Just Kids Review

Title: Just Kids
Author: Patti Smith
Publisher: Ecco

Blurb: In Just Kids, Patti Smith's first book of prose, the legendary American artist offers a never-before-seen glimpse of her remarkable relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the epochal days of New York City and the Chelsea Hotel in the late sixties and seventies. An honest and moving story of youth and friendship, Smith brings the same unique, lyrical quality to Just Kids as she has to the rest of her formidable body of work--from her influential 1975 album Horses to her visual art and poetry. 

Me: The most stunning, inspiring, sincere memoir I've read.

Palestine: Mornings in Jenin Review

Title: Mornings in Jenin
Author: Susan Abulhawa
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Blurb: Forcibly removed from the ancient village of Ein Hod by the newly formed state of Israel in 1948, the Abulhejas are moved into the Jenin refugee camp. There, exiled from his beloved olive groves, the family patriarch languishes of a broken heart, his eldest son fathers a family and falls victim to an Israeli bullet, and his grandchildren struggle against tragedy toward freedom, peace, and home. This is the Palestinian story, told as never before, through four generations of a single family.

Me: Such an important story for our world today, but the writing doesn't do the story justice.