Tag: memoir

Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight

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Fuller, Alexandria. Don’t Let’s Go To the Dogs Tonight: an African Childhood. Random House, 2001.

Reason read: Recognizing Levy Mwanawasa Day.

There is no question that Alexandria Fuller led a particularly unique childhood growing up on a farm in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) in the 1970s. How many can say their mother habitually slung an Uzi over her shoulder whenever trouble arose? Even Alexandria was photographed with an Uzi in her hands like it was a bouquet of flowers. Fuller and her family seemingly moved with ease through the violence of war, hatred, and death whether it be blowing the head off a venomous snake or fighting off squatters on their land during the Rhodesian Bush War (more of the tamer encounters for the Fullers). They stayed not because they enjoyed the turmoil. It was just what they were accustomed to as a matter of survival because they loved the land. What is so striking about Fuller’s memoir is how candid she is about life in Africa and her family’s daily existence in survival mode. She does not sugarcoat her mother’s alcoholism and subsequent decline into mental illness after losing three children. She does not make light of the droughts and extreme poverty they caused. By the end of the of the Rhodesian Bush War in 1980 the Fuller family moved to Malawi and Zambia. From here Alexandria’s memoir accelerates. She and her older sister, Vanessa, grow up, marry and have kids. Life goes on.

Favorite line, “The world looks better when your belly is full, brighter and more hopeful” (p 184).

Author fact: Fuller is my age.

Book trivia: There are a smattering of black and white photographs of Fuller and her family in Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and a film of the same name was released in 2024.

Personal connection: when Alexandria mentioned the Cat Stevens song “Morning Has Broken” I was immediately transported to my childhood. My piano teacher loved that song and would play it often.

Setlist: “Flower of Scotland,” “Ole, I am a Bandit,” Beatles’ “Yesterday,” “Ipi Tombi,” Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, Chopin, Roger Whittaker’s “I’m Gonna Leave Ole London Town,” “Morning Has Broken,” “D’ya Think I’m Sexy?” Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “Hallelujah,” “Jingle Bells,” Bizet, Puccini, Chopin, Brahms, Debussy, and Rachmaninoff.

BookLust Twist: First, from Book Lust in the chapter called “Dreaming of Africa” (p 76). Then, twice in Book Lust To Go in the chapters “Africa: the Greenest Continent” (p 7) and “Zipping Through Zimbabwe/Roaming Rhodesia” (p 268).

Forward Only

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Watson, David. Forward Only: A Memoir. Self Published, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I am sometimes asked to read interesting books. This is one such book. I would read this one again.

What makes a person land on the illegal side of the law time and time again? What makes a person chose to do the absolute wrong thing each and every chance they get? Sometimes there are people who love them; people who care about them. People who give them the world and still it is not enough.
David Watson lost his grandfather at an age when he needed a father figure the most. It was as if losing his grandfather sent David down a road to perpetual ruin. At age twelve David tried to run away. At age fifteen he stole money from a McDonald’s cash register and went on the run again. After that, it was a series of escapes time and time again. No matter how much his grandmother loved him, David insisted on sometimes stealing from her, lying to her and always letting her down. When David reached dating age he found girlfriends who were willing to be his partner in crime. He latched onto women who would go along with his schemes and scams. Each and every time he would swear this woman was the love of his life. The problem was he did not know how to love. David didn’t know how to be anything but a smooth talker, always wheeling and dealing. Detention, jail, and even years in prison could not stop him. Becoming a father didn’t stop him. Almost being murdered by a Mexican cartel only slowed him down. There was always another scam to be played out. His pattern of hustle was so destructive I couldn’t imagine him ever climbing out of his self imposed hell. His story kept me turning the pages to see what happened next.

If it were not for a cousin who could not or would not (?) stay out of trouble I wouldn’t believe David’s story. It seems impossible that someone could take advantage of the loved ones who are constantly bailing people like this out of sticky situations. But it happens.

Author fact: David Watson has a social media presence.

Book trivia: I don’t know if the final published copy will have photographs, but the ARC did not.

Rogue Entrepreneur

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Krentzel, Elise. Rogue Entrepreneur: Building a Life the World Didn’t Have a Name For. Kumi Books, 2026.

Rogue Entrepreneur is the second book in a trilogy. Under My Skin: Drama Trauma and Rock and Roll was the first. Confessional: I didn’t read it and I probably won’t read the third. So little time for so many books!

What an adventurous life Elise Krentzel has led! There are so many things to unpack in Krentzel’s memoir Rogue Entrepreneur, I am not sure where to begin. Throughout Rogue Entrepreneur she was portrayed as an odd mix of poet and trouble maker; risk taker and romantic. Imagine being taken to court for not following laundry rules in your apartment building or being swindled out of shares of a company she owned with her first husband! Most of Rogue Entrepreneur takes place in the 1980s and 1990s, a era when women were not respected in the music industry (or any business for that matter). Krentzel upped the ante by not only chasing a career in music, but she chose punk as her genre and decided to make a name for herself in Japan. After Japan she moved onto Queens (New York), Switzerland, Germany, Africa and the Netherlands. With the changing times came changing ventures. Krentzel was able to reinvent herself time and time again. She enjoyed challenges and took crazy risks.
I try not to judge an author by the lines they write, but I couldn’t help thinking Krentzel really wanted to emphasis her callousness when she described carelessly leaving one man for another. She wanted to paint the picture of being a hardcore badass. When she had a child at age forty-four, I somehow knew she would end up a single parent.
Even though Krentzel does not frequently orientate her readers to the changing times in Rogue Entrepreneur, her description of the phonebook hanging from a public payphone chain put the timeline into perspective. So did her ability to smoke in the hospital while recovering from peritonitis.
My favorite portion of the book was the advice she gave at the end. She’s not wrong! The was such a fun book that I now want to be friends with her!
I am sure this will be cleaned up in the final edit, but there is some repetition in one of the footnotes, whole sentences were repeated (“Uelie played piano…”) and key words (like a verb) were missing from sentences. I was confused by one inconsistency: Krentzel met Ueli in the spring when flowers were blooming, but says she watched snow falling while at a party that same day. The Land of Mud was as clear as mud to me.

Book trivia: Rogue Entrepreneur should have been published by August 27, 2026.

Music: Al Jolsen, Robert Plant, Bob Geldof, David Bowie, “1-800-273-8255” by Logic, B52s, Baby Grand, the Band, Barry Manilow, the Beatles, Bob Marley and the Wailers’ “Redemption Song,”, Brinkley Schwartz, Bruce Springsteen, Chopin, Earth Wind and Fire’s “That’s the Way of the World,” Eddie and the Hot Rods, Elvis Costello and the Attractions’ “Allison,” Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Tarkus, George Sand, Graham Parker and the Rumours’s “Stick to Me,” “Squeezing Out Sparks,” “Don’t Ask Questions,” “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down,” “Thunder and Rain,” and “Discovering Japan,” Grandmaster Caz, Herc, Iggy Pop, Joe Jackson’s “Black and White,” John Lennon, Kiss, Leif Garrett, Lene Lovich, Masayoshi Takanaka’s “Sexy Dance,” Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” “Champagne and Reffer, and “Honey Bee,” Nick Lowe, Noel Pointer, Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive album, Pink Lady’s “Kiss in the Dark,” the Plastics, Prince, Ryuichi Sakamoto, “Soldier of Love” by Sade, Sex Pistols’ “Never Mind the Bollocks,” Sinead O’Connor’s version of “Nothing Compares 2U,” Steve Khan, the Stranglers, Tot’s “Africa,” Talking Heads, Whipper Whip, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and Yoko Ono.

Among the White Moon Faces

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Lim, Shirley Geok-Lin. Among the White Moon Faces: an Asian-American Memoir of Homelands. The Feminist Press, 1996.

Reason read: Merdeka Day is in August. In 1957 the Federation of Malaya received its independence and became a sovereign state. Read in honor of that event.

Lim begins her memoir with the introspective commentary on her sense of self – the name with which she most identifies, but ends the introduction by saying she found her identity wrapped up in the women who shaped her entire life. She did not have an easy childhood. She lacked women role models to teach her how to be feminine. Her first time wearing a bra reminded me of my own foray into adult garments.
Confessional: I had a hard time reading Among the White Moon Faces. Lim had a tug of war with chronology; going back and forth in time. One minute Lim is making excuses for the Hokkien language, the next she is describing Ah Chan, their servant. Next, Lim has memories of her mother’s appearance but moves quickly to stories of her grandfather or the Tan Family. All along she interrupts herself to ask questions we as readers cannot answer.
Despite the leapfrogging of the timeline, I appreciated Lim’s honesty. Growing up, she was no angel. She admitted to changing grades on a report card and lying about where she was on Friday nights. As the story progressed I lost track of Lim’s age when her father and a nurse scrubbed her body clean. No one had ever taught her her to clean…anything.
Throughout Among the White Moon Faces Lim struggles with abandonment. Her mother left the family early on. Father would bring his dates home and ignore his children. Interspersed in this honest narrative Lim makes commentaries on British colonialism and American waste. She steps away from her memories to voice her opinions about corrupt cultures.
By the end of Among the White Moon Faces I admired Lim for her determination to make something of herself in a very competitive academic society.

Line I liked a lot, “Nurturing is a human act that overleaps categories, but is not free of history” (p 67), and “There were more ways to be a poet than sit still beneath his judgment” (p 144).

Author fact: Geok-Lin also wrote Joss and Gold which I am scheduled to read at some point.

Book trivia: there is a small collection of black and white photographs in Among the White Moon Faces. There are mostly of Shirley as a child.

Music, “A Summer Place,” “Red Sails in the Sunset,” Elvis Presley, Chubby Checker, “Sixteen Candles,” “Strangers in the Night,” “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” “Jolly Miller,” “O Susanna,” “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain,” James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” “On Top of Old Smoky,” Beatles, “Oh Rosemarie, I Love You So, I’m Always Dreaming of You,” “Mockingbird’s Song,” Everly Brothers, Ali Akbar Khan, Hawaiian Wedding Song, Pat Boone’s “April Love,” “Ye Banks and Braes of Bonne Doon,” “The Minstrel Boy,” and Bill Haley and His Comets.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called simply, “Malaysia” (p 40).

In My Father’s Footsteps

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Matthews, Sebastian. In My Father’s Footsteps. W.W. Norton & Company, 2004

Reason read: Matthews was born in August. Read in his honor.

How do you pay homage to a person who repeatedly broke your heart and let you down as a child; a good guy with harmful tendencies in adulthood? Sebastian Matthews, by turns loved and looked to respect his father. From an early age, father and son had a complicated relationship. When William Matthews died of a heart attack at just 55 it was a shock, but no one was surprised. A womanizer, a drinker, and a smoker (and maybe a midnight toker), Matthews senior was a force to be reckoned with. In My Father’s Footsteps is aptly named for Sebastian followed closely behind his father: a lifelong jazz enthusiast, becoming a writer, and poet unable to commit to any relationship for more than a few dates. Deeply buried resentments over the divorce of his parents; standing in the shadow of his father’s brilliance as a poet and professor; trying to understand the complexity of his inheritance, Matthews carefully picks his way through the emotions to share a loving, yet brutally honest tribute to his father.

Confessional: there was a part of Matthews’s story when he was watching father and son bricklayers build a wall. It reminded me of an earlier story I read about a son following in his father’s footsteps as a bricklayer until he found science.

Author fact: I want to believe Sebastian has found happiness in marriage and fatherhood. As of the publication of In My Father’s Footsteps he still lived in Asheville.

Book trivia: both of Matthews’s parents were poets. At times Matthews would put poetry from each parent side by side.

As an aside, when the police were at Matthews’s father’s apartment they went from room to room turning on lights. Why don’t do they do that in the movies?

Personal connection: Dying alone requires the procurement of a court order before gaining permanent access to the deceased residence. If you die in public, even if it is of natural causes, your body is considered a crime scene and cannot be moved until fully investigated.

Setlist: James Taylor, Cowboy Junkies. Indigo Girls, Joni Mitchell’s Hejira album, Tommy Flanagan, Booker Erwin, John Handy, Carnell Jones, Horace Silver’s “Song for My Father,” Gerry Mulligan, Joe Henderson, Alfredo Kraus, Elton John’s “Your Song,” Bob Dylan’s “On a night Like This” “Idiot Wind,” “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” “Shelter From the Storm,” and “Blood on the Tracks,” Mozart, Ella Fitzgerald, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Duke Ellington’s “Cottontail,” “Amazing Grace,” Bach, Miles Davis’s “Flamenco Sketches,” Tallest Trees album, “All Blues,” and “Kind of Blue,” Bob Marley’s Babylon By Bus album, Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section, John Coltrane, Stan Getz’s “Sweet Rain,” the Jazz Messengers, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Lester Young, Earl Hines, Mal Waldron, Billie Holiday’s “I Can’t Get Started,” and “Miss Brown to You,” John Bunch Trio, Charlie Mingus’ Alum, “Goodbye Porkpie Hat,” and “Better Git It in Your Soul,” Thelonius Monk’s “Round Midnight,” Dexter Gordon, JJ Johnson, Bud Power, “Some Other Spring,” Getz and Gilberto’s “Girl from Ipanema,” Prince, Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Grateful Dead, Anita O’Day, the Police’s Zenyatta Mondatta album, “Easy Living,” “Let’s Get It On,” and “John Wesley Harding.”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Me, Me, Me: Autobiographies and Memoirs” (p 162).

Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done

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Van den Broeck, Vincent. Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done: How the Life You Build Becomes the Life That Saves You. Publish Nation, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read tragic yet inspirational books. This is one such story.

You get the sense that Vincent’s life was adrift in his younger years. Example: when considering higher education he chose a degree because it sounded impressive. Unbelievably, he did not actually having a clue what it was for. Losing his mother to cancer at a young age must have played a significant part in this drifting. Grief can untether you from reality. It wasn’t until he entered the world of hospitality did Vincent begin to shine and really find his focus. He became a workaholic, taking on too much too soon; opening one restaurant after another; drowning in debt. It took an accident that nearly killed him before he was forced to slow down, take stock of his life and find his future.
You will have to read for yourself, but there are some really beautiful sentences and phrases in Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done. So much so that I wanted more of the story. It was too short! I wanted to hear more. Imagine a bumblebee darting from one fragrant flower to another; never taking the time to linger on one bloom for very long. Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done is a bumblebee of a story. Vincent never digs into the details of his life more than he needs to…but I wish he did.
As an aside, Vincent called the accident inevitable. I want to know why was it inevitable? Instead, I argue that our system for dealing with reckless or illegal drivers is tragically flawed. If it wasn’t, the driver who struck Vincent would not have been driving at all. Think about it. The driver was dangerous enough before Vincent’s accident to have his license taken away. We can do better as a society.

Book trivia: in the advance copy I received Everything Feels Impossible Until It’s Done did not include photographs. I would have liked to see the restaurant or meet his amazing wife.

Small Tree in a Texas Hurricane

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Benson, Robert Henry. A Small Tree in a Texas Hurricane: a Memoir. Pauraque Ridge Press, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read moving memoirs. This is one such book.

Benson makes you feel as though the two of you are sitting on a big wraparound porch in the summertime gloaming. As darkness grows and we can no longer see each other’s face the mood turns somber; the words become quiet confessional. There is a great deal Benson wants to share in A Small Tree in Texas Hurricane. His childhood and early adolescence was not easy. Peeling back the layers of his father’s volatile personality Benson reveals a hair trigger temper followed by outbursts of violence and crime. Poverty was a constant. Benson had the potential to follow in his father’s hothead footsteps, but through gritty perseverance he chose a different path. Earning a Ph.D in Physics seems an unlikely success for a bricklayer and one-time high school dropout.
Benson’s story is remarkable, but what I appreciated more was the way with words Benson has. He may have a Ph.D. in Physics, but his real talent is writing. I inhaled this book.

As with any advance reader copy, there were a few typos here and there such as quotation marks where they did not belong and a handful misspelled words.

Music: “A Boy Named Sue,” Paul Anka’s “And They Call It Puppy Love,” and “Away in a Manager.”

Italian Neighbors

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Parks, Tim. Italian Neighbors: or, A Lapsed Anglo-Saxon in Verona. Grove Weidenfeld, 1992.

Reason read: the Arena di Verona festival is held every June. Here is something cool: while I was in Verona we walked by the amphitheater while they were busy setting up.

Tim Parks takes you on an Italian journey where every mundane experience comes alive in vivid detail. From the moment he and his wife move into the apartment inhabited by the belongings of ghosts thirty years passed to learning that all beverages have their time slots (order your cappuccino before 10:30am), Parks will have you giggling with delight on the outskirts of Verona. At the same time as delivering humor, Parks also brings the beauty of the region with cherry blossoms in spring and the sharp white peaks of the Alps piercing the bright blue sky. Doesn’t it all sounds so magical?
Parks takes you by the hand and leads you through various instances of Italian customs and cultures. Taxes. Death. And speaking of death, take cemeteries for example. Sometimes loved ones are moved from their final resting place. As Parks says, “They come to find their loved ones and discover the grave is gone” (p 144). I would not have believed him until I experienced this for myself. I went with friends to a cemetery in Udine. We were looking for a long-deceased uncle. Row after row of photographs of loved ones smiling out at me from the grave, but we could not find Giuseppe. The family shrugged and nonchalantly declared he must have been moved or removed. They then wandered away from the place he should have been, discussing what to have for lunch.
Another example: driving in Italy. Parks paints an action movie picture of racing through winding and narrow lanes with walls on either side; just room enough to barely clear the sideview mirrors. All the while another motorist is following you too closely to avoid an accident should you stop short. As so often with all of Italy, the picturesque is juxtaposed with the sharp edge of danger. This much is clear.
Italian Neighbors was such a delight to read that I cannot wait for the sequel, An Italian Education.

Confessional: I now want to stay in Montecchio. According to Tim Parks, June is the month to go because of all the poppies in bloom. Sounds wonderful.

Line I liked (and there were a bunch), “A test of the extent of your Italianization is whether you still grind your teeth when you hear that something has closed” (p 262). I picked this sentence as my favorite because after driving nearly two hours when we arrived in Florence we discovered the park closed at two. We arrived at 2:02pm.

Author fact: Parks returns to the subject of Verona in A Season With Verona which is on my Challenge list, along with An Italian Education and Juggling the Stars.

Book trivia: I really wished there had been photographs in Italian Neighbors.

Music (I think): “On the Bridge at Bassano We Hold Hands” and Ave Maria.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the simple chapter called “Verona” (p 243).

Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground

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Parkview, Alex. Broken Mirrors, Steady Ground: Self Published, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review program I often read heartbreaking books. This is one such book.

I am writing this the day after Memorial Day; the day to remember, honor, and thank the military men and women who have served or are currently serving our country. In Broken Mirrors Parkview (obviously a pseudonym) bares his soul to release demons and pain. After serving several tours in Iraq Parkview came home a broken man. A soldier is not supposed to show weakness or vulnerability. A soldier is supposed to be made of Kevlar for strength and Teflon for resilience. Nothing fazes a soldier. Parkview is all Kevlar and Teflon. But, he suffered abuse long before Iraq. Drinking Wild Turkey and smoking before the age of fifteen; becoming sexually active at the age of nine. These things can damage a young person beyond repair. He spends considerable time trying to find his place in the world after the military, both physically and mentally.
Broken Mirrors has a few broken records. Parkview mentions sexual situations in a way that makes me sense he used physical intimacy as a drug to mask pain. He was addicted to hiding his true self with women. As an aside, when Parkview wasn’t crudely talking about sex his writing was beautiful and almost lyrical. There were many good lines that I hope make it into the final publication.
The was a very slim volume with wide margins so it made for a very quick read. I was able to finish it in one sitting. I will probably read it again. Maybe I’ll see something different a second time around.
As an aside, I hope Parkview learned that broken relationships are most likely the result of an inability to truly love yourself. Like that oxygen mask you are supposed to put on before helping others, you are no good to anyone else without caring for yourself first.

Playlist: Soul Asylum’s “Runaway Train,” Cat Stevens’s “Father and Son,” Harry Chapin, and Kesha’s “Cathedral.”

Drummer Girl

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Noel, Sarah. Drummer Girl: How I Became Metal, a Memoir. Self Published, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of LibraryThing’s Early Review Program I like discovering people. Sarah Noel seems like an interesting one.

Confessional: it took me a little while to get into Drummer Girl. Sarah’s writing style conveys a hurried urgency – as if she is impatient to get out every little detail of her her story as quickly as possible…in a soap opera, teenaged rambling sort of way. She seems to be trying to portray the raw and honest account of a naive musician, struggling to find her place not only in the music industry but within a circle of so-called bandmates/friends. The latter takes dominance in the story. By the third time she was kicked out of the first band I would have said good riddance to the entire lot of them. It is hard to say what made her be the glutton for the verbal abuses they peppered her with every time they wanted to have a discussion. Their main beef was that she was not progressing as a drummer, but they had some choice words about her attitude as well. If you are metal aren’t you supposed to have an attitude?
As mentioned before, I felt the pace of the story moved quickly and without substance mostly because a fair amount was copied verbatim MySpace messages and texts. The vibe was Coming of Age California Style. First band. First car. First grown up job. Lots of gossip and raw deals. While the music didn’t last I was encouraged that Sarah remained open minded and kept trying.
Drummer Girl includes two sections of photographs and as an aside, if you search around YouTube you can find a video or two of Sarah’s bands.

As this is a book about music I would expect nothing less than an extensive list of songs and bands. I was not disappointed: Metallica’s “Seek and Destroy,” Black Sabbath’s “Snowblind,”, Korn, Radiohead’s “Karma Police,” No Doubt, Iggy Pop, Children of Bodon, “Strutter” by Kiss, Kurt Cobain, Beatles, 1812 Overture, Coldplay, Lamb of God, Arch Enemy, System of a Down, Django Reinhadt, and Nena’s “99 Luftballons.”

Shooting Up

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Tepper, Jonathan. Shooting Up: a Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction. Infinite Books, 2026.

Reason read: as a member of the Early Review Program I often get to read touching stories. This is high on my list.

What is Shooting Up really about? I could say it is an autobiography of Jonathan Tepper’s upbringing and educational rise to Rhodes Scholar. I could say it is a commentary on addiction and the destruction it caused in the early stages of the AIDS epidemic. I could say it is a graceful memoir about grief and all its complicated layers. Shooting Up is all of those things and more.
Jonathan Tepper’s parents exposed their four sons to a variety of situations other parents would consider disturbing. As missionaries in 1980s Spain, Elliot and Mary Tepper focused their work on serving the addicted population. Mature beyond his years, ex-junkies taught their son, Jonathan, the terminology used for buying heroin and how to make crack. As a child Jonathan could recognize the telltale needle tracks and bruises of users. With addiction leading the way, the AIDS epidemic was not far behind, but in addition to overdoses and AIDS, Tepper’s parents saturated their household with literature and music. The entire family was well-read and all four children had big dreams. Literature was a lasting and large part of all of their lives. Being well-read helped Tepper become a Rhodes Scholar, but I am getting ahead of myself. Tepper’s father, Elliot, read St Augustine’s Confessions and Dag Hammarskjold’s Marking to his four boys and wife at dinner time. Homer, T.E. Lawrence, Dante, John Bunyan, Saint Augustine, Virgil, George Muller, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne…I could go on and on. Tepper astutely says, “a great book had the power to change us and shake us to our core” (p 79). Amen.
My favorite section of Shooting Up was Tepper’s childhood. He captured his innocence perfectly. It is as if his childhood was frozen in time like an insect in amber. As an aside, Tepper had some pretty profound comments to make about grief that I absolutely loved.

Music: So much good stuff mentioned in Shooting Up : Aaron Copland’s Billy the Kid, Beach Boy’s “Barbara Ann,” Bix Beiderbecke, Bob Dylan, Branford Marsalis, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Chet Baker, Chuck Berry, Counting Crows, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddy Mercury, Goo Goo Dolls, Iron Maiden, Joan Baez’s “Forever Young,” and “One of Us,” John Coltrane, Louis Armstrong’s “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South,” Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” Mingus’s “Better Get In In Your Soul,” Miles Davis, Mahler, Milli Vanilli, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails, “Para mi rey,” Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Rolling Stones, Stan Getz, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Wayne Shorter, and Wynton Marsalis.

In His Absence

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Wiley-Smith, Christopher. In His Absence: A Brother, A Life, and What Endures. 2026.

Reason read: As a member of LibraryThing since 2006 I occasionally get to review amazing books for their Early Review Program. This is definitely one such book.

Christopher starts In His Absence by explaining the why of his story. Not only as a way to express grief, but a way to keep his brother Alex, alive in his memories. By sharing Alex’s biography Christopher’s brother is still with him and by default, all of us…even as strangers.
From an early age, Alex had a deep sense of mistrust. Maybe it started with the neighbor who passed away when the brothers were really young. Or maybe it was the father with anger issues which could flare up at any time and often without warning. It seems probable that their parents contentious and sometimes violent divorce had a hand in Alex’s troubled childhood; the dissolvement of the relationship was threatening enough to involve a restraining order. Maybe the drama was one of the reasons Alex resorted to physical violence that went beyond the typical dust-up between brothers; smashing rotary phones into his brother’s face or spraying him with mace. No matter the origin of Alex’s troubles, they only increased as he got older.
Even as Alex moved into adulthood and was making a name for himself in the tech industry his demons relentlessly stalked him. It just goes to show you how someone could have an outward appearance of success but actually be failing on the inside. Thoughts of suicide whispered until they became a scream of reality. This is a well-written but heartbreaking story.

As an aside, Wiley-Smith tells the story of a neighbor who passed away. Later in the story Wiley-Smith’s mother takes in another elderly neighbor who ends up dying in their home. Are these one and the same women? Another headscratcher was the trial about this selfsame neighbor. Wiley-Smith testified to the woman’s last will and testament but I missed the outcome somehow.

Book trivia: I was pleasantly surprised by the plethora of photographs barely ten pages into In His Absence. An added bonus is that a great deal of the photos are in color. I am not sure why, but I took the number of photographs as a sign that Wiley-Smith had nothing to hide.
There is a little repetition with a paragraph on page 144. The same paragraph is printed twice. Same for pages 220 and 242.

Music: “Happy Birthday,” MC Hammer, “Be Careful Little Eyes,” Paula Abdul, “Jesus Loves Me,” “This Little Light Of Mine,” “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Motley Crue’s “Doctor Feelgood,” Lady Gaga, Usher, Tupac Shakur, Cold, Korn,

Confessional: Wiley-Smith remembers the sting of losing an X-Wing fighter to another kid. When I was of a similar age I picked the wrong hand holding a rope bracelet. To this day, not winning the bracelet stings.

Deeper confessional: I think I could talk grief with Wiley-Smith. I share the same philosophy that remembrance is an act of devotion. I adore someone two years departed. I never do this. they say there is a first time for everything. This is my remembrance of Nash:
This is How I Remember
If I order your favorite food it is because I want to have another meal with you.
I will always remember how you take your coffee.
If I wear your cast-off clothes it is because I want another hug.
I will always remember being in the warmth of your rib-cracking arms.
If I want to spend time with your family it is because I want to see the resemblance.
Will I catch a glimpse of you?
I will always remember your smile.
If I listened to your music it is because I might hear you sing.
I will always remember the laughter in the lyrics.
If I talk about you it is my ways of keeping your memory alive.
If I talk about you I hope the listener will let me go on and on and on.
This is how I remember you.
And remember you, I will. Always.

Breaking the Barnyard Barrier

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Rhodes, Linda. Breaking the Barnyard Barrier: A Woman Veterinarian Paves the Way. University of Nevada Press, 2026.

Reason read: As a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to real really interesting books. This is one of those books.

The year is 1975 Mormon Utah and six months after graduation Linda Rhodes is surrounded by a bunch of worried men and a very pregnant cow trying to give birth to a breeched 150 pound bull calf. The men in the room are not used to a woman taking charge of what is normally their world and, despite it being the middle of the night, their discomfort is palpable. I cannot imagine the pressure Rhodes must have been feeling. Her student loans were coming due and this internship was her one shot to prove she could be a capable large animal veterinarian. This is how readers are introduced to Linda and her memoir, Breaking the Barnyard Barrier.
Throughout Linda’s fight to become a large animal veterinarian she had to endure sexist comments about sewing being a “girl thing” and being called a little lady or dear. The university where she interned did not have a changing room for women. And speaking of clothes, Rhodes had to dress feminine for her interview despite the position being a farm job.
At the same time as trying to prove herself in a man’s world, Linda juggled a long-distance marriage and ailing parents. Her support system was across the country and could do very little to help.
The unexpected bonus of reading Breaking the Barnyard Barrier was learning more about Utah (the roads are numbered in relationship to how far away the towns are from the Temple) and Mormons (they do not drink coffee or have anything to do with the beverage. You can be disowned for drinking coffee!). I also appreciated the black and white photographs. Utah is beautiful.
I truly enjoyed Breaking the Barnyard Barrier and I hope Rhodes writes again. I’m sure there are plenty more stories she could tell.
As an aside, is it standard to ask a new veterinarian to put a nose ring on a bull? Linda is tested with such a task and if I remember correctly, so was James Harriet in All Creatures Great and Small.

This has got to be one of the coolest playlists yet: Jackson Browne’s “Running On Empty,” Joan Baez, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” Doc Watson, Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Oh Death,” the Grateful Dead, “Home On the Range,” Joni Mitchell, Dave Brubeck, “Ukulele Lady,” “Somebody Stole My Gal,” Jim Kweskin, and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”

Stray

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O’Brien, Shannon. Stray. Roam Light Publishing, 2025.

Reason: as a member of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read fun books. This is one such book.

When her ex-boyfriend John committed suicide in 2006, his sudden death prompted Shannon O’Brien to live her life a little differently: she became more fully aware of life passing her by. She decided to see the world with eyes wide open and a promise to be ready for anything. For more than fifteen years she has been doing exactly that. As a Lonely Planet enthusiast she planned to to spend six months in South America, traveling through Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Bolivia.
Shannon kicks off Stray with her best friend and a tour of La Paz’s famous prison (and tourist attraction) where the prisoners give tours and rule the prison. In Bolivia the pair volunteer for Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi – a nonprofit deep in the jungle which cares for exotic animals of all kinds. Fun fact: O’Brien was in charge of feeding twenty spider monkeys. Next, she and a new travel companion named Noah get lost hiking in a canyon without food or water. They celebrate their survival with a trip to Argentina to rent bicycles and drink Malbec and fernet con cocoa before moving on to the Australian Outback for a year. After Noah came teaching in Nepal and experiencing the Teej festival. After meeting Xander, it’s to India in time for the Diwali festival. Her experiences in Thailand are harrowing. Then she meets Blake in Cambodia. They travel to Thailand before partying and paying for it in Portugal. Where she ended up is anyone’s guess. The story ends there.
What I appreciated most was that throughout Stray Shannon displays a deep knowledge about the cultures and histories of each region she visits. While it took me a very long to finish Stray is/was enjoyable.

As an aside, some of Shannon’s details didn’t make sense to me. For example, it seemed as if she and her family (father and sister) were staying in a little town two hours south of Bangkok. When her sister and father had a tragic swimming accident Shannon traveled between Hua Hin and a Bangkok hospital to see them. Does that mean she spent four hours a day going back and forth between the two Thai towns?

Music: The Doors, The Who, U2, Dark Angels, Los Blinkers, Fleetwood Mac, Arctic Monkeys, Backstreet Boys, “Sexual Healing,” and Keith Richards.

Something Else

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Simko, Lukas. Something Else: Words that Remember, Stories that Awaken. Independent Publicist, 2025.

Reason read: as part of the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I get to read books that sometimes move me. This is one of those books.

The fastest review I could write about Something Else is to say it is a memoir about an individual wanting to find true love. Lukas Simko’s story begins when he is a thirty-two year old graduate looking for work. He meets a girl who over time showed all the classic signs of an abuser. She was controlling and manipulative and I found myself wishing he would have seen the signs earlier. Right away I felt Simko is someone who has the potential to fall hard and fast for a romantic relationship. He believes in taking chances and embracing adventure wherever it may take him.
Then there was Macy. She was clear she did not an emotional relationship, but Lukas started to like her more and more “without permission.” Interesting choice of words. This time around Simko noticed the signs of a relationship dying as Macy started to distance herself from him.
Next came Jaya. Lukas felt an instant connection with her for they had a great deal in common and almost seemed to be soul mates. She even took him in as a roommate without really knowing him. Once again Lukas became involved with a woman who did not want to be tied down with anything emotional. To say Jaya was complicated is an understatement. She often sent mixed signals and seemed to be confused about what she really wanted from Simko. One minute she was communicating as if she cared deeply; the next she felt it necessary to block Simko on social media (twice).
In the end, Simko emerged a stronger person. He was able to see the beauty in each failed relationship. As an aside, I think of it as the particle theory. You get what you need from each relationship whether that relationship withstands the test of time or not.

Confessional: I did not understand Ireland’s employment situation. Lukas requested three weeks off under the guise of taking care of a grandmother. Instead, he was rewarded with 3 1/2 months off, but the kicker was he had to go on leave when they told him to. I thought he was working in a remote IT position.
A more personal confessional: Simko went four months without talking to Jaya. Try five years! That’s how long I went without speaking to someone who meant the world to me.

As an aside, I learned a new word, “craic.”

Music: “Misty Mountains” by Leyna Robinson-Stone.