen, but this book is much more than a legendary rock star’s memoir. This is a book for workers and dreamers, parents and children, lovers and loners, artists, freaks, or anyone who has ever wanted to be baptized in the holy river of rock and roll.
Rarely has a performer told his own story with such force and sweep. Like many of his songs ("Thunder Road," "Badlands," "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "The River," "Born in the U.S.A.," "The Rising," and "The Ghost of Tom Joad," to name just a few), Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography is written with the lyricism of a singular songwriter and the wisdom of a man who has thought deeply about his experiences. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 23, 1949
• Where—Freehold, New Jersey, USA
• Education—Freehold High School
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Colts Neck, New Jersey
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and humanitarian. His memoir, Born to Run, was releaed in 2016.
Springsteen is best known for his work with his E Street Band. Nicknamed "The Boss", Springsteen is widely known for his brand of poetic lyrics, Americana, working class and sometimes political sentiments centered on his native New Jersey, his distinctive voice and his lengthy and energetic stage performances, with concerts from the 1970s to the present decade running over four hours in length.
Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more somber folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run (1975) and Born in the U.S.A. (1984), showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life. He has sold more than 64 million albums in the United States and more than 120 million records worldwide, making him one of the world's best-selling artists of all time.
Awards
He has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award as well as being inducted into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2016.)
Book Reviews
[B]ig, loose, rangy and intensely satisfying…The book is like one of Mr. Springsteen's shows—long, ecstatic, exhausting, filled with peaks and valleys. It's part seance and part keg party…. His writing voice is much like his speaking voice; there's a big, raspy laugh on at least every other page…. Most important, Born to Run is, like [Springsteen's] finest songs, closely observed from end to end. His story is intimate and personal, but he has an interest in other people and a gift for sizing them up.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Springsteen can write—not just life-imprinting song lyrics but good, solid prose that travels all the way to the right margin. I mean, you'd think a guy who wrote "Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night / With bruised arms and broken rhythm and a beat-up old Buick…" could navigate his way around a complete and creditable American sentence. And you'd be right…. Nothing in Born to Run rings to me as unmeant or punch-pulling…. And like a fabled Springsteen concert—always notable for its deck-clearing thoroughness—Born to Run achieves the sensation that all the relevant questions have been answered by the time the lights are turned out. He delivers the story of Bruce…via an informally steadfast Jersey plainspeak that's worked and deftly detailed and intimate with its readers—cleareyed enough to say what it means when it has hard stories to tell, yet supple enough to rise to occasions requiring eloquence—sometimes rather pleasingly subsiding into the syntax and rhythms of a Bruce Springsteen song
Richard Ford - New York Times Book Review
Bruce Springsteen’s frank and gripping memoir, Born to Run, is an intimate portrait of one man’s lifelong attempt to follow that primary command. People who choose rock and roll as their vocation are usually trying to break free from constraints, to smash things, to stir up a little turmoil in their souls. Springsteen entered a world of chaos and turned to guitars and amplifiers and lyrics to create order.
David Brooks - Atlantic Monthly
A virtuoso performance, the 508-page equivalent to one of Springsteen and the E Street Band's famous four-hour concerts: Nothing is left onstage, and diehard fans and first-timers alike depart for home sated and yet somehow already aching for more.”
Barbara J. King - NPR
[I]t might be easy to think that his new memoir Born To Run couldn't be all that revelatory since we already know so much. But it turns out that the nine years he spent writing it were worthwhile ones. He reached deep into his memory banks and produced a stunning 510 page book that will thrill even the most hardcore Bruce fanatics.
Andy Greene - Rolling Stone
(Starred review.) [A]n entertaining, high-octane journey from the streets of New Jersey to all over the world. A natural storyteller, Springsteen commands our attention, regaling us with his tales of growing up poor with a misanthropic father.... [He] writes with the same powerful lyrical quality of his music.
Publishers Weekly
Starred review.) The Boss speaks—and he does so as both journeyman rocker and philosopher king.... Springsteen is gentle with those who treated him poorly...but generous with love for friends and listeners alike. A superb memoir by any standard, but one of the best to have been written by a rock star.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Born to Run...then take off on your own:
1. What did you know about Bruce Springsteen, or what expectations did you have, before reading Born to Run. Were your expectations met? Has your understanding of Springsteen changed, or has it been confirmed by the book? How does his memoir-writing voice compare with his lyric-writing voice?
2. Talk about Springsteen's growing up years (three a.m. bedtimes, 3 p.m. risings) and his family. What does he mean when he writes...
It was a place where I felt an ultimate security, full license and a horrible unforgettable boundary-less love. It ruined me and it made me.
3. Follow-up to Question 2: Douglas Springsteen had a large impact on his son's music. Discuss their difficult father-son relationship, as well as Douglas's mental illness. Bruce writes of the time his father broke down in front of him:
It shocked me, made me feel uncomfortable and strangely wonderful. He showed himself to me, mess that he was. It was one of the greatest days of my teenage life.
—In what way was it both shocking and wonderful
4. In his songs, what message was Springsteen hoping to convey to his father? Or to himself?
5. Many teenagers dream of being a rock star and spend hours working at it. How was Bruce Springteen's commitment different? Could you say it was almost compulsive, perhaps manic?
6. What does the following passage reveal about Springsteen's struggle to find himself?
I wanted to kill what loved me because I couldn’t stand being loved. It infuriated and outraged me, someone having the temerity to love me—nobody does that … and I’ll show you why. It was ugly and a red flag for the poison I had running through my veins, my genes. Part of me was rebelliously proud of my emotionally violent behavior, always cowardly and aimed at the women in my life.
7. Talk about Patti Scialfa. In what way has she helped ground her husband? How would you describe Springsteen's feelings for her? How difficult would it be married to a superstar like Springsteen? What strains would it place on a relationship?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo
Amy Schumer, 2016
Gallery Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501139888
Summary
A refreshingly candid and uproariously funny collection of (extremely) personal and observational essays.
In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is—a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh.
Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friend—an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever.
Whether she’s experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor’s secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably—but only because it’s over. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 1, 1981
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Towson College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Amy Schumer has become one of the most influential figures in the entertainment industry as a stand-up comedian, actress, writer, producer, director, and now an author. In 2016 she published her memoir, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo.
Schumer's smash hit television series Inside Amy Schumer, has won a Peabody award, a Critics Choice Television Award, and two primetime Emmy awards.
She wrote and starred in her first feature-length film, Trainwreck, which dominated the 2015 summer comedy international box office and was nominated for two Golden Globes and won both the Critics Choice award for Best Actress in a Comedy, and a Hollywood Film Award for “Comedy of the Year.”
As a stand-up comedian, she continues to perform to sold-out audiences around the world. Her 2016 tour was voted Pollstar’s Comedy Tour of the Year. (From the publisher.)
Early life
Schumer was born on the Upper East Side of New York City's Manhattan to Sandra (nee Jones) and Gordon Schumer, who owned a baby furniture company. She has a younger sister, Kim Caramele, who is a comedy writer and a producer, and a brother, Jason Stein, who is a musician in Chicago, Illinois. Her father is second cousin to U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer. Schumer's father was born Jewish; her mother, born a Protestant, converted to Judaism. Schumer was raised Jewish and experienced antisemitism as a child.
Schumer began life in a wealthy family. At age nine, however, her father's business went bankrupt, and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Three years later, her parents divorced, and Amy moved to Long Island where she attended high school in Rockville Centre. Upon graduation, she was voted both "Class Clown" and "Teacher's Worst Nightmare."
Schumer moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and attended Towson University, graduating with a degree in theater in 2003. After college she returned to New York City where she studied at the William Esper Studio for two years and worked as a bartender and a waitress.
Early Career
After a brief stint on Off-Broadway, Schumer started doing stand-up comedy in 2004, when she first performed at Gotham Comedy Club. In 2007, she recorded a "Live at Gotham" episode for Comedy Central, an event she considers her "big break."
After auditioning and failing for the early seasons of NBC's Last Comic Standing, Schumer was finally brought into the show. She made it to the finals of the fifth season, placing fourth. Schumer has said she enjoyed her time on the show:
[T]here was no pressure on me; I had been doing stand-up around two years. I wasn't supposed to do well. So every time I advanced it was a happy surprise. I kept it honest on the show and it served me well.
In 2008, Schumer co-starred in the Comedy Central reality show Reality Bites Back and, between 2007 and 2001, became a recurring guest on Fox News late-night program Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. Her first Comedy Central Presents special aired on April 2, 2010. In 2011, she served as a co-host of A Different Spin with Mark Hoppus.
She has also appeared in roles on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock, the Adult Swim mockumentary series Delocated, and two HBO series: Curb Your Enthusiasm and Girls.
In 2011, Schumer appeared on the Comedy Central Roast of Charlie Sheen. That year she also released a standup comedy album, Cutting.
In 2012, she acted in three indie films (Price Check, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, and Sleepwalk with Me) and appeared on Comedy Central's Roast of Roseanne Barr. Her standup comedy special, Mostly Sex Stuff, premiered that year to positive reviews on Comedy Central. Of her approach to stand-up, Schumer said
I don't like the observational stuff. I like tackling the stuff nobody else talks about, like the darkest, most serious thing about yourself. I talk about life and sex and personal stories and stuff everybody can relate to, and some can't.
Also in 2012, Schumer began work on a sketch comedy series for Comedy Central. The show features single-camera vignettes of Schumer playing "heightened versions" of herself. The vignettes are linked together with footage of Schumer's stand-up. The show, Inside Amy Schumer, premiered on Comedy Central in 2013. A behind-the-scenes miniseries entitled Behind Amy Schumer premiered in 2012.
In 2014, Schumer embarked on her Back Door Tour to promote the second season of her show. The show featured closing act Bridget Everett, whom Schumer cites as her favorite live performer. She also appeared as a guest on an episode of comedian Jerry Seinfeld's Internet series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee in 2014.
The year 2015 proved another rewarding year: Schumer hosted the 2015 MTV Movie Awards; her film, Trainwreck, which she wrote and in which she played her first leading role, was released; she performed as the opening act for Madonna on three New York City dates of the singer's Rebel Heart Tour; and on October 17, her comedy special, Amy Schumer Live at the Apollo, premiered on HBO. (In 2016, the special was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Variety Special, Writing and Directing.)
On June 23, 2016, during her sold out performance at Madison Square Garden, Schumer announced her first world tour starting later that summer in Dublin. Her memoir, a collection of personal essays, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo was published to solid reviews.
Personal life
Schumer has dated professional wrestler Nick Nemeth a.k.a. Dolph Ziggler, and comedian Anthony Jeselnik. In January 2016, she indicated she was in a relationship with Chicago furniture designer Ben Hanisch. She has been friends with Taking Back Sunday drummer Mark O'Connell since childhood.
When she was 21, she and her sister Kim Schumer were arrested for grand larceny, as part of a shoplifting scheme. During an interview, she stated that it was her connection to Senator Schumer that enabled her to plead down the charge.
Book Reviews
Schumer keeps it real in The Girl with the Lower Back Tattooo. [She] is a talented storyteller.... Readers will laugh and cry, and may put the book down from moments of honesty that result in uncomfortable realistic details from her life. More important, the essays challenge readers to harness their own stories and rest in the fact that they’re good enough. Experience the world. Be bold. Love your body. It’s OK to fail and make mistakes. And lower-back tattoos can only make you stronger.
Associated Press
What [Schumer] offers here is a better, more deeply felt life-so-far book than most I've read...Schumer weaves a brave, vulnerable tale without falling into the usual celebrity traps of neediness and defense.
Chicago Tribune
[An] excellent new essay collection.... [The book] is, contrary to the postmodern parfait that is Schumer’s standard act, decidedly un-layered. It is Schumer, the celebrity, shedding Schumer, the schtick. It is a memoir that is also an unapologetic paean to self-love. In that, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo finds a new way for Schumer to be radical: It treats feminine self-confidence not in the way it is too often regarded, as a BrainyQuotable truism or an inborn gift or a fuzzy aspiration or, indeed, a source of shame, but rather as a skill like any other—something that is developed and worked at and thus, most importantly, earned.... Schumer’s stories are really, particularly good.
Atlantic
Amy Schumer's book will make you love her even more. For a comedian of unbridled (and generally hilarious) causticity, Schumer has written a probing, confessional, unguarded, and, yes, majorly humanizing non-memoir, a book that trades less on sarcasm, and more on emotional resonance.
Vogue
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo is laugh-out-loud funny when Schumer wants it to be...but more often, it’s surprisingly honest and raw.... If you’re here for humor, of course, you won’t be disappointed.... But on the whole, this book is far less a portable joke factory than it is a real, deep dive into Schumer’s life, and what it’s like to be an imperfect woman and content and proud of yourself despite that.
Entertainment Weekly
The comedian's essay collection isn't just bitingly funny—it's also raw, honest, and often heartbreaking. We dare you to walk away without even greater understanding and respect for Schumer (Must List).
Entertainment Weekly
The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo is an alternatingly meditative, sexually explicit, side-splittingly hilarious, heart-wrenching, disturbing, passionately political and always staggeringly authentic ride through the highs and lows of the comedic powerhouse's life to date.
Harper's Bazaar
Beyond the many powerful and empowering takeaways of The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo—from loving the hustle to self-love—perhaps the must overlooked is that of a woman's right to not only make mistakes, but to make art out of them.
Salon.com
(Starred review.) Her prose, like her popular comedy act, is plucky, forthright, hilariously raunchy—and honest.... Amid ill-fated dates, alcohol-induced blackouts, and late-night eating binges, Schumer, in these candid, well-crafted essays, wears her mistakes "like badges of honor."
Publishers Weekly
[P]rovocative...unabashed....Though the narrative sometimes lacks the literary appeal that distinguishes books from live comedy...it’s consistently funny and highly readable.... A hilarious and effective memoir from a woman with zero inhibitions.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo...then take off on your own:
1. What do you think of Amy Schumer after having read The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo? If you're familiar with her comedy specials and her film Trainwreak, did you read anything about her to surprise you?
2. Much of Schumer's book revolves around being an imperfect woman learning to be content despite those imperfections. Was that your take on the book? How does Schumer achieve her sense of contentment with who she is...or does she? Does the book have resonance with you (and your own imperfections...that is, if you have any!)?
3. Schumer insists at the beginning that this is NOT a self-help book and that it offers no advice. Is she correct? What about urging women to leave abusive relationships? Does she offer other encouragement elsewhere?
4. Talk about Schumer's father and her relationship with him. She says that she has "been mourning him while he's still alive." How does that section affect you, especially when she writes of the two of them surfing for the last time?
5. In addition to writing about her father, are there other sections of The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo that your find particularly poignant?
6. What does Schumer write about her mother? Is it fair to remain angry at your parents' past mistakes once you reach adulthood? (Nora Ephron once said there was a statute of limitations for anger toward parents.)
7. Follow-up to Questions 4-6: What impact have Schumer's childhood and teenaged years had on her life and her career? In what way do you think her past has inspired her comedy?
8. Early in the book, Schumer writes, "Damn, it’s hard to write a book and not get yelled at.” What does she mean? Is that observation more true of women then men?
9. What does Schumer have to say about women's magazines? Do you agree or disagree?
10. Schumer mentions her vagina nearly two dozen times in her memoir: is that too much...just right? Is it funny? Do you appreciate her frankness when it comes to what has long (i.e., forever) been a taboo subject for female conversation?
11. Does the humor in this book live up to your expectations? Does Schumer's writing have the same voice as her stage, film, and tv performances? What sections, if any, do you find laugh-out-loud funny?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)
American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Jeffrey Toobin, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385536714
Summary
The definitive account of the kidnapping and trial that defined an insane era in American history
On February 4, 1974, Patty Hearst, a sophomore in college and heiress to the Hearst family fortune, was kidnapped by a ragtag group of self-styled revolutionaries calling itself the Symbionese Liberation Army.
The already sensational story took the first of many incredible twists on April 3, when the group released a tape of Patty saying she had joined the SLA and had adopted the nom de guerre "Tania."
The weird turns of the tale are truly astonishing—the Hearst family trying to secure Patty’s release by feeding all the people of Oakland and San Francisco for free; the bank security cameras capturing "Tania" wielding a machine gun during a robbery; a cast of characters including everyone from Bill Walton to the Black Panthers to Ronald Reagan to F. Lee Bailey; the largest police shoot-out in American history; the first breaking news event to be broadcast live on television stations across the country; Patty’s year on the lam, running from authorities; and her circuslike trial, filled with theatrical courtroom confrontations and a dramatic last-minute reversal, after which the term "Stockholm syndrome" entered the lexicon.
The saga of Patty Hearst highlighted a decade in which America seemed to be suffering a collective nervous breakdown. Based on more than a hundred interviews and thousands of previously secret documents, American Heiress thrillingly recounts the craziness of the times (there were an average of 1,500 terrorist bombings a year in the early 1970s).
Toobin portrays the lunacy of the half-baked radicals of the SLA and the toxic mix of sex, politics, and violence that swept up Patty Hearst and re-creates her melodramatic trial. American Heiress examines the life of a young woman who suffered an unimaginable trauma and then made the stunning decision to join her captors’ crusade.
Or did she? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 21, 1960
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Emmy Award; J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Jeffrey Ross Toobin is an American lawyer, author, and senior legal analyst for CNN and a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine. He was born in New York City, the son of former ABC News and CBS News correspondent Marlene Sanders, and news broadcasting producer Jerome Toobin. His mother's family was of a relatively secular Jewish background.
Education
In 1982, Toobin graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University with a BA in classics. In 1986, he graduated from Harvard Law School, again magna cum laude, with a JD. He also served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review. While a law student, Toobin began freelancing for The New Republic.
Legal work
After law school, Tobin went on to clerk to a federal judge. Later during the Iran-Contra affair and Oliver North's criminal trial, Toobin worked as an associate counsel to Independent Counsel Lawrence Edward Walsh who was appointed to investigate and try the case.
Toobin wrote a book about his work with Walsh on the Oliver North case. According to journalist Michael Isikoff, he was caught "having absconded with large loads of classified and grand-jury related documents" from Walsh's office. Toobin, however, disputed the assertion of impropriety and went to court to affirm his right to publish. Judge John Keenan of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York wrote vindicated the rights of Toobin and his publisher to release his book, which they did in 1991. An appeal for the case was dismissed.
Having objected to Toobin's decision take the documents, Walsh later wrote that he "could understand a young lawyer wanting to keep copies of his own work, but not copying material from the general files or the personal files of others."
After leaving the Independent Counsel, Toobin went to work for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn. Three years later he left the DA's office, deciding to abandon the practice of law altogether.
Media
In 1993 Toobin joined The New Yorker as a staff writer, a position he occupies still. In 1994, he broke the story in the magazine that the O. J. Simpson legal team planned to play "the race card" by accusing Mark Fuhrman of planting evidence.
Also in 1994, Toobin became a television legal analyst for ABC. He joined CNN in 2002 as a senior legal analyst—one year later securing the first interview with Martha Stewart about the insider trading charges brought against her. He remains with CNN today.
Toobin has provided broadcast legal analysis on many high-profile cases, including Michael Jackson's 2005 child molestation trial, the O.J. Simpson civil case, and the Starr investigation of President Clinton. He received a 2000 Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzalez custody saga.
Books
1991 - Opening arguments: A Young Lawyer's First Case, United States v. Oliver North
1997 - The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson*
1999 - A vast conspiracy: The Real Story of the Sex Scandal that Nearly Brought Down a President
2001 - Too close to Call: The Thirty-six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election
2007 - The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court (J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize)
2012 - The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court
2016 - American heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst
Personal life
In 1986, Toobin married Amy Bennett McIntosh. The couple met in college while they worked at the Harvard Crimson. She is a 1980 Harvard graduate, holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, and has held executive positions at Verizon and Zagat Survey. They have two children.
Toobin had a long-term extramarital affair with Casey Greenfield, daughter of American television journalist and author Jeff Greenfield. Toobin was eventually confirmed as the father of Casey's child (b. March 2009). Greenfield has sole custody. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/27/2016.)
* The Run of His Life became the basis for the FX miniseries, The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016), starring Cuba Gooding Jr.
Book Reviews
American Heiress, Jeffrey Toobins new book about Patty Hearst, is a clever companion piece to The Run of His Life (1996), his book about the O. J. Simpson case. Mr. Toobin has used the same winning formula of delving deeply into an American crime story that had tremendous notoriety in its day and retelling it with new resonance. Ms. Hearst's tale is much more bizarre than Mr. Simpson's. And much less of it has to do with legal proceedings, Mr. Toobin's specialty. But in an age of terrorism, the chronicle of how a sedate heiress named Patricia morphed into a gun-toting, invective-spouting revolutionary calling herself Tania holds a definite fascination…. Mr. Toobin's account makes the transformation understandable.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
[T]errifically engrossing…As in his earlier book The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson, Toobin uses his knowledge of the justice system and his examination of the evidence to pierce the veil of spectacle and make sense of many contradictory elements…His particulate telling is measured and understated, which is the right approach to such a high-mannerist American extravaganza…. The book's real power comes from Toobin's ability to convincingly and economically evoke a broad range of people…. Toobin's take on Hearst's state of mind is credible because he doesn't pretend clarity where there is none.
Dana Spiotta - New York Times Book Review
The abduction and subsequent radicalization of Patricia Hearst is one of the most bizarre but illuminating episodes of that tumultuous era of protest...and in American Heiress Jeffrey Toobin retells the story with a full-blown narrative treatment that may astonish readers too young to remember it themselves.... Toobin spins this complex chapter of recent history into an absorbing and intelligent page-turner.
Washington Post
[R]iveting…. American Heiress is a page-turner certainly, but Toobin, a gifted writer, infuses it with much more…. Even if he ridicules the ideas and condemns the violent deeds of this ragtag group of revolutionary wannabes, they emerge not as cardboard villains but flesh and blood protagonists.
Boston Globe
Toobin has crafted a book for the expert and the uninitiated alike, a smart page-turner that boasts a cache of never-before-published details.... Toobin’s book successfully captures the unrivaled spectacle of the Hearst drama.
San Francisco Chronicle
[A] spell-binding retelling.… In the end the real test of a writer’s worth is…how well they can tell a story that’s already been told many times before by many different people, including — in this case—by some of the main characters themselves. By that standard Toobin gets an A-plus for American Heiress… Everything about this book feels right: the structure, the style and the tone, which is the New Yorker meets Raymond Chandler. As always with great writing, it comes down to a strong, distinctive narrative voice spiced with the judicious use of juicy details.
LA Weekly
(Starred review.) Toobin’s rigorous detective work is enhanced by his placement of the Hearst case in the context of its times.... His thorough research, careful parsing of all the evidence, and superior prose make the book read like a summertime thriller.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Toobin's meticulous research is the book's bedrock, but his flair for dramatic storytelling makes it a pleasure to read. Though the author never states directly whether he believes Hearst's conversion was real, he provides all of the pieces needed for readers to assemble the puzzle for themselves. —Stephanie Klose
Library Journal
[A] detailed but swiftly moving account of the 1974 kidnapping that mesmerized the nation.... Despite the lack of participation from Hearst, this is a well-informed, engaging work from a highly capable author.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for American Heiress...then take off on your own:
1. What was the ideology of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) and what were its goals? How would you characterize the group and its tactics—clever, passionate, inept, foolish, or misguided? What did the SLA hope to gain by capturing Patty Hearst?
2. Toobin presents individual portraits of SLA members. Did those back stories generate any understanding or compassion on your part?
3. What was Patty Hearst like? How would you describe her: as a cossetted, spoiled, rich young woman...as haughty, humble, insecure, or shy? Does Toobin present her sympathetically or unsympathetically?
4. How do Patty's parents come off in this account, her father especially? Toobin praises Randy's "curiosity, his decency and above all his love for his daughter"? Do you agree? What about Patty's mother and her black dresses?
5. Talk about law enforcement's bungling of the case.
6. What prompted Hearst's decision to join the ranks of her captors? During the trial, her defense said she acted out of “coercive persuasion” (what is now popularly referred to as "Stockholm Syndrome"). What was the basis of that defense...and is a convincing one to you? What does Toobin think?
7. Follow-up to Question 6: Was Patty Hearst a victim, or was she responsible for her crimes? Or does the truth fall somewhere in between? Put another way: do you think Hearst's conviction is fair? Should she have been cleared? Or do you think her sentence have been longer?
8. How does Toobin present the Hearst's lawyer, F. Lee Bailey?
9. Talk about Steven Weed. Toobin writes of him:
If there was one point of unanimity among the protagonists in the kidnapping...it was contempt for Patricia’s erstwhile fiance.
Why was he the subject of such loathing?
10. Describe Toobin's reaction toward Patty Hearst's campaign for a presidential pardon even though her sentence had been commuted. What do you think?
11. How familiar were you with the Hearst kidnapping before reading American Heiress? What have you learned after reading it? Were there any surprises?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Book That Matters Most
Ann Hood, 2016
W.W. Norton & Co.
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393241655
Summary
An enthralling novel about love, loss, secrets, friendship, and the healing power of literature, by the bestselling author of The Knitting Circle.
Ava’s twenty-five-year marriage has fallen apart, and her two grown children are pursuing their own lives outside of the country.
Ava joins a book group, not only for her love of reading but also out of sheer desperation for companionship. The group’s goal throughout the year is for each member to present the book that matters most to them.
Ava rediscovers a mysterious book from her childhood—one that helped her through the traumas of the untimely deaths of her sister and mother.
Alternating with Ava’s story is that of her troubled daughter Maggie, who, living in Paris, descends into a destructive relationship with an older man.
Ava’s mission to find that book and its enigmatic author takes her on a quest that unravels the secrets of her past and offers her and Maggie the chance to remake their lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1956
• Where—West Warwick, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Rhode Island; graudate studies New York University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize (twice); Best American Spiritual Writing Award; Paul Bowles
Prize for Short Fiction
• Currently—lives in Providence, Rhode Island
Ann Hood is an American novelist and short story writer; she has also written nonfiction. The author of more than a dozen books, her essays and short stories have appeared in many journals and magazines, including the Paris Review, Ploughshares, and Tin House. Hood is a regular contributor to the New York Times "Home Economics" column.
Hood is the winner of a number of awards: Paul Bowles Prize for Short Fiction, two Pushcart Prizes, and a Best American Spiritual Writing Award. She is a faculty member in the MFA in Creative Writing program at The New School in New York City. She lives in Providence with her husband and their children.
Early Years
Hood was born in West Warwick, Rhode Island and earned her BA in English from the University of Rhode Island. After college she worked for the now-defunct airlines TWA as a flight attendant, living in Boston and Saint Louis and later moving to New York City. She attended graduate school at New York University, studying American Literature.
Hood began writing her first novel Somewhere Off The Coast Of Maine in 1983 while working as a flight attendant—and while attending graduate school—writing whenever she could during train rides to JFK airport or in the galleys of the airplane while passengers slept. During a furlough from the airline, she worked at the Spring Street Bookstore in Soho and Tony Roma's while writing Somewhere Off The Coast Of Maine.
Like much of her work, the novel draws upon her own life. Hood says the book began as a series of short stories about three women who went to college together in the 1960s. A year earlier, her older brother, Skip, died in a freak accident and Hood was struggling with how to cope with the loss. At a writer’s conference, Hood was convinced by the writer Nicholas Delbanco that she was really writing a novel, and from there she began to connect the stories. The book was published in 1987.
Hood’s flight attendant career ended in 1986 when TWA went on strike and the flight attendants found themselves soon “replaced.” With more time to devote to writing, her stories and essays began to appear in Mademoiselle, Redbook, Story, Self, Glamour, New Woman, among others.
Personal life
Hood lives with her husband, businessman Lorne Adrain, her teenage son Sam and her daughter Annabelle in Providence, Rhode Island.
On April 18, 2002, Hood's five-year-old daughter, Grace, died from a virulent form of strep. For two years Hood found herself unable to write or even read. She took solace in learning to knit and in knitting groups. She gradually made her way back to her craft, writing short essays about Grace and grief.
To make sense of her own grief, in fall of 2004 Hood began to write her novel The Knitting Circle, about a woman whose five-year-old daughter dies from meningitis. The woman joins a knitting group of others also struggling to heal from loss. Hood’s best-selling memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief chronicles her own struggle after her daughter’s sudden death. That memoir was named one of the top ten non-fiction books of 2008 by Entertainment Weekly and was a New York Times Editor's Choice.
The summer after Grace died, Hood and Adrain decided to adopt a child and in 2005 traveled to China, where they adopted Annabelle. Hood’s experience adopting in China became the inspiration for her 2010 novel The Red Thread, which follows a woman struggling with the accidental death of her young daughter. The woman, Maya Lange, begins an adoption agency for Chinese babies.
Work
Hood’s short story "Total Cave Darkness," about an alcoholic woman who runs away with a Protestant minister nine years younger than she is, appeared in the Paris Review in 2000. It is also the opening story in her collection of stories An Ornithologist's Guide To Life. The title story of that collection appeared in Glimmer Train in 2004 and revolves around a young girl who slowly discovers her mother is having an affair with their neighbor. Her stories have also appeared in Tin House, Ploughshares, Good Housekeeping, Story, Five Points, and others.
In addition to Somewhere Off The Coast of Maine, The Knitting Circle, and The Red Thread, Hood has written seven other novels: The Obituary Writer (2013) Waiting To Vanish (1988), Three-Legged Horse (1989), Something Blue (1991), Places To Stay The Night (1993), The Properties of Water (Doubleday), and Ruby (1998).
Hood, in addition to her memoir, has written an addition work of nonfiction: Do Not Go Gentle: My Search For Miracles in a Cynical Time (1999) follows Hood’s travels to Chimayo, New Mexico in search of a miracle cure for her father’s lung cancer. The dirt at El Santuario de Chimayo, a Roman Catholic church, is believed to have healing properties and thousands flock to the site each year. Her father’s tumor did disappear, but he later died from complications from chemotherapy. Hood initially wrote about this experience in an essay for Doubletake magazine. That essay went on to win a Pushcart Prize. Hood’s editor at Picador urged her to turn it into a book. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Hood’s novel is rich with pleasures, and will no doubt launch a thousand book club discussions.
USA Today
Hood examines the push and pull between mothers and grown children and the transformative power of fiction.
People
Great novelists can envelop you in relatable plot lines that make you feel like you’re part of the story. That’s what Ann Hood, author of the much beloved The Knitting Circle, does in her latest.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
[A] moving, intricate story about loss, healing, and the value of critical thinking.... This is a gripping, multifaceted novel about recovering from different kinds of loss and the healing that comes from a powerful story.
Publishers Weekly
While some [readers] might become intrigued..., they also deserve a more developed, sharpened plot than this far-fetched, somewhat preposterous novel provides.... [S]ure to divide readers—between those who are captivated and those who desire a more detailed story line. —Andrea Tarr, Corona P.L., CA
Library Journal
Hood...has a knack for dramatic revelation...because she is so skilled at knowing what to leave out. Whether or not they think of themselves as bookish, readers of all stripes will enjoy cycling through these characters' lives and discovering their shared, mysterious past.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Book That Matters Most...then take off on your own:
1. Ava's reason for joining a book club is for "the comfort of people who wanted nothing more than to sit together and talk about books." Does that sum up your own reasons for joining (or perhaps forming) your own club? Do you have other reasons (other than the wine)?
2. Aside from her broken marriage, what other emotional baggage does Ava carry with her? How do some members of the group dredge up her feelings of inadequacy?
3. If your club decided to choose the books that matter most to each of you, what books might show up on the list?
4. What about the books on Ava's club's list—Pride ad Prejudice, Gatsby, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Mockingbird, among others? Anne Hood extracts something pertinent to Ava out of each book. Talk about some of those relevant points: which do you find most insightful? Do any resonate with your own life? Do you find some of them simplistic or shallow, perhaps even schmaltzy?
5. Ava is flummoxed by the assignment. "She couldn't remember the last book she'd read that mattered at all. In fact, she purposely chose books that didn't matter." Why do you think she ignored books that had any significance to her?
6. Discuss From Clare to Here, the (fictional) book that Ava finally settles on. What does it mean to Ava, and what does the fact that she chose it reveal about her?
7. The author juxtaposes Ava's improving situation with her daughter Maggie's descent into addiction. What does the author gradually reveal about Maggie? Why is Maggie the way she is?
8. The Book That Matters Most makes the case for the power of literature to transform us. In what way is Ava transformed? Has a book ever transformed you? If so, in what way?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
When in French: Love in a Second Language
Lauren Collins, 2016
Penguin Publishing
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594206443
Summary
A language barrier is no match for love.
Lauren Collins discovered this firsthand when, in her early thirties, she moved to London and fell for a Frenchman named Olivier—a surprising turn of events for someone who didn’t have a passport until she was in college. But what does it mean to love someone in a second language?
Collins wonders, as her relationship with Olivier continues to grow entirely in English. Are there things she doesn’t understand about Olivier, having never spoken to him in his native tongue? Does "I love you" even mean the same thing as "je t’aime"?
When the couple, newly married, relocates to Francophone Geneva, Collins—fearful of one day becoming "a Borat of a mother" who doesn’t understand her own kids—decides to answer her questions for herself by learning French.
When in French is a laugh-out-loud funny and surprising memoir about the lengths we go to for love, as well as an exploration across culture and history into how we learn languages—and what they say about who we are.
Collins grapples with the complexities of the French language, enduring excruciating role-playing games with her classmates at a Swiss language school and accidently telling her mother-in-law that she’s given birth to a coffee machine.
In learning French, Collins must wrestle with the very nature of French identity and society—which, it turns out, is a far cry from life back home in North Carolina. Plumbing the mysterious depths of humanity’s many forms of language, Collins describes with great style and wicked humor the frustrations, embarrassments, surprises, and, finally, joys of learning—and living in—French. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979-80
• Raised—Wilmington, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University
• Currently—lives in Paris, France
Lauren Collins is a writer for The New Yorker, whose memoir, When in French: Love in a Second Language was published in 2016.
Collins was raised in Wilmington, North Carolina. Her mother grew up outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and her father, a lawyer, was raised on New York's Long Island. The two met at Duke University, then settled in Wilmington. As a child, Collins traveled frequently to visit family in New York, becoming familiar with the city and prompting a move to Manhattan during and after college.
Collin majored in English at Princeton University, and in the summer after her junior year, she interned for Legal Aid in New York City, where she gathered evidence as an investigator. She came to the realization that what she cared about were not the legal aspects of the job but the personal stories she obtained while interviewing people. That interest led her to consider journalism.
Following graduation, and a short stint as an editorial assistant at Vogue, she landed a job in 2003 at The New Yorker. After a time she became a staff writer.
Eventually Collins moved to London, where she met her French-speaking husband, Oliver. From there the couple moved to Geneva, Switzerland, and finally, to Paris, where they now live.
The subject of Collins's memoir is her struggle to learn French in order to communicate with her husband on a deeper level. She also feared becoming "a Borat of a mother," unable to understand her own children. What ensues is a funny story about the lengths we go to for love. She breaks from personal journey to share historical knowledge and linguistics and the history of language.
Book Reviews
An exceptionally insightful meditation on how language informs culture and personality. It's a lovely read that gets better the more you sit with it.
Jason Zinoman - New York Times
A thoughtful, beautifully written meditation on the art of language and intimacy. The book unfolds like several books in one: on moving abroad, on communication in human relationships, on the history of language, and in the end, on the delights of cross-cultural fusion.
Suzy Hansen - New York Times Book Review
[An] engaging and surprisingly meaty memoir…. When in French ranges from the humorously personal to a deeper look at various theories of language acquisition and linguistics….There’s far more to Collins’ book than screwball comedy, and those who have weathered linguistic crossings themselves are apt to find particular resonance in its substantive inquiry into language, identity, and transcultural translation.
NPR.org
In her emotional, erudite memoir…[Collins] documents her linguistic labors, including the missteps–she accidentally tells her mother-in-law she gave birth to a coffeemaker–on the road to mastery. At times she expounds on the history and philosophy of language; at others, it feels like catching up with a clever friend you haven’t seen since college. But the most intriguing question posed is as much about identity as language: Are you someone else when you speak and live in a non-native tongue?
Time
A memoir of the New Yorker writer's experience falling in love with a French banker and winding up in Geneva, recounted in [Collins's] distinctive and deeply intelligent mix of insight and humor.
Thomas Chatterton Williams - Nation
We can't all fall in love with a dashing Frenchman and move to France, but that's what Lauren Collins found herself doing when she met Olivier. This delightful memoir explores the New Yorker staff writer's experience learning the French language—and the culture and people besides.
Elle.com
This smart memoir by New Yorker writer Collins is an extended essay on how the languages we speak shape who we are.... The transitions can be clunky as Collins shifts between story telling and embarking on academic discussions, but her writing is often elegant and exact.
Publishers Weekly
[A] wry memoir…[Collins] unearths other tidbits of trivia and history that will fascinate lovers of words and language…The heart of the book lies in Collins' personal story, which she tells with humor, humility and a deep affection for the people and cultures involved.
BookPage
As Collins gradually decided to commit to learning French because Olivier seemed worth the effort, she breaks from the personal narrative to share scholarly knowledge with lay readers.... Throughout, the author ably weaves together the personal and the historical. A memoir filled with pleasing passages in every chapter.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discusison for When In French...then take off on your own:
1. Start with your own attempts to learn a foreign language. How difficult—or easy—was it for you? What level of facility have you ever achieved in a foreign language? Have any of your experiences match those of Lauren Colllins?
2. Talk about the reasons the author decided to take the plunge and learn French.
3. How is the word "love" used differently in America and French? What else did you find surprising about the differences between English, particularly American English, and French?
4. Aside from language, what other differences existed between Lauren and Oliver—particularly in terms of belief systems, professions, or even the way in which their minds worked?
5. Oliver told Lauren that speaking to her in English was like touching her with gloves. What did her mean, specifically?
6. (Follow-up to Question 5): Collins writes of her relationship with Oliver:
We didn’t possess that easy shorthand, encoding all manner of attitudes and assumptions, by which some people seem able, nearly telepathically, to make themselves mutually known.
Is it perhaps impossible to ever achieve lasting intimacy while spanning two languages? Is language difference an insurmountable barrier in a long-lasting relationship?
7. Collins provides historical insights into the problems caused by language barriers. Locate specific examples to talk about—in international realtions or simply everyday life. What problems have you faced in your personal life. During your travels, perhaps? On the job?
8. What do you think of Collins's assertion that...
It is unhealthy for the global community to rely too heavily on one language as it is to mass-cultivate a single crop.
Do you agree? Are you old enough recall Esperanto—the vision of a single world language? If you're not familiar with the movement, Google the term and talk about what you find.
9. What does the author have to say about Americans' seeming aversion to foreign languages? Do you agree with her?
10. What did you find funny in Collins's struggle to learn French? The birth of Lauren's coffee machine—there is that! What else made you laugh?
11. What knowledge have you gained about language you didn't have before you read When in French? Prior to reading Collins's memoir, did you have any background in linguistics, grammar, or language history?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)