Memoir | FrogenYozurt.Com - Online Literature Magazine

It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership – Lessons by Colin Powell

On May 23, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, History, Nonfiction, by Editor

It Worked for Me is filled with vivid experiences and lessons learned that have shaped the legendary public service career of the four-star general and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. At its heart are Powell’s “Thirteen Rules”—notes he gathered over the years and that now form the basis of his leadership presentations given throughout the world. Powell’s short but sweet rules—among them, “Get mad, then get over it” and “Share credit”—are illustrated by revealing personal stories that introduce and expand upon his principles for effective leadership: conviction, hard work, and, above all, respect for others. In work and in life, Powell writes, “it’s about how we touch and are touched by the people we meet. It’s all about the people.”

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis – A Book About the Struggle to Keep Faith by Lauren Winner

On May 20, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Religious Studies, by Editor

Witty, relatable, and fiercely honest, Winner lays bare her experience of what she calls the “middle” of the spiritual life. In elegant and spare prose, she explores why—in the midst of the overwhelming anxiety, loneliness, and boredom of her deepest questioning about where (or if) God is—the Christian story still explains who she is better than any other story she’s ever known. Still is an absorbing meditation combining literary grace with spiritual wisdom. It is sure to resonate with anyone looking to sustain a spiritual life in the midst of real life.

Father’s Day: A Journey into the Mind and Heart of My Extraordinary Son by Buzz Bissinger

On May 15, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

As father and son journey from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, they see the best and worst of America and each other. Ultimately, Buzz gains a new and uplifting wisdom, realizing that Zach’s worldview has a sturdy logic of its own: a logic that deserves the greatest respect. And with the help of Zach’s twin, Gerry, Buzz learns an even more vital lesson about Zach: character transcends intellect. We come to see Zach as he truly is: patient, fearless, perceptive, kind—a man of excellent character.

A Sense of Direction: Pilgrimage for the Restless and the Hopeful by Gideon Lewis-Kraus

On May 14, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Essays, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, Travel, by Editor

Irreverent, moving, hilarious, and thought-provoking, A Sense of Direction is Lewis-Kraus’s dazzling riff on the perpetual war between discipline and desire, and its attendant casualties. Across three pilgrimages and many hundreds of miles – the thousand-year-old Camino de Santiago, a solo circuit of eighty-eight Buddhist temples on the Japanese island of Shikoku, and, together with his father and brother, an annual mass migration to the tomb of a famous Hasidic mystic in the Ukraine – he completes an idiosyncratic odyssey to the heart of a family mystery and a human dilemma: How do we come to terms with what has been and what is – and find a way forward, with purpose?

China Hand: An Autobiography (Haney Foundation Series) by John Paton Davies Jr.

On May 13, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, History, Nonfiction, by Editor

At the height of the McCarthyite hysteria of the 1950s, John Paton Davies, Jr., was summoned to the State Department one morning and fired. His offense? The career diplomat had counseled the U.S. government during World War II that the Communist forces in China were poised to take over the country—which they did, in 1949. Davies joined the thousands of others who became the victims of a political maelstrom that engulfed the country and deprived the United States of the wisdom and guidance of an entire generation of East Asian diplomats and scholars.

Moving the Mountain: Beyond Ground Zero to a New Vision of Islam in America by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf

On May 11, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, Religious Studies, by Editor

Muslims in America who reject extremist or fundamentalist expressions of Islam at home and abroad feel the urgent need for a voice that can represent them in the escalating irrationality of the current debate about Islam, America, and the West. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf—the so-called Ground Zero Imam—has become that voice.

This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. by Augusten Burroughs

On May 6, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Health, Mind & Body, by Editor

To say that Augusten Burroughs has lived an unusual life is an understatement. From having no formal education past third grade and being raised by his mother’s psychiatrist in the seventies to enjoying one of the most successful advertising careers of the eighties to experiencing a spectacular downfall and rehab stint in the nineties to having a number one bestselling writing career in the new millennium, Burroughs has faced humiliation, transformation and everything in between.

God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine by Victoria Sweet

On May 4, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Health, Mind & Body, Nonfiction, Social Studies, by Editor

San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God’s hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves-”anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times” and needed extended medical care-ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years.

Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer by Susan Gubar

On May 3, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Nonfiction, by Editor

Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter by Frank Deford

On May 1, 2012, in Biographies & Memoirs, Book Reviews, Essays, Nonfiction, Sports, by Editor

Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter is as unconventional and wide-ranging as Frank Deford’s remarkable career, in which he has chronicled the heroes and the characters of just about every sport in nearly every medium. Deford joinedSports Illustrated in 1962, fresh, and fresh out of Princeton. In 1990, he was Editor-in-Chief of The National Sports Daily, one of the most ambitious—and ill-fated—projects in the history of American print journalism.