Book : Not Quite What I Was Planning Six-word Memoirs By...

-Titulo Original : Not Quite What I Was Planning Six-word Memoirs By Writers Famous And Obscure

-Fabricante :

Harper Perennial

-Descripcion Original:

From School Library Journal Adult/High School-The editors of SMITH magazine invited readers to contribute brief life stories in the vein of Hemingways bravura tale, For sale: baby shoes, never worn. The hundreds selected for publication include offerings from children and adults, professional writers, bereaved parents, recovering broken hearts, and people with great pride in showing off their wit. Teens will recognize some of the memoirists, including Janet Tashjian, author of The Gospel According to Larry (Holt, 2001), Ned Vizzini of Its Kind of a Funny Story (Hyperion/Miramax, 2006), and Deepak Chopra. The six words by the latter are followed by a handsome pun penned by his son: Sould out so I could prophet. Some entries include cartoons, self-portraits taken with a camera, or other artwork. The index allows access by topic, some of which are adoption (two entries), coffee (five entries), and love (28 entries). A good combination of inspired, inspiring, and entertaining, this title is eminently browsable and shareable. Its a fine book to offer reluctant readers as well as teens who are interested in creative writing.-Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, Not Quite What I Was Planning is a thousand glimpses of humanity-six words at a time.One Life. Six Words. Whats Yours?When Hemingway famously wrote, For Sale: baby shoes, never worn, he proved that an entire story can be told using a half dozen words. When the online storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers to submit six-word memoirs, they proved a whole, real life can be told this way too. The results are fascinating, hilarious, shocking, and moving.From small sagas of bittersweet romance (Found true love, married someone else) to proud achievements and stinging regrets (After Harvard, had baby with crackhead), these terse true tales relate the diversity of human experience in tasty bite-sized pieces. From authors Jonathan Lethem and Richard Ford to comedians Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell. From Publishers Weekly Can you describe your life in six words? Thats what the editors of storytelling magazine SMITH asked readers in 2006; the results, though decidedly uneven, make for compulsive reading and prove arguably as insightful as any 300 page biography. Taken as a whole, this cascade of quotes from contributors famous and unknown creates a dizzying snowball effect of perspectives and feelings. Highlights from professional writers and artists include journalist Chuck Klosterman wondering, Nobody cared, then they did. Why?; pop singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger lamenting, We still dont hear a single; and comic strip artist Keith Knight illustrating I was a Michael Jackson impersonator. At their best, these nano-memoirs evoke the same kind of rich emotional responses as a good story: 9 year old Hannah Davies considers herself Cursed with cancer. Blessed by friends; Zak Nelson says I still make coffee for two; Scott Birch claims Most successful accomplishments based on spite. Some entries read like bumper stickers (Rip Riley: No wife. No kids. No problems), and others are just plain weird (Amy Sedaris: Mushrooms. Clowns. Wands. Five. Wig. Thatched), but this compelling little book will have readers and their friends hunting for favorites and inventing six-word self-definitions of their own. This review in six words? Read. Enjoy. Pass it on. Repeat. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Review “Perfect for the American attention span...Will thrill minimalists and inspire maximalists.” - Vanity Fair“Irresistibly clever.” - Chicago Tribune “The brilliance is in the brevity.” - New York Post“You could spe