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Glass Castle: A Memoir (Audio CD) (Audio CD)
by Jeannette Walls
| Category:
Biography, Memoir |
| Market price: ¥ 368.00
MSL price:
¥ 348.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
An amazingly touching and heartwarming story about human victory against odds and frustrations. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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Francine Prose (The New York Times Book Review) (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
The Glass Castle falls short of being art, but it's a very good memoir. At one point, describing her early literary tastes, Walls mentions that ''my favorite books all involved people dealing with hardships.'' And she has succeeded in doing what most writers set out to do - to write the kind of book they themselves most want to read... Memoirs are our modern fairy tales... The autobiographer is faced with the daunting challenge of attempting to understand, forgive, and even love the witch... Readers will marvel at the intelligence and resilience of the Walls kids.
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People (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Walls has joined the company of writers such as Mary Karr and Frank McCourt who have been able to transform their sad memories into fine art.
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Bookmark Magazine (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
"Being homeless is an adventure," Walls's mom used to say. In her extraordinary memoir, Walls recalls her nomadic life with surprising affection - though she would not want to relive it. The title, which derives from her father's dream house, serves as an apt metaphor for the Walls' fragility. Yet Walls sheds no tears nor succumbs to self-pity - she probably learned early on they would get her nowhere. Instead of condemning her parents’ foibles, she unblinkingly examines how they transformed hardship into family romance and adventure. Sharing incredible, painful experiences in no-nonsense prose, Walls has, as The New York Times Book Review notes, "succeeded in doing what most writers set out to do - to write the kind of book they themselves most want to read." |
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Dani Shapiro (Author of Family History) (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Jeannette Walls has carved a story with precision and grace out of one of the most chaotic, heartbreaking childhoods ever to be set down on the page. This deeply affecting memoir is a triumph in every possible way, and it does what all good books should: it affirms our faith in the human spirit.
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Patricia Bosworth (Author of Anything Your Little Heart Desires and Diane Arbus: A Biography), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
The Glass Castle is the saga of the restless, indomitable Walls family, led by a grand eccentric and his tempestuous artist wife. Jeannette Walls has survived poverty, fires, and near starvation to triumph. She has written this amazing tale with honesty and love. |
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Lavanya (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
This book is definitely a page turner, but to each reader who does find it so, it is gripping for entirely different reasons. For starters, the title is fascinating - it alludes to dreams, hopes, aspirations of any family. Many times during the course of reading the book, I almost forgot that it was a memoir and not a work of fiction. It probably was because I could not relate to the author's childhood, but it might also be because she wrote it in such a dignified and objective way. Not as an adult looking back on her childhood, but as a child growing up and relating her life as she saw it. That is what makes this story/memoir special. Her story of their shared childhood and parents is dignified and full of love and life that they all shared. A wonderful heart warming book that reaffirms our faith in ourselves and miracles. If nothing else, you are left wondering at the indomitable human spirit that shines through all odds. |
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Melissa Niksic (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
If you think you had a rough childhood, think again! In The Glass Castle, author Jeannette Walls chronicles the story of her upbringing. Jeannette and her three siblings were raised by Rex and Rose Mary Walls, two very strange parents who would constantly pack up their children at a moment's notice and do the "skedaddle" right out of town. Rose Mary is an aspiring artist and chronic optimist who always turns a blind eye to Rex's alcoholic (and sometimes abusive) ways. Neither of the Walls parents manages to hold down a job for very long, and they don't really see anything wrong with that. Instead, the entire family is used to eating sticks of margarine for dinner (if they are lucky enough to eat anything at all), owning only two or three different outfits at a time, and hightailing it to the next town every time Rex manages to screw something up.
Things go from bad to worse for this family. They eventually end up living in Welch, a small town in West Virginia where Rex is originally from. Rex's horrifying mother, Erma, ultimately sheds some light on why Rex is the way he is, and the Walls family winds up in a three-room shack on the outskirts of town. The house doesn't have indoor plumbing, so an outhouse has to suffice. The family can't even afford garbage pickup, so they pitch all their trash into a hole in the backyard. Jeannette is determined to get away from her family once and for all, but no one (especially Rex) makes escaping any easier for her.
The Glass Castle is so interesting because Jeannette offers such a non-judgmental view of the horrors of her childhood. Although it's quite obvious to the reader just how screwed up this family situation is, Walls genuinely loves both of her parents and manages to highlight all of their good qualities as well. By the end of the novel, Jeannette manages to come to terms with her parents and accept them for who they are. I don't think I would have been nearly as forgiving as she was, but I still admire the love and devotion she shows for her family.
This is one of those books that you won't be able to put down once you start reading... I finished it in two days! The Glass Castle is one of the best memoirs I've ever read. Pick it up today!
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Virginia Allain (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Growing up, in a dysfunctional family, shapes and motivates Jeannette Walls. She loves and accepts her self-absorbed, artistic mother and her visionary, impractical and alcoholic father. The chaos of her childhood is simply part of life.
Don't other three year olds cook their own hotdogs, accidentally catching her dress on fire and then get checked out of the hospital prematurely by a father when they can't pay the bill? Her mother greets each new hardship as an experience while her father says it will toughen them up. She and her three siblings raise themselves as the family misfortunes compound and their lifestyle disintegrates further and further.
Eventually she realizes that she must save herself and let her parents continue their downward spiral as they choose. She's quite matter-of-fact about her childhood and doesn't whine or feel sorry for herself.
It's amazing to see her survival skills and that she managed to grow, educate herself and go on to a life of achievement as an adult.
This is a fast read, that inspires and makes one think about what it takes to overcome adversity.
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Heather Keanum (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Jeanette Walls certainly triumphed over tribulations as recounted in this positively engrossing memoir.
Jeanette tells the true story of her life growing up, allowing readers into the sometimes embarassing living standards her parents kept and enforced on their children. As she recounts the things that happen to her, you certainly become thankful for the things you had. If you happen to be in a doldrum of nothing happening in your life, or you're thinking "wo is me, me life is drab or unfair or boring" then read this book and you're outlook on your own life will certainly change and you'll see how thankful you are for the day to day monotony compared to the ever-changing pace Jeanette kept with her family as they moved countlessly and struggled monetarily.
The fact that Jeanneette Walls tells her story matter-of-factly, as if the goings-on in her life was the same for everyone else, makes you unable to put the book down. One scene to share is towards the beginning of the book, when Jeannette was a small 3 year old cooking hotdogs on the stove, unchaperoned. She caught on fire, was taken to the hospital and basically placed in a bathtub full of ice by nurses before they began the process of grafting her skin.
"Icecubes covered my stomach and ribs and pressed up against my cheeks. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small, grimy hand reach up a few inches from my face and grab a handful of cubes. I heard a loud crunching sound and looked down. It was Brian [her baby brother] eating the ice."
That was it, she simply tells her story in a way that boggles the mind at times, you wonder how she stayed sane and came out to be a successful person.
I am not one to normally read memoirs, but this was a recommended read by the bookstore and I wasn't disappointed. If anyone wants to read a great account that lacks self-pity, then this is quite the uplifting book to read.
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Sylviastel (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-25 00:00>
Jeannette Walls is quite a character. I remember when I first saw her on the Joan Rivers Show when she reported for New York magazine. Unlike other gossip or social columnists on her show, she had a great presence and class unlike the others. She knew how to dress and act that you would think that she came out of Greenwich, Connecticut but this book was a surprise. I'm almost done reading and I have more respect for Jeannette than I ever did before. She grew up in poverty with strange parents who were made for each other and they had five children only one died. Jeannette is quiet, candid, and admits to some embarrassing incidents in her life. Sadly despite her mother's genius, she remains living in a squat without a telephone on the Lower East Side. Her father was also quite intelligent but had his demons. Also, Jeannette points out that neither she nor her sisters ever had children of her own. She points to the closeness of her relationship with her brother. She talks about feeling ashamed of seeing her parents going through the trash in New York City from a taxi while going home to her Park Avenue apartment and how much she hated herself. She talks about her father's dream of building the Glass Castle. She talks about sexual abuse by her father's relatives and her mother's indifference to it. She writes about how she and her brother went through trash to get food themselves, how she struggled adapting from one community to another, how she was taunted from other girls who thought that she was better than them and it wasn't true, her paternal grandmother's racist attitudes, making friends along the way, wearing ripped clothes, living in primitive conditions without a telephone or electricity or indoor plumbing, and the list goes on to mention. Jeannette should stop writing about celebrities and write about people that matter and she does matter. Now people can look upon her as a role model, somebody whose life was not all roses that it should have been because of her unorthodox parents' lifestyle but she still managed not only to survive but thrive and become a respected journalist even now more than ever.
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1 2 | Total 2 pages 12 items |
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