Tag Archives: memoir

Memoirs of Loss and Love: Everywhere I Look and Crying in H-Mart

24 Jul

Everywhere I Look
by Ona Gritz
Ona Gritz is a former Young Adult Librarian at Hoboken Public Library and we are always excited when she comes back to visit and debut one of her new works such as her new memoir, Everywhere I Look which she discussed with us in May. All though the memoir is newly available, it is a piece that Gritz had been working on for many years. It details her relationship with her older sister, whose life was sadly ended too soon by a horrible crime. Gritz explores and uncovers a variety of family secrets that allow her to have a fuller picture of her sister and their relationship. This story has a moving bittersweet quality, but also manages Ona’s goal of celebrating the life of her sister, even if it was cut short so briefly. The book is being added to our local author collection. Fans of true crime, memoirs, and those interested in complex family dramas will enjoy this work. You can also check out additional books by Gritz including her other new work, a YA Novel, The Space You Left Behind which was published this June and her memoir On the Whole, about raising a baby boy while dealing with her own disability.

Crying in H-Mart
by Michelle Zauner
Crying in H-Mart is the moving and at times also quite funny memoir about Michelle’s Zauner, the woman behind musical act, Japanese Breakfast, and her relationship to her mom, a Korean immigrant who passed away from cancer (they emigrated with Michelle’s American dad from Korea when Michelle was nine months old). H-Mart is the Korean Grocery Store Chain, that sells all the delicious ingredients Zauner’s mother would use to recreate the food of her homeland. Food and her music are the two of the main ways that Zauner uses to celebrate and grieve for her mom. I enjoyed Crying in H-Mart as an audiobook which was read by Zauner. She mentions that some of her relatives had done narration work and to me she must have inherited some of these talents since she did an excellent job telling her engaging story. Even if you are not familiar with her music, her story still has a lot of heart and universal appeal of the bittersweet love and guilt combo that fuels many mother/daughter relationship. I do recommend though if you enjoyed the story checking out Japanese Breakfast’s debut, Psychopomp which has enjoyable pop rock melodies and songs which bring in some autobiographical elements of this period in Zauner’s life and her loss; it is a picture of her mom on the album cover.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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Women World Travelers: Call You When I Land & The Catch Me if You Can

1 Nov

Call You When I Land
by Nikki Vargas
Available next Tuesday is Nikki Vargas’s Call You When I Land, an interesting travel memoir which should delight fans of Eat, Pray, Love. Nikki Vargas, an immigrant from Columbia, is in her late 20’s and although to her friends and family she looks like she has achieved the dream, a successful advertising career and sweet French fiancé, but she feels trapped by both and desires to have the freedom to travel and see the world. Set across the globe including Panama, Columbia, Argentina, France, Indonesia and New York the book captures not only her physical journey, but also her life journey in finding a second chance at love and finding a way to merge her work life with her desire to see the world, first getting comped hotels and flights with a small travel blog that then inspires her to think bigger and create the first major feminist female centered travel publication. The memoir is cleverly broken into three sections Turbulence, Changing Pitch, and Landing that reflect her experience. This should resonate with other millennials who may struggle with finding a way to balance their dreams and the realities of life.

The Catch Me if You Can
by Jessica Nabongo
Nikki may have seen a lot of countries that I’m envious of but Jessica Nabongo has literally seen the entire world having been to all 195 countries. In 2019, she became the first black women to have gone to all the UN recognized countries. The Catch Me if You Can covers her top 100 memorable visits including places like Japan, South Africa, Tonga, Peru and North Korea. She captures not only some of the hot sightseeing spots, and delicious native cuisines, but also the people and cultures she encounters on her journey. I enjoyed the audiobook, which she reads herself and feels like a good friend giving you the highlights of their vacation or work trips. The one thing I found was that because she is trying to cover so many places sometimes she only has a short time at destinations and I was left wanting to hear more about them. I learned a lot of interesting details about the world such more pyramids are not found in Egypt, but in Sudan. Nabongo has an especially interesting perspective about African countries being an Ugandan-American.

Written by:
Aimee Harris
Information and Digital Services Manager

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