This heart wrenching novella honours all the wonders of life through the lens of one woman's journey towards death
Jo Ann Beard Books
Jo Ann Beard's writing delves into autobiographical essays, offering sharp insights into the human experience. Her style is characterized by honesty and precision, drawing readers into intimate reflections on life, memory, and identity. Beard masterfully weaves personal narratives with broader themes, creating works that are both deeply resonant and literarily stimulating. Her essays provide a unique perspective on the complexities of being human.
The Boys of My Youth
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
Rarely does the debut of a new writer garner such attention & acclaim. The excitement began the moment "The Fourth State of Matter," one of the fourteen extraordinary personal narratives in this book, appeared in the pages of the New Yorker. It increased when the author received a prestigious Whiting Foundation Award in November 1997, & it continued as the hardcover edition of The Boys of My Youth sold out its first printing even before publication. The author writes with perfect pitch as she takes us through one woman's life - from childhood to marriage & beyond - & memorably captures the collision of youthful longing & the hard intransigences of time & fate.
In Zanesville
- 320 pages
- 12 hours of reading
The fourteen-year-old narrator of IN ZANESVILLE is a late bloomer. She flies under the radar-a sidekick, a marching band dropout, a disastrous babysitter, the kind of girl whose Eureka moment is the discovery that "fudge" can't be said with an English accent. Luckily, she has a best friend with whom she shares the everyday adventures of a 1970s American girlhood, incidents through which a world is revealed, and character is forged. In time, their friendship is tested--by their families' claims on them, by a clique of popular girls who stumble upon them, and by the first, startling, subversive intimations of womanhood. With dry wit and piercing observation, Jo Ann Beard shows us that in the seemingly quiet streets of America's innumerable Zanesvilles is a world of wonders, and that within the souls of the overlooked often burns something radiant.
Jo Ann Beard, one of the most influential writers in America, illuminates the complexities of the human condition in this career-spanning collection