Reviewers generally don’t step from behind the journalist curtain to reveal their personal enthusiasm for a book. In the current issue of Entertainment Weekly, reviewer Pam Abrams begins her review of Darin Strauss’s Half a Life this way,

I recently went on a trip with a couple of friends, one of whom brought along Half a Life. The book’s slender enough that the three of us devoured it in three days — and beautifully written enough that we spent the rest of the trip discussing it.

Strauss, author of several well-received novels, including Chang and Eng, (Dutton, 2000) and The Real McCoy, (Dutton, 2002) writes in this, his first memoir, about a car accident that killed one of his high school classmates and scarred him for life.

Strauss also appeared on This American Life (359: Life After Death — Act 1, “Guilty as Not Charged,” beginning at 9:40) this week.

Libraries showing holds of 5:1 on light ordering

Half a Life Darin Strauss Retail Price: $22.00 Hardcover: 204 pages Publisher: McSweeney’s – (2010-09-15) ISBN / EAN: 1934781703 / 9781934781708

This entry was posted on Monday, September 20th, 2010 at 10:08 am and is filed under Memoirs, Nonfiction, Readers Advisory. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.