|
 
$7.50
Used Trade Paper
Ships in 1 to 3 days
More copies of this ISBNThis title in other editionsOther titles in the Vintage series:
True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hallby Mark Salzman
Staff Pick
"In this important and powerful book, Salzman invites us inside LA's Central Juvenile Hall where he teaches a writing class for violent juvenile offenders. Through classroom conversations and through the boys' own writing we get an overwhelming and insightful look into the minds and lives of the students. Session after session they expose their very personal thoughts and feelings about such subjects as their relationships with their parents and gangs, their guilt about the hurt they've caused, their attempts at hopefulness about their future, and their fears of imprisonment. Thought provoking and masterfully written, True Notebooks gives us a compassionate look at a group of adolescents who have been abandoned by both family and society." Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:In 1997 Mark Salzman, bestselling author Iron and Silk and Lying Awake, paid a reluctant visit to a writing class at L.A.'s Central Juvenile Hall, a lockup for violent teenage offenders, many of them charged with murder. What he found so moved and astonished him that he began to teach there regularly. In voices of indelible emotional presence, the boys write about what led them to crime and about the lives that stretch ahead of them behind bars. We see them coming to terms with their crime-ridden pasts and searching for a reason to believe in their future selves. Insightful, comic, honest and tragic, True Notebooks is an object lesson in the redemptive power of writing. Review:"Salzman has captured some valuable truths. His students were lucky to have such a gifted and caring teacher. Salzman was lucky to have such receptive and giving students. Lucky, too, is the first-time reader of this unforgettable book." San Francisco Chronicle Review:"Succeeds in adding something fresh, galvanizing and articulate to the overcrowded realm of classroom stories. Avoiding the inspirational pitfalls of the genre, [Salzman] provides a candid, involving teacher's diary enhanced by the writing of his students." Janet Maslin, The New York Times Review:"One cannot read...and not be stirred....As moving as it is sparse, as revealing as it is concealing, as straightforward as it is complex." Los Angeles Times Book Review Review:"Engaging....Salzman creates a cast of lively, convincing, and hugely sympathetic characters and True Notebooks is filled with powerfully moving scenes." O, The Oprah Magazine Review:"[Salzman's] account's power comes from keeping its focus squarely on these boys, their writing and their coming-to-terms with the mess their lives had become." Publishers Weekly Review:"A captivating story of hopeless young men whose committed teacher listens — and thereby learns as much as he teaches." Kirkus Reviews Review:"Both selections from the boys' writing and Salzman's taut storytelling give us multidimensional images of teenagers thrown into a justice system concerned only with punishment.... Review:"Salzman is one of my favorite authors....Truly a remarkable book, filled with the unexpected." KLIATT Review:"In the hands of a lesser writer the characters in this book could easily be stock players....But Salzman is too skilled to allow that to happen. He scores his book with sharps and flats, and manages to bring each person into full relief." Douglas McCollam, The New York Times Book Review Review:"The cast of characters is constantly shifting as Salzman's students disappear into the maw of the prison system, but thanks to his empathetic portraits, combined with their own writing, they are onstage long enough for us to know and care deeply about them." Houston Chronicle Review:"Salzman already has proved himself a solid writer....And one would think he may be attempting to prove himself a do-gooder, but the book ceases to be all about Salzman and becomes a study of gangsta subculture once it hits the legal system." The Oregonian Review:"Although Salzman is an accomplished writer of both nonfiction and novels, he wisely steps back and allows the boys' voices to dominate. Unsophisticated and untutored, they are nevertheless remarkably creative, witty and poignant." Providence Journal Review:"A highly readable and fascinating work....True Notebooks is no preachy tome. It's simply a story about a jail, some boys and the power of writing. The reader is left to ponder what it all means." Rocky Mountain News Review:"Despite what would seem to be a dreary prognosis for success, the book is compelling from Page 1 to the end because Mark Salzman figured out a way to build a gripping, morally ambiguous story from what would seem to be unpromising raw material." Denver Post Review:"This is a wonderful, generous and eye-opening account of youth who are rarely heard from, unless their crime makes the front page of the newspaper....The students highlighted in the book...are a lively, funny, earnest lot." San Jose Mercury News Review:"There is a clarity to Mark Salzman's writing, a lack of artifice that suggests a writer more interested in telling his story than in dazzling the reader with his words. And there's an unflinching honesty in this account..." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Synopsis:From the author of the bestselling Iron & Silk and Lying Awake comes the exhilarating story of his experiences teaching writing in a juvenile correctional facility. About the AuthorMark Salzman is the author of Iron & Silk, an account of his two years in China; Lost in Place, a memoir; and the novels The Laughing Sutra, The Soloist, and Lying Awake. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the filmmaker Jessica Yu, and their daughter, Ava. Table of Contents1 Somebody 3 2 Just Say No 9 3 Gentlemen 14 4 Trip to the Museum 22 5 Collision 45 6 Here I Am 56 7 Lockdown 71 8 Dream State 79 9 Arcana 90 10 Prisoner or Pumpkin 103 11 Feeling Special 115 12 Mother's Day 121 13 Played 126 14 A Day of Creation 146 15 Busted 170 16 Happy Birthday 179 17 Family Life 188 18 Two-Face 195 19 Send in the Clowns 210 20 The Buster 226 21 No Mercy Walls 242 22 Window Tappers 253 23 The Man I Was Supposed to Be 261 24 Thanks, Hate 273 25 Father's Day 294 26 The Letter 307 27 Dear Friend 321 Author's Note 327 A Note of Thanks 329 A Note about Inside Out Writers 331 What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!Average customer rating based on 2 comments:
View all 2 commentsProduct Details
Other books you might like
Related Subjects
Fiction and Poetry » Literature » A to Z
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||
|
Follow us on...
|
|||||||||||||
Don't Miss
