Memoir Armoire

Thanks to lovely Red Editor Sam Baker’s twitter feed, I now know not only that Nora Ephron has a new memoir, I Remember Nothing, out next month but that you can read an extract in US Vogue right now. I expect I’ll have already read some of these pieces in The New Yorker or on the Huffington Post, but recycled Nora is better than new almost-everyone-else, and there’s bound to be some new and exclusive stuff, too.

I can’t wait.

I first heard of Julie Klam in Jancee Dunn’s book. Any writer friend of Jancee’s is someone I want to read, I thought, and Klam’s own memoir, Please Excuse My Daughter, didn’t disappoint. A memoir-in-essays which explores her childhood as a pampered only daughter (her mom would get her out of school to go shopping, hence the title) and her reluctance to grow up and take charge of her life, Klam is funny, self-deprecating and easy to relate to. Although the true story of her Mafia-linked ex-boyfriend is a little less so… (But still completely compelling.) Her next book, You Had Me At Woof, is out on October 28, and I can’t wait.

Here it is on Amazon.

I love David Sedaris, and this is one of his best books. The autobiographical essays in this collection span his childhood — taking in his weird neighbours, rich old relatives and childhood bullies — to the modern day, including how to get rid of mice in your French farmhouse (badly). As you might expect from this writer, there’s some very unusual characters featured but most entertaining are David and his hilariously offbeat family, including his chain-smoking mother, perma-swearing brother, and his sister Tiffany, who likes to call people up while she’s on the toilet… If you like a book to make you laugh and reassure you about your own eccentricities, this is the read for you.

Buy, buy like the wind.