Girl in a band

by Kim Gordon     (Get the Book)
The title of this very fine memoir is understated. The “girl” in question is the guitarist and vocalist of the alt-rock band Sonic Youth, which Gordon and Thurston Moore founded in 1981. Gordon’s chronicle of her youth in Los Angeles, with stays in Hawaii and Hong Kong, is infused with melancholy, because underlying the narrative is the fact that Gordon and Moore married, then painfully broke up. Girl in a Band is also an account of places that no longer exist, such as gritty 1980s New York. Gordon is vulnerable, likable, and humble, a shy and introspective outsider; despite playing in a band for 30 years, she never really considered herself a musician. She writes about her first mentor, John Knight, a conceptual artist who taught her that anything could be viewed in aesthetic terms, and friends and colleagues, including Andy Warhol, Kurt Cobain, and Courtney Love, with great sensitivity. A remarkably astute and observant memoir and tale of finding one’s place in the world, this is a must for Sonic Youth fans and all outsiders-at-heart. --Booklist

The short and tragic life of Robert Peace : a brilliant young man who left Newark for the Ivy League

by Jeff Hobbs      (Get the Book)
Rob Peace’s father was a very bright drug dealer who served time for murder, leaving Rob in the care of a hardworking mother who wanted more for him than the tough streets of Orange, New Jersey, could provide. Peace started private school in fourth grade, just as his father’s trial was beginning, and developed elaborate emotional and psychological strategies to navigate the neighborhood and “Newark-proof” himself. In high school, he undertook ponderous research to prove his father’s innocence and eventually won a temporary reprieve on a technicality. His brilliance attracted the attention of a benefactor who made it possible for Peace to go to Yale, where he met and roomed with Hobbs. Peace majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, worked in the dining hall and biology lab, and sold drugs on the side. In a whirlwind of travel, philosophizing, and caretaking of others, Peace navigated the clashing cultures of urban poverty and Ivy League privilege, never quite finding a place where his particular brand of nerdiness and cool could coexist. His dreams and his reality collided when he was killed at 30 years of age in a drug dispute. Attending Peace’s funeral, Hobbs was struck by the dichotomies of his old roommate’s life and set out to offer a full picture of a very complicated individual. Writing with the intimacy of a close friend, Hobbs slowly reveals Peace as far more than a cliché of amazing potential squandered.   --Booklist

Joe Black : more than a Dodger / Martha Jo Black

by Martha Jo Black    (Get the Book)

After pitching for years in the Negro Leagues and in Cuba, Joe Black finally joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952 as a 28-year-old rookie and went on to become the National League rookie of the year and win the first game of the World Series, ensuring his place in baseball history as the first African American to win a World Series game. This biography was written by his daughter with an able assist from 33-year AP and UPI journalist Schoffner. Though Black’s baseball star burned briefly—he won only 15 games after his rookie season—he went on to a successful career in business and teaching. The author also delves into her father’s personal and family life in a well-rounded, affectionate, and reasonably objective look into a baseball and business pioneer. An overlooked slice of baseball and African American history.  --Booklist

Life in motion : an unlikely ballerina

by Misty Copeland       (Get the Book)If you'd asked Copeland, soloist for the American Ballet Theatre, when she was a young African American teenager about her vision of the future, she would probably have said that the only thing less likely than her writing a memoir was her becoming a world-class ballerina. But when a teacher encouraged 13-year-old Misty to take ballet at the Boys and Girls Club of Los Angeles, she discovered a hidden talent. Her natural flexibility and grace had her on pointe within two months, something other ballerinas work years to achieve. She was offered lead roles before finishing high school. Her professional success is impressive, but it's not what makes her memoir such an unexpected page-turner. After all, we already know Copeland will overcome racial and socioeconomic bias to claim her spotlight. What keeps us reading is Copeland's intelligent, fair, and warm voice. She speaks with candor about having to lose her luscious curves and cover herself with white makeup to look more acceptable on stage, but she never places blame on those who asked her to do so. Her story is an inspiration to anyone man or woman, black or white who has ever chased a dream against the odds, and the grace with which she triumphs is an example for us all. --Booklist

More love (less panic) : 7 lessons I learned about life, love, and parenting after we adopted our son from Ethiopia

by Claude Knobler      (Get the Book)
Memoir meets self-help in Knobler's enjoyable account of life as an adoptive father. Knobler and his wife had two "perfectly good" biological children, ages four and six, when, moved by an article about AIDS orphans in Africa, they decided to adopt. After the couple spent months navigating through government red tape, they took in five-year-old Nati, whose mother was HIV positive. Nati instantly upended stay-at-home dad Knobler's feeling of being in control of his household. Through this experience, he learned to think more about what was right for his own kids, and less about what American middle-class consumer culture says is best. Knobler's tone is straightforwardly disarming, as when he reveals that his mother, having spent his "entire life frantically trying to find a nice Jewish girl for me to marry so that I could give her nice Jewish grandchildren," was now ill at ease about having an Ethiopian grandchild. This wise account has the potential to reach a large parental audience-not just dads, and not just adoptive parents. --Publisher's Weekly

Unbroken : a World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

by Laura Hillenbrand     (Get the Book)
A second book by the author of Seabiscuit (2001) would get noticed, even if it weren't the enthralling and often grim story of Louie Zamperini. An Olympic runner during the 1930s, he flew B-24s during WWII. Taken prisoner by the Japanese, he endured a captivity harsh even by Japanese standards and was a physical and mental wreck at the end of the war. He was saved by the influence of Billy Graham, who inspired him to turn his life around, and afterward devoted himself to evangelical speeches and founding boys' camps. Still alive at 93, Zamperini now works with those Japanese individuals and groups who accept responsibility for Japanese mistreatment of POWs and wish to see Japan and the U.S. reconciled. He submitted to 75 interviews with the author as well as contributing a large mass of personal records. Fortunately, the author's skills are as polished as ever, and like its predecessor, this book has an impossible-to-put-down quality that one commonly associates with good thrillers. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: This departure from the author's previous best-seller will nevertheless be promoted as necessary reading for the many folks who enjoyed the first one or its movie version. --Booklist

by Amy Poehler     (Get the Book)
This book is heavy. Literally heavy, as in surprisingly hard to carry around. Perhaps that's because it's so firmly packed with wit and insight. And all that insight makes it figuratively heavy as well, though you might not notice because of all the wit. Fans of Poehler and her offbeat characters expect her to be outrageous (I'm looking at you, Amber, one-legged, gassy reality star), and there's some of that here, but mostly this is a sweet, funny memoir and a thoughtful look at what it takes to be a woman, a woman in comedy, a divorced woman with children, and, peering into the future, a 90-year-old woman who has plenty of advice to offer middle-aged Amy. In fact, there's lots of advice given here, and it's smart, the kind of stuff your favorite aunt would tell you, albeit, an aunt who once shot a moose on the Weekend Update set while rapping alongside Sarah Palin. She addresses how to treat your career (like a bad boyfriend); how not to torture other women about their life choices; ways to shut people up about your newly single status (Hey, lady, I don't want to fuck your husband). With so much to enjoy and absorb, you may even want to carry this book around, reread it, and underline pertinent-to-your-own-life sentences, which would be perfectly reasonable, except for the fact that it's so darn heavy.   --Booklist