Following is a long list of books I reviewed elsewhere:
Without a Map by Meredith Hall
The Midwife by Jennifer Worth
Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman
Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
Hands of My Father by Myron Uhlberg
Sleep is For the Weak by Rita Arens
The Year My Son and I Were Born by Kathryn Lynard Soper
Lucky Breaks by Susan Patron
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Sight Unseen by Kaye Gibbons
A Midwife’s Story by Penny Armstrong
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Clapton: The Autobiography by Eric Clapton
Embers by Sandor Marai
Shanghai Girls by Lisa See
Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah
Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
Karina Has Down Syndrome by Cheryl Rogers and Gun Dolva
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
Aberrations by Penelope Przekop
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart: A Midwife’s Saga by Carol Leonard
One Child by Torey Hayden
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Tiger’s Child by Torey Hayden
Best Friends Forever by Jennifer Weiner
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife by Peggy Vincent
The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar
Wishin’ and Hopin’ by Wally Lamb
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Loose Girl: A Memoir of Promiscuity by Kerry Cohen
This Lovely Life by Vicki Forman
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Escape by Carolyn Jessop
Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish
Push by Sapphire
Between Me and the River: Living Beyond Cancer – A Memoir by Carrie Host
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
The New Atheism by Victor J. Stenger
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
You Look Fine, Really by Christie Mellor
Mommie Dearest by Christina Crawford
The Three Martini Playdate by Christie Mellor
Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel
Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Short Bus: A Journey Beyond Normal by Jonathan Mooney
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Losing My Religion by William Lobdell
When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
For You Mom, Finally by Ruth Reichl
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
36 Arguments For the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction by Rebecca Newberger Goldstein
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread by Don Robertson
Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Writer’s Life by Pamela Smith Hill
The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life Without God by A.C. Grayling
In the Woods by Tana French
The Likeness by Tana French
The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon
Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard
Faithful Place by Tana French
Truth and Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett
Face of Hope by Carol Guscott
Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy
The Shape of the Eye by George Estreich
This Life is in Your Hands: One Dream, Sixty Acres, and a Family Undone by Melissa Coleman
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
The Girl’s Guide to Homelessness by Brianna Karp
A Good and Perfect Gift by Amy Julia Becker
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
The Diaries of Adam and Eve by Mark Twain
turnthepagelisa.com 
The Middle Place is as compelling a memoir as I have read in recent memory. The book was a gift from a friend shortly after I had a bout with breast cancer earlier this year, so although my own experience with the dreaded C word was much less traumatic, Kelly Corrigan’s recollections about the fears and other overwhelming emotions that occur while going through the process rang so true. In addition to her own diagnosis, at about the same time, Corrigan’s father had a recurrence of bladder cancer, so she shares the emotions and experiences she had dealing with her father’s illness as well as her own. Corrigan is brutally honest and fascinatingly objective about her own follies and insecurities both in the present tense and in telling her life story. Alternating between current and past histories of herself and her family, Corrigan paints a vivid picture of why she is so close to her father and how each of the main “characters” in her story came to be who they are. No one is a saint, and no one is patently evil. This is a story of very human beings doing the best they can with the hand of cards they have been dealt.
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