Making a Summer Reading list…
Do you remember when you were in grammar school, middle school, or high school and a teacher would send you home for Summer vacation season with a “Summer Reading List?” For some students the list was welcomed, for others it would be a source of angst perhaps because they did not have an easy way to get to the public library or they did not have interested parents who would become actively involved in this Summer reading assignment to either provide transportation to the library or budget funds to actually purchase the books.
For the record, Summer Reading Lists are alive and well in our school systems, online, in our public libraries and retail book stores. Just the other day a friend of ours was visiting a bookstore and the Summer Reading List table caught her attention. She remarked that she stood at the table for a few minutes perusing the titles and reminiscing of days long ago when her own children came home with their “Summer Reading List.”
Do you make a Summer reading list? Or maybe you make a vacation reading list. Or do you have an ongoing list that you add to when you learn about a new book that catches your interest?
Double Double: A Dual Memoir of Alcoholism
Today we learned of a new book published June 4, 2013, Double Double: A Dual Memoir of Alcoholism. The co-authors are Martha Grimes and her son Ken Grimes. Martha Grimes is a well known bestselling author having written at least 30 books in the last 30 years, 22 of which are Richard Jury mysteries. For her son, Ken, this is his first published work. According to Randy Cordova writing for The Republic: “Mystery writer Martha Grimes is an alcoholic who has been sober for 22 years. Her son, Ken, is also an alcoholic. He has been sober for about six months longer than his mother.”
One reviewer offers: “Double Double could have been titled Double-Barreled—it hits like a .12 gauge sawed-off at close range. The brutal illumination of a dual descent into alcoholism is also a penetrating insight: the lives of a mother and son run parallel, becoming intertwined only when each found their own, very separate, way out. This is no ‘self-help’ book—it packs the narrative force of a Martha Grimes novel . . . and perfectly illustrates how the finest fiction is created only when its foundational basis is truth.”
Meet Martha Grimes and Ken Grimes
Have you ever been to a book-signing event? Often these events take place at a bookstore or sometimes even at a public library. It is an opportunity to meet the author(s), learn more about the book, listen to the author(s) read a portion of the manuscript and if you are really lucky you can ask a few questions of the author(s).
On June 14, 2013, Politics and Prose, a bookstore-coffeehouse in Washington, D.C. hosted an event with Martha and Ken Grimes discussing their memoir Double Double. Fortunately, the event was filmed and you can watch it here.
If you are having trouble viewing the video, see it here.
Addiction is a family disease and it can be baffling. Sometimes it skips a generation and sometimes not. Let us know if you read Double Double. We would like to know your thoughts.
