e-Book The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record download

by Steven Church

ISBN: 0743266951
ISBN13: 978-0743266956
Language: English
Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (March 22, 2005)
Pages: 240
Category: Regional U.S.
Subategory: Memoris

Download ePub Download Fb2

ePub size: 1607 kb
Fb2 size: 1137 kb
DJVU size: 1978 kb

Rating: 4.4
Votes: 473
Other Formats: txt mbr lrf doc

Church shows in The Guinness Book of Me that he is not afraid to expose his faults; he writes with honesty anything the path of the memoir covers.

Church shows in The Guinness Book of Me that he is not afraid to expose his faults; he writes with honesty anything the path of the memoir covers. I was at first quite shocked that a writer would include such a detail that is obviously less than flattering, but by the conclusion of that section I realized that I sympathized with Church because he respected the reader enough to tell a true story even at the risk of appearing hotheaded. It was this raw and honest quality of Church's writing that made The Guinness Book of Me an interesting and profound exploration of Church's path to adulthood.

It was the Guinness books that gave me an escape," proclaims Steven Church in this darkly comic memoir, "a strange and seductive escape into the territory of the imagination.

The greatest number of jumps achieved is 105,338 by Michael Barban in 18 hours on September 12, 1978, in Florissant, Missouri. It was the Guinness books that gave me an escape," proclaims Steven Church in this darkly comic memoir, "a strange and seductive escape into the territory of the imagination.

Steven Church (born 1971) is an American essayist and writer of memoir and literary nonfiction

Steven Church (born 1971) is an American essayist and writer of memoir and literary nonfiction. Winner of the Glenna Luschei Prize from Prairie Schooner, Recipient of Colorado Book Award in Creative Nonfiction for The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record, "Auscultation" chosen by Edwidge Danticat for inclusion in the 2011 Best American Essays

Steven Church is a fabulous writer

Steven Church is a fabulous writer. Steven Church makes me wish I could eat dinner with his in-laws and visit Kansas. I love his writing and I can't wait for more. I read this book (indeed, I became aware of this book) because Steven Church is my husband's cousin (there, full disclosure). Read it because his musings about Guinness Book record-holders are as real and intimate and fine as what he tells you about his own battered heart. Read it because it is superbly crafted-WRITTEN, not just WRITTEN DOWN (I do not have the luxury of italics here).

Maybe he even bought the 300-page compilation. He wouldn't have been able to resist, judging by his inventive book "The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record.

Winner of the Glenna Luschei Prize from Prairie Schooner, Recipient of Colorado Book Award in Creative Nonfiction for The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record, "Auscultation" chosen by Edwidge Danticat for inclusion in the 2011 Best American Essays. Church is the author of The Guinness Book of Me: A Memoir of Record (2005), Theoretical Killings: Essays & Accidents (2009.

Steven Church is the author of The Guinness Book of Me: a Memoir of Record, Theoretical Killings: Essays and Accidents, The Day After The Day After: My Atomic Angst, Ultrasonic: Essays, One with the Tiger: Sublime and Violent Encounters between Humans and Animals, and I'm Just Getting to the Disturbing Part: On Work, Fear, and Fatherhood, published in Spring 2018 b.

Mighty Ape. Mighty Ape Products

Mighty Ape. Mighty Ape Products. What others are saying. Divorce Ebooks Ruin Internet Authors Listening To You Letters Joseph Saving Your Marriage.

Steven Church was created in Lawrence, Kansas in 1971. He gained a Get better at of Great Arts in Fiction at Colorado Condition College or university in 2002. The Guinness Reserve of Me personally: A Memoir of Record. Simon & Schuster. Church's essays possess made an appearance in The Rumpus, Passages North, DIAGRAM, Brevity, River Tooth, AGNI, Creative non-fiction, Surfaces. org, Fourth Genre, Prairie Schooner, and Salon.

Pogo Stick Jumping. The greatest number of jumps achieved is 105,338 by Michael Barban in 18 hours on September 12, 1978, in Florissant, Missouri. Scott Spencer...of Wilmington, Delaware, covered 6 miles in 6 1Ï¿½2 hours in September 1974.

-- Guinness Book of World Records, Giant 1980 Super-Edition

In this wildly imaginative memoir about an oversized midwestern boy's obsession with the Guinness Book of World Records, a tale of growing up different takes on epic proportions. "It was the Guinness books that gave me an escape," proclaims Steven Church in this darkly comic memoir, "a strange and seductive escape into the territory of the imagination." The Guinness Book of Me recalls a perilous youth strewn with the shadows of record holders, past and present, whose cameos add layers of meaning in fabulous and unexpected ways.

Have you ever wondered why someone would grow the world's longest fingernails or eat an eleven-foot tree? Steven Church has. His bizarre speculative investigations have less to do with the truth and more to do with a celebration of freaks, an exploration of memory, and an examination of identity. In fierce, muscled prose, Church explores a childhood lived between a father and younger brother who are each larger than life. Both hilarious and heartbreaking, The Guinness Book of Me will captivate and surprise you. This is more than a memoir; it's an engaging homage to pop culture, a powerful look at life's extremes, and an impressive debut from a promising young writer.

Comments:

Nto

I read this book (indeed, I became aware of this book) because Steven Church is my husband's cousin (there, full disclosure). I've met him a few times, but I couldn't say I know him. I didn't necessarily want to love this book. But I did, and I devoured it in one sitting.

So why read a memoir of someone who is not your husband's cousin, someone who has never committed a serious crime or slept with movie stars or been present at a Big Moment in History? Someone whose physical scars all come from silly accidents, someone who grew up in Kansas, for goodness' sake? The facts of Steven Church's life would hardly qualify him for a one-page piece in People Magazine.

Read this memoir because it is a true (although maybe not always factual) story. Because it is funny, inventive, touching, real, tough and beautiful. Read it because it will make you want to know Steven Church, because it will make you feel that you do. Read it because his musings about Guinness Book record-holders are as real and intimate and fine as what he tells you about his own battered heart. Read it because it is superbly crafted--WRITTEN, not just WRITTEN DOWN (I do not have the luxury of italics here).

So READ it for all those reasons, but BUY it because someday you will be proud and glad to own a first edition of the first book by Steven Church.

Mot

I was initially attracted to Steven Church's The Guinness Book of Me by the device mentioned in the title that Church uses as a framework for the essays that constitute the memoir. Church's use of his childhood fascination with the Guinness Book of World Records to initiate each of his essays proves a productive technique; it colors the beginning portion of the book with the magical and imaginative atmosphere of childhood, an atmosphere that engages the reader and helps Church to reveal key components of himself that he discovers through his writing. The world record motif loses importance as the book progresses, fading, as it should, into the background of what becomes a heavier commentary on grief and loss. As a reader, I felt great loss at the early death of Church's brother, which is a testament to the great skill with which Church depicts his relationship with his brother. It is beautiful to see how Church has memorialized his brother with art.
Church shows in The Guinness Book of Me that he is not afraid to expose his faults; he writes with honesty anything the path of the memoir covers. In a section about basketball, Church describes how he plays rough, sometimes unsporting basketball, and he even describes how in a city league game he lost his temper after an opponent took a charge from him (in a smart but admittedly cheap move by the opponent) and, as a result of fouling out, lost his temper and ended up screaming obscenities at the other player. I was at first quite shocked that a writer would include such a detail that is obviously less than flattering, but by the conclusion of that section I realized that I sympathized with Church because he respected the reader enough to tell a true story even at the risk of appearing hotheaded. It was this raw and honest quality of Church's writing that made The Guinness Book of Me an interesting and profound exploration of Church's path to adulthood.

Stick

Similar to the first reviewer I also know Steve, my wife went through the CSU MFA program with him and is a fellow member of the Minions writing group. Steve's school and open mike readings were something we all looked forward to because we knew we would soon be laughing hard enough to puke. We all hung out at the same bar trading stories and tales with one another, this particular bar was also the birth place of the "Rules of the Buffet" story.
However, I have digressed, Steve's book is full of the wonder, magic, pain, and growth we experience in childhood and teen years that makes us who we are as adults. Our youth leaves an unmistakeable stamp on us that we carry, either as a source of pride or baggage it's our choice, and it's also something we have to come to terms with. Steve illustrates this extremely well in his book. Having grown up in southern New Hampshire not at all like Kansas, I felt the same kinship with Steve's writing I have found during many long nights with Steve himself. I also found myself mourning the end of the book because it left me with no more chapters to read and hoping for another book to come out as soon as possible. Steve's writing is refreshing, sad, and inspiring, I can't recommend this book enough. Long live the Minions and late nights at Surfside.

Rainshaper

This book is sensitive. Church has a way of approching the sadness in his life (brother's death, for one) that is simple, but not overly sensitive. But there are enough male-bonding episodes and inevitable scars to make it a guy book. Refreshing, in a sea of chick lit. *And* he gets the girl.

iSlate

I am an avid reader and a woman. I lean toward great contemporary fiction written by women these days, not sure why. . . so when someone handed me this hot off the press book, I flinched. I try to read male authors, and while I can glean good writing nods from the best of them, I don't reach for them again years later, Most male books don't become best friends. By best friends, I'm talking, Barbara Kingsolvers' books, Monk's The Secret Life of Bees, The Lady who wrote the Pilot's Wife . . . those books. You know . . THOSE BOOKS (I say this like a drug addict talks about his next hit). They're hard to find. The Guinness Book of Me will. I can't get it out of my head. It smacked with honest, strong writing and for the first time, I felt like I honestly got inside a man's head. Hurrah for Steven Church, his first novel. I'd be willing to bet this book is going to go BIG. Be one of the first to read it. Be the one at your reading club to suggest it. You can't go wrong. Male or Female. I can't wait to give it to my 15 year old son to read. There was "chick lit", right? What's this? "Bro Books?" I loved every single written word in it. And I can only say that about a handful of books I've read.