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73rd out of 79 books
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187 voters
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Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home
by
Bailey White
Anyone who has read her bestseller Mama Makes Up Her Mind--or who has heard her on National Public Radio--knows that Bailey White is one of the keenest observers of Southern eccentricity since Mark Twain. Sleeping at the Starlite Motel revives White's reputation as a master storyteller, Southern division, as it catalogs the oddities of the Georgia town she knows so well.
Paperback, 256 pages
Published
April 2nd 1996
by Vintage
(first published 1995)
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It doesn't get much better for southern writing, than Bailey White. I loved Mama Makes up her Mind, even bought a copy for my mother, and this one is just as good.
Both collections are just small sketches, tiny recollections, memoirs, of what it was like growing up in the shadows of the old south: losing the family home, the dying genteelism that the South has lost, disappearing into mainstream American culture.
It's sort of sad, really. With franchises and franchise-thinking...more
Both collections are just small sketches, tiny recollections, memoirs, of what it was like growing up in the shadows of the old south: losing the family home, the dying genteelism that the South has lost, disappearing into mainstream American culture.
It's sort of sad, really. With franchises and franchise-thinking...more
Patrick Gibson
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
everyone
Recommended to Patrick by:
the used bookstore Goddess
Shelves:
contemporary-literature,
humorous
It’s alright. This won’t hurt much. Take an insulin shot and prepare for a massive dose of sweetness.
Bailey White is a precise articulate writer. Without any discernable agenda, she observes the tenderness, often quirkiness around her. Her imagery is straightforward—all unnecessary alliterations gone. It’s like Sun Tzu for the soft and fluffy set, what isn’t needed, isn’t needed. What is left is writing at its most elemental. Add the strange peculiar oddities of characters living i...more
Bailey White is a precise articulate writer. Without any discernable agenda, she observes the tenderness, often quirkiness around her. Her imagery is straightforward—all unnecessary alliterations gone. It’s like Sun Tzu for the soft and fluffy set, what isn’t needed, isn’t needed. What is left is writing at its most elemental. Add the strange peculiar oddities of characters living i...more
I expected this to be annoyingly twee or Southern-Woman-Is-Mouthy but I was surprised at how...nice...this was. Lots of vignettes with amusing characters and the occasional short story about small towns, tourist locations, schools, etc. Not laugh-out-loud funny but smile funny. I wouldn't go out of my way to read this book, but it wasn't a bad way to spend an hour or two. I have a sense that I read the author's more famous Mama Makes Up Her Mind but now I'm sure I'm confusing it with one of ...more
I first hear of Bailey White and her stories of Southern life in the 1990s when I heard her on NPR and then read her first book Mama Makes Up Her Mind. This book is just as great. The short observations are sweet and tender about her family and the quirky individuals in her community. Reading this book took me back to when I was an undergraduate, loved literature and knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. The stories are still great, undergraduate and graduate courses are over, and I sti...more
I remember that I really enjoyed this book, but frankly I enjoy Bailey White better in person or on the radio. Her voice and delivery style add so much, and that sort of scenario was my original connection with her wonderful stories. Perhaps I should put this on my TO REREAD shelf for bits and pieces of lighter reading when needing something shorter, sweeter, less demanding. It's quite possible I'd give it 4 stars if I reread and remembered her writing better, concentrated more on the actual ...more
I grabbed this book on the shelf on one of my trips to the library with Bella. I was looking for Shirley Jackson, and this title just jumped on the shelf at me. When I'm with Bella, I get about 10 seconds to decide on a book, so I snagged it, and off we went. I'm so glad I did. I'd never even heard of Bailey White, and what a treat she is. I liked this book so much I went and checked out her first collection of essays - Mamma Makes up her Mind - and read it as soon as I finished this one.
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Essays, short pieces on family members, places, adventures. This author is known for her humor, but I can't seem to appreciate it, or even find it at times. I know when I should think something this supposed to be humorous but it doesn't work for me. This is probably my problem and not the authors. She seems rather successful with her 'Mama' series. But in this and the other book I read years ago she comes across as a sad person, a lonely person.
Sarah
added it
Favorite Quote from Native Air
"There is no distance in the color green and a few weeks into July I feel as if I am being smothered by vendure. That's when I get on a train and ride as far away from my native air as that train will go. I ride north until I don't know the anmes of the trees and the birds sing out of tune and in the afternoon there's a definite shade of blue in the haze.
"There is no distance in the color green and a few weeks into July I feel as if I am being smothered by vendure. That's when I get on a train and ride as far away from my native air as that train will go. I ride north until I don't know the anmes of the trees and the birds sing out of tune and in the afternoon there's a definite shade of blue in the haze.
One of my favorites. I remember as a child traveling the roads of the Southern US before the super highways. The motels were generally small and if after a long day of riding in a hot car with plastic seats, you were lucky enough to come across a Holiday Inn or Howard Johnson's you were in heaven. Sure to put a smile on the face of any Southerner!
I love Bailey White. I aspire to be Bailey White, at least where writing is concerned. I very much liked this collection of her essays, though not quite as much as the first (Mama Makes Up Her Mind). The stories of White's family and community are wonderfully quirky and insightful. Would that my family had so many quirks so I could write about them!
This collection of short stories about family and Southern characters. I enjoyed most of the stories especially Garden of Eden which brings us the theory that the Garden of Eden of the Bible is actually on the Florida panhandle. I also really enjoyed The Retired Russian Colonel. An easy, entertaining collection.
This is a collection of diversified short stories and observations. Enjoyable and great to pick up when you have just a short time to read. Makes you nostalgic for a lot of the Southern traditions and eccentricities that are slowly disappearing. I enjoyed it very much.
Amusing stories of life in Georgia and some travel to other states. I enjoyed her first "Mama makes up her mind" more than this one, which wandered a biot from place to place and was a little more to do with imagination and less with rural Georgian life. Still a good read.
This is a memoir/humor book. I found very little of it to be funny. I did enjoy the story "Computer School," but that was the only story that i liked. Some of the stories I had to skip through. Some of them I read intently, and then the end fell flat. Too bad!
Emily
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Fans of Bailey White
Shelves:
creative-nonfiction,
memoir
I have to admit I was a little disappointed. It's a bit uneven. Some of it is hilarious but some fell flat. Still, Bailey is wonderfully intelligent, quizzical, self-deprecating, and kind, which makes me wonder why I didn't like it more than I did.
Reading Bailey White is like watching sunlight reflect off of bouncing waters. She is so uplifting without being remotely religious. These are wonderful little tales that come off like you are visiting with her and drinking a good cup of tea while sharing stories of family and friends.
Loved this collection of essays by the author of Mama Makes Up Her Mind. First heard Bailey White, a first grade teacher in South GA, on NPR and loved her quirky characters. Any Southerner knows those eccentric people are real.
The Computer Class is worth the price of this book. Bailey White has a finely tuned ear to the speech rhythms of South Georgia and deals with difficult subjects with generosity and humour.
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Bailey White is a great essayist. The maps were a bit hard for me to follow, but the essays mixed philosophy with humor and a keen sense of the human heart. It's a good read.
A book of very short vignettes of (mostly) southern life and culture. Set in small towns exclusively. Some good parts, but nothing memorable.
Some of these short stories were wonderful while others rather mediocre. White uses a folksy, Southern style that is sometimes charming and at other times overly parochial.
Ehbluemle Bluemle
added it
Sleeping at the Starlite Motel: and Other Adventures on the Way Back Home by Bailey White (1996)
No matter how unlikey the situation, Bailey White can make you laugh. And laugh out loud in public.
Lots of short little stories of southern life. All a little humorous speckeled with truth.
Some funny parts, but not nearly as hysterical as the first book (Mama makes up her mind)
Her stories are really delightful. She knows how to make life an adventure!
Funny book about a woman who goes home to her small southern town past.
Bailey White has provided me with some of the best entertainment I've enjoyed.
Another favorite of my mother's. Time to read it again.
This is a fun and easy read! Perfect beach reading.
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Bailey White was born in 1950 in Thomasville, Ga. She still lives in the same house in which she grew up, on one of the large tracts of virgin longleaf pine woods. Her father, Robb White, was a fiction writer and later a television and movie script writer. Her mother, Rosalie White, was a farmer, and worked for many years as the executive director of the local Red Cross Chapter. She has one brothe...more
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