A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943) by Betty Smith. Sentimental, melodramatic, but also supremely evocative of a time long past, "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" is one of those books that you read and never forget. It tells the story of Francie Nolan, a girl coming of age in the first two decades of the 20th Century. She lives in the slums of Brooklyn, and on reading the book, one gets the feeling that that's the way things were -- that the author was really there, as indeed she was. Smith has said that she wrote the book, not as it was, but as it should have been. There has been much debate about what she meant -- how much of what she describes in "Tree" really happened, and how much is made up? But it scarcely matters. The book is profoundly satisfying, a true classic of American literature. Grade: A

Lit

Lit (2009) by Mary Karr. The author of "The Liar's Club" and "Cherry" here goes into detail about her life after the events told in the first two books. "That's the story I want to tell:" she writes, "how I started getting drunk. How being drunk got increasingly hard, and being not drunk felt impossible." And this is the story she tells -- how, improbably, she became an alcoholic, and yet managed to sustain a career as a college teacher and author through all the struggle. How, somehow, good things came her way, how she learned to be sober, and how she found God. In writing the book, she adopts a poetic style, which at times makes for slow reading. The book is worth reading, however, to find out more about what happened in this fascinating life. As for myself, I'm going back and reading "The Liar's Club" again as soon as possible. Grade: B+

Official Book Club Selection

Official Book Club Selection by Kathy Griffin. Griffin will be familiar to many TV viewers as the potty-mouthed redhead who pops up here and there on talk shows and who has her own show on Bravo called "My Life on the D-List." Her memoir is, in effect, her life so far, and it has some interesting facets. She has definitely scrabbled her way up the Hollywood ladder, only to find herself desperately clinging to the bottom rungs. And yet she is quite a success, a hard worker, and has accumulated a respectable amount of material rewards. What she is, above all, is funny. And entertaining. For the most part, the book kept my interest, and it wasn't until the final two chapters that I started skimming. I have always been aware of Kathy Griffin, at least since she co-starred in "Suddenly Susan," and I find her a fascinating character -- all the more so since reading her book. Grade: B

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (2009) by Rhoda Janzen. Raised as a Mennonite, Janzen writes with intelligence, humor and insight about what it is like to grow up in a Mennonite world, then choose to join society at large. The book begins when she is already in midlife, having been dumped by her husband (who chooses another man named Bob whom he met on Gay.com), and following that up with a serious automobile accident. She decides it is time to go back home, and that means moving back in with her Mennonite mother and father. It's a very amusing book, and readers will come away from it with a heightened knowledge of just who and what a Mennonite is. Grade: A-