In September of 1965 Lorree Rackstraw was a graduate student in her second year at the Iowa Writer's Workshop, apprehensive about her new teacher, a relatively unknown writer named Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut had published just three books: The Sirens of Titan , Mother Night , and Cat's Cradle ....
This book's preface begins, " These are the faces of illness in America. Do not look away.......Quite simply, they are us. " If you have ever known someone with a chronic or terminal illness, you probably already know that each person approaches their difficulties in a way that is all their...
I just finished one of those books that will stay with me for a long while. Helene Cooper's memoir, The House at Sugar Beach: in Search of a Lost African Childhood is remarkable and haunting. Her journalistic expertise opens the reader up to a privileged Liberian childhood, which ended in 1980 when...