Friday, October 03, 2008

The House at Sugar Beach


Helene Cooper's memoir has been widely promoted; I read about it in Entertainment Weekly (don't ask) and I just saw something saying it was a Starbuck's promoted book. Hey, it's OK. It is written in a breezy informal reporter's style. Much of it is frivolous fluff (a little too much about her clothes, and the globalizing pop culture she grows up in- Michael Jackson and romance novels). Since her childhood is in Liberia, there are truly horrific scenes. Would be a good book for an African politics class; bringing that personal/political mix that is so potent when learning. If you want to read a memoir both searing and literary though, then I recommend Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That.

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