I'm not ordinarily a memoir-reader (had to add a new bookshelf category in order to review this book), so the fact that I read this entire memoir cove...moreI'm not ordinarily a memoir-reader (had to add a new bookshelf category in order to review this book), so the fact that I read this entire memoir cover-to-cover says a lot about its appeal. The author was born a biological male but always felt like he was living a lie, one that haunted him well into his marriage and young fatherhood. He was also haunted by actual ghosts in the old house where he spent his childhood, and so this book is really about putting all his ghosts to rest. Eventually, he confided his secret - that he was really a woman - to his wife, who eventually decided that living with her spouse, whether male or female, was infinitely preferable to losing him (or now her). Jenny's voice, as Jimmy or as Jenny, is wry and self-deprecating, whether she is telling Sedaris-esque anecdotes of her crazy home life or pondering her inscrutable relationship with her only sister. Apparently the author is quite famous as a transgendered person - she's been on Oprah and so on - but I had (typically) never heard of her and am glad I got to know her through this unusual and entertaining book. (less)
Francis Spufford (what a supremely British name) was born only the year before I was and is, like me, a self-described book addict who began reading c...moreFrancis Spufford (what a supremely British name) was born only the year before I was and is, like me, a self-described book addict who began reading compulsively at a very early age. He discusses those books that had an early strong effect on him, from picture books like Where the Wild Things Are to The Hobbit, one of the first books he read all the way through, and discusses the circumstances of his life that may have given rise to such a reading mania. Bettelheim comes up, and Piaget - and the sorry lack of good YA fiction in the late 70s and early 80s that left him searching for a replacement for the children's literature that had had such meaning in his life (he found it, like I did, in science fiction - and then went on from there to read all kinds of adult fiction). Spufford's prose is a pleasure to read at all times - but I liked this book best when he is waxing enthusiastic about his personal reading obsession and his deep connection to the books of his childhood.(less)
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