The Boys of My Youth

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Summary: My 1998 Favorite
Review: For those who love dogs, best friends, and times that somehow get shared - this is our book. Read it out of order though. Read "The Fourth State of Matter" first, then start at page one. I am taken time and time again by her ability to state things so simply and so perfectly. I thank her for writing these stories. Please buy the book.

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Summary: A wonderful, wonderful book!
Review: This is the best book I've read in years. The Boys of My Youth is an astonishingly beautiful book. I re-read it as soon as I finished it and highly recommend it.

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Summary: turn off your computer, and read this book now!!!
Review: This is the best book I've read in years. Jo Ann Beard writes as if she knows you, shes's in your head, I swear. Her essays on childhood are so painfully, AND hysterically real that I can not believe she did not live my life for me. This book absolutely cracked me up. No matter where I read this, I laughed out loud. People looked at me, and I just held up this wonderful book, and said "Great book, gotta read it" Her chapters are all very different, but her voice is so wonderful, and unique that you will not want this one to end. When is Jo Ann Beard going to write again? It's been too long already.

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Summary: Read This Book!
Review: I read this book and loved it, could not put it down. It was intelligent, original, thought and memory provoking, and fun! The best non-fiction I've read so far this year. I can't wait to hear more from Jo Ann Beard.

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Summary: This is my life!
Review: I feel as though I've made a new friend. I read Boys of My Youth several months ago and immediately made copies of my favorite stories for all of my friends. I am astonished by Ms. Beard's ability to focus in on the minutae of childhood, including those perplexing visits to Grandma's house. Her details may be unique to her but the themes she explores resonate. I'm currently writing autobiographical stories of my dysfunctional childhood and constantly refer back to Ms. Beard's stories for inspiration. I can't wait for her next book!

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Summary: The best nonfiction I have read in years.
Review: Insightful, lyrical, evocative, engaging. I'm not often giving to posting online book reviews, but after reading Jo Ann Beard's Boys of Our Youth (thrice, I might add), I was so taken that I came in search of other books by her, only to find they do not yet exist. I hope she's tucked away somewhere busily creating her next!

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Summary: Boys of My Youth, a truly true-to-life collection of stories
Review: At such a young age, Jo Ann Beard has all but mastered the autobiographical short story. She exemplifies the extraordinary in the ordinary in this collection due out in hardcover in February. Women and men alike can appreciate Beard's blistering honesty. Tangents which remind of Jim Morrison's desert poetry highten the effect of her simple prose. The stories range from the everyday to the heartbreaking to the horrifically surreal and all stay in touch with reality with ease. Beard is truly a remarkable new writer, and certainly one to watch.

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Summary: We have never met, but I know this woman.
Review: Here's the perfect collection of stories for every marginally "good" girl who grew up in the 60's and still doesn't dare tell her mother what was really going on. I read THE BOYS OF MY YOUTH twice in two days, suddenly nostalgic for people I hadn't thought about in years and uncharacteristically ready to confess it all. Instead, as I slather on the nightly "oil-of-old-ladies", I can smile at the memories and still practice the silent scream that Ms Beard so generously shares with a certain generation of women

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful.
Review: I LOVE THIS BOOK! It is a tender and very funny reminiscence of childhood in the 1950s and 60s and growing to adulthood. The style and the writing are beautiful, and the author is extraordinarily skillful in weaving in the darker threads of her experiences. Although the boys of the title are often the focus of the stories, it is the girls and the women who shine. I can't wait for Jo Ann Beard's next book

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Summary: Flashback
Review: Like a flashback, Jo Ann Beard's beautifully written collection of short stories takes you back in time. My favorite story is "Cousins" and is about two best friend cousins. At an outdoor Eric Clapton concert the girls ingest a mild hallucinogen and discover pieces of their childhood in the quilt spread on the ground. One girl feels her halter top is coming off. When she looks at her cousin she is "cupping clouds." Moments later her cousin says, "The clouds are cupping me now," and she wants someone to "Get them off." Beard writes, "A guy on the blanket next to us tries to hand me a joint. I can't take it because I'm holding my chest. He looks at me, looks at Wendell balled up on the ground, and nods knowingly. 'Bummer,' he proclaims."

With an exquisite eye for detail and lots of humor, Jo Ann Beard inspires memories of laughter and friendship, and the heartache of youth that are never matched in later life. Upon completion of this book, you will find yourself thanking Jo Ann for taking you back to that magical place in time. "The Boys of My Youth" is worth reading and re-reading and sharing with your best friends.

Thank you, Jo Ann for taking me back to that magical place in time.