Tag: Autobiography

Memories of Starobielsk by Jozef Czapski

Memories of Starobielsk by Jozef Czapski

Here is how I last introduced a book by Jozef Czapski: World War II in Europe began when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in the early days of September 1, 1939. Sixteen days later, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east. Less than three weeks later, the Nazis and the Soviets had conquered all of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/12/memories-of-starobielsk-by-jozef-czapski/

Eve’s Hollywood by Eve Babitz

Eve's Hollywood by Eve Babitz

Two things about Eve Babitz and Eve’s Hollywood after she’s gotten done with her dedication that’s eight pages and more names than I cared to count, along with dedicating the book to freeways, sour cream, the girl with the coke, and the color green, plus “the one whose wife would get furious if I so …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/11/05/eves-hollywood-by-eve-babitz/

To Walk It Is To See It by Kathy Elkind (EXCERPT)

subtitled 1 Couple, 98 Days, 1400 Miles On Europe’s GR5. At age 57, Kathy Elkind and her husband decided to take 2018 off from “real life” and take a 1400 mile hike following the Grande Randonnee Cinq across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Her travelogue is absorbing, observant and honest, and we have an …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/10/02/to-walk-it-is-to-see-it-by-kathy-elkind-excerpt/

Memoirs of the Polish Baroque by Jan Chryzostom Pasek

Memoirs of the Polish Baroque

More properly: The Writings of Jan Chryzostom Pasek, a Squire of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania edited, translated, with an introduction and notes by Catherine S. Leach because a title appropriate to the era is important. If Sir John Falstaff walked off of Shakespeare’s stage and wrote his memoirs, they would read a lot …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/16/memoirs-of-the-polish-baroque-by-jan-chryzostom-pasek/

Dog’s Breakfast by Nicole J Georges

This book is quite straightforward about the contents including dog deaths, and I thought I was okay enough to read through all that, given that it’s been over a month since my own brave little Carl passed away. But the combination of Nicole J. Georges’ emotive storytelling and my own fresher-than-I-thought grief conspired to have …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/09/05/dogs-breakfast-by-nicole-j-georges/

Laura Eilers, 1969–2023

Laura B. Eilers, the entirely lovely and often effervescent founder of The Frumious Consortium, died in mid-July — suddenly, absurdly, unexpectedly, and entirely too soon. She built community wherever she went. Frumious began as a project to bring together some of her friends from around the world with a slightly writerly bent, give them a …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/08/12/laura-eilers-1969-2023/

Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Terry Pratchett A Life with Footnotes by Rob Wilkins

Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes is something of a second-hand autobiography. Wilkins was Pratchett’s personal assistant from 2000 until Pratchett’s death in 2015 of a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer’s. He was also in possession of the notes toward an autobiography that Pratchett made but never turned into a full manuscript. As time went …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/23/terry-pratchett-a-life-with-footnotes-by-rob-wilkins/

The Facts Of Life by Paula Knight

Did I look at the fact that Doug and I had just featured five books in a row by men before deliberately picking up this graphic novel created by a woman to read and review? Darn right I did. Bonus for it coming in my recent shipment of sale books from Penn State University Press. …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/06/the-facts-of-life-by-paula-knight/

The Couscous Chronicles by Azzedine T. Downes

Stories Of Food, Love, And Donkeys From A Life Between Cultures. With a foreword by Dr Jane Goodall. I am so glad Azzedine T Downes’ friends persuaded him to write a book about his travels, because this memoir is amazing! Funny and thoughtful, it’s a wonderful debut and hopefully the first of many more fascinating …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/07/03/the-couscous-chronicles-by-azzedine-t-downes/

I Have Something To Tell You―For Young Adults: A Memoir by Chasten Glezman Buttigieg

I’d never had any interest in reading the memoirs of a political spouse till after I picked up this book. It’s an adaptation of Chasten Glezman Buttigieg’s 2021 autobiography, originally written for adults, but with a message that’s so, so necessary for younger readers, too. I mean, even for a grown person like myself who …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2023/05/26/i-have-something-to-tell-you%e2%80%95for-young-adults-a-memoir-by-chasten-glezman-buttigieg/