writers

Born to a single mother and adopted by Pentecostal parents, acclaimed British novelist Jeanette Winterson's childhood was extraordinary by any measure.  In this raw, fiercely honest and deeply affecting memoir, she remembers growing up with a monstrous mother and a passive father in a very specific time and place: the 1960s and 1970s in the small North England industrial town of Accrington, where some of the poorer children brought dog biscuits to school for their mid-day meal and everyone Jeanette knew was as skinny as a ferret.

Published in 2010, in celebration of the 100^th anniversary of Mark Twain’s death, this autobiography was a major literary event.  At times during this first volume, there were a lot of starts and stops;  with the editors presents Twain’s many abandoned attempts at writing an autobiography.  Once you get to the meat of things however, you can fully appreciate the great storyteller at his best.  Twain’s descriptions of events, locations, friends and foes are hilarious and enjoyable.