Ready to Pick Your June Book?
While you're gearing up to discuss The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, mull over what you would like to read next month. Our June leader: Lisa Whitmore, the senior editor in the Beauty and Health department. Our choices: all top-rated, all memoirs—of coming of age in the '80s; of stepping in to help parent grandchildren; of battling cancer with strength and wit; and of living with Asperger's syndrome. Vote for your favorite of the books below by 11:59 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 22.
Look Me in the Eye, by John Elder Robison
Robison's name may not be familiar, but at least some of his story may be: He figured in another memoir, Running With Scissors, by his brother, Augusten Burroughs. But Robison tells the full story of a "different" kid who does not find out until he is 40 just why he is different—he has Asperger's.
Making Toast, by Roger Rosenblatt
The subtitle of this memoir by journalist and novelist Rosenblatt is "A Family Story," and that neatly sums up his tender, journal-like detailing of the 14 months following the sudden death of his daughter, as he grapples with both his loss and his new life as fill-in parent to her three young children. A slender volume packed with emotion.
The Middle Place, by Kelly Corrigan
A happily married mother of two is contentedly living in what she calls the Middle Place—"that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap"—until duel diagnoses of cancer (hers and her beloved father's) force her out of it. Corrigan refuses to take the path of self-pity, though, as she relates in an absorbing memoir filled with honesty, humor, and—above all—heart.
Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, by Rob Sheffield
The veteran music journalist revisits his Catholic adolescence in coming-of-age vignettes (first loves, first jobs) that are defined by the music—and the decade—that defined him. Affable, lighthearted, and a tribute not just to the bands (both famous and obscure) he loved, but to the strong women who populated his life.
What Should We Read in June?online survey
