Tag Archives: Memoir

In My Hands Today…

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Two Women Walk into a Bar – Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed, the bestselling author of Wild and Tiny Beautiful Things , finds humor and connection in a poignant short memoir about love, family secrets, and reconciliation.

Twenty-one years after Cheryl Strayed set off on the Pacific Crest Trail to heal from the death of her beloved mother, Cheryl’s mother-in-law, Joan, is given weeks to live.

As she and her husband help see Joan through her final days, Cheryl reckons with their complicated relationship, determined to connect with a woman who both showed her love and (sometimes hilariously) held her at a distance. Cheryl reflects on their two decades together as she comes to a deeper understanding of the secrets and sorrows in Joan’s complicated past. At Joan’s bedside, it’s time to contemplate the challenges they’ve faced, to accept their differences, and to find some healing in goodbye.

In My Hands Today…

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French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France – Tim Moore

Not only is it the world’s largest and most watched sporting event, but also the most fearsome physical challenge ever conceived by man, demanding every last ounce of will and strength, every last drop of blood, sweat, and tears. If ever there was an athletic exploit specifically not for the faint of heart and feeble of limb, this is it. So you might ask, what is Tim Moore doing cycling it?

An extremely good question. Ignoring the pleading dictates of reason and common sense, Moore determined to tackle the Tour de France, all 2,256 miles of it, in the weeks before the professionals entered the stage. This decision was one he would regret for nearly its entire length. But readers–those who now know Moore’s name deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Bill Bryson and Calvin Trillin–will feel otherwise. They are in for a side-splitting treat.

French Revolutions gives us a hilariously unforgettable account of Moore’s attempt to conquer the Tour de France. “Conquer” may not be quite the right word. He cheats when he can, pops the occasional hayfever pill for an ephedrine rush (a fine old Tour tradition), sips cheap wine from his water bottle, and occasionally weeps on the phone to his wife. But along the way he gives readers an account of the race’s colorful history and greatest heroes: Eddy Merckx, Greg Lemond, Lance Armstrong, and even Firmin Lambot, aka the “Lucky Belgian,” who won the race at the age of 36. Fans of the Tour de France will learn why the yellow jersey is yellow, and how cyclists learned to save precious seconds (a race that lasts for three weeks is all about split seconds) by relieving themselves en route. And if that isn’t enough, his account of a rural France tarting itself up for its moment in the spotlight leaves popular quaint descriptions of small towns in Provence in the proverbial dust. If you either love or hate the French, or both, you’ll want to travel along with Time Moore.

In My Hands Today…

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I Hate Your Face …And Other Things I Wish I Could Tell My Coworkers – Connie O’Reyes

Connie has had bad luck with coworkers ever since her lemonade stand partners pushed her out at the age of six.

In her debut collection of humor essays, Connie provides entertainment with hysterical stories about awkward workplace situations, ridiculous coworkers, and enough happy hour cocktails to make you question her life choices.

From low paying high school gigs to “real world” marketing jobs in Chicago, Connie presents stories about life both in and out of the office that will have you laughing out loud in the break room.

In My Hands Today…

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House of Huawei: The Secret History of China’s Most Powerful Company – Eva Dou

On December 1, 2018, Meng Wanzhou, daughter of Ren Zhengfei, founder and CEO of China’s most powerful company, Huawei Technologies, was detained at the request of U.S. authorities as she prepared to board a flight out of Vancouver, Canada. The detention of Huawei’s female scion set the U.S.-China trade skirmish on fire – and, for the first time, revealed the Ren family’s prominence in Beijing’s power structure.

In The Listening State, acclaimed Washington Post reporter Eva Dou exposes the untold story of the rise of Ren Zhengfei and the mysterious family dynasty at the center of Huawei, whose connections to state apparatus reveal a deeper truth about China’s surveillance web and its global ambitions. Through its technologies, Huawei has helped solidify and enforce China’s growing police state, in which outspoken entrepreneurs like Jack Ma have been silenced, tycoons have disappeared, and executives must put patriotism above profit.

Based on over a decade of on-the-ground reporting and an astonishing trove of confidential documents never published in English, The Listening State paints an epic story of familial and political intrigue that shines a clarifying light on how business and government work together in an authoritarian state, and how companies fit into China’s international ambitions under Xi Jinping.

The story of Ren Zhengfei and Huawei exposes the human face of China’s modern security state and gets to the heart of the central questions of the U.S.-China trade How did these turbocharged Chinese companies emerge? Who really controls them? And what does China’s growing surveillance web mean for the Chinese people – and for the rest of the world?

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Expect Great Things!: How the Katharine Gibbs School Revolutionized the American Workplace for Women – Vanda Krefft

A fun and fascinating social history of the famed Katharine Gibbs School, which from the 1910s to the 1960s, trained women for executive secretary positions but surreptitiously was instilling the self-confidence and strategic know-how necessary for them to claim equality, power, and authority in the wider world.

It’s a safe bet that most of the secretaries on the TV series Mad Men would have attended the Katharine Gibbs School in New York City. The iconic institution was in its heyday synonymous with supplying secretaries—always properly attired in heels, ladylike hats, and white gloves—to male executives. In Expect Great Things! Vanda Krefft turns the notion of a “Gibbs girl” on its head, showing us that while the school was getting women who could type 120 words per minute into the C-suite, its more subversive mission was to get them out of the secretarial pool to assume positions of power on the other side of the desk. And Gibbs graduates did just that, paving the way for 21st-century women to succeed in any profession they choose.

Katharine Gibbs was one her own success stories. She started her school when, as a 46-year-old widow, she was left near-broke with two young sons. The school taught typing and stenography but Gibbs also hired accomplished professors from elite colleges to teach academic subjects—it was a well-rounded education that produced early feminists ready to tackle the sexism of their era. “Expect great things!” was her motto and her philosophy. Within a decade she’d opened schools in three elegant locations. With nostalgic period photographs throughout, Expect Great Things! takes us back to Katie Gibbs’s life and tells the stories of the women she influenced. We meet Gibbs graduates who worked for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Howard Hughes, Walt Disney, Marilyn Monroe. Others forged pathfinding roles as an Emmy-winning television star, a women’s rights advisor to four U.S. presidents, a writer of Wonder Woman comic books, the head of the Women’s Marines, a best-selling young adult author, and a U.S. Ambassador.