Synopsis:
A Paperback Original—Also Available as a Hardcover Library Edition
New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman, a journalist for many years, collects here her recent essays exploring motherhood as an older mom, her life as a reader, her relationships with her parents, friendship, and other topics that will resonate with a large audience. Her voice is wry and relatable, her takes often surprising.
Meet the Woman Behind the Books…
In this collection of original and previously published nonfiction essays, New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman offers readers an introspective look into various facets of her life. Her childhood and school years, her successful career as a newspaper reporter, the challenge of balance, her life as a novelist and a reader—Lippman’s takes on these universal subjects offer as many twists as her award-winning crime fiction. Of the 16 essays, only three have appeared in book form before. “Game of Crones,” published online by Longreads in May 2019, has more than 100,000 unique views to date.
Essays include:
· Men Explain The Wire to Me
· Game of Crones
· My Life as a Villainess
· My Father’s Bar
· The 31st Stocking
Fans of Laura Lippman will gain a better understanding in these candid essays of who she is and of the life choices that influenced her writing and helped her to become the successful author she is today.
Rating: 3-stars
Review:
When I first saw this book, My Life as A Villainess, by Laura Lippman, I was ecstatic! I had to read it. It reads well. The writing was easy enough to get through, however, some things I read were shocking. Such as the process of dealing with aging (60 years-author’s age) and as a mother of a 9-year-old. That has to be tough! I know what my grandparents went through at that age cycle. Because, my grandparents were 60 when they took on caring for us three grandkids. It’s not an easy thing. Second, the way the writer wrote her memoir/essays was done in a bragging sort of way. Multiple times, she states not to brag, but it does come off as bragging. I get it. She’s successful and talented. The wording could have been done better. Laura Lippman’s fiction is much better quality than her nonfiction writing of her life. I am a fan of her fiction novels and was surprised with this book. Third, I was greatly disappointed because I thought this book would dive more into her life as a writer and as a reader more than telling me what she did in her entire career and personal life. I would still read Laura Lippman’s work of fiction. But this book just did not speak to me as a reader.
Urban Book Reviews 