A refreshingly human narrative.
A bookstore owner and sometime writer muses on buying books from and selling them to a colorful cast of readers.
As he recounts, Bythell fell into used and antiquarian bookselling in Wigtown, Scotland, as a 30-year-old ex–law student. Like his two previous books, Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of a Bookseller, this narrative—the third in an unofficial series derived from Bythell’s journals—contains a host of droll stories taken from a year of his professional life. The author’s days follow predictable patterns revolving around behind-the-counter sales to at times unusual patrons, order fulfillment for the Random Book Club, or acquisition hunts for tomes by obscure writers or on arcane—but surprisingly bestselling—topics like Freemasonry and heraldry. As in his other books, Bythell rails against online retail sites like Amazon, which are governed by sometimes faulty algorithms that have occasionally suspended his accounts without apparent rhyme or reason. The author’s understated wit is at its best in his observations of the many quirky people who find their way into The Bookshop, Scotland’s largest secondhand bookstore. Some are new to Bythell’s world—e.g., Petra, an Austrian woman who held weekly belly-dancing classes just above the store. Others are returning characters from the author’s previous books, including “Sandy the tattooed pagan,” who “rarely leaves empty-handed,” Granny, the Italian-born bookshop clerk with a fondness for greeting Bythell with the middle finger; and Captain, the author’s scheming, dog-taunting cat. For all the charm inherent in the anecdotes that comprise this book, however, the overall narrative lacks some of the threads that held together his earlier books, such as his relationship with the free-wheeling American Anna. When she does appear, Bythell speaks of her with curious detachment, barely referencing their involvement or its aftermath. This is a minor flaw, however, and the author’s thoughtful eccentricity makes for entertaining reading.
A refreshingly human narrative.Pub Date: Dec. 6, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-56792-756-6
Page Count: 376
Publisher: Godine
Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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