Susanna Sonnenberg, SHE MATTERS: A LIFE IN FRIENDSHIPS

My friend Ashley sent me this one. It's a memoir, about a girl with a narcissistic, alcoholic mother (read: wounds, distrust, and enmeshment taken daily with her breakfast), and the girlfriends she makes on her way to age 40-something. I thought it was beautifully written--literary and even poetic rather than pop. The number and range of very deep friendships that Sonnenberg has boggles my mind--and she recognizes and recounts the rhythms and limitations of these kinds of friendships--the plunge, and sometimes (inevitably) a sense of loss. Has anybody out there read her first one, HER LAST DEATH?

Anna Quindlen, LOTS OF CANDLES, PLENTY OF CAKE

I loved this memoir/series of essays, from a woman who has, by her 50s, so clearly made peace with the chaos of being a woman, wife, mother, writer through decades when women's roles were changing and ideas of what constituted adequate parenting underwent major revision. Her voice is wise and compassionate, reassuring and quite often very funny. (I will keep this book on my shelf ... she's someone I think I want along for the ride.) First lines: "It's odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn't know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I'd invented. And finally I was what I was again."