Rating: 
Summary: insightful, but a bit forced
Review: If you are at all interested in this book I am guessing it is because you are curious in knowing more about the lives of poker players Howard Lederer and Annie Duke. I found the book to be an intriguing biography of the unfolding lives of the Lederer family, particularly Howard and their mother, with whom the author seems to be closer to (you don't read much about Annie). However, at times I found the writing a bit forced, especially the many analogies and metaphors that the author draws upon. Other than those minor annoyances, it was a good, short read.
Rating: 
Summary: poignant portrait by a youngest sibling
Review: Katy Lederer is the youngest of three children. Her elder siblings are now professional poker players and gamblers. Her mother - depressed and alcoholic in Katy's youth - helps them out with their business. Her father worked his life as an English professor and is the author of Anguished English and other well-known books about puns and English grammar. Where does she fit in among these nuts? She tagged along a lot and ultimately went to writing school and became a poet. This book gives a fascinating, honest view of the life of gamblers and of what it's like to be the youngest child. I also liked the ambiguous, poignant ending.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting insight into the Lederer family
Review: Katy, thank you so much for writing this book. I found it extremely interesting and enjoyable. I thought it was really interesting to see Howard and Annie's progression from playing card games with the family to being professional gamblers. This book also describes Katy's relationship with Howard, Annie, and her parents. The writing in this book is excellent!
Rating: 
Summary: A good book of a girl trying to find herself
Review: The author Katy Lederer is probably the least known of the lederer siblings especially with poker explosion she is the sister of Howard Lederer and Annie Duke which if you follow poker at all know that they are bro/sis professional poker players(Annie just got through beating a group of the guys to win 2 million dollars).
This is a memoir of the authors life in New Hampshire starting with her childhood and dealing with an alcoholic mother and how it effects the family. A mother who drinks all the time and sits and plays numerous versions of solitare and not much else,she also having deal with the fact of her being around a bunch of rich kids and feeling second class around them(her father was a english teacher at this boarding school for the rich kids.The story follows along as she grows up and trys to find her niche with different jobs she even giving poker a try learning from her older brother and sister.
It was interesting to learn things about howard and annie that you probably will not get from the poker magazines for instance howard was part of a betting group at times betting very large sums of money so profitable that he ended up employing his mother after she left there father.You also that they were a pretty talented family there father an award winning author.
It was amazing how competitive the family was.
This is like the book description shows is a memoir so there is a little bit about poker but not solely devoted to it but its a good read
Rating:
Summary: Thought Provoking
Review: This is a lyrical memoir that shares scenes from a young woman's coming of age. It contrasts a literary and hyper intelligent family with a growing gambling subculture and shows how gifted people can find themselves in unexpected places through life's twists and turns. This slim volume is beautifully written and full of insight into the psyches of her parents and siblings (some who are famous or well known in some circles). Oddly, however, the suthor is veiled when it comes to her own feelings and revealing herself. This guardedness is strangely offset by an openness about the people in her family who are closest to her. This leads the reader to the strange feeling of "knowing" the family members of the author far better than the writer herself. On the whole this memoir is well worth reading and shows a lot of promise for her future as an author.
Rating:
Summary: really very good.
Review: This is an odd book; but it's wonderful.
My review, however, is not wholly objective, though; I read the book already very much aware of the lives of its secondary characters. I'm a poker fan; I love watching the tournaments; I know the a-list players and their - often absorbing - personal stories. so my natural approach to the book was as a neat glimpse into the lives of no-limit goddess and god, Ms A. Duke and Mr. H Lederer - the sister and brother of the author.
But on the other hand, I'm also a more than avid reader - of fiction, criticism, etc., but predominantly of non-fiction, biographies and memoirs. So I can reasonably confirm that, as a memoir, Poker Face fulfills its role thoroughly.
Though the book is obviously discerning, there has been some complaint that because of its wide embrace it only brushes its fingers along each sterling insight. This isn't true. The book is short, indeed; but so are Mr A. Burroughs' memoirs - which latter are certainly never anemic. Despite the extensive temporal span and inclusive storyline of Poker Face, there is a driving core exploration/exposition here, a clear line Ms Lederer pursues. And she pursues it very well. The epilogue - or maybe it's just a short last chapter, I can't remember - nails it all down tight. And we're not talking Becket here; nothing is terribly complex; any mindful reader will automatically hear Ms Lederer's story whispering intensely and lucidly. And listening is very rewarding. The foibles of this family are so amplified and so seamlessly tied tangible representations - to games, like poker; or to the families comparative economic status - that a vista opens wide, and offers us the naked anatomy of any contemporary American family.
I do, however, decline the fifth star in my rating, only because the character's personalities bounce around a bit. Howard is - ironically - very stable as a character, but Annie, the mother - and even the father at times - are not. The characters are not developed enough to keep their portraits `within the lines', in the Crayola sense.
But, all-in-all, very much worth it. Very good.
Rating: 
Summary: A disappointing gambit
Review: This story starts out full of promise of something deep and insightful, something poignant but somewhere along the middle of the story it bogs down in mediocrity. If I want to read a how to poker book, I will. I wanted to read about the people involved in these stories. It concludes somewhat better, reaching a little further but generally a disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Dear Sean,
Review: This wasn't a thesis. I have an MFA in poetry, not creative nonfiction, something you would know if you had gotten past page 100. I think you are exactly right that the book is plain and careful; it concerns people who are still alive and moving about in the world, and I was aiming to convey as respectfully as possible the realities of their stories more than my own personal imaginative style. In this I think the book is anything but "false." I am sorry you were disappointed, but I would have appreciated this review more if you had read my book more thoroughly before posting it. Thanks, Katy
Rating:
Summary: Growing Up Gambling
Review: To many people, gambling may be a hobby, or a simple entertainment, a fantasy of riches, or possibly an addiction. To Katy Lederer, it was family. In _Poker Face: A Girlhood among Gamblers_ (Crown) she has told of a very strange upbringing and the result. Her memoir goes from New England, Manhattan, and Berkeley to (of course) Las Vegas, and is a fascinating tale of attempts to beat the odds. It is sad and funny, but she has no axe to grind against herself or any of the family members whom she accepts with understanding and love. Besides being a family memoir, her book also has a good deal of reporting on how gambling is done, and in some cases, done as a career.Games were central to her growing up. "Our parents didn't much care whether we got good grades in school. Winning at games was what mattered." No one helped anyone during the competition. When brother Howard disappeared, he was said to be homeless in New York, but actually, he had fallen in love: "He fell in love with the game of poker - not just with the cards, but with the money and the banter and the drugs." He rose from playing nickel stakes in filthy dives to becoming a professional. He ran a sports betting operation, and hired their mother as a bookkeeper for a very lucrative operation. He eventually took it all to Las Vegas, where he became a high stakes poker player. He taught their sister, and then Lederer herself. Howard's instructions were clear; what is really going on at the table has nothing to do with your cards, and everything to do with the cards of the opponents and what the opponents are thinking about them. Lederer got to be competent enough at poker only to be winning a little overall. "My sister and brother were by this time world-class players, and I lived in great fear of becoming an appendage - their little sister who could write but who was not so great at cards." She finally folded, going back to the writing career she had begun at Berkeley. Writing is a lot like poker: cheerful and bright when all is going well, but universally glum if things are going badly. No matter the changes of mood, though, "... the absolute worst thing imaginable is to never again be in action, to never again write a word." She is certainly in the action in this exploration of love, competition, loss, and chance. She has quite generously dealt us a full house.
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