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"  Winter Journal by Paul Auster (Henry Holt) This august author&amp;#039;s meandering meditation on time, aging, and the eventual death of his mother beguiled many readers with its mix of pungent poetics and humble reminiscence\u2014though a few found these ruminations, delivered in the second person (&amp;quot;You think it will never happen to you...,&amp;quot; it begins), to be rather too exhaustive. Winter Journal is collected from pieces of memory, a life summed up through a series of homes, deaths, and boyhood scars. Auster&amp;#039;s memoir reads like a montage of small scenes, skipping back and forth from boyhood to adulthood, fresh and unpredictable. Readers will find themselves considering their own lives as they find kernels of universal truth in Auster&amp;#039;s musings.\u2014Rose Phillips, Cincinnati Auster&amp;#039;s Winter Journal is an ode to the mother he lost and the good wife he found. His masterfully written journal entries envelop us in the remembered past. Auster is a writer in the ranks of Hemingway and Updike\u2014this book should not be missed.\u2014Jolene Singh, Fresh Meadows, NY Auster beautifully brings to life a collection of moments that make up a person&amp;#039;s world\u2014from the trivial to the life altering. By addressing us in the second person, he encourages us to live vicariously through each episode, and his prose echoes the emotional landscape of his memories. Though this memoir is largely an ode to his mother, it&amp;#039;s also about recognizing what we take for granted and appreciating those who are there with us every step of the way.\u2014Zhanna Kutsenko, New York City Winter Journal is just that: a chronicle of the metaphorical seasons of the writer&amp;#039;s life. Although I enjoyed Auster&amp;#039;s insights on home, love, and grief, I wished certain moments were developed in more detail on the page\u2014specifically, his mother&amp;#039;s death and how it profoundly impacted him. Nonetheless, his reflections on the little moments that end up making a life are enjoyable in this relatable, adult coming-of-age memoir.\u2014Mary DeMaio Winter Journal sparkles when it explores the body as holder of memory, of physical and emotional history. There are a few pages where the prose borders on poetry, where Auster evokes life&amp;#039;s quiet moments and imbues them with an unexpected emotional weight. But the extended second-person point of view, the constant listing of things, and occasional overstatement eventually exhausted me.\u2014Raina Lauren Fields, Richmond, VA  The Scientists by Marco Roth (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) A good deal of Roth&amp;#039;s privileged childhood on Manhattan&amp;#039;s Upper West Side was blighted by the slow death of his father and its lingering impact; readers inclined to keep up with Roth&amp;#039;s tenacious intellectual struggle to analyze and come to terms with it came away deeply impressed\u2014others, less so. Set on Manhattan&amp;#039;s Upper West Side in the late 1980s, Roth&amp;#039;s moving memoir tells the story of his father&amp;#039;s secret AIDS diagnosis. We journey along with Roth as he uncovers family secrets, grapples with parental expectations, and finds his own sense of self along the way. A compelling tale that keeps you guessing until the very end, The Scientists examines how we are our own scientists, discovering truths and finding cures in our own lives.\u2014Mary DeMaio Intelligently and compellingly written, The Scientists suffers only from the extent to which a Columbia education, an apartment overlooking Central Park, and a fluency in French before high school are out of reach for the average reader. Roth writes primarily for this echelon of society, where extensive references to French and Russian literature are completely befuddling. For the layman, however, parts of his book read more like a doctorate dissertation than a memoir. But the underlying story\u2014Roth&amp;#039;s quest to gain an understanding of his father after his death from AIDS\u2014is poignant.\u2014Rose Phillips, Cincinnati Were it not for the writing that seamlessly carries this memoir to its final line, Roth&amp;#039;s unyielding quest for truth would have lost me; despite the beautiful prose and outstanding metaphors, it&amp;#039;s difficult to connect with Roth on a deeper level.\u2014Zhanna Kutsenko, New York City The shock of his father&amp;#039;s AIDS diagnosis never seems to wear off for Roth as he grapples through its decades-long aftermath in The Scientists. Somewhat mysterious but never quite a thriller, Roth&amp;#039;s account wades slowly through the what-ifs of the circumstances surrounding his father&amp;#039;s contraction of the HIV virus, unsure what the information he uncovers might mean about the man his father was\u2014and maybe unsure who Roth is himself. While this memoir is an emotional read, it&amp;#039;s a somewhat impenetrable one, as Roth has difficulty coming to any conclusions about the facts or his emotions.\u2014Maren Olson, Los Angeles With an intellect far beyond gifted and talented, Roth tells the story of his family life through literary classics and the interworkings of DNA. The author&amp;#039;s complicated family background lends itself to a modern tragedy, and his story is interesting and captivating. Though at times long-winded, Roth is unquestionably an exceptional writer.\u2014Lesley M. Goodman, Houston, TX  All Gone by Alex Witchel (Riverhead) Readers felt surprisingly buoyed by this prominent journalist&amp;#039;s account of watching her mother slide by degrees into dementia but also reconnecting with happier memories from years past\u2014by learning to cook the recipes with which Mom had once nourished her. All Gone is Witchel&amp;#039;s tribute to her mother, a once feisty, energetic college professor. When her mother begins to suffer from dementia, a disease that affects both mood and memory, Witchel must learn the brutal art of balance. She turns to the kitchen and recreates some of the most memorable recipes from her childhood and young adulthood. Witchel understands deeply the connection between food and memory; she also understands the false hope of illness\u2014how we cloud our eyes with denial in order to live.\u2014Raina Lauren Fields, Richmond, VA It may sound odd to call a memoir about losing one&amp;#039;s mother &amp;quot;charming,&amp;quot; but that&amp;#039;s exactly what All Gone is: a nostalgic, bittersweet, and often funny account of how the decline of a mother&amp;#039;s health necessitates growth within her daughter. Using her mother&amp;#039;s recipes as a much-needed lifeline to the woman who is slowly slipping away from her, Alex Witchel lovingly recalls all of the things that made her mother who she was. It&amp;#039;s a comforting reminder that the people who we love will never truly leave us. \u2014Maren Olson, Los Angeles All Gone showcases a daughter&amp;#039;s unconditional love towards a mother who has forever been placed on a pedestal as the perfect specimen. Witchel does a superb job in toggling between the past and the present, between the woman her mother was and the stranger she sees now. Her imagery is fantastic, and the advice she gives is priceless.\u2014Zhanna Kutsenko, New York City Sprinkled with family recipes, All Gone goes deep into Witchel&amp;#039;s struggle to come to terms with her mother&amp;#039;s dementia. However, to those with friends or relatives suffering from dementia, the tale of Witchel&amp;#039;s mother&amp;#039;s decline is predictable, insofar as it does not do much to shed light on the disorder as a whole. Instead, the memoir focuses on Witchel&amp;#039;s mother, fleshing out their family dynamic by how it manifests itself in the kitchen. By adopting her mother&amp;#039;s recipes as a way of carrying on her legacy, Witchel finds that although the recipes cannot restore her mother&amp;#039;s memory, they can be therapeutic in their own way.\u2014Rose Phillips, Cincinnati All Gone is a page-turner, chronicling a mother&amp;#039;s life and a family dynamic gone awry. However, the second half of the book falls apart without a clear conclusion save for the fact that life is hard and we must roll with the punches.\u2014Valerie Pagano, Katy, TX Witchel cooks up a timely memoir that reflects the multi-layered issues impacting the Sandwich Generation\u2014those who find themselves caring for both their aging parents and their own family and children. Although I was intrigued by Witchel&amp;#039;s coping device\u2014using food and cooking to stave off the reality of her mother&amp;#039;s worsening dementia\u2014I was disappointed by some of the memoir&amp;#039;s irrelevant trajectory. Nonetheless, readers dealing with the difficulties and responsibilities surrounding parental dementia will find hope in All Gone, knowing they are not alone.\u2014Mary DeMaio "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/books/reviews/a12540/new-memoirs-october-2012/>