Tag Archives: Memoirs

Talking As Fast As I Can by Lauren Graham

Book Review, , , , ,
Overview
Talking As Fast As I Can

Title: Talking As Fast As I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)
Author: Lauren Graham
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Biographies, Easy reading, Memoirs, Non-fiction, True stories
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Virago
Year: 2016
5th sentence, 74th page: ‘When I co-wrote a pilot about an aspiring late night talk show host, played by me, I had my character (me) speak to a photo of Joan she keeps on her dressing room mirror.

Buy The Book Now at The Book Depository, Free Delivery World Wide
Synopsis

This book contains some stories from my life: the awkward growing-up years, the confusing dating years, the fulfilling working years and what it was like to be asked to play one of my favourite characters again. Also included: tales of living on a houseboat, meeting guys at awards shows and that time I was asked to be a butt model. A hint: all three made me seasick.

Thoughts

I really wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked up this book. Mostly, I just bought it because I am a huge fan of Gilmore Girls, and every interview or article I have read on Lauren Graham is favourable. Beyond that, I really didn’t know what to expect from this novel, and even if it was going to something that I enjoyed reading. But let me tell you – it was one of the best non-fiction reflective pieces that I have ever read!

Combining Lauren Graham’s quirky sense of humour and unique (at least to me) perspective on Hollywood and acting, with her beautifully written prose created an unexpected, beautiful retelling that I look forward to reading again and again and again. Every moment of Graham’s incredible journey is filled with crazy tangents and humorous anecdotes that had me giggling throughout. I loved that she writes the same way as she speaks on screen – both in Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. It is quick, witty and impossible to put away.

Talking as Fast as I Can touches upon so many different aspects of Lauren’s journey and makes her question whether she really ‘made it’. From her first days of acting, to the first days on the set of Gilmore Girls, the story follows a kind of symmetry, with the final words returning to the Gilmore Girls reboot. Providing fantastic insight into Lauren’s life and career is definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience, one that I plan to repeat again.

<- The GapThe Longest Trip ->

Image source: Gamers Sphere

Gogo Mama by Sally Sara

Book Review, , , , , , ,

Overview

gogo-mama

Title: Gogo Mama
Author: Sally Sara
Rating Out of 5: 5 (I will read this again and again and again)
My Bookshelves: Australian authors, Biographies, Feminism, Memoirs, Non-fiction, Strong women, True stories
Pace: Slow
Format: Novel
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Year: 2006
5th sentence, 74th page: If you go to fetch for water or firewood and people start running, you have left your children and run alone.

Synopsis

I’M SITTING IN A $30 HOTEL ROOM IN UGANDA WONDERING WHAT THE HELL I’VE GOT MYSELF INTO. THIS IS DAY ONE OF GOGO MAMA. I DON’T EVEN KNOW ALL THE NAMES OF THE TWELVE WOMEN WHO WILL FILL THIS BOOK; ONLY THE JOURNEY WILL REVEAL THEM.

Gogo Mama is a journey of discovery into the lives of a dozen very different African women. They include the survivor of a brutal attack by Ugandan rebels; an Egyptian belly dancer turned movie star; an escapee from slavery in Ghana; Zanzibar’s most famous living diva; a former child soldier from Liberia; a grandmother fighting AIDS in South Africa; and a pioneering midwife from Timbuktu. They speak with complete candour both about their astonishing experiences and about the way they live now, in some of the most hostile and exotic parts of the continent.

While introducing these inspiring women, award-winning journalist Sally Sara takes us on a trip across Africa, in all its complexity – from the frenetic townships of Johannesburg, to a clifftop village in Mali; from the horror of the frontline of war in Sudan, to the glamour of Cairo nightclubs.

Gogo Mama is a vivid, illuminating and haunting composite picture of an extraordinary land, in the words of the people who know it best.

Thoughts

This story left me feeling… humbled. Just humbled. These twelve women will touch you in a way that you can’t imagine, and their lives set amidst the beauty of Africa are guaranteed to linger in your mind’s eye for years after you close the cover. It is just an incredibly powerful, moving and honest set of stories. The truth is met unflinchingly and without hesitation. Yet, in all of Sara’s interviews, there is no anger and bitterness, rather, a simple acceptance for what has been suffered and an optimism for what they may face in the future.

From a survivor of the Rwandan genocide to a world-famous belly dancer, each of these twelve stories is different and unique. They are insights into another country, another world. One which I can’t even fathom. The range of stories, from the downright depressing, to the uplifting are a fantastic window through which to view such a varied continent. There is no feeling of repetition or even judgement throughout the stories. Sara manages to shine the light on every single experience, use the nuances and feelings from every single interview to weave a textured tale that you will never forget.

Yet, it isn’t just the tales of Sara’s journey and the women whom she had the pleasure of encountering that makes Gogo Mama such an enthralling novel. It is the vivid descriptions of the African countryside, the daily activities that are undertaken in some of the most picturesque landscapes in the world. Picturesque, yet war-torn. The vividness and beauty of the countries plays a haunting note to the tales which are spun by women who, against all odds, have triumphed in their own lives and found a way to carve out their own reality.

<- My Fight / Your FightThe Upside ->

Image source: Goodreads