di Prima, Diane. Spring and Autumn Annals: A Celebration of the Seasons for Freddie. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2021.
I love di Prima’s Memoirs of a Beatnik, so I was intrigued when I heard that a new memoir had just been published posthumously. LitHub published an excerpt of it that I enjoyed, so I decided to buy it. I tore through it last week; it’s definitely worth reading. It has a wonderful New York City vibe.
Frangello, Gina. Blow Your House Down: A Story of Family, Feminism, and Treason. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint Press, 2021.
Considering its subtitle, how can one not buy this book? As someone who is divorced but who has not written about it, I am intrigued to see how other authors approach the subject.
Gay, Roxane. Bad Feminist: Essays. New York: HarperPerennial, 2014.
We’ve been reading electronic copies of a few essays from this book in one of my MFA classes, so I decided to go ahead and buy the entire collection.
Smith, Patti. M Train. New York: Vintage Books, 2016.
I went to the Strand for the first time since moving back to the area this summer to buy Gay’s book, and they had a stack of Smith’s book next to it. I love Smith’s memoir Just Kids, and was coming off the NYC high from di Prima’s book, so I impulsively bought M Train as well.
Daniel Shank Cruz 