Memoir

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir The Tender Bar by Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer. It tells the tale of his dysfunctional family on Long Island — and the community's center, the local bar.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Them: A Memoir of Parents, by Francine du Plessix Gray.

Rock historian Ed Ward reviews Bob Dylan's new autobiography, Chronicles, Vol. I.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger, by Nigel Slater, and Lilla's Feat: A Story of Food, Love and War in the Orient, by Frances Osbourne.

The new documentary Tarnation chronicles writer and director Jonathan Caouette's turbulent childhood with a mentally ill mother. He made the film on his home computer for just a few hundred dollars. Critic David Edelstein has a review.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Truth & Beauty: A Friendship by Ann Patchett, a memoir about her friendship with the late Lucy Grealy, best known for her 1994 book Autobiography of a Face.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Gatekeeper, the new memoir by British academic superstar Terry Eagleton. Also, his new book After Theory (to be published this month in the United States) is a recant of his widely read 1983 book Literary Theory: An Introduction.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir, The Only Girl in the Car by Kathy Dobie.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new memoir, Teacher: The One Who Made the Difference (Random House) by Mark Edmundson.

Book Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews Bad Blood, a memoir by the late literary critic, Lorna Sage.