Maya Angelou’s first autobiographical installment, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, is widely considered to be the best of her series of autobiographies. Nominated for a National Book Award in 1970, this work has been a staple of high school reading lists, and banned book lists, for several decades. It is a beautifully written recollection of Angelou’s childhood, from the time she and her older brother were sent alone by train to Stamps, Arkansas, to live with their grandmother (Angelou was 5) until Angelou, […]
Fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles
The Princess Bride is my favourite film. Probably of all time. Ask me to name my favourite book, and I really wouldn’t be able to choose, as that would very much depend on genre, my mood, the weather, what I’d eaten recently and I would frankly have trouble even narrowing down a top 10. But my favourite film is The Princess Bride. I have loved it since I first discovered it back in the late 80s (or possibly very early 90s, I can’t say exactly), […]
I feel sort of guilty that I didn’t connect with this more
The two volumes of Maus are Art Spiegelman’s attempts to document the struggles of his parents before and during the Second World War, as well as his not always harmonious relationship with his elderly father. The framing narrative shows Art interviewing his father Vladek about his recollections of the time before and during the war, as well as trying to deal with his temperamental parent, despite their many differences. The illustrations are famous and the subject matter is, of course, very worthy. So why didn’t […]
Yes Please! Thank you!
My 26th review puts me at a half-Cannonball AND means I’ve now doubled the amount of books that I read last year. Go me! I’ve been trying to branch out and read some biographies of smart, badass women. I read Tina Fey’s book Bossypants earlier this year and loved it in a way very similar to the way I love this one. The reason these two are close friends is obvious. They have similarities that run deep and are very supportive of each other. […]